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If you have 50 or more employees, you must abide by the Family and Medical Leave Act. The FMLA affords up to 12 workweeks of leave in a 12-month period, among other things, to care for a parent with a serious health condition. But let’s say that you have dropped the ball and failed to provide your employees with:

  • information or notice explaining the provisions of the FMLA,
  • information regarding how to file complaints for violations of the FMLA, and
  • FMLA information in “any written guidance to employees concerning employee benefits or leave rights, such as in an employee handbook.”

Let’s even assume that one of your employees takes leave that would otherwise qualify under the FMLA, but you fail to tell that employee that the FMLA covers the leave.

Have you interfered with your employee’s FMLA rights? I’ll spin some Alice in Chains and drop the 411 after the jump…

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This Jerry Sandusky situation is blood curdling. I won’t rehash the facts. But in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few days, you can read about them here.

I am not going to comment on Penn State’s moral compass. Rather, as a labor-and-employment-law attorney, I see plenty of lessons for employers. Let’s just focus on three simple ones:

  1. Take complaints seriously. Always. Fortunately, most employers do. Those who don’t appear to condone the behavior. 
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worksimple.jpgIn yesterday’s post, while highlighting the latest trends in social media and litigation, I noted that most companies in some way restrict employee access at work to social media content. However, the number of blockers is falling. In 2009, approximately 2 in 3 companies had some type of restrict. Last year, that number fell to 55%.

As some employers learn to embrace accept tolerate employee use of social media, some experts predict that others may embrace social media to the point where they begin to incorporate social media into performance evaluations. These evaluations will focus on social goals, feedback, and recognition. This infographic explains from where we have come with performance reviews and offers a potential online path to improving them.

What do you think? Sound off in the comments below.

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That’s right folks. It’s time for another edition of “Fact or Fiction” a/k/a “Quick Answers to Quick Questions” a/k/a QATQQ f/k/a “I don’t feel like writing a long blog post”. So, let’s get right to today’s question:

If a former employee sues for discrimination, claiming to have been subjected to a hostile work environment, must the employee prove that the harasser acted with bad intentions? Put another way, if the harasser was just joking around, does the plaintiff lose the case?

No way! FICTION!!!

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Shaquille O'Neal, Pat Riley and Micky Arison at the White House.jpg
“Shaquille O’Neal, Pat Riley and Micky Arison at the White House” by Heatwhitehouse.jpg: Original uploader was Zorro37 at en.wikipedia

derivative work: Ladislav Faigl (talk) – Heatwhitehouse.jpg. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

We know that employees can be disciplined — and even lose their jobs — based on their use of social media. But even business owners can face backlash for what they say online.

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Speak into a microphone and point one finger in the air if your Halloween completely sucked.

Politico has reported that the National Restaurant Association paid out a five-figure settlement to two women who accused Herman Cain of making sexually suggestive comments.

Details on the allegations and lessons that employers can learn from this after the jump…

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Back in June, the United States Supreme Court ruled here that a class of 1.5 million women could not pursue gender discrimination claims together against Wal-Mart because they lacked a common injury.

If, at first, you don’t succeed, file this Complaint in California on behalf of a class of only 90,000 plaintiffs. Will this small smaller lawsuit hold up? Find out after the jump…

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This has been an intense week here at The Employer Handbook. What, with Monday’s post on taking the “sex” out of sexual harassment, followed up on Tuesday with the 15 craziest excuses employees have for missing work. You guys seemed to like that one a lot. Then there was the post on an old guy claiming that an older judge is too out of it to rule on the old guy’s age discrimination claims. I-ro-ny! And to the three of you who read my post yesterday about the enforceability of arbitration agreements, thank you.

Hard-hitting stuff, no doubt. But, let’s kick it up a notch! *** Writes royalty check to Emerill *** I’m going to save the news on a new 90,000-plaintiff Wal-Mart class-action lawsuit for next week. Instead, for your end-of-the-week viewing pleasure, meet Joey. Who’s Joey? Well, remember the young woman who, last year, in a series of 34 pictures, quit her job? She’s got nothin’ on Joey. In August, Joey quit his job at a hotel using a marching band. A MARCHING BAND!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A4UGtM4hDQ
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deweytruman.jpgCourts have blessed written agreements between employer and employee to submit federal discrimination claims to arbitration. Here is an example. 

But, there’s legal and then there’s doing right. After the jump, how one employer got it wrong. Very wrong. Plus, what you can do to make sure that your business does not make the same mistake…

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