Welcome to the HR Roundup, a new feature on The HR Cafe. Every other week, we highlight some of the best stuff from the best sales blogs on the Web…

- Suzanne Lucas, better known as The Evil HR Lady, offers 5 ways to shake up your new team’s culture.

- Tim Sackett shares 7 Secrets that only HR Pros Know.

- Finally, Mike Haberman at Omega HR shares the story of a New Jersey company instituting a policy wherein employees are hired with term limits

Do you know of a blogger that deserves to be featured on a future HR roundup? Send me an email about it.

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Consider this scenario:

Your workforce is predominantly Hispanic, while most of the managers — including you — are non-Hispanic. One of your Hispanic employees is working toward an MBA, taking evening classes at a local college. She’s also taking English lessons to improve her spoken fluency, accent and vocabulary.

The problem is the woman’s Hispanic colleagues frequently speak derisively about her educational efforts, calling her “guera” (a derogatory term for “white”) and suggesting she’s betraying her origins. The woman comes to you and asks for help. She wants the company to put the kibosh on her co-workers’ taunts.

If you just suggest that she shrug off their sneering remarks, does she have a legitimate complaint of racial or national origin discrimination? And if you do act, aren’t you risking legal trouble if you’re seen to be cracking down on all those Hispanic workers?

Free Training Video - "Racial and National Origin Discrimination: What Every Manager Needs to Know"

The answers are Yes and No. Yes, she may well have a legitimate complaint of hostile work environment based on race. It makes no difference that members of her own ethnic group are responsible for the taunting. It’s still discrimination under the law.

And No, you’re not risking legal trouble if you insist that the woman’s co-workers cease harassing her on the basis of her perceived desire to “act white.” You’re just making sure the law is respected in your workplace.

“Never explain, never apologize.” It’s a dictum that may work for the commander of a military combat unit, or the dictator of a small, impoverished country.

But for most managers, it’s bad advice. There are times when you absolutely should apologize. Apologies don’t make you look weak — the fear of some managers – but can actually make you look even stronger, smarter and more credible in the eyes of most employees.

"Leadership Credibility: The Fallibility Paradox"

Apology time
So how do you know when it’s apology time? And what do you say? Bob Rosner, who blogs at Workplace911.org, advises an apology in situations like these:

• You make a mistake in procedure or process that inconveniences others.
• You set an unrealistic goal that team members can’t – and don’t – meet.
• You lose your temper or resort to sarcasm about a subordinate.

Rosner also notes that it’s important to apologize as soon as you become aware of your mistake. Don’t wait for the offended party to complain. Exception: If legal issues might be involved, get advice from HR or company counsel before apologizing.

How to do it
What’s the best way to apologize?

First, make it unconditional. Don’t suggest the mistake was in another’s perception of what you did. Wrong: “I’m sorry if you took what I said as an insult.” Right: “What I said wasn’t kind or fair, and I’m sorry I said it.”

Second, issue the apology in the same forum in which you made the mistake. In other words, if you humiliated someone in front of her colleagues, apologize in front of them.

Third, resist the urge to pledge that you won’t make the mistake again. Sure, you’ll try not to, but we’re all human.

Do you know the difference between a dispute and a conflict? It’s more than just a matter of dictionary definitions – it’s about avoiding disruptions that can gut the effectiveness of a team or department.

Workplace mediation expert Timothy Keator points out that a dispute is typically a short-term difference over issues that can be negotiated. Example: Julie thinks the product team should spend two weeks making site visits to customers before finalizing new packaging. Frank adamantly disagrees, arguing that the team can get all the info it needs, much faster, through a phone and online survey. The team leader can negotiate this difference of opinion, perhaps by blending a limited number of site visits with phone and e-mail contacts.

But what if Julie and Frank have had unresolved disputes over timing in the past, such that Frank now believes her caution presents an obstacle to the team’s success, and thus to his bonus?

Free Training Videos - "Leadership Training for Managers & Supervisors"

Non-negotiable issues
Then, if you’re the supervisor, you may find yourself with a conflict on your hands. Keator defines a conflict as a long-term difference with deeply rooted issues that are non-negotiable – because each adversary sees them as rooted in the other party’s very nature.

Action step: Address disputes as they arise. Don’t let them fester – and morph into hard-to-manage conflicts.

When it comes to improving time management, the advice I hear most often is to avoid “shiny objects.” People tend to lose their focus and get behind on their core projects because they get distracted by stuff that “shines” – that is, seems more interesting than the boring but essential task at hand. Resist that temptation and you’ll be more efficient.

Shiny objects is a great metaphor, but I recently heard another one I like even more: squirrels.

Squirrels are those small, urgent tasks that fill up your day. They aren’t shiny. In fact, you may hate them as much as I hate the real-life squirrels that chewed up my garden furniture. But they’re always running around, chattering that they absolutely positively MUST get done.

Any one squirrel isn’t likely to throw you off deadline for the major strategic project you’re working on. But if you’ve got a lot of squirrels chasing you, they’ll take you down.

Free Training Video - "Time Management: Why It's Not About Time"

So the solution is simple, right? Postpone squirrel projects until you get your primary task done. There are two problems with that:

1. Squirrels multiply quickly. If you ignore enough small problems today you could end up with a whole bunch more tomorrow
2. Very often it’s your boss who’s throwing squirrels at you. What are you going to do, ignore your boss?

You can’t turn your back on squirrels. But you need a squirrel-management plan. Pregnant squirrels — the ones that are on the verge of producing a litter of new problems — have to be dealt with right away. For the others, maybe you need a squirrel-wrangling day. And maybe some will go bother someone else if you do ignore them (with your boss’s permission, of course).

The point is, we all have squirrels to deal with. But we need to deal with them on our own terms. If you let the squirrels set the agenda, it’s going to be squirrels all day and every day — and you’ll never get to the stuff that matters most.

Based on the facts presented below, how do you think the court ruled on this employment law case?

“You’re firing me because I used the f-word two whole times?” employee Marlin Bergstrom asked incredulously. “Do you have any idea how many times people say that word every day in this plant?”

“I have a pretty good idea,” supervisor Ted Yost replied. “But you used it while talking to me, and you told Rich Matthews to f-off. That amounts to gross misconduct, and we don’t have to tolerate it, even from an old hand like you.”

“First off, I didn’t tell Rich to f-off,” Marlin said. “I told him I didn’t give a f…. Not the same thing.”

“Second, if you remember our conversation so well, you also remember telling me guys didn’t like me working short weeks to rest up from my diabetes and liver problems,” Marlin went on. “It sounds like you’re sorry you agreed to it.”

A foul mouth
“It has been causing some problems,” Ted admitted. “But that’s not the point. The point is that you were insubordinate in your conversation with me, and your foul mouth started a big argument with Rich over nothing. I’m not going back on this.”

Later, Marlin sued for disability discrimination, claiming he was fired not because of his conduct but because supervisor Ted no longer wanted to accommodate him.

Check out "ADA Accommodations: Supervisors and the Interactive Process" for FREE and arm your team with the knowledge they need to protect worker rights and avoid legal trouble.

Did the company succeed in getting Marlin’s lawsuit thrown out?

What do you think? Did Ted do everything he was supposed to in firing an insubordinate employee, or was this firing Marlin on account of his disability? Sound off in the comments or on Twitter, then check back here later today for the answer.

If a rejected applicant sues you for discriminatory failure to hire, you may be able to strengthen your case by rechecking his or her qualifications.

That surprising point emerged from a case in Alabama. A woman who wasn’t hired for a truck driver’s job sued for sex discrimination. The employer won by showing that she wasn’t qualified because of two recent speeding tickets.

She wasn’t qualified
The counterintuitive part: The employer didn’t know about the tickets when it decided not to take her on. It found out later, during the lawsuit.

The frustrated applicant said the employer couldn’t use material it discovered after the fact to prove she wasn’t qualified. But the court disagreed. What mattered was the existence of the speeding offenses, not the employer’s state of knowledge, the court said. The hiring supervisor testified that he would have rejected the applicant on the basis of her driving record if he’d known about it. Indeed, the employer had never hired a truck driver who had a speeding ticket.

So suppose you consider, and reject, a candidate for sales manager, and in the process contact only her latest employer. Then the applicant comes back at you with a discrimination suit. You might want to call another couple of references to check her qualifications. If they’re lacking, you have additional fodder for your defense.

Cite: Underwood v. Perry County, No. 04-11713, 11th Cir.

Check out the Compliance & Management Rapid Learning Center FREE for 30 days. Get instant access to a collection of 6- to 10-minute modules perfect for training supervisors and managers throughout your organization.

photo credit: wwworks

“Let’s see, if you were born in 1953, that makes you, what, 59?”

“I guess I should offer you congratulations. It looks like you’re going to be a mother soon, right?”

“It must be tough getting around with that bad leg. Tell me, how do you manage?”

Any manager worth his or her salt probably knows not to ask these kinds of questions in a hiring interview. They’re obvious invitations for a rejected candidate to scream “discrimination” afterward.

But the problem is, hiring managers DO need to ask a lot of probing questions during applicant interviews. And sometimes the line they must not cross isn’t so obvious.

So what do you, and your hiring managers, do? Back off the questions you need to ask, and risk hiring unsuitable candidates who will give nothing but trouble?

No. There’s no need to be so timid; not if you know the right approach to interview questions.

One key: Focus on the job, not the person. That means putting specific requirements in the job description, then asking the candidate to show how he or she meets these requirements.

Example: If you’re hiring a social media marketing manager, you can’t ask about or comment on the fact that a candidate is 50 years old. You can’t afford to assume this person is less qualified than, say, a 25-year-old just because of age. But if you put in your recruiting ad and job description that you need a “social media junkie,” you CAN ask the candidate to prove that he or she is one.

To find out more about this approach, I invite you to check out one of our Quick Takes, entitled “How to Avoid Hiring Lawsuits: The Bias-Free Questioning Model.”

You’ll also learn:

• How role-playing can help you uncover a candidate’s abilities without asking questions that could come back to haunt you
• What to ask – and what to NEVER ask – when a candidate is foreign-born
• How to react if a female candidate volunteers that she has small children
• And lots of other techniques for avoiding the many legal pitfalls a job interview presents

When investigating complaints of employee wrongdoing, you may find a potential witness who’s not interested in helping. There’s no magic solution to getting people to talk, but here are three approaches you may find helpful:

• Get tough: Workers may figure they have nothing to gain by talking. Write into your policy manual a provision requiring cooperation with employee investigations, with penalties up to and including termination. Remind workers of this if they seem uncooperative.
• Be protective: Workers may fear that other employees will retaliate against them if they talk. Stress to employees the anti-retaliation policies you have for anyone who reports or cooperates.
• Focus on the victim: Often employees don’t cooperate because they’re trying to protect a potential wrongdoer — perhaps out of a sense that they may one day be accused of doing something wrong themselves. What they often overlook is that there usually are one or more victims as well. For example, if the company gets hit with a big fine for a safety violation, that could mean someone has to get laid off, or there’s no company match this year for the 401(k). Try to get the witness to identify with the victim(s).

‘Handling Employee Complaints: What Every Manager Needs to Know’

What can you learn about management from the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle?

Well, for one thing, Aristotle pronounced a formula for maximizing the efficiency of any communication – including yours with your subordinates. You’re interested in that, aren’t you?

Here’s the formula, as restated by leadership guru Brian Tracy:

• Ethos
• Pathos
• Logos

In case that’s all Greek to you, here’s what each element means:

Ethos is about you – specifically the character of the person communicating. Do you have the credibility and respect to be heard? Without this, communication is a dead letter.

Pathos is about the emotions you’re addressing in your audience. The words and images you select should take these emotions into account.

Logos is about the form of your communication. Any message you convey to your people should be appropriately researched, structured, and delivered. Something important said in a careless way will lose impact.

Free Training Videos - "Leadership Training for Managers & Supervisors"

Source: “How the Best Leaders Lead,” by Brian Tracy.

photo credit: maha-online

In the past we’ve written about the father of memory research, Hermann Ebbinghaus, who proved in the 1880s that human beings forget 80% of what they learn within a month.

Lots of researchers since then have confirmed Ebbinghaus’ findings, and they’ve shown there’s a way to retain most or all of what we learn: through effective follow-up. The best study we’ve seen is one that appeared in the journal Science last year. Ebbinghaus’ studies tested people’s ability to retain rote learning – for example, sequences of numbers. The Science study, entitled “Retrieval Practice Produces More Learning than Elaborative Studying With Concept Mapping” (sorry for that mouthful), had students learning complex science concepts, a task that is far more relevant to the leadership and sales training businesses do.

The study, written by Jeffrey Karpicke and Janelle R. Blunt, disproves the common assumption that most learning takes place during the learning event – that is, the moment when people “encode” knowledge and experiences. Karpicke and Blunt made the surprising discovery that when learners revisit concepts after the initial event, in what they call “retrieval events,” they retain far more knowledge. The researchers’ conclusion is that these retrieval events – which could involve tests or having a coach observe learners deploying a learning concept – are not just neutral events to make sure people “encoded” the concept properly at the outset; people actually learn from them.

"Why 80% of Employee Training Doesn't Stick - And What You Can Do About It"

The implications of this are huge for anyone who manages people. An important part of every leader’s job is training. And if your training has no follow up – what we call it “interval reinforcement” at RLI – you’re getting a very low return on your investment (which is a nice way of saying you’re wasting your time and money). If, on the other hand, you view training as a process – where the initial learning event is merely a starting point and where you revisit learning concepts multiple times until permanent mastery of skills is achieved – you’ll get a huge ROI (and be a very effective leader).

Is your compensation system working? That’s a tough one. After all, reliable evidence of comp-plan effectiveness is hard to come by, say Jeff Pfeffer and Bob Sutton, Stanford professors who have studied and written about compensation and rewards.

Without hard data, senior executives are often left relying on preconceptions, untested assumptions and experience-based biases about what works or what “must” or “should” work.

When results aren’t there
Sometimes, these notions make sense. But often they amount to half-truths that can leave execs wondering why a comp plan isn’t getting the results they want.

Possible consequences:

• Turnover. Star performers leave, but mediocre performers stick around.
• People do the minimum. The next generation of potential stars get discouraged and “retire in place.”
• Unexpected side effects. People’s efforts don’t seem aligned with company goals.

Half truths
So what are these half-truths and assumptions? In their book, “Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths & Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management,”Pfeffer and Sutton point to the following:

1. People are motivated by money. To a degree, employees are (especially lack of money). But different people are motivated by different things. Some are driven by opportunities to achieve tough goals, innovate and build a business. Others are motivated by teamwork and friendships with co-workers. Still others just want to collect a paycheck and get home.

Key: Identify an employee’s biggest motivation. If it’s money, then you know how to motivate them. But what if comp is second or third and what they crave is individual attention from an experienced mentor? Give them that – if possible – and make sure the comp plan doesn’t demotivate them. (That is, companies can and have overplayed the non-monetary compensation card.)

2. Individual performance can be reliably and accurately measured. Sometimes you can measure individual performance. But it’s usually not easy. Some issues: Do performance reviews include subjective judgments? Supervisors may use differing scales for things such as “cooperativeness” and “attitude.” Or if you decide to get completely scientific in your measurements, then what about human “intangibles” necessary for success?

Key: When you’re basing raises on performance reviews, recognize the difference between reliable measurements and subjective (thus less reliable) ones. Make sure that those measurements also accurately reflect what’s necessary for job success.

"The Manager's Guide to Draining the Drama from Annual Salary Reviews"

3. Performance is a solo activity. Managers want individuals to be accountable for their success or failure. At the same time, people may be dependent on others for success. They may depend on the information other people give them, the ability of other people to articulate problems to them, the industry, the larger economy, corporate priorities and organization competence, and just plain dumb luck.

Key: Make sure your comp system doesn’t “pretend” people are independent of outside issues.

4. What worked at my last company will work at this one. Maybe. But given the difficulties mentioned above, will a new comp system based on a different company really work? Is the industry the same? How much time has passed? Is the market different? Is it clear that previous comp system delivered the results cited, or were there other factors involved?

Key: Before revamping a comp system, conduct a small test. That may allow you to adjust the system to reduce unwanted side effects.

5. Consultants can figure it out for us. Some consultants deliver. But Pfeffer and Sutton cite a distressing example: A senior HR consultant admitted to them that his company pushes pay-for-performance plans, even though these almost always fail. That’s because consultants get paid for advice, and maybe to implement a plan, but not for business results. Worse: When the plan flops, the consultants get paid for trying to fix it.

Note: No system will work without managing expectations. Based on regular supervisory feedback, people should know about how much of a raise to expect come raise time.

Firing an employee is a taxing experience both for the person and the manager who has to do it. That’s why managers absolutely must keep their emotions in check – and follow procedure – when terminating someone.

What happens when a manager loses his or her cool is graphically illustrated by a recent court case in Illinois.

A female employee of a dental practice claimed that one of the male dentists suggested she date another dentist, and pushed her to the floor when she refused.

The fall hurt her back, and she went to an emergency room. She filed a police report and later presented her employer with the hospital bill.

The manager she approached – it happened to be the owner – blew up. “Who do you think you are bringing the police into our office?” he yelled, adding, “Who the f*** do you think you are bringing me this hospital bill?”

The owner fired her on the spot, then compounded his conduct by ranting to other employees that she was crazy and had threatened to blow up the building.

Huge mistake. When the employee sued, she won big in court. Notably, a jury awarded her $250,000 for retaliatory termination, and a judge said the owner’s behavior amply justified the size of the award.

Keeping your calm
That was extremely bad boss behavior, to be sure. But even well-meaning bosses can sometimes let their emotions get the better of them — especially with something as stressful as a firing.

‘Top 10 Termination Mistakes That Can Get Your Company Sued’

To avoid damaging displays of emotion while firing an employee:

• Bring another manager or an HR representative in with you. You’re less likely to get emotional – even if provoked – in front of a peer.
• Don’t fire on impulse. Unless the person has just attacked a co-worker or done something equally violent and unacceptable, wait a few hours or a day to collect yourself – and your supporting documentation.

Cite: Mendez v. Perla Dental, No. 08-2029, 7th Cir., 5/24/11.

Most organizations have one or two of them: slacker employees who never quite manage to get themselves fired, but have to be watched closely to make sure they’re working and not surfing the Web, chatting or taking long lunches.

And unfortunately for managers, the Family and Medical Leave Act – a law whose aims are certainly praiseworthy, and which most employees don’t abuse – gives these slackers one more weapon in their advanced arsenal of task avoidance. All they need is a vague symptom or two, a sympathetic doctor, and voila: With little warning, you’re a person short and you don’t know how you’re going to find a fill-in.

So what’s a manager to do?

NOT what he or she might be tempted to do: Tell such employees that you know they’re faking, and you’re going to write them up. That’s putting yourself in the fast lane to lawsuit hell.

No, here’s where managers need to know about FMLA certification and, especially, recertification: the process whereby employees have to prove – and sometimes, re-prove – that they really have a condition that gives them the right to FMLA time off.

If managers understand FMLA certification/recertification, and apply the rules, they’ll:

• Put everyone on notice that your organization is vigilant about FMLA leave
• Legally dissuade employees’ doctors from giving them license to goof off
• Make sure slackers feel the pinch, pressuring them to give up their FMLA “game.”

‘FMLA Certification: What Every Manager Needs to Know to Prevent Abuse’

photo credit: BinaryApe

Managers often think of themselves as a certain “type” – stern taskmaster, hands-on boss, empathic mother hen.

The most effective managers, however, recognize that one style isn’t enough.

Organizational dynamics expert Valerie Grubb has identified six valid, but very different, managerial styles. Some of them work in certain situations but not in others. The managers who are most likely to get promoted, Grubb argues, are those who learn to shift gears fluidly from one style to another as needed.

So what are the six styles and when should your line managers use them? Also, what can happen if people use the wrong style for the situation?

1. Command-and-control
Old-fashioned do-what-I-say management gets a bad rap these days, but there are times when managers may want to emulate a general in battle. Consider this situation: The electricity has just gone out and employees are unsure what to do. In command-and-control, the manager gives clear, precise orders, and then demands action. This style can also work well when dealing with brand-new employees, teaching new skills, or trying to manage a high-risk situation.

Downside: Overuse the style and you could spend way too much time making decisions others could handle. Also, it can demotivate people.

2. Relational
This style is based on building rapport with employees and helping them build rapport among themselves. It means encouraging teamwork and getting to know the staff personally. The relational approach is effective, for example, where there’s a new manager in a team or department, or if subordinates aren’t working well as a team.

Caution: The relational style isn’t the best way to address individual performance issues. Nor does it give managers leverage for tough decisions, like firing someone who is well liked but isn’t delivering the goods.

3. Democratic
The manager in democratic mode seeks input from all, taps employees’ special knowledge, and creates consensus about what’s to be done. Best uses of this style include creating a plan and broadening employee buy-in for an existing plan. Example: A manager is heading a task force to revise the travel and entertainment policy. She uses the democratic management style to gather ideas for her plan.

Caveat: The democratic style may backfire if the plan is already decided upon. Nor is it useful if a plan gets off track. And it’s time-consuming.

‘Six Management Styles You Need to Lead Effectively’

4. Goal setting
The goal-setting style, according to Grubb, is the most widely applicable managerial approach. The manager articulates goals, then empowers employees to find ways to reach them. Goal setting works with highly motivated employees, to promote continuous learning, or to win buy-in.

But: Goal setting may not work where there are lots of junior employees. Also, people may come up with means of reaching the goal that are unacceptable, which requires diplomacy on the part of the leader.

5. Hands-on
This style resembles command-and-control. A manager might use it when a subordinate has been given responsibility and fallen down. Example: A project deadline is three days away and an employee tasked with a critical piece tells the manager he’s stuck. Assuming the hands-on style, the manager shows her step-by-step what to do.

Risk: If this style is used too often, employees will feel their manager thinks everyone else is incompetent.

6. Coaching
The coaching style can work with subordinates who want to learn and grow, especially junior employees or those who are acquiring new skills. Example: A manager has a three-week deadline on a project that he could finish in a week by himself. Because there’s ample time, he gives the project to a junior employee as a learning experience, and follows her progress closely. The manager puts in suggestions and asks questions from time to time.

Danger: Overuse of coaching can leave employees in a position of dependence on a superior. Sometimes people need to act on their own.

I have a theory about why so many managers are so bad at delegating. But first, let’s look at a few of the most common assumptions we make about poor delegators:

• They want to hoard power and get all the credit. It’s true that delegating is a bit risky – what if the person you delegate a task to does it better than you? But I think very few bad delegators fall into this category.
• They just don’t “get” the benefits of delegation. A small percentage of new managers never got the memo that said, “Your job now is to get results through other people, and you can’t do that without delegating effectively.” So the task of developing people never gets on their priority list.
• They believe nobody but them could possibly do the job right. There’s actually some merit to this belief because if we delegate a task to a person who can’t do it, that’s abdication of responsibility. But although a lot of managers invoke this excuse, it’s almost never the real reason they fail to select and train the right person for the job they want to delegate.

Free Training Video - "Delegation: How to Get Results Through Other People"

So what is the real reason? I think most bad delegators are simply bad at time management. They’re scattered and disorganized. Fact is, delegation takes a lot of time. The payoff down the road is humungous – you’ll free yourself up to take on higher tasks, you’ll be perceived as a true leader, etc. – but to get there requires an investment. To delegate a task, you have to find someone who’s willing and able to do it. You have to train the person and follow up to make sure they’re doing the task absolutely right. All that takes time.

A simple cost-benefit analysis reveals the wisdom of delegation. Successful leaders find the time to do it. Unsuccessful ones don’t.

Q: Can you commit disability discrimination against someone who’s not disabled?

A: Yes.

If that answer seems odd to you, or plain wrong, you need to know about what’s known as disability “association” discrimination. This means showing bias against employees not because of any disability they might have, but because of their family relationship or even friendship with a person who IS disabled.

Here are three scenarios where an unwary employer might get in trouble:

• A manager refuses to promote an employee because the manager believes the employee won’t be able to handle the added responsibility. This might be the case if, for instance, the employee has a disabled child who requires long hours of care.
• An employer refuses to hire an applicant who has responsibilities toward a disabled friend or family member.
• An employer disciplines or terminates an employee because the disabled person with whom they associate has cost – or threatens to cost – the company money. This would be most likely to happen if a dependent’s medical condition affects the company’s health plan premiums.

Obviously, if an employee’s performance actually does suffer because of an association with a disabled person, you have every right to address those performance issues. But you don’t have the right to take pre-emptive action in an effort to avoid such outcomes. Under federal law, that’s disability discrimination, pure and simple.

Check out the Compliance & Management Rapid Learning Center FREE for 30 days. Get instant access to a collection of 6- to 10-minute modules perfect for training supervisors and managers throughout your organization.

When it comes to dealing with pregnant employees or applicants, managers can get pretty creative in finding ways to mess up. For a few pertinent examples, check out three recent EEOC lawsuits:

Mistake #1. A Los Angeles-area manager for a real estate management firm had a pregnant employee who was applying for a promotion. The manager expressed concern that she would miss work, and would fail to return from maternity leave. Then the manager hired somebody else, who wasn’t pregnant, for the job. The company is now settling the pregnancy discrimination suit for $60,000.

Mistake #2. A recruiter for a St. Louis-based community development organization called an applicant on the phone to offer her a job trainer position. During the call, the applicant told the recruiter she was pregnant. The recruiter called back a few days later to rescind the offer. The organization is paying $35,000 to settle the suit.

"The Manager's Guide To Preventing Discrimination Lawsuits"

Mistake #3. Managers at a billiard-themed sports bar in Byram, MS, told a four-months-pregnant waitress that her baby was “taking its toll” on her and fired her. Management wouldn’t let her work instead as a hostess or on a call-in basis. This suit is pending.

Bad assumptions
The EEOC is clear: Don’t make assumptions about pregnant employees’ or applicants’ abilities or inabilities. Deal with them as you would other employees or applicants.

Want to help your people actually do the things they intend to do? Want some help yourself?

Try this technique from leadership and personal development guru Peter Bergman: Once you’ve decided what you want to do, tell yourself when and where you’re going to do it.

Sounds too simple. But there’s solid behavioral research behind it. In one study, a group of women agreed to do a breast self-examination within 30 days. Fully 100% of those who decided when and where they’d do the exam actually did so. Only 54% of the others did.

Free Training Video - "Time Management: Why It's Not About Time"

One-time or repeat
The when/where technique works for single actions or repetitive tasks.

Push yourself to write that one-time report (Monday at 3:30, in the conference room), or get into a virtuous routine (look over the previous day’s production figures every morning at 8:15, in your office, before checking e-mail).

For years the CEO of a mid-size software company – let’s call her Cheryl – asked her finance department to give her end-of-year pay checks that contained annual bonuses. Cheryl would sign them, then let payroll hand them out.

One year the company did poorly and the checks were smaller than usual. So Cheryl took them home over the weekend and in each envelope placed a personal, handwritten note thanking the employee for his or her specific accomplishments during a challenging year. Simple things like, “Joyce, your new collections process improved our cash flow during a tough year.” Or, “Bill, the two new hires you made this year were game changers for our Operations department.”

The following week EVERY SINGLE employee thanked her, either in person or through an email or voicemail. In the past no one had ever thanked Cheryl for a bonus check. Not once.

‘The Manager's Guide to Unlocking the Power of Non-Monetary Rewards’

Now, Cheryl was an experienced leader who felt she knew a lot about motivating employees. But the response she got from the handwritten note shocked her. Did people just see money as an entitlement? And during her entire career had she underestimated the mysterious force she’d unleashed by scribbling a few cost-free words on a plain piece of paper?

The answer is yes. And that revelation was her greatest Christmas gift that year. She’s never managed people the same way again.

photo credit: moneyaware

Employees can waive their right to FMLA leave, but you need to be sure they’ve actually done so. That’s the point that emerges from a recent case in Illinois.

An employee left work without warning to attend to his diabetic mother, then e-mailed his supervisor that he needed “a couple of days off” to arrange her care. To cover his time off, he wrote, “I do have the vacation time, or I could apply for the family care act, which I do not want to do at this time.”

For the next nine days, the employee remained incommunicado, as the supervisor tried to call him a dozen times. Finally, after the supervisor left a message with the employee’s roommate, the worker went to the office and was fired for job abandonment.

‘FMLA Certification: What Every Manager Needs to Know to Prevent Abuse’

He employee sued for interference with his FMLA rights. A federal appeals court ruled against him, saying he didn’t tell the employer when he’d be returning, as required by the FMLA. But the court also said that, contrary to the company’s view, the employee did not waive his right to FMLA leave. The e-mail said he wasn’t seeking FMLA leave “at this time,” implying he might change his mind and exercise his FMLA rights, the court noted.

Cite: Righi v. SMC Corp. of America, No. 09-1775, 7th Cir., 2/14/11.

Quick: When managers fail, what’s the main reason?

Maybe you answered: “Not delivering the results their superiors expect.” That would be logical. But it would also be wrong, according to a new survey by Right Management, part of ManpowerGroup.

Some 40% of the 1,400 CEOs and HR executives surveyed said an inability to build relationships and a team environment was the main cause of managerial failure. Mismatches with corporate culture were cited by 26%, with only 11% pointing to failures to deliver acceptable results.

Teams get results
Of course, nobody’s saying managers shouldn’t care about results.

Rather, the message is this: As a manager, the way to get results is through your team. Build a strong team and the results will follow. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can drive results by yourself.

Check out "A Four-Point Model for Leading High-Performance Teams" for FREE and give your organization’s managers the tools they need to find the best people, make the most of their talents and keep them happy and loyal.

Source: www.right.com

You may be pretty confident your front-line supervisors know what sexual harassment is, and what to do about it. After all, you’ve trained them – perhaps repeatedly – and firmly instructed them to take employee complaints about it seriously.

But what if your supervisors – and you – didn’t actually know about EVERY kind of conduct that a court might consider sexual harassment? That would be scary.

Well, be afraid. Be very afraid. There are several kinds of potentially harassing behavior that supervisors often don’t know to look for. Here’s one example:

A supervisor is in charge of a team of inside sales reps. Eight of them are young men and two are women. The supervisor is aware that the “boys” often use demeaning terms for women and he isn’t thrilled by the coarse language. But, the supervisor figures, the guys don’t actually aim this talk at their female colleagues, so he tolerates it.

Imagine his surprise when the two women approach him one day and say the male reps are sexually harassing them. And one of their main complaints is those nasty words the guys have been using about women.

Fact is, depending on the frequency of the profanity, and whether there was other objectionable behavior, a court might find that the female reps had indeed been sexually harassed, even though they were never personally called abusive names.

"The Manager's Guide to Sexual Harassment"

If you’re like most employers who drug-test applicants and/or employees, chances are you make them “go in a cup” – the urinalysis method.

But another, more robust testing method is gaining popularity – hair analysis. Might this test be right for your organization?

Here are some considerations that may be important if you’re thinking about implementing hair analysis instead of, or along with, urinalysis:

• According to its proponents, hair analysis detects drug use much farther in the past than urinalysis. The former goes back about 90 days, as opposed to about five for the latter. This could be a useful feature if, for example, you want to ensure job applicants don’t stop drug use to pass a “pee test,” with possible intent to resume once they’re hired.
• Applicants/employees who have nothing to worry about may see the hair test – which requires the clipping of 80-120 strands – as less invasive of their privacy than the urine test.
• You may occasionally have to do hair testing to accommodate a person with a urinary-related disability. The EEOC recently sued a staffing company who refused to let an applicant in Raleigh, NC – who couldn’t urinate due to kidney failure – take a hair test instead.
• Some states treat hair analysis and urinalysis equally under their drug testing laws, but others have specific provisions relating to hair testing. Check your state’s law. Nationally, the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of urinalysis, but hasn’t taken up the question of hair analysis.
• Hair analysis is typically more expensive to conduct than urinalysis.

Free Training Video - "Substance Abuse and the ADA: Drink, Drugs and Disability Discrimination"

A fired employee recently accused his former employer of defaming him, by detailing the reasons for his termination in an e-mail to his Gmail account.

Huh? It’s suddenly defamatory to send an e-mail to an employee’s own account?

The employee contended that it was.

He claimed the e-mail was published to third parties worldwide. This, he said, was because by sending it to the Gmail account, the employer gave Gmail’s operator, Google, the rights to access and distribute it.

The e-mail said the employee had been fired for misusing company resources for his private benefit.

Free Training Video - "How to Terminate Poor Performers – Without Provoking a Lawsuit"

Nice try…
The court hearing the employee’s lawsuit didn’t agree with his creative legal theory. The judge said that just because Google had the right to publish the e-mail, didn’t mean that it had actually done so.

Defamation requires disclosure to at least one third party. So if the employer had cc’d the e-mail to, say, a customer, it might well have been defamatory.

Cite: Nart v. Open Text Corp., No. A-10-CA-870, W.D. Texas, 8/29/11.

Remember the Peter Principle? It says that in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his or her level of incompetence. What that often means is that we promote people because they’re good at Skill X, but in their new position they need Skill X plus Skill Y to get the job done. Problem is, they don’t have Skill Y and they end up failing in the job.

This is not, of course, inevitable. Some leaders figure out how to develop Skill Y and become effective in their new role. But the most successful leaders often take another path: They hire other people who master Skill Y.

The key insight here is that great leaders know they don’t have to be good at everything. Most great leaders are good at one thing – sales, accounting, engineering, writing, whatever – that gives them credibility. But they get results by building and leading a highly skilled team. Ineffective leaders think they need to do it all. Which is a recipe for mediocrity.

"Leadership Credibility: The Fallibility Paradox"

Have you heard the term “managing upward”? (I usually call it “boss management.”) I admit with some embarrassment that I’ve done it myself when I’ve had a weak boss. But my best bosses wouldn’t let me get away with it. And I hate it when people do it to me. Managing upward happens when people get promoted, reach their level of incompetency, and at some point realize they have to cover up the fact that they’re failing. So they withhold information from the boss, create distractions … whatever it takes to prevent the boss from seeing the truth.

What a waste of energy. If you’re a leader and find yourself lacking a core skill, it’s much healthier to simply say, “Okay, I’m not good at this, but since my job as a leader is to get results through other people, I’ll succeed by finding – and leading – someone else who has mastered this core skill.”

Do your line managers dread doing salary reviews with their employees? Do they go in half-expecting a dramatic outburst from a person who thinks he’s been stiffed? If so, you may want to introduce them to the MULA method for salary reviews. (The acronym is pronounced like moolah, as in money.)

Here’s how MULA works:

Market rates – align with them
You may rely on formal salary surveys of your industry and/or geographical area. Or you may conduct an informal survey among your peers at non-competing organizations. Either way, it helps managers be seen as fair if they can tell employees that the proposed raise is in line with what others in their situation are getting.

Unlink pay and self-worth
Sometimes, an employee does a great job but the company’s results don’t justify the kind of raise she – and the manager – think she deserves. If this is the case, managers should say that to the employee, to minimize the damage to her sense of her own value.

"The Manager's Guide to Draining the Drama from Annual Salary Reviews"

Level with employees
It’s easy to explain why an employee got a generous raise. But when the raise is small or absent, managers may be tempted to gild the lily. They shouldn’t. A manager could say something like: “Alice, I know a 1% raise doesn’t seem like much. But the fact is, you didn’t get promoted this past year, and that makes it hard to give you any more.”

Anticipate next year’s discussion
Managers should lay down markers about what the employee can expect the next time they have this conversation. The manager in the example above could go on to say: “If you do get that promotion in the next 12 months, you can expect closer to 7 or 8% a year from now.”

What should a manager never do when an employee complains about a co-worker? (And we don’t mean things like “She never refills the printer’s paper drawer.” We mean complaints about discrimination, harassment, serious misbehavior or interpersonal issues, and the like.)

What the manager should never do is NOTHING.

Once a manager knows about a problem, he or she MUST take action. Otherwise, if the situation degenerates into a lawsuit, the organization may well be liable for the manager’s failure to act.

‘Handling Employee Complaints: What Every Manager Needs to Know’

OK, then, what action should the manager take?

Here’s one thing to always do: REALLY listen to the complaining employee.

It’s amazing how often managers hear only the first few words or sentences, then start offering advice about what the employee should do. Instead of pontificating, managers should hear the employee out, then ask clarifying questions until they have enough specifics to fully grasp what the person is saying.

Based on the facts presented in the scenario below, how do you think the court ruled on this employment-law case?

Stan Mikelski groaned a little as he turned to get comfortable in his hospital bed. His supervisor, Carl Benson, who was visiting, winced in sympathy.

“It’s OK, Carl,” Stan said. “The hip feels a lot better than when I broke it two weeks ago. And I appreciate you coming to see me.

“But I would’ve appreciated it even more if you’d taken my beefs about Grover Smith seriously,” Stan added. “He let that steel coil roll onto me on purpose. If you’d listened when I said he was a racist who hated all whites, he wouldn’t have been in a position to hurt me.”

On purpose, or not?
“You don’t know he did it on purpose,” Carl said. “He said he just released the mechanism too early, before you were out of the way.”

“Well, I think the guy who was always giving black power salutes, and staring me and the other whites down, and saying he’d kill anybody who called him the n-word, is a guy who wouldn’t hesitate to drop a coil on a white guy,” Stan said.

“Grover is rude to everyone, black or white,” Carl said. “Did you ever see him talk nice to Sam Hines?

“He doesn’t talk to Sam the way he talks to the white guys,” Stan insisted.

“Look,” Carl said, “even if you’re right — and I’m not saying you are — our policy says you’re supposed to bring complaints about harassment to the plant manager or HR. You never did. I’m only a line boss, and I can’t discipline anybody.”

“You still should have done something,” Stan said.

Free Training Video - "Racial and National Origin Discrimination: What Every Manager Needs to Know"

Later, Stan sued the company for subjecting him to a racially hostile environment. Did he win?

The decision
No, Stan didn’t win. The federal courts said his case had two fatal flaws:

1. He couldn’t prove that Grover, his black co-worker, injured him on purpose, so he couldn’t use the injury as proof of a hostile environment.
2. He didn’t comply with company policy on reporting the prior incidents of alleged racial hostility. The written policy said he should report such matters to the plant manager or HR, not a line supervisor like Carl with limited authority.

So there you have it. Stan’s evidence of racial discrimination didn’t hold up in front of a judge. Agree? Disagree? Keep the discussion going in the comments!

No manager wants his or her department to be confused with a college party. But on the other hand, employees who feel too bottled up aren’t likely to produce great work either.

That conclusion comes from new research on employees who, because they work in fields like health care, law or law enforcement, have to retain a carefully “neutral” demeanor.

The research, done by academics at Rice, Purdue and the University of Toronto, concluded that employees who must suppress their emotions have comparatively less energy left for work tasks, and also have a comparatively high burnout rate.

Check out the Compliance & Management Rapid Learning Center FREE for 30 days. Get instant access to a collection of 6- to 10-minute modules perfect for training supervisors and managers throughout your organization.

Healthy exuberance
Do your employees feel free to express healthy exuberance under your stewardship? If things get a little hilarious every so often, don’t always be the one to put your foot down and suggest everybody get back to what they’re being paid for.

I’ve talked a lot in these posts about the right and wrong way to give employee recognition. But some new research points to a powerful strategy that I’ve never seen before.

It comes from a new book called “The Progress Principle” by Harvard professor Teresa Amabile and developmental psychologist Steven Kramer. They conducted a fascinating study on how organizations sustain effective performance and high employee satisfaction. To gather data they surveyed 238 employees in 7 companies over several months. The employees, all knowledge workers, logged 12,000 daily diary entries that answered the question: “Briefly describe one event from today that stands out in your mind.”

"Why Employee Praise Can Backfire – And How to Do It Right"

The researchers grouped these “events” into three categories:

• Nourishing events: interpersonal events that uplift people — for example, when a boss praises the employee or provides emotional support.
• Catalytic events: those that directly help project work — such as when a boss provides resources or training to improve performance — and
• Progress events: for example, when people feel they’re making progress in meaningful work.

On what the researchers called “best days,” here’s the frequency of events mentioned:

• Progress: 76%
• Catalytic: 43%
• Nourishing: 25%

I find these results stunning. What they tell me is that if I’m trying to motivate a person, it’s fine to say, “Great job” to people (nourishing events). It’s great to give people resources and training (catalytic events). But if I want to have a really big impact on the motivation and engagement of my people, I’ll seize every opportunity I can find to comment on their progress toward a goal. The key insight driving these survey results is that employees have a very deep, probably innate, desire to do a good job and advance their careers. When we praise them on their progress, we remind them that they’re advancing. And, perhaps even more important, that we – their leaders – actually noticed.

For most managers, it’s pretty easy to deal with employees who shirk their work or flagrantly misbehave: They either shape up or ship out. But what about the more nuanced situation where an OK performer has “attitude problems” – is defensive, passive aggressive, sullen, or otherwise tough to work with?

Positive confrontation
Management guru Florence Stone suggests a six-step process to help you confront the person in a positive way:

1. Identify behavior. Link the attitude with specific behaviors. If the person is, say, overly suspicious of others’ motives, point out the resulting lack of cooperation. Don’t omit “small” behaviors like eye-rolling or sighing.
2. Note frequency. How often does the behavior occur? Once a week? Daily? Keep count and tell the person.
3. Report impact. Explain the harm the behavior is causing the team, department or business.
4. Listen. Employees may have reasons for their attitudes. Even if the behavior can’t be justified, some reasons may warrant other action, like a transfer or a referral to an Employee Assistance Program.
5. Put up a stop sign. Tell the employee the attitude and resulting behavior must stop. Don’t assume the person will draw that conclusion
6. Show the path forward. Describe the future behavior you want to see. You aim to make things better, not just bearable.

The Manager's Guide to Handling ‘Bad-Attitude’ Employees

Readers: Do any of you have other methods for handling decent employees whose personality makes them tough to work with? Without going into too much detail (please omit names of companies and employees), feel free to share them in the comments.

Source: “Coaching, Counseling and Mentoring,” by Florence M. Stone.

photo credit: justinlincoln

If you have a lot of multitaskers on your team, you may consider that a good thing. But maybe you shouldn’t. Recent research compiled by consultants McKinsey & Co. suggests that multitasking creates at least four negative effects on human beings:

• It slows us down. We’re not really doing two things at once; we’re switching tasks. Our brains must choose to switch, turn off the cognitive rules for the old task, and turn on the rules for the new one. This takes time, particularly for heavy multitaskers – who take longer to switch tasks.
• It hampers creativity. Creative problem solving requires us to hold several thoughts “in memory,” so we can sense new connections. When we bounce around quickly from thought to thought, we’re less likely to make those crucial connections.
• It makes us anxious. Lab researchers have found that subjects asked to multitask show higher levels of stress hormones.
• It’s addictive. According to Harvard researchers, the increased feeling of connection arising from multitasking creates something like a “dopamine squirt” – the neural effects follow the pathways addictive drugs use.

Free Training Video - "Time Management: Why It's Not About Time"

Source: The McKinsey Quarterly, February 2011.

Joseph has always been a surly, hard-to-like employee, but today he’s gone too far. He’s just cursed you, his supervisor, to your face. You’re steaming – and justifiably so.

Your organization’s policy specifically identifies insubordination as grounds for termination. So you curtly inform him Joseph that he’s been insubordinate, and he’s fired.

When you cool down, you reflect that, yes, maybe, you lost control of your emotions a little bit, but who wouldn’t? And you had justification to fire Joseph. So you’re OK, right?

Well, maybe. But it’s also very possible that you’ve put your employer at risk. That’s because you’ve done one thing you should never, never, never do.

Fire someone when you’re angry.

"How to Terminate an Insubordinate Employee – Without Provoking a Lawsuit"

When you feel that urge, walk away. You’ve got plenty to time to fire Joseph. And – especially when you’re dealing with a jerk – you want to take the time to get it right.

You’ll want to check with HR, for example (maybe Joseph is suing the company and your firing will look like retaliation). You want to be sure your senior management isn’t blindsided (maybe they just decided to make Joseph employee of the month). You want to be sure Joseph doesn’t turn around and say you were the one doing the cursing, and not have your documentation in order.

“Hold your horses, Rochelle,” floor supervisor Bea Groznik told Rochelle Norris, one of the sales clerks reporting to her. “Let Marcy serve these folks,” Bea beckoned to another clerk, “and we’ll go to my office to discuss this.”

Once Bea had closed the door, Rochelle exploded.

“This is the fourth time that woman and her friend have insisted on having a white clerk serve them. I thought we agreed last time that we’d tell them either they accept my help or go shop elsewhere,” she blurted.

“First,” Bea said, “I know how hurtful it must be to you as an African-American to see customers refuse your help because of your race. Personally, I think it’s unacceptable. And I do remember what you and I agreed to do after those two came in last week.

“But in the meantime I checked with Corporate, and I was told we can’t tell customers to leave the store just because of questionable remarks they might make.”

Free Training Video - "Racial and National Origin Discrimination: What Every Manager Needs to Know"

Bea sighed. “I know that probably won’t satisfy you,” she said, “but that’s the way it is.”

Condoning bias?
“You bet it doesn’t satisfy me,” Rochelle said indignantly. “As I understand it, the company is now condoning outside people bringing racial hostility into my workplace.”

“That’s not it at all,” Bea snapped back. “We’re not condoning anything, but our hands are tied. We can’t exist without our customers, and we can’t send them for re-education. And if I were you, I’d be careful about calling this a hostile workplace.”

“You’re not the one being humiliated,” Rochelle said. “I am, and it feels hostile.”

A few weeks later, Rochelle sued for racial discrimination. Did the company get her lawsuit dismissed?

Management Lesson
No, a court said Rochelle’s case of racially hostile work environment was strong enough to warrant a trial.

The company said it wasn’t its fault if its customers were prejudiced. It wasn’t in a position to reprimand them.

The court said the company didn’t have to reprimand customers, but it did have to obey the law. And by acquiescing to customers’ prejudice – four times – it was breaking the law by helping them create a racially hostile environment.

Situations like these are tough for front-line supervisors. The situation was even tougher for Bea because she got bad advice from her higher-ups.

But remember this: While you don’t want to lose customers, you also don’t want to get your organization sued. And giving in to illegal customer preferences – about sex, race, national origin, religion, age or disability status – is likely to do just that.

Cite: Mutua v. Texas Roadhouse Mgt.Corp., No. 09-4080, D. S.D., 11/10/10.

Alcohol abuse not only creates problems of workplace behavior, but also costs employers serious money.

According to the George Washington University (GWU) Medical Center, heavy drinkers — those who take five or more drinks five or more times a month — are twice as likely to play hooky as other workers, and half again as likely to miss work due to injury.

Free Training Video - "Substance Abuse and the ADA: Drink, Drugs and Disability Discrimination"

Moreover, up to 20% of employees say the alcohol problems of co-workers cause them to fear injury, work harder, redo work or cover for the drinker. And it’s well documented that alcohol abusers have higher health-care costs.

Employers who are serious about controlling alcohol-related costs can consider six action steps, GWU says:

• Provide health insurance that offers alcohol services like rehab and psychological counseling.
• Promulgate alcohol policies that focus on treatment rather than punishment. (Discipline does have to be a part of the picture.)
• Run regular health education programs that illustrate the risks of excessive drinking.
• Promote confidential screening. Frequently employees don’t know their drinking has reached a risky level. Employers can offer screening at health fairs, or encourage people to be screened by their own doctors.
• Offer/expand Employee Assistance Programs. These may include such elements as screening and counseling, Web-based information, referrals to treatment, recovery support, and supervisor training to spot productivity problems.
• Manage time away. Employers can maintain contact with employees off work for rehab or other treatment, and ease their return with accommodations like flexible scheduling.

Source: www.ensuringsolutions.org

The best idea I ever got for conducting exit interviews came to me when somebody asked me to give a reference for a former employee.

The woman called and explained to me that she was thinking about hiring a guy named Kevin, who’d been a marketer on my team until three months ago. Kevin wasn’t very talented. He quit after being demoted. The fact that he gave me as a reference tells you how few people believed he was cut out for a marketing job.

But I had no intention of telling the woman that. I liked Kevin and didn’t want to wreck his future. Nor did I want to get sued. So when she ask me some general questions early on I said things like, “Kevin’s a hard worker,” or “Kevin got along great with his colleagues.”

But then she asked me, “On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is off-the-charts good and 1 is very poor, how would you rate Kevin’s marketing skills.”

That question REALLY threw me. She was asking me to be very specific in an area where I didn’t want to be specific. I did a very quick mental calculus and decided I wasn’t going to crush poor Kevin’s chances by saying 3 or 4. Nor was I going to lie to the woman and say 9 or 10. I was going to weasel out and fudge it. I said, “Oh, Kevin was a 6, maybe a 7.”

I found out later that Kevin didn’t get the job. And my “6 or maybe 7″ probably did him in. I felt okay giving him a “6 or maybe a 7″ because it is, after all, above average. And who’s going to sue me for saying they’re above average? But what I’d done is send a message to the woman, in code, that Kevin wasn’t very good. She wanted to hire “8 maybe 9″ marketers, and I’d signaled to her that Kevin wasn’t in that league.

‘The Manager's Guide to Effective Exit Interviews’

This 1 to 10 technique works brilliantly in exit interviews as well. That’s another business situation where you want to get information out of someone who has zero incentive to give it to you. A departing employee – especially a talented one who you didn’t want to leave – would not likely say she’s leaving because she hated her boss. Why burn that bridge? But if you asked her, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how much did you respect the judgment of your boss,” she might tell you, “Oh, 6 maybe 7.” And that would say it all.

Violating an employee’s privacy can add up to illegal retaliation if the person has complained of harassment, according to a New York federal court.

The court awarded $50,000 in damages to a police officer whose employer listened to recordings of her telephone calls after she complained about pornography in the workplace. The police department argued that a range of phone calls to and from a number of employees were recorded, and the officer knew this. But the jury believed the officer when she said that while she knew business calls were monitored, she didn’t know the monitoring extended to private conversations such as those she had with her husband.

Free Training Video - "Retaliation: Four Key Mistakes That Supervisors Must Avoid"

What did you expect?
Because her reasonable expectation of privacy was violated when the department listened to these calls, the officer was able to show she’d been the victim of an adverse action. And the jury believed these actions were motivated by her harassment complaint.

If you don’t want this kind of trouble, make expectations clear: Be sure your policy manual is clear in what situations employees can – and can’t – expect privacy.

Cite: Dotson v. City of Syracuse, No. 5:04-CV-1388, N.D. NY, 3/2/11.

Your company probably has paperwork for employees to fill out when they need FMLA leave. As it should.

But, as a court case in Ohio demonstrates, handing someone a piece of paper may not be enough to put them on notice of their responsibilities.

‘FMLA Certification: What Every Manager Needs to Know to Prevent Abuse’

Needed more time
An employee had eye surgery and needed more time off afterward than he had expected. The company told him the time would be counted against his FMLA leave entitlement, and sent him the forms to certify his leave.

For three weeks, the employee made sporadic contact with his supervisors, but did not call in daily, per company policy and as the FMLA paperwork reminded him. After he missed three straight days without calling, the employer fired him for job abandonment. The employee sued for interference with his FMLA rights.

By now you’re thinking, this is an open-and-shut case, right? The company told the employee exactly what he had to do, and he didn’t do it.

Well, the court didn’t consider it as clear as that. The judge said the case was strong enough to go to trial.

Off the hook
Problem was, in the phone conversations between the employee and his managers, the managers made remarks that may have let the worker off hook for daily call-ins. Example: One manager told him to call “if his status changed.”

As for the reminder in the FMLA paperwork, the employee noted that the deadline to return the material fell after the three days he missed. The company couldn’t assume he would read it – and the warning – before he had to turn it in.

Best bet: When handing out FMLA paperwork, orally remind people of key requirements like call-in policies.

Cite: Platt v. Lamrite West Inc., No. 1:10 CV 1107, E.D. Ohio, 8/17/11.

Who, me, prejudiced? Unfortunately, yes. But don’t take it too hard. Behavioral scientists say we all are, whether we realize it or not.

Prejudices, or biases, are generalized judgments – assumptions that every member of a group behaves similarly. And making such assumptions may have helped us survive as a species. After all, it wouldn’t have been very wise for early man to stop to inquire whether a particular saber-toothed tiger was really like all the rest, would it?

In today’s somewhat more civilized society, though, these hard-wired biases can create more harm than good. Consider these examples of common biases, and ask yourself, “Can I honestly say I’ve never had a thought like this?”

• Kids today have no work ethic
• Good-looking people are better at sales
• Old people have trouble learning new things

The point is, you can’t help carrying around some bias. The question is, what are you going to do about it? If you allow biases about gender, race, age, disability or national origin to affect your decisions at work, then you’re at risk of violating anti-discrimination laws. And to keep that from happening, you must first be able to recognize those unconscious biases in yourself.

Fortunately, there’s an easy four-step method to figure out whether you’re at risk, and get you back on track. To find out how it works, I invite you to have a look at a Quick Take called “The ‘Self-Check Technique’ for Revealing Unconscious Bias.”

photo credit: quinet

Based on the facts presented below, how do you think the court ruled on this employment law case?

“You can’t seriously believe what you’re saying,” Evelyn Cantrell told co-worker Nathan Rieder. “I mean, you really think product bar codes contain some kind of satanic symbols?”

“They might,” Nathan said. “The Bible says no one knows when the end times will come. And before they do, there’ll be many signs and portents. These signs will include the number 666 – the sign of the beast – on the bar codes attached to clothing and food,” he added.

Supervisor Glen Green, seated with Evelyn and Nathan at a table in the company lunchroom, had been listening quietly. Now, he broke in.

A reality check?
“Nathan, your theory doesn’t jibe with reality,” Glen said. “Look, here’s how bar codes are assigned.” Glen pulled a piece of paper from his shirt pocket and started jotting figures. “See, this first group of numbers is assigned by the central coding authority. Then this next group comes from the manufacturer, and it’s randomly generated. The last number is the check digit, and it’s calculated from the previous digits. Glen sat back. “So you see, no devils or demons can slip 666 into this string. Not possible,” he said.

Evelyn snickered. “This kind of crazy talk is exactly why the rest of us think Christianity is stupid,” she said.

Another employee chimed in. “You bet it is,” he said. “Like that great DVD we watched here at lunch the other day. What was it called?”

“Religulous,” Evelyn said. “I thought people would like it. That’s why I brought it in. Bill Maher really nails all these religious morons.”

“I didn’t appreciate that film at all,” Nathan said. “And now you guys are saying my faith is stupid, and my ideas about the end times are crazy.”

“Simmer down, Nathan,” supervisor Glen said. “And the rest of you, can it. Let’s drop the subject.”

But Nathan remained angry at what he considered religious discrimination, and sued the company for hostile work environment. Did he win?

Free Training Video - "Religious Accommodation: What Every Supervisor Must Know"

The decision
No, Nathan didn’t win.

The court pointed out that he had willingly participated in the exchange in which his religious ideas were termed “crazy talk.”

The comments by his supervisor and colleagues may have been offensive, but they weren’t so threatening or humiliating as to create a hostile environment – even considering the showing of a controversial religious-themed movie, which the court said was improper but not illegal.

The company got off, but the supervisor’s conduct wasn’t perfect. He could have barred the showing of the movie at work. And he should have known that his demonstration about bar codes would fan the controversy. As supervisor, it would have been better for him to stay above the fray.

So, there you have it, readers. Based on the comments, it looks like this might be a bit of a surprise. Disagree with the courts ruling? Think they got it right? Keep the discussion going in the comments, and thanks to all who have participated so far.

Cite: Lara v. Raytheon Tech. Svcs. Co., No. 6:10-cv-1574, M.D. Fla., 9/7/11.

Ever overhear employees comparing salaries? You may feel it’s bad for morale, and wish they would stop.

That’s understandable. But the one thing a supervisor doesn’t want to do is tell employees to shut up about pay.

Why? Because of the National Labor Relations Act. The NLRA is mainly about union organizing, and if you’re a non-union shop, much of the law doesn’t apply to you. But one part applies to everyone: the provision protecting employees’ right to engage in “concerted activity” over working conditions.

Under that provision, employees are allowed to talk about pay, and reveal their salaries to each other if they wish.

"The Manager's Guide to Draining the Drama from Annual Salary Reviews"

Two steps to take
Here’s what a supervisor can do:

• Limit the time and place of such discussions – for instance, while on break and only in the break room.
• Encourage people to come to you, or HR, if they want to talk about pay.

According to Blessing White’s 2011 Employee Engagement Report, only 31% of employees are “engaged,” which we’ll define here as being happy with their jobs and willing to work at full capacity. Why so few?

Employee engagement experts have an interesting answer to that question. They believe that high engagement is our natural state. Don Rheem of Engagient calls it “the default option.” Think about that. When we hire people, they’ve almost always got a spring in their step and a sparkle in their eyes because they’re burning with desire to do a great job, to help the company, and to advance their careers. But what do they look like a year later? Too often, they look defeated.

If Rheem is right, and if human beings are hard-wired for engagement in their work, then the only explanation for those disengaged workers is that the company sucked all that positive energy right out of them.

One of the best ways to completely destroy employee morale is to give your employees traditional annual performance evaluations. You know, the ones where you check off boxes and rate employees on various criteria. Lots has been written about this dehumanizing process.

When you see it through the lens of engagement, you understand why it’s so bad. Engaged workers love the work they do. They love it so much that they’re willing to volunteer their “discretionary effort” – that is, the difference between what they need to do to keep their job and what they’re actually capable of doing. But they want something in return: validation. They desperately need to know that someone is paying attention, that somebody gets why they’re good at what they do.

Free Training Video - "Performance Feedback: The Seek-First-to-Understand Approach"

If your company has institutionalized annual performance reviews, what message does that send to your leaders? It implies that they only have to give performance feedback once a year. Well, engaged employees want validation daily, or weekly, or at most monthly. They want continual feedback from their bosses, telling them they’re moving in the right – or the wrong – direction.

If you want to sustain employee engagement, send the message to your leaders that recognition is a small price to pay for all that discretionary effort. And trash the annual performance review.

Why do your subordinates respect you? Ideally, you give them many reasons: your patience, your firmness, your ability to communicate, your persistence, your emotional stability, your sense of humor.

But there’s one key driver of respect that managers often don’t take advantage of: your demonstrated ability to do what you ask your staff to do.

A caveat
To be sure, managers aren’t paid to spend all their time – or even the bulk of it – in the trenches. The manager whose head is deeply buried in operations may not see critical problems coming, or golden opportunities.

‘Leadership Credibility: The Confidence Base’

But nothing gets favorable notice quite like the boss pitching in to take a couple of customer service calls, or put up that piece of drywall, or produce that schematic drawing that has to be finished by this afternoon but everyone else is too busy to tackle.

When you act in this way, you show employees that you:

• know what it’s really like to do their job, so your instructions about doing it are going to be realistic
• don’t consider yourself so elevated that you’re unwilling to “get your hands dirty”
• haven’t gotten “lazy” or “soft” from focusing on your managerial duties
• have specific task-related skills that they can learn from, and
• are a team player, as you ask them to be.

“I haven’t been feeling so good, and I wonder if you could help me out” – employee to supervisor.

That simple statement could be enough to trigger your organization’s duty to accommodate a disabled employee. And if the supervisor doesn’t know how to respond, you could be in legal hot water from the get-go.

Why’s that? Because of something the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) calls the “interactive process.” As soon as an employer is put on notice that an employee may have a disability, and the person asks for a job accommodation to deal with it, the employer must engage in a good-faith discussion of whether a reasonable accommodation is possible.

Check out "ADA Accommodations: Supervisors and the Interactive Process" for FREE and arm your team with the knowledge they need to protect worker rights and avoid legal trouble.

Think back to the opening sentence and you can see how the line supervisor is often the first one to learn about a possible disability, and hear the accommodation request.

What’s tricky is that accommodation requests don’t have to be couched in any particular language, and don’t have to use the words “accommodate” or “accommodation.” An employee may say something like:

• “I hurt my back and I need to get off the production line for a couple days.”
• “I can’t stand for more than 10 minutes without pain. Can you get me a stool?”
• “I’m getting migraines from the bright lights on the show floor. Could I work in the stockroom for a while?”

Any of these statements might qualify as a request for accommodation under the ADA, triggering the interactive process. And while line supervisors probably won’t be running the process through to a resolution – that’s more likely to be HR’s or higher management’s job – they need to know how to recognize an accommodation request, and how to react properly. If the supervisor puts the employee off, or doesn’t take the request seriously, the employee might have legal grounds to sue for a refusal to accommodate.

“This isn’t going to work, you taking so much time off,” supervisor Barbara Trask told employee Melinda Stieglitz, who had telephoned to say she wouldn’t be in again that day.

“You know I’m expecting,” Melinda said indignantly. “My doctor put me off this week because of pregnancy-related stress and cramping.”

“If absences due to your pregnancy were all we were talking about, it would be O.K.,” Barbara said. “But earlier this year you missed more than two weeks that were not related to your pregnancy.

“I can’t staff the department when one person is out so often,” Barbara went on. “You’ve already had an oral warning, and I have to tell you one more absence will have serious disciplinary consequences.”

FMLA not the answer
“Why can’t I take that family leave thing?” Melinda said.

“FMLA? You haven’t been here long enough to qualify,” Barbara said. “Maybe we can look at some kind of disability accommodation. But you can’t keep piling up absences.”

“As a woman, you ought to understand what I’m going through, with two kids at home and another on the way,” Melinda said resentfully. “But all you do is put more pressure on me with these threats.”

“I’m sorry you see it that way,” Barbara said calmly.

Melinda hung up without another word. The next day, she dropped her office keys off with the receptionist and said, “I’m done here.”

Later, Melinda sued, claiming she was pressured into resigning because of her pregnancy. Did she win?

"The Manager's Guide To Preventing Discrimination Lawsuits"

The Decision
No, Melinda didn’t win her pregnancy discrimination lawsuit.

Melinda claimed Barbara, by telling her that one more absence would lead to discipline, made attendance demands that were impossible for a pregnant woman to meet, and were intended to make her quit.

But the court said that while this demand may have been unpleasant for Melinda, it didn’t make her working environment intolerable. Melinda could have returned after her week of medical leave to see whether things could be worked out. The court also noted that Barbara’s mention of a disability accommodation indicated that she wanted to keep Melinda on, if possible.

Your supervisory rights
Supervisors have the right – and the duty – to counsel employees about attendance and other conduct issues. As long as you refrain from abusive threats, such employees can’t quit and then claim you forced them out.

Thanks to everyone who joined in the conversation yesterday. Check back soon for the next installment of If You Were The Judge.

Cite: Trierweiler v. Wells Fargo Bank, No. 10-1343, 8th Cir., 4/8/11. Fictionalized for dramatic effect.

What do you think would improve your employees’ job satisfaction (and the likelihood of keeping them) the most? A better relationship with their manager? More challenges? More work/life flexibility?

The answer: None of the above. That’s what the consultancy Blessing White found in its 2011 Employee Engagement Survey.

According to the survey, employees say getting more chances to do what they do best would boost their satisfaction more than anything else. This factor was ranked first by 27% of the 2,700 or so North American employees surveyed. In second place, at 20%, was more opportunity for training and career development.

‘The Manager's Guide to Retaining Your Best Employees’

So if you’re concerned about retention as the job market loosens up, talk to your best people to see whether your organization is, in fact, letting them do what they’re best at – and helping them get even better.

See the survey results here.

Here’s a situation that comes up more and more these days: An employer uses social media to find and evaluate job candidates. Joe sends in a resume and the company Googles Joe. Google leads to Facebook, where there’s a picture of Joe celebrating his birthday with friends. Joe’s in a wheelchair.

Later, someone else gets the job. Joe claims your interest in him suddenly cooled after you saw his picture. If Joe’s lawyer can prove you viewed his page, you may have a hard time proving you didn’t use the information against him.

What to do
If you’ve decided to make a social media search part of your recruiting process, you probably need a standard policy/practice on how HR and hiring managers will go about it. Consider the following points:

Free Training Video - "How to Avoid Hiring Lawsuits: The Bias-Free Questioning Model"

I once had a direct report who simply couldn’t believe that his values could be aligned with those of our company. It was always us vs. them and a win/win was inconceivable to him. If he didn’t get the raise he wanted, the company was greedy. If he didn’t get the promotion he wanted – now! – the company was conspiring to hold him back. If he proposed a bold new idea and everyone didn’t embrace it, he concluded that he was surrounded by risk-averse morons.

Let’s give it a name – the guy had a “bad attitude.” As his manager I knew he was poisoning morale and that I had to do something about him. But what? One day I just came out and told him, “Pal, you’ve got a bad attitude.”

Naively, I thought that would really sting him and change his behavior. But it didn’t. In fact, he made it clear to me that he was actually proud of this thing I called a bad attitude. In his mind, he believed, “I tell the truth that nobody else dares to utter.” Or “I’m the only guy who asks the tough questions.” It occurred to me that all his life teachers, parents, coaches and bosses had been telling him he’s got a crappy attitude. And he wore that label like a badge of honor.

So the worst thing you can possibly say to such a person is, “Pal, you’ve got a bad attitude.”

And the worst thing you could possibly do as a manager is nothing. Your entire team is looking at you and thinking, “Why are you letting this guy disrupt our workplace? What are you waiting for?”

The Manager's Guide to Handling ‘Bad-Attitude’ Employees

So what’s a manager to do? Just fire the malcontent? What if he or she brings unique skills to the organization? What if all those people who were expecting you to “do something” now say, “What the heck did you do that for?”

I’d like to hear from managers on this one. Have you ever had a disruptive renegade on your staff? If so, what did you do about it? And how did it all end? Post comments below.

New hires may fail because of unrealistic expectations. But there’s another big reason some don’t make the grade: They just can’t grasp your organization’s culture, so they never learn to operate successfully in it.

That shouldn’t happen, you may say: We fully explain our culture and how we do things during our orientation/onboarding process.

Sure you do. But that’s not enough. Culture is a complex set of norms, practices and behaviors that must be experienced, not just explained. So, given that new hires must experience the organization’s culture for themselves, and you can’t do it for them, what can you do to help them decode that experience, and eventually succeed?

Teachable moments
An effective technique is the “teachable moment.” This is a time when new hires will be particularly receptive to a smart intervention from HR or their line manager.

There are at least three kinds of teachable moments:

The crisis intervention. New hires’ lack of understanding may embroil them in a conflict with a co-worker, or block them from completing an important task. The manager can use this situation to drive home any organizational value that’s at issue.

The opportunistic moment. A manager can simply sit down with the new hire informally and comment on something the person did – or didn’t do. Of course, this requires the manager be paying attention!

The routine check-in. Here, the manager sets up a regular time for a “how’s it going” meeting with the new hire. The manager may ask questions like “What are you struggling with?” or “How are things with your colleagues?” or “Are your expectations being met?”

Free Training Videos - "Leadership Training for Managers & Supervisors"