Donald Trump makes it look easy. With a simple statement (“You’re fired!”), the employee gets up and exits the boardroom. And like that, the underachiever is nixed from the show, ushered into a limo, and never seen again (at least, until the “All-Star” season). If only the real world was that easy. The decision to terminate an employee can give any employer anxiety, even if it is undoubtedly for the betterment of the business. This sense of dread is not without warrant; termination can be a legal landmine. Even terminating “at-will” employees requires cautious consideration. You can cover your bases, though, by carefully drafting policies, adhering to procedures, and relying on some common sense. Before any action is taken, review these simple rules that can protect you from a lawsuit.

According to the 2012-2013 Edition of Jury Award Trends and Statistics, the national median award for employment practice claims in 2011 was $325,000, up from $172,500 in 2010. This figure confirms what many in the employment law community already know to be true, that the number of employment practices claims has increased, and with that increase there has been an increase in the size of awards over the years as well.  There is no reason to believe that this trend will not continue, and no business should believe itself to be immune from employment practice claims.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) requires any employer with fifteen or more employees to provide reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities, as long as doing so does not result in “undue hardship” to the employer. A reasonable accommodation can be any change in the work place that helps a person with a disability to enjoy equal employment opportunities. The ADA has very strict guidelines about when and how an employer may inquire about an employee’s disability. What happens, though, when a non-ADA employee asks you, the employer, why another employee is receiving perceived preferential treatment?

On Monday, we discussed how to determine if you are a “large employer” for purposes of the ACA’s employer mandate. Once you know whether the mandate is applicable, the next step is to know what you will be signing up for if you decide to “play.”  The mandate requires you to offer “minimum essential health coverage” that is “affordable” to all full-time employees in 2014. Of course, you need to know what these vague terms really mean. Here’s a general description:

The Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) includes an “Employer Mandate” that every employer should understand. Although the mandate will not take effect until January 2014, now is the time to learn about it.  The mandate requires “large employers” to offer health coverage for “full-time employees” (and their dependents) or pay a penalty tax. The system has become known as “play or pay.” While the requirement may appear quite simple, do not be fooled. It requires a complicated analysis and employers will likely need professional advice to decide whether or not they are going to play or pay in the coming year.

Business owners know that paperwork can be a lot of work. There are personnel files, insurance and benefit records, investigative files, government forms, payroll— and the list seemingly never ends. As a result, it is imperative that employers have a record retention policy in place before a mountain of paperwork overruns the office. All employers, and especially their Human Resources departments, should know not only where to store documents, but also how long to keep them and who is in charge of necessary cataloging.

In 1963, when the Equal Pay Act (“Act”) was signed by President Kennedy, women were earning an average of 59 cents on the dollar when compared to men.[1] Today, women earn about 80 cents on the dollar.[2] President Obama addressed the issue of equal pay in his second inaugural address, “[O]ur journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts.” Where does your business stand on the journey to equal pay? Equal pay may not be something that is high on your radar as an employer, but you should always be assessing if your business is compliant with applicable laws and whether employees are being treated fairly.

Employers have a variety of reasons for using employee photos, including:

At this time of the year when the flu, strep throat and other illnesses are making their way through our children, friends and society in general, it is good for employers to be mindful of their options, but more importantly to plan ahead for employees who come to work visibly ill.  While many people want to “tough it out” through an illness, the reality is that by toughing it out an employee may in fact be compromising the health of others and decreasing the productivity of an entire workplace.  The time to ask what to do about such an employee is not when the employee sits down at his/her desk at the start of the work day or takes his/her place on the assembly line.  Rather, the best time to consider how to handle these inevitable situations is well before they occur.

Employers routinely encounter employee situations that leave them in a bind: illness, pregnancy, or the rogue employee who walks out without notice. There is also another situation that can leave employers scratching their head and calling the HR department: what do you do when an employee is arrested?