Top Tips for Avoiding Legal Trouble With Employees

by Attorney Amy DelPo & Lisa Guerin, J.D.

You can't afford to ignore or mishandle employment problems. A botched employment situation can cost you millions of dollars if it turns into a lawsuit. Protect yourself using these commonsense tips.

1. Treat your workers with respect.
Workers who are deprived of dignity, who are humiliated or who are treated in ways that are just plain mean are more likely to look for some revenge through the legal system -- and juries are more likely to sympathize with them. For example, if you march fired workers off the premises under armed guard, publicize an employee's personal problems or shame a worker in public for poor performance, you can expect trouble.

2. Communicate with your workers.
 Adopt an open door policy and put it into practice. This will help you find out about workplace problems early on, when you can nip them in the bud. And it will show your employees that you value their opinions, an important component of positive employee relations.

3. Be consistent.
 Apply the same standards of performance and conduct to all of your employees. Workers quickly sour on a boss who plays favorites or punishes scapegoats. Successful discrimination lawsuits start when you treat workers in the same situation differently.

4. Give regular evaluations.
 Performance evaluations are your early warning system regarding employment problems -- and your proof that you acted reasonably, in case you end up in court. (In the worst cases, evaluations can be valuable proof in a lawsuit, illustrating that you put a poor performer on notice and gave him a chance to improve.) In the best situations, they can turn a poor performer into a valued worker. You can find detailed information about giving performance evaluations in Dealing With Problem Employees: A Legal Guide, by Amy DelPo and Lisa Guerin (Nolo).

5. Make job-related decisions.
 Every workplace decision made should be guided by job-related criteria -- not by a worker's race or gender and not by a worker's personal life or your personal biases. Making sure that your personnel decisions are business-related, make economic sense and will keep you out of lawsuits for discrimination, violation of privacy and wrongful termination.