Every business is best served by preventing workplace lawsuits. There are eight common mistakes that managers need to avoid.
If you are the manager of a company or, even more importantly, the owner of the company, it is really important to keep your focus on developing your team and business. A very serious setback can be caused by mistakes you might make in relation to your employees or subordinates. There are eight common mistakes you could make that will lead to expensive lawsuits.
For you to be able to keep your focus on the essentials of the business, you should make sure you don’t make such mistakes because they could lead to expensive lawsuits, which will drain your energy, your bank account, and will waste a lot of your time.
Wage Cuts
Is there anyone who likes wage cuts? I guess there is no such person, is there? Even so, such events are sometimes inevitable for companies and their employees.
“Even if, as an employee, a wage cut might seem to be the end of your world. As a manager, if you’d have to choose between laying off 30% or your employees or reducing their wages by a certain percentage, wage cuts are still the best scenario.” Sam Markovic, CFO at an assignment writing service added.
This being said, if the wage cut is not determined by an employee’s performance, but by your company’s performance, you have to highlight the fact that a wage cut is the best scenario. The other option would be to layoff the employee. If you manage to make your employee understand that, you probably won’t face any lawsuits.
Overtime
Sometimes your employees might need to do some overtime. For example, there’s a meeting with a very important client and the sales department needs to finish their presentations. This is a totally understandable solution.
You must pay those hours accordingly. Make sure your employees’ average overtime will not exceed 15% of their billables. You push them a bit harder, but you do it with caution.
Personal Injury
If you own or manage an office-type company where your employees don’t have lots of physical work to do, you may have fewer problems.
But, if your company is in an industry which requires lots of physical work, such as construction or manufacturing, you need to be very cautious and offer your employees the best protection possible.
For example, all construction workers should have a protective helmet, special boots, and clothes, protection glasses, and protective harnesses.
Wrongful Termination
This situation happens whenever the employer thinks he can do whatever he wants with his employees. For example, even though your employee’s performance is the requested one and he respects all the requirements, you might want to terminate his contract.
Alex Carlisle, HR Manager at UK-Dissertation.com adds “Wrongful termination are of the most prevalent workplace lawsuits. Don’t fall into that trap! Even if you might be tempted to terminate your employee’s contract today, make sure you do it while respecting the legislation.”
Breach of Contract
Whenever you sign a contract with a new employee, make sure you know all the clauses in your contract. If your contract specifies a 10% yearly wage increase, make sure you respect it.
Whenever you promise something and it’s written in a contract, you should respect it.
The breach of contract is very often the cause for workplace lawsuits. For you to make sure you don’t have such lawsuits, you should delegate the task of overseeing all your contracts to a lawyer.
Harassment
The Me Too Movement is the most compelling example of society’s fight against harassment. Whether is it mental harassment, physical harassment, or sexual harassment, today’s society strongly rejects such behavior.
You need to make sure all your employees know the importance of respecting their peers. For this, you could have anti-bullying and anti-harassment courses for your employees. If everyone in your company is happy and feels comfortable at work, you will be a happy manager.
Unethical Recruitment Practices
During the past two years, harassment was in the spotlight and many lawsuits have been filed on such behavior. The same way this situation has got the attention of the world, unethical recruitment practices might earn you a spot in the daily newsreel. If you are the type of manager who doesn’t like to hire people based on their race, social status, age, gender, you will end up with lots of lawsuits.
Whenever you want to hire someone, make sure you are open-minded and you look beyond prejudices.
Drastic Change of Work Conditions
“Managers tend to push their employees to the maximum. If this year, the company’s sales goal was set to 200,000 products, the next year the management will raise it by 30% and the year after that another 30% and so on. This will lead to a deadly spiral which will result in a lot of overtime, stress, and tense work environment.” concluded Jayna Carlisle, HR Manager at MyMathDone.com.
Lawsuits are something any manager wants to avoid. If you are looking to focus your energy on developing your company, rather than focusing it on going to court, make sure you avoid these eight common workplace lawsuits.
If you are not sure how to put it all into your plan, we recommend you to consult with best dissertation service, essay writing services, or boom essays review.
Join the conversation!