Sexual Harassment in the Workplace – How to Avoid Claims Through being Prepared   Employers must regularly take steps to help prevent sexual harassment in the workplace and educate employees on the importance of this issue. Any problems that arise of a sexual nature should be handled reasonably and efficiently. In order to successfully defend sexual harassment complaints, employers should be able to:   Maintain a complete workplace sexual harassment policy Prove all employees were made aware of the policy Prove employees were provided with a formal complaint process to report such claims Provide documentation the situation was handled immediately upon notification of a problem Defend any claims an employee could be retaliated against for making a complaint   Here are some helpful tips for avoiding sexual harassment in the workplace claims:  Make sure all employees understand sexual harassment will not be tolerated. Employers must ensur ...

Occupational Health concerns at a workplace, tips to avoiding workplace injuries.   Occupational health concerns at the workplace can cause un-needed stress on your workforce and expose you to liability. Your goal, as a business owner, should be to create a safe work environment for your employees. As part of your occupational health plan, you may also consider the health of your customers, suppliers, nearby communities who may be impacted by your business operations. Create a safety manual and include: Proper procedures for performing routine tasks that could be dangerous. (Employee feedback on this section is very beneficial to creating a good safety manual.) What to do in an emergency: fire, natural disaster, etc. Location of fire-exits and fire extinguishers. Have an insurance professional or attorney review your manual and policies. Lastly, make a point that safety meetings and inspections are important.   As inspiration, you might want to focus on two main benefit ...

  Employee Employer Conflict – Communication Tips for Avoiding Employee employer Conflicts in the workplace are not uncommon. Perceived conflicts between employees and employers hold great potential for distracting from a happy and efficient work environment. Reviewing the values that each party typical holds dear, can help to understand the other side’s point of view. Only then, can true conflict resolution begin.   Employee Interests during Employee Employer Conflict Typically, employees want a stable and growing company to work for. Ample amounts of fairness, equality and respect help to grow their enthusiasm for their work. Conflict can arise when the employees feel business decisions are being made to hit company goals, that don’t seemingly benefit employees. For example, a decision to perform layoffs, rather than having lower quarterly profits can cause conflict.   Business Owner: As Employers during Employee Employer Conflict As a business owner, you must focus on the busin ...

  Employer Education Benefits Tips When Creating a Benefits Package When creating a benefits package for your employees, it’s important to offer a package that can attract and retain employees. Potential employees may weigh their employer education benefits heavily in their choices of employment. You can also design a package that will expand the capabilities of your employees through education benefits. By growing your employees internally, you can help avoid the time and risks associated with losing employees and hiring new ones.   Employer Education benefits usually come in two flavors:   Tuition Reimbursement Continuing Education   Tuition Reimbursement Companies offering Tuition Reimbursement programs are generally more college friendly, and these programs are typically much more lucrative to your employees than Continuing Education programs. When looking at a Tuition Reimbursement program, make sure you decide upon and document the normal parameters surrou ...

What is the legal definition of harassment? At least a few times a year, one of your managers, or one of their employees, will get into a situation and need to ask, “What is the legal definition of harassment?” Now, while this is usually a very loaded and stress inducing question to be asked by a manager, this article will just focus on giving you an overview of the legal definition.   So, what is the legal definition of harassment? Harassment is a kind of discrimination that can erupt from a handful of different categories. First, let’s highlight a few of the different types: Sexual harassment Unwanted sexually explicit words or advances, gestures and images. Applying a positive or negative personnel action based on accepting or refusing sexual advances. Can also be based on negative treatment on the basis of gender. Race harassment Most often occurs as offensive comments, jokes, gestures. Includes even when the victim and harasser are the same race. Religiou ...