Pitfalls to Avoid in Employee Termination
32 Construction Equipment Distribution www.cedmag.com November 2009 Human Resources In the four or five weeks since Part 1 of this article on protecting your dealership from employee termination lawsuits was published, about 8,000 more employee discrimination lawsuits will have been filed against U.S. employers. It's critical to keep up your guard during employee termination. Here is a review of the points covered in Part 1: 1. Avoid hiring high-risk employees. The best prevention is thorough background and reference checks. Where many dealerships fall short is in following their process 100 percent of the time. The question to ask yourself is, How do I force compliance with our hiring process? 2. Think of your employee handbook testifying in court. Handbooks that are out of date or not distributed to employees in a timely (and documented) manner can be deadly in court. 3. Job description does not support performance review. Do you cringe at the thought that the job description of a terminated employee will be scrutinized in court because it is incomplete, out of date, or inconsistent with other employ-ees performing a similar function? Look for an independent source of dealership job descriptions. Here are the final three pitfalls to avoid in employee termination: By John Boggs, Esq. Pitfalls to Avoid in Employee Termination part 2 Compliant, consistent procedures on performance reviews, disciplinary action and layoffs can prevent disgruntled feelings which in turn can prevent lawsuits.