These are the things that will increase your risk of a lawsuit.
- Have no established “zero tolerance” policy regarding sexual harassment, violence in the workplace, and employment discrimination (according to state and federal legislation).
- Have not regularly distributed the “Zero tolerance” to all employees.
- Have not trained all employees on these policies.
- Have no routine way of training new hires and current employees on these policies.
- Have no written grievance/complaint procedure that has been distributed, enforced and explained to all employees with assurance for no retaliation if complaints are filed.
- Ignore initial complaints or “grumblings” from employees without giving the complaint thorough consideration and appropriate investigation.
- Ignore high absenteeism, tardiness, accident, turnover or other high-risk behavior that is especially accumulated within one department and spread among different employees in that department.
- Don’t offer employee assistance programs and train supervisors, team leaders and managers about making mandatory referrals when necessary.
- Don’t implement employment or drug testing in valid, reliable, secure, and confidential ways with the assistance of trained professionals in the related field (e.g. drug testing specialist, industrial psychologist.)
- Have a double standard of behaviors for top level managers even if all of the above steps are in place.
Source: Camille Caiozzo, Ph.D., President of Resource HR, Inc, November 1998. Caiozzo, is a Management Psychologist with over 20 years experience consulting on workplace behavioral issues.