Category Archives: Personnel Policies

Employees Required to Prevent ID Theft

Personnel Policies, Training

A CVS pharmacy employee threw prescription forms in the dumpster behind the store in Houston. A Radio Shack worker in Corpus Christi dumped customer credit applications. EZPAWNS employees throughout Texas threw away customers’ bank statements. And the Levelland police found more than 4000 customer records in the garbage containers behind Select Physical Therapy. These were not isolated incidents, because according to the Federal Trade Commission, Texas ranks fourth in the nation in identity theft.

The Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, was not pleased by these incidents and has started prosecuting these businesses and others under Texas’ new Identity Theft Enforcement Act and other recently-enacted laws to protect people from identity theft. Businesses like yours can be fined between $500 and $50,000 for improperly disposing or disclosing sensitive customer information, such as

  • Credit and debit card numbers
  • Social Security numbers
  • Bank account information
  • Mother’s maiden name or other personal identifying information
  • Tax forms
  • Passwords
  • Dates of Birth
  • Account numbers

These types of information often appear on receipts, applications, bank statements, checks, personnel files, medical forms, and in discarded computers.

What should you do to protect your business from identity theft exposure? As I often say in this blog and in my training presentations to businesses throughout the Panhandle of Texas, as with most legal problems in your business, you have to take four steps to avoid litigation and prosecution for identity theft exposure: Continue reading Employees Required to Prevent ID Theft →

Employee Acknowledgment Form

Forms and Policies, Personnel Policies

If you haven’t discovered the Texas Workforce Commission’s book Especially for Texas Employers, you are missing out on an invaluable and free resource to help you avoid costly legal mistakes in managing your employees. You can get a hard copy of the book at Panhandle Workforce Solutions at 1206 W. 7th Street in Amarillo. There are also offices in Borger, Childress, Dalhart, Dumas, Hereford, Pampa and Tulia.

You can also access this book with all of its wonderful forms online by clicking here. It includes lots of solid advice for employers and suggested personnel policies and forms.

One example of a good form available in Especially for Texas Employers is an acknowledgment of receipt of the employee policies.

Continue reading Employee Acknowledgment Form →

E-mail Dangers

Personnel Policies

Just because e-mail is the most common method of communicating in the business world these days does not mean that it is a benign form of communication. E-mail is frequently used by employees to harass, slander, stalk, insult, and discriminate against coworkers. If you tolerate the use of your company e-mail systems to send pornographic, hostile, crude or offensive jokes, slurs, pictures, stories, language or documents, the company is probably responsible and you are setting yourself up for a lawsuit.

If you haven’t taken steps to protect your company from these liabilities, this problem won’t go away, so don’t stick your head in the sand. Get busy implementing a policy and training that will let your employees know that your workplace information systems are not the appropriate place for unprofessional and libelous statements.

As with most workplace problems, there are 4 steps you need to take: Continue reading E-mail Dangers →

Cell Phone Policy

Forms and Policies, Personnel Policies

I love my smartphone, which acts as my phone, my calendar, my to do list, my address book, my e-mail server, etc. My clients know that my cell phone is always on and that they can call me anytime of the day or night. I took client calls while on the Washington, D.C. metro system this summer and I returned calls on our last camping trip to New Mexico. For me, a cell phone is an essential tool to serve my clients, who are my bosses.

But for some employees, a personal cell phone may get in the way of doing a good job. For many health care, manufacturing, service and retail workers who don’t need to constantly talk to clients on the phone, or who need to deal with the public in person, a cell phone can be very distracting.

Many employers have started to create written policies to deal with all the issues that arise with cell phones in the workplace, such as the privacy issues that occur with cell phone cameras and recorders.  If you as an employer want to address the use of cell phones at your business, here are some items you may want to include in your policy: Continue reading Cell Phone Policy →

Policy Manual Promises can be Exploited

Personnel Policies

Does your company have an employee policy manual that you borrowed from another company, found on the internet, or wrote yourself? A recent federal appeals court opinion is a cautionary tale for those companies that have not had an employment law expert draft or review their employee manual.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held recently that an employee who wasn’t covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) could assert a claim to enforce the promises that his company employee handbook made, regardless of whether the FMLA actually applied to him. The company published an inadequately worded FMLA policy to all of its employees. That mistake cost the company. The court said that the company has to live up to whatever was written in its employee manual, even though the company was not actually required by law to provide FMLA to this particular employee. Peters. v. Gilead Sciences, Inc. (7th Cir. July 14, 2008).

What should you take away from this case? The direct answer is that if you are a small employer (less than 50 employees), don’t promise family and medical leave to your employees in your handbook, because your business is excluded by law from having to provide FMLA.

Similarly, if you employ less than 15 workers, don’t promise equal employment opportunity in your workplace. You can still practice equal employment, but don’t promise it in your written policies because you are small enough to fly under the regulatory radar and avoid expensive discrimination litigation.

The larger lesson is that what you say in your employee policies can protect you if you are careful about drafting and enforcing your policies. But carelessly worded policies can be used against you by a disgruntled employee and his/her attorney, so make sure a professional who knows the law of your state and knows something about your company has reviewed any employee policy you adopt.

Welcome!

Personnel Policies

Thanks for visiting my new blog (or “blawg” as lawyers and Texans refer to it). I hope you find lots of help with your legal questions about employment issues. Because I am not just a lawyer, I may also include from time to time a recipe, travel pic or personal story.

Check back regularly for new information, as I intend to update this blog at least twice a week. And feel free to comment on any post, particularly if you as an employer can share some policy, strategy or form that is working for your business.

Just be careful not to share anything confidential in your comments because others will be able to see them. If you are a business owner or manager and need to talk confidentially and get specific legal advice, please call my office at (806) 345-3107 for an appointment.

Small Employers May Have it Easier

Personnel Policies

            I’ve been dispensing legal advice to employers for 21 years now. In all that time, I can thankfully say I’ve never been sued by an employee. I’ve never faced a gender discrimination claim, a disability problem or a termination under the Family and Medical Leave Act directed at me. No employee has ever accused me of racial harassment or complained to the EEOC about my employment practices.

            Is that because I diligently follow my own advice? Do I have the world’s greatest employee manual, does every employee get an annual written evaluation and do I use progressive discipline to give every employee an opportunity to cure a problem before it becomes a termination?

            Actually, I don’t. Why? I keep my business small. I only have one employee right now. Sometimes I bulk up to as many as three employees, but never have I needed more than that.

Continue reading Small Employers May Have it Easier →

Technology in the Workplace

Personnel Policies

“For a list of all the ways that technology has failed to improve our lives, please press three now.” – Alice Kahn

 

            When I began practicing in the area of employment law in Amarillo 21 years ago, no lawyer or secretary in my law firm of 40 attorneys had a personal computer in his or her office. We had a 4-person word processing center in which the only firm computers resided.

            Fast forward 21 years and I presently own five computers. Most of my client communications are done by e-mail and I can access all of my files electronically with my laptop while on a camping trip.

I know I’m showing my age, but I am still astounded by the rate at which technology has taken over the legal business and every other industry with which I work.

My friend, insurance agent Julie Hulsey, and I were just exclaiming over the exponential rate at which the technology universe is expanding as we had lunch today. On the table beside both of us were smart phones, enabling us to check e-mail, schedule appointments and send ourselves reminders about a conference we were planning as we ate our salads at Baker Brothers. No paper or pens were in sight; only styluses and touch screens.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the information age. But inevitably, technology brings to the workplace problems and situations that have to be addressed. Some of them are starting to be considered by the courts. As always, I encourage you as an employer to think about the consequences of these digital changes on your workplace now to avoid a visit to the courthouse later. Continue reading Technology in the Workplace →

New Laws Affect Employers

Personnel Policies

            Every two years, Texas businesses hold their collective breath and wait to see what kind of new regulations the Texas legislature will pass that place additional burdens on doing business in this state.

            Since the regular session of the 2007 Texas legislature just ended, this is a good time for us to review the new laws that will affect you as an employer. Only a few bills that regulate employers made it through the process to become laws, so you can rest easy until 2009.

            Let’s first look at a few of the bills that did not pass, which should give you many reasons to be thankful. Several bills that would have prohibited you from banning concealed handguns on all of your business property, particularly the parking lot, did not pass.

Although the change to the “castle doctrine”, the law that allows a person to use deadly force to protect himself in his home, received lots of press coverage when the legislature extended the law to include deadly force used to protect a citizen in his vehicle and place of employment, it doesn’t change your company’s right to prohibit employees from carrying weapons. This means that you are still free to regulate your own property and protect your employees from possible violence by enforcing a complete on weapons in the workplace.

            Bills that would have made a person’s sexual orientation a class that must be protected from employment discrimination failed. This will reduce the number of possible discrimination claims that employees could file against your company. Continue reading New Laws Affect Employers →