Articles

The FMLA or Family Medical Leave Act was made law in 1993 and provides for unpaid leave for specific family and medical reasons.  The act was passed to give workers a chance to take leave from their employment for pressing family concerns without the fear of losing their job or benefits.   All organizations with 50 or more employees who work 20 or more weeks a year are required to adhere to the FMLA.   The FMLA is a critical part of employment law training.

Being a manager means traversing a legal minefield on a daily basis.  There are a myriad of ways managers can get tripped up and find themselves in court - or worse - arrested or fired.  The best way to prepare your managers is to provide them with employment law training.  The following are 10 of the most common ways a manager can make legal mistakes on the job.

Stereotypes and biases can destroy an organization from the inside.  They tear apart morale, creativity and motivation.  Everyone has stereotypes and biases, but it's how we use them that makes all the difference.  A stereotype is a generalized view of a person based on life experience.  Essentially, we put people in a box just based on a shared trait.  A stereotype can be positive or negative, but always can be dangerous when used at work.  Biases are predispositions to see the world or people in a certain way.  A bias isn't necessarily a bad thing until it offends or is used to the detriment of a co-worker.   In the workplace, we can't allow these feelings to effect how we treat people.

Sexual harassment has once again reared its ugly head in the workplace.  Just today, it has been reported that three subordinate employees have accused a high level political appointee to the U.S. Immigrations and customs enforcement administration of sexual harassment.   This particular case raises an aspect of sexual harassment that is usually overlooked when we think of a perpetrator of harassment - the accused party is a woman and the three subordinate employees are male.

The topic of bullying in school has been widely reported upon in the recent past and a string of tragic events have led to an increased level of awareness on the part of the public as to the effects that bullying can have on the victim who is the target.

While the focus has been on how bullying can be recognized and eliminated amongst school children, the topic of workplace bullying is equally as prevalent and is something that adults often deal with in their daily work lives as well.

HIPAA privacy protection is federal law and sets limits on who can look at our private electronic, oral and written health information.  The security component requires health organizations to protect patient electronic information with a tight level of security.  It is critical that all employees who work with patient records understand HIPAA and how to handle and secure patient medical data.  Comprehensive HIPAA privacy training is required by the law.

Sexual harassment in the workplace continues to be a problem throughout the USA and the world.  Every organization who is serious about prevention needs to provide employee sexual harassment training.  Part of this training is a concise, unambiguous sexual harassment policy statement.  It needs to be direct and leave no doubt that your workplace has no tolerance for harassing behavior.  The following are some tips for writing your organization's policy.

A true story about a national sandwich shop that needs to completely revamp its  customer service training.

The world that we live in has never been more diverse and as a result workplaces have never had more of a need for tolerance, understanding and communication. One of the best ways to address this issue is through diversity awareness training with diversity videos. Video training is one of the most effective tools in adult learning and these training packages include leaders guides, participant materials and in some cases Power Point presentations - every thing you need to facilitate a training session.

Much of the problem with sexual harassment in the workplace lies in the fundamental difference in perceptions that men and women have of appropriate words and behavior. What men think is appropriate is many times completely opposite of what women think is appropriate. Misconceptions and misunderstandings lead to behaviors that are construed as hostile work place harassment. There are several specific behaviors that remain pervasive in the workplace.