Five Steps to Cool Down Political Dustups in the Workplace

November 6, 2012 or Election Day is just over a month away and with that comes an increase in the workplace talk of politics. As everybody knows, politics can always generate strong emotions from people. This seems especially true this year as the partisan banter and divide is at an all time high.

Political Speech in the workplace can present difficult challenges for employers that can create an unproductive and divided workforce with lower morale. Also, strong political debates can offend clients whom disagree and take offense.

The question then becomes how can you tame down a politically charged conversation in the workplace without violating a person’s First Amendment rights?

Private employers have an easier time regulating political speech during working hours than their public counterparts. This is because free speech in the workplace is different than free speech outside. There are several laws that help break down the differences and where the limitations lie, such as the First Amendment, National Labor Relations Act, Election Laws, State and Municipal Laws, Civil Rights Act, etc.

So, what is an employer to do to protect themselves from the pitfalls of workplace political comments? There are five steps you can start implementing today.

1) Education is key to a lot of things, political speech is no exception. Start with retraining all of your employees on the basic and relevant policies on anti-harassment, anti-discrimination, equal employment opportunity, etc.

2) Encourage accountability. Have employees help be your eyes and ears by reporting anything they feel is politically harassing or violating, so you can take steps to cool down political tensions.

3) Add to your corporate code of conduct. Let employees know they need to be respectful of their fellow co-workers political opinions and values; therefore failure to do so could merit disciplinary action against them.

4) Cover political apparel in your dress code. Political buttons, stickers and/or other campaign paraphernalia can spark a heated debate, so consider putting a clause addressing this in your dress code.

5) Do not push your views. Feel free to encourage your employees to partake in their civic duty to vote but be careful not to cross the line in convincing them to vote or financially support a particular candidate and/or cause. The persuasion could be viewed as a coercive activity by some and run in violation of federal and state election laws.

Workplace political dustups can be cooled down by being aware and following the five aforementioned steps. For more information on how to reduce political distractions in your office, contact Todd Weyandt at todd@laihr.com. 

Incivility Rising…Don’t Allow It To Affect Your Bottom Line

Do you look forward to going to work everyday because it is an engaging and friendly atmosphere? Or are you like the 86% of employees surveyed in a Jeannie Trudel study that said they had experienced some form of incivility in the workplace within the past year.

Unfortunately, incivility in the workplace is a more common problem than most people realize, and it is rising. This growing epidemic is not contained in just one particular industry or even just from a supervisor. The uptick in workplace incivility could be attributable to the pressures employees are dealing with under a still lagging economy.

Employees have more stress on them to be productive while working longer and harder, in most cases. Employers must be cognoscente of this issue to avoid it escalating into more aggressive or even violent behavior. Workplace incivility can have a major impact on the company from organizational commitment, job performance, turnover and retention.

The truth is very few employees will actually report workplace incivility to their respective HR personnel and/or managers. So it is up to the employer to keep a look out for signs of this behavior.

First, every company needs to make sure they have a specific and strategic plan in place to ensure civility is a part of the corporate culture. It all starts with the type of employees that you hire. Make sure you are screening for personality and/or conflict management styles.

Then, bring your team together for training on cooperation, role modeling and leadership. When teams are seasoned on these traits, they are often more willing to work in collaboration and are less likely to use uncivil behavior.

Incivility is a rising problem in corporate America with some disastrous side effects, but with just a few corrective steps you can stem the tide at your company. For more information, contact Todd Weyandt at todd@laihr.com. 

Are You Violating the NLRA with Your Social Media Policy and Don't Even Know It?

Most employers are unaware of the movement from the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) against employers’ social media policies. Over the past couple years, the NLRB has become increasing active in the social media policy debate and has made several rulings against overly broad corporate social media policies. They are now monitoring not only the substance of the policy but the actions employers are taking. Employers are deemed in violation of the NLRA (National Labor Relations Act) if they prohibit an employee’s ‘concerted activity’ or discipline an employee for this.

The big question facing employers is what constitutes ‘concerted activities’? The NLRB has determined ‘concerted activities’ involve active, online conversations among multiple employees regarding work conditions. Also, the NLRB has struck down many anti-blogging and disruptive behavior employment policies for being overly broad prohibitions of protected activity.

The cases in which the NLRB sided with the employees have some common components. The first being they all involved employees who criticized very specific employment practices and/or work conditions. Secondly, these employees conducted conversations online, after work hours, on personal equipment, with personal accounts and off work property. Thirdly, and what appears to be most important to the NLRB, is all the cases involved multiple employees in the online discussions.

Though the NLRB has not released a guide for employers to use when drafting and enforcing their social media policies or disciplining employees, there are some precautions every employer can and should be taking.

1) Create a Specific Social Media Policy

2) Address Unique Practices and Concerns of Your Individual Business

3) Avoid Writing Catch-All Policies

4) Be Aware of Your Employees’ Social Media Presence

5) Fully Investigate Every Situation Before Disciplining Employees

6) Review Your Policies Periodically

For more information on this topic, sign up for Lowden & Associates’ FREE Social Media Policy Webinar on June 27, 2012 at 2pm. Register here. 

Legislative Update: NLRB Election Rule Change, Effective April 30, 2012

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has issued a new rule that will expedite union elections in the workplace. This new rule cleared a federal judge’s injunction this past weekend and therefore has gone into effect, April 30, 2012.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has filed suit against the new rule. It is believed a formal ruling on the rule will be delivered before May 15, so no elections will have time to take place beforehand.

Under this new rule designed to reduce the unnecessary litigation, the election process for determining unions will be drastically shorter and more streamlined. Most eligibility reviews will take place after the election instead of before, like the past.

Also, this new rule gives more power to the NLRB Regional Directors and Hearing Officers who can speed up the process as well. Conceivably, under the new NLRB rule, an election process that use to take no less than six weeks could be finished in three weeks.

Unions will now have a substantial voting advantage over the employers. Employees will have to vote in a state of confusion and at the height of their ill feelings. Already, unions had a 70 percent success rate under the old rules and this percentage is likely to increase..

There are five ways to help prepare your company and no time to waste.

1) Review any and all current employee relation programs. Then make improvements so your employees are more engaged and happy.

2) Devise an effective and robust communication system to meet your employees in the channels they like (in-person, brochure, email, social media, etc.).

3) Reduce perceptions of unfairness and/or bias and show how much you care about your employees by they way they are managed.

4) Properly and continuously train your frontline managers on all the important changes, rules, best practices, etc.

5) Be on guard and prepared with a detailed proactive plan and message.

For more information, contact 770.248.0401.

Top 20 Benefits of HR Outsourcing

20) Two million employers in the United States outsource their Human Resource functions to a Professional Employer Organization (PEO).


19) Over a third of employers have external HR Solutions to gain access to world class capabilities and resources they do not have internally.


18) The average median cost to administer HR internally for companies with less than 250 employees is $1,469 per employee per year.


17) Ability to follow a proven path to better employee productivity and engagement.


16) Gain access to accredited management training programs.


15) Third party intervention available for sensitive disciplinary actions.


14) Have HR experts on the more than 40,000 pages of federal employment regulations plus thousands more of state and local regulations.


13) 150,000 lawsuits related to the workplace are currently pending in court against U.S. businesses due to lack of proper Human Resources.


12) The employee prevails in 60% to 70% of all cases that go to trail because of a lack of proper internal HR documentation.


11) The average amount of damages awarded to workers who sue their employers is $650,000, in addition to the average litigation costs of $75,000.


10) Have seasoned professionals guiding you out of the liability minefields of federal and state employment regulations.


9) LAI keeps clients out of trouble and law suits by being proactive and insuring compliance at all levels.


8) Rely on a deep pool of HR expertise totaling almost 100 years of Human Resource experience.


7) Streamline and simplify your Human Resource operations by consolidating many services into one point of contact.


6) Allows you to focus on growing your core business and let us handle your non-core Human Resource fundamentals.


5) Join the 25% plus employers who say they saved money by having an expert manage these administrative aspects of their business.


4) 60% to 80% of an employer’s time is spent on non-productive administration which means a loss of profits and neglecting vital strategic Human Resource opportunities.


3) Gain an entire team supporting your HR needs instead of one or two in-house HR personnel while having access to current best practices.


2) Employees do not have to wait until the in-house contact is available because an entire team will always be ready to help. This makes your team more efficient and productive.


1) Save money while gaining more knowledge and services to compete more effectively in the marketplace.

Recruiting Traps in Social Media

Social Media has become one of the top avenues for companies in their recruiting efforts. The Society for Human Resource Management found that 76 percent of companies used social media sites for recruiting in 2011 and more than half believe that social media is an effective way to recruit candidates.

However, with all the possibilities of social media comes an expansive minefield that can be set off with a wrong step. The problems begin to occur when companies go from sourcing candidates to using social media sites to screen or eliminate candidates based on the information found.

There are three main legal categories to warrant potential disputes.
1) Discrimination. Most people are well aware of the dangers of discrimination and make very conscious efforts to avoid any possible discriminatory practices. However, if you screen a candidate by visiting their social media accounts, you open yourself up to the possibility of receiving large amounts of protected information. Social media sites usually disclose vast amounts of information about a person from their race, gender, age, marital status, religion, politics, disability, etc.

 2) Fair Credit and Reporting Act Regulations. The FCRA provides specific details about requirements of employers and consumer reporting agencies for the screening process. Employers must follow all of these rules very carefully. First and foremost, they must receive permission from the applicant before any pre-employment check. Also, there are specific rules if any information found leads to an adverse hiring decision. Documentation must be kept accurately. The nature of social media makes this difficult to comply because the content is published and controlled by the consumers and can change at any time.

3) Negligent Hiring. It is possible that, if a violent workplace situation occurred in which derogatory information was public on the perpetrator’s social media profiles that could have shown the bad behavior, the employer might become liable for negligence since they did not use the information when the hiring decision was made.

So how can a company reduce these risks? It boils down to three categories you could fall into:
- Deny access to social media for all recruiting purposes
- Only use social media for sourcing candidates
- Use social media throughout the hiring process and create policies and procedures to avoid the dangers. 

For more information on how to avoid the traps in recruiting on social media, call 770.248.0401 or email Todd Weyandt at todd@laihr.com.

Who Owns Your Twitter Account?

Who owns content published on social media sites?

Now, before you answer the question it is not as cut and dry as you may think. In fact, nobody is 100 percent sure of the answer. There are few laws and decided court cases that can help reach a definitive answer. In the meantime, the amount of lawsuits being filed is increasing as employers and former employees fight over Twitter handles and followers.

When looking at Twitter ownership, the function of the site is crucial. What is the primarily reason for the site? Is it to share personal information and occasionally pass along a company article? Or, is it to drive up sales, marketing, branding, etc. for a company? If the site is decidedly for business, the company has a much stronger claim on ownership.

However, a recent example does cast a shadow over the ownership dispute. In September of 2011, a company called PhoneDog Media filed a suit against their former editor-in-chief Noah Kravitz claiming that he unlawfully changed his Twitter handle (name) from @PhoneDog_Noah to @noahkravitz when he left the company. In their claim, PhoneDog said Kravitz owned $340,000 for all of the followers associated with the account ($2.50 for each of the 17,000 followers when he left per month for 8 months).

The question being bounced around in the courts is does PhoneDog have a claim to that Twitter account when Kravitz created and maintained the handle entirely by himself?

To reduce the risks of a messy legal battle like PhoneDog–v–Kravitz, companies need to make their social media policies very clear about their intentions of who owns the content and followers from the beginning. A best practice is to enter into separate agreements with those employees who have Twitter handles and followers that the company claims to own, making sure everybody is on the same page. Leave nothing to assumption or ambiguity in your social media policies.