If you are a Supervisor- LISTEN UP!
Today, more than ever before, we now live in a litigation happy society. If you are a supervisor in any organization of any size, you should be beating on the door of your Human Resources Dept. -asking them what are the specific legal liabilities you will incur when dealing with today’s workers.
There is one legal document your company should have handed you THE MOMENT YOU WERE PROMOTED TO SUPERVISOR (and 95% do not), A Supervisor’s Hand Book. Just like new employees are handed an Employee’s Handbook, all supervisors today should have a handbook that details the Federal Employee Laws that have tripped up so many well meaning and good supervisors, who were never trained, but later held legally responsible for how they dealt with their subordinates.
It’s just not fair what companies and organizations do to Supervisors in this country. We thrust them into leadership roles- without providing any training on their responsibilities from a legal perspective. Then companies allow them to be slaughtered by the court system because they said or did something illegal to those employees. There are specific employment laws when dealing with employees. But no one ever told them certain acts were illegal.
For example the legal definition of ‘constructive discharge” where a supervisor rides (or discriminates against) one employee so much that they create a hostile environment and the worker leaves the company and files a lawsuit and wins.
Or, the fact that no one tells them that just because an employee leaves the company does not mean that the lawsuit cannot be filed. It can be filed against the supervisor even years later- depending on the legal circumstances and how good their attorney or legal counsel is.
In posts that will follow I will use this space to detail exactly how to write an effective “Supervisor’s Handbook” for any organization that will keep Supervisors and the Organization out of legal hot water and why your company should be doing this training -like yesterday!
In the mean time I will post new information on this important subject @ my business development website www.goldcrowninc.com.
Keeping Supervisors out of legal hot water for the past 16 years…more to come. Tell someone you care about to follow as well.
My repsect…Dr. Cubie Davis King
