First Line of Defense: Employment Law Training System for Supervisors

The video-based system that contains everything you need to train all of your managers and supervisors on the most critical legal issues and challenges they face, featuring:

• Real-world “been there” scenarios
• Plain-English commentary from leading attorneys
• Best-practices guidance every manager needs
• And much, much more!

Each half-hour DVD in the set combines professionally-acted vignettes with lively commentary from a team of employment law attorneys. Far from a boring recitation of dry legal points, the real-world scenarios and the follow up discussion brings key concepts to life and makes a lasting impression on your supervisors.

Help your team excel as your first line of defense against employment lawsuits.

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First Line of Defense: Employment Law Training System for Supervisors
 

Your managers are your first line of defense against employment lawsuits. But are they ready?
Your organization’s leaders are hard-working, dedicated, and inspirational to their subordinates. But if you don’t provide essential employment law training, they can become a devastating liability. Their actions, responses, decisions, and comments can spark claims of harassment, discrimination, and more.

To help them succeed, and to help shield your organization from legal entanglements, train on essential dos and don'ts using the all-new First Line of Defense: Employment Law Training System for Supervisors. This video-based program contains everything you need to teach them about 12 legal “hotspots” before a problem arises.

Each half-hour DVD in the set combines professionally-acted vignettes with lively commentary from a team of employment law attorneys. Far from a boring recitation of dry legal points, the real-world scenarios and the follow up discussion brings key concepts to life and makes a lasting impression on your supervisors. They’ll emerge from First Line of Defense training invigorated, confident, and armed with the information they need to make the right decision in any management situation.

Your complete training system includes:

• 12 DVDs, each containing a presentation on a specific employment law topic
• Comprehensive Trainer’s Manual to lead you step-by-step through each session
• CD-ROM containing certificate of completion template, acknowledgement of training, attendance list, training session evaluation, and more.

Table of Contents

Hiring
Train your team on how to hire the best applicants without creating legal headaches.

• Preparing for the interview
• Questions supervisors can’t ask
• Linking questions to the position’s requirements
• Minimizing distractions in the interview
• The protected classes and how to avoid legal violations
• What to do when an applicant reveals protected-class status
• Documentation rules

Uncovering resume lies

• How to use applicant information uncovered on the internet

Privacy
VIGNETTE: Untrained managers can cross the line when trying to learn more about employee conduct.

• Is a cubicle subject to search by supervisor?
• Defining company property
• E-mail, IM, and Blackberrys
• Dangers of jumping to conclusions
• Employee blogs and confidential information
• Cell-phones and other employee personal property

 
Employee’s MySpace page shows her drunk and dancing provocatively while wearing company attire.

• How to assess impact off-duty conduct
• Using progressive discipline
• Different privacy rights for public and private employees
• Internet, phone, e-mail, workplace searches, drug and alcohol use, and code of conduct issues

Sexual Harassment
Supervisors have a duty to prevent harassment from happening at your workplace.

• Defining quid pro quo and hostile work environment harassment
• What is “pervasive action?”

Existence of a past relationship doesn’t mean she loses her right to personal privacy.

• Why it’s best to be a hands off manager
• The problem of intention vs perception
• Dangers with supervisor-subordinate relationships
• Supervisors’ duty to step in and stop harassment
• Equal opportunity harasser defense
• Personal liability for supervisor in harassment cases
• Supervisors held to a higher standard of conduct

Same sex harassment

• Same rules apply
• Don’t read too much into certain gay behavior - might not be harassment

Non-romantic harassment – single female in male work environment

• How supervisors must respond to hazing
• Retaliation concerns
• Oral vs Written warnings for harassment
• Communicating intolerance for harassment and retaliation

Wage & Hour Law
A vital topic, considering the potential for a devastating class-action overtime, off-the-clock, or other pay practice lawsuit.

What to do with exempt employees who want to be hourly, and vice versa

• What does exempt mean and why are certain employees exempt?
• Exemptions for white collar, administrative, professionals and sales positions
• Burden of proof
• Job duties and exemption status
• Responding to employee request to change status
• Practical effect of supervising exempt and non exempt
• Docking salary
• Record keeping obligations
• Enforcing attendance policy for exempt employee
• Break requirements
• Special state-level laws
• Class action lawsuits
• Enforcement agencies

Paid time off in lieu of overtime

• Willful violation of the law
• When exempt employee’s job duties change to include non-exempt activities
• Working without overtime permission
• When you have to pay employee for non-work activities
• Wage & hour violations are expensive
• Supervisor can cost employer an employee’s exempt status
• Working off the clock

Workplace Violence
Here’s what your managers need to know about their duty to help maintain a safe work environment.
Employee tells her supervisor she is the victim of domestic violence but demands confidentiality

• Balancing the employee’s request with the need to maintain workplace safety
• Proper response to employee revelations
• When to inform HR
• Managing an employee protected by a restraining order
• Alerting the police about threat level
• Investigating employee-on-employee violence
• Zero-tolerance violence policy
• Weapons in the workplace given recent laws
• Recognizing warning signs

 Vendor and customer violence

• Looking beyond the bottom line
• No customer or client is untouchable

FMLA
2010 brings new FMLA regulations every supervisor should understand and incorporate into their management practices.

• What FMLA requires and who is effected
• What is intermittent leave?
• Interconnection with the ADA
• Employee coverage qualifications

VIGNETTE: Employee with husband called to active duty faces conflict with work obligation and Dan reacts improperly when she asks for time off

• Extra FMLA leave for military member care
• Understanding “qualifying exigencies”
• Avoiding retaliation claims

How to manage a team when one member takes FMLA leave for migraines

• Reassigning job duties
• Loss of status and prestige
• Making a reasonable accommodation
• Interactive dialogue
• What to say and what not to say when FMLA leave requested
• When to involve HR

What does the supervisor of an obese employee have to do to accommodate him?

• Understanding essential job functions
• Creating an undue hardship
• Having the right attitude about disabilities
• Handling coworker unfairness complaints
• Maintaining medical condition confidentiality
• Why juries are so sympathetic to FMLA and ADA claims

Other Harassment
Educate your managers on non-sexual harassment that’s just as illegal, disruptive, and damaging to any organization

National origin discrimination

• Alan gets hazed by Hispanic coworkers for being too Mexican
• How to determine if behavior or words constitute harassment
• When to alert HR to harassing behavior
• How to investigate a claim
• Communicating with the harassment victim

Religious harassment

• Supervisor tries to convert employees to Christianity
• Rules different for supervisors
• Risks of allowing proselytizing

Political harassment

• Political campaign tears apart workforce
• What you can restrict when it comes to expressing political views
• Avoiding retaliation claims when an employee complains

Performance Evaluations
Most supervisors hate giving employee evaluations, but it’s probably because they’ve never been trained on how to do them right. Here’s your opportunity to correct that.

Raises and reviews are unfairly administered

• Employee discussion of raises and reviews
• How to review employees you don’t like
• Maintaining objectivity and consistency
• Making evaluations heavy on specifics, light on generalities
• Keeping an employee file

Giving a tough evaluation

• Communicating performance problems
• Mixing the positive and negative
• Explaining business impact of employee behavior

Evaluating a “protected” employee

• Keeping performance evaluations separate from employee’s status
• Avoiding speculation, sticking to what you know
• Importance of honesty in evaluations

Discipline
When employee behavior needs correcting, make sure your team knows how to do it without creating even more problems.

VIGNETTE: Emotional vs. rational response to employee misconduct
When Mike discovers the off-color joke circulating in his department by e-mail, his angry initial reaction threatens to make the situation worse.

• Importance of discipline
• Know your company policy
• Defining progressive discipline
• Choosing the right time and place to discipline
• Keeping emotions in check
• Confidentiality rules
• When to involve witnesses in disciplinary meetings
• Investigation rules
• Keeping discussion on track
• Issuing a proportionate response

Dan has to confront Monica about the loud and very personal phone calls she makes in her cubicle

• Treating male and female employees the same
• Focus on productivity and impact on coworkers
• Objectivity in written warnings
• FMLA implications

Discrimination
We’re making progress, but prejudice hasn’t been eliminated. Teach your supervisors to make decisions based on legally justifiable factors.

Veronica and Helen try to fill position with someone who’s “just like us” and end up rejecting someone from each of the protected classes

• “Over-qualified” and age discrimination
• Same-race discrimination
• Intention to become pregnant as disqualifier
• Accent concern as national origin discrimination
• Bias against hiring a male candidate
• Applicant age concerns
• Disabled applicant would require accommodation
• What constitutes religious discrimination
• Why nothing is ever confidential and off limits to a jury
• Judging applicants on merits

Steve wants to fill an open position with an attractive female

• The short ride from discriminating taste to discrimination

Documentation
The decision to “write up” a subordinate should be made carefully, and the execution should be ever more so. Here’s advice for your managers.

 Martin wonders what does and doesn’t have to be documented

• When to document a violation
• What should be in an employee file
• Choosing between a verbal and a written warning
• Maintaining at-will status in documentation
• Vignette: Missing documentation spells disaster
• Mike fails to document Serena’s violations before terminating her, and pays for it when she sues.
• Early warning signs that an employee will sue
• Creating consistent, objective, and defensible write-ups
• Communicating a path to employee improvement
• Getting employee to acknowlede receipt of documentation

Firing
Involuntary separation is the #1 catalyst for employment law conflict. Make sure your supervisors have all the pieces in place to ward off a lawsuit.

VIGNETTE: Henry, fired by memo, threatens to file FMLA retaliation suit

• Laying the groundwork
• Importance of face-to-face firing
• Always give a valid reason
• Getting input on the decision to fire
• Avoiding the appearance of retaliation
• Preparing for employee rebuttal
• Vignette: Losing control of the termination conference
• Ray finds himself unable to terminate Carol
• 3rd party witnesses
• Staying on target and avoiding mixed messages
• Dangers of flip-flopping in the face of employee emotional response
• Overcoming fear of being sued for retaliation or discrimination
• Applying the “fundamental fairness” doctrine

Unlike other training programs, this comprehensive kit is:

• Simple. For you and your staff. You get a complete turnkey training solution that combines direct guideance with re-enactments of common, highly plausible situations. 
• Engaging. Professional actors depict reality-based scenarios from the workplace, not the unrealistic, wooden and often absurd vignettes seen elsewhere.
• Authoritative. Each scenario is followed by frank and easily understood commentary from experienced employment law attorneys.
• Cost-effective. Train as many supervisors as you need to for one low price, then as needed as your operation expands and your management team changes. No per-user cost or expensive annual fee.
• Convenient. Conduct training as it fits your organization's schedule, not that of some busy consultant.

Talented and Experienced Instructors Lead Sessions in the First Line of Defense

Attorney Stacie Caraway with Miller & Martin concentrates her practice in labor and employment law. She advises national franchises on employment and labor law issues, and develops, reviews, and updates human resource policies, supporting contracts and materials. She also represents these companies in all legal proceedings including labor arbitration, EEOC, and state human rights commission investigations.

Attorney Candace Kollas is President of Workable Options, a consulting firm that assists organizations in developing communications and ensuring compliance in business practices. Her clients include AOL/Time Warner, Mercedes Benz USA, the Virginia Department of Transportation, and others. She assisted Coca-Cola Enterprises in developing its Integrated Conflict Management System and is currently the Master Trainer for the nationwide implementation of that system.

Attorney Mike Maslanka with Ford & Harrison has more than 20 years of experience in litigation and trial of employment law cases, including defending several multi-party cases under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1991. He has served as Adjunct Counsel to a Fortune 10 company where he provided multi-state counseling on employment matters. Mike has also served as a Field Attorney for the National Labor Relations Board.

Attorney Charlie Plumb with McAfee & Taft has represented employers in collective bargaining issues, grievance arbitration, and representation before federal and state administrative law agencies. His extensive litigation experience includes trials in state and federal courts involving claims of discrimination, retaliatory discharge, breach of contract, and constitutional law violations.

Attorney Mark Schickman is a partner with Freeland Cooper & Foreman where he has litigated every kind of employment matter over the past 30 years. Mark has defended leading corporations against claims of age discrimination, sexual harassment, and discrimination under FMLA. He is the host of Stop Sexual Harassment, a leading prevention training video program for supervisors.

Attorney Kara Shea with Miller & Martin provides practical advice on employment issues and compliance to employers of all sizes, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses, and represents them before administrative agencies such as the EEOC and in litigation, including discrimination, retaliatory discharge, whistleblower, and wage and hour cases. Ms. Shea regularly provides supervisory training on topics including FMLA and FLSA compliance, conducting workplace investigations, and implementing employee discipline.