A complaint has arrived and it is yours to handle. Whether it is a harassment allegation, a suspected theft, or a claim that a manager retaliated against someone, the HR investigation process follows the same sequence: receive, protect, plan, gather, interview, weigh, decide, document, act, and follow up. Skipping a step is where most defensibility problems start.
This guide walks through how to conduct a workplace investigation in ten steps. Each step links to a
A cashier has been accused of threatening a coworker. A controller's expense reports do not add up. A supervisor is named in a harassment complaint by someone who reports to him. In each case you need the person out of the workplace today, before you know what happened. The next question comes from payroll: is this paid administrative leave pending investigation, or unpaid?
For most private employers the safest default is paid leave. This article explains why, when
The complainant wants to know when it will be over. The accused employee, sitting at home on leave, wants to know even more. The department head asks every morning. If you are asking how long does an HR investigation take, you probably have at least one of these people waiting for an answer.
For most private employers, no law sets a number of days. The legal standard is "prompt," and whether you met it is judged on the facts. This article explains what that
An employee stops by your office and says, "I don't want to file anything, I just want you to know my supervisor keeps commenting on my body." A manager forwards an anonymous note about someone padding expense reports. Two coworkers have not spoken in a month and one finally sends a long email about "a toxic environment."
Which of these needs an employee relations investigation, and which can be handled with a conversation?
No
Outside counsel has just told you she will sit in on tomorrow's interviews and "give the Upjohn warning" before each one. Or your general counsel has asked you to gather facts for him and to tell witnesses the conversation is privileged. Either way, you need to know what an Upjohn warning is, what it does to your investigation, and what it does not do.
The short version: the warning tells an employee that the lawyer
You have an interview scheduled for 2 p.m. with an employee accused of falsifying time records. Ten minutes in, she says, "I want my steward here." What you do in the next thirty seconds decides whether the interview is lawful. Weingarten rights are simple on paper, and most violations happen because a manager kept talking when the law required a pause.
This article explains who holds Weingarten rights today, what triggers them, what the representative can and
FMLA administration is a process with defined stages and deadlines. Employers who run it as a process comply; employers who handle each request as a one-off eventually miss a step. This is the framework.
1. Determine Coverage and Eligibility
Two separate questions. Employer coverage depends on employee count thresholds. Employee eligibility requires 12 months of employment, 1,250 hours worked in the preceding 12 months, and 50 employees
...Job restructuring is expressly listed in the ADA as a form of reasonable accommodation. It means changing how, when, or in what order a job is performed, or reallocating parts of it — and its limits turn entirely on the distinction between essential and marginal functions.
Essential Versus Marginal Functions
An essential function is a fundamental duty of the position. A marginal function is peripheral — something the role includes but which
...Garnishment calculation errors are costly in both directions. Withhold too little and the employer can become liable for the shortfall; withhold too much and you have an unlawful deduction claim. The calculation itself is mechanical — the difficulty is knowing which rules apply to which order.
Step 1: Calculate Disposable Earnings
Garnishment limits apply to disposable earnings, not gross pay and not net pay as an employee understands it.
Disposable
...COBRA billing looks like an accounts-receivable task and is really a compliance task. The amount you may charge, when payment is due, what counts as timely, and how you handle a shortfall are all governed by rules — and getting any of them wrong turns a routine termination of coverage into a claim.
What You May Charge
Plans may generally charge qualified beneficiaries up to 102 percent of the applicable premium — the full cost of coverage plus a 2 percent
...An employer or plan can end COBRA coverage early, before the 18-, 29- or 36-month maximum, only for a reason the law allows. The reasons are: a premium is not paid in full within the grace period, the employer stops maintaining any group health plan, the qualified beneficiary becomes covered under another group health plan or entitled to Medicare after electing COBRA, a disability extension ends because Social Security finds the person is no longer disabled, or the beneficiary is terminated ...
A forfeiture arises when a participant leaves before becoming fully vested in employer contributions. The unvested portion is forfeited from their account — and what happens next is governed by the plan document and by timing rules that plans breach routinely, usually by doing nothing.
When a Forfeiture Occurs
The plan document specifies the triggering point. Common approaches are forfeiture on distribution of the vested balance, or forfeiture after the participant incurs a
...When the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division (WHD) opens an investigation, payroll should notify management and counsel immediately, confirm the scope of the investigation, gather the requested records accurately, cooperate courteously, and provide what is requested — not more. Investigators review payroll and time records, interview employees, and meet with the employer at the end to explain any violations and back wages found. Preparation and accurate records decide most ...
Reasonable accommodation is defined by function, not by a list. An accommodation is reasonable if it enables a qualified individual with a disability to perform the essential functions of their job, or to enjoy equal terms and privileges of employment, without imposing undue hardship.
Examples are still useful, because employers frequently cannot picture what an accommodation looks like. These are grouped by the barrier they address.
Changes to the Physical
...An employer may require a fitness-for-duty certification before restoring an employee whose FMLA leave was for the employee's own serious health condition, but only under a uniformly applied policy for similarly situated employees, and only if it said so in the designation notice. The certification can address only the condition that caused the leave. It may be required to address the employee's ability to perform the job's essential functions if the employer supplied a list of those ...
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