Jonathan.Segal

Many employers have rules that prohibit employees from returning to work while they are not on duty.  These rules are designed to keep order but they also have the effect of limiting employee access to engage in union activity while off duty.

The NLRB has long held that a rule barring off-duty employees access to the workplace is valid only if:

In 1969, Zager and Evans sang “In the Year 2525.”  If you are smiling, you too probably have looked in a mirror and asked: how did that happen? 

Did you ever wonder what the employment world will look like in 2525?  Perhaps the following:

I was out of town, more than a thousand miles from my home town, Philadelphia, where I had lunch with some people I had never met. They could not have been nicer and we talked about many things including where we grew up and where we live now.  Being the worldly person I am, I mentioned that I live outside of Philadelphia, about 10 minutes from where I grew up. 

An important customer, client, colleague or business partner asks an executive if her son can intern with your company for the summer.  Don’t worry about the money, she says.  My son is only looking for the experience.

As we approach the summer, expect more of these requests.  I personally have received quite a few already!

Sounds like a classic “win-win.”  The intern learns something and you strengthen an important relationship at no cost. So, the executive says “of course.”  Not so fast, please!

I begin this cautionary blog with a story.  After the story, you’ll understand why I began the blog as I have.

I wrote an article on holiday parties for Business Week. I discussed the risks, including too much alcohol consumption and sexual harassment.  Of course, the two often are connected.

Well, the article included a little sarcasm.  Perhaps a little more than a little.  So it was tweeted pretty heavily.

The holidays are a wonderful time to share good feelings and sometimes that includes gifts.  But you don’t want your seasonal gift to result in a January gift for plaintiffs’ lawyers.

Now is a good time to look at your policies on giving and receiving gifts and remind employees of their application to the holiday season.  Here are some suggestions:

There has been an astronomic increase in employment litigation. The result is that there is almost an apoplectic fear of litigation. Indeed, because the cost of litigation can be so high, sometimes we try to avoid risk at all cost.

But we cannot avoid risk. It is not a question of risk avoidance, but rather risk selection.

In my experience, here are the top three mistakes that are sometimes made in managing risk and can result in buying one risk to avoid another.