SHRM Blog

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.

1. Failure to distinguish between what is illegal and what has legal implications. 

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Over the years I’ve received a handful of anonymous notes and letters while working at various organizations.  Scribbled on pages torn from legal pads or neatly typed and sealed in envelopes, the notes often lacked specifics and were furtively slipped under the door of the HR Department –

“Some coworkers who work in my department are doing things that go against company policy. 

I thought you should know.  Signed,  A Concerned Employee.”

It’s often a challenge to determine how seriously one should treat an anonymous complaint.   Is there enough information to launch an...

Over the next few weeks I’ll have the opportunity to speak with thousands of HR Professionals & Leaders in business. This week I will be in North Carolina and soon following in Minnesota, New Jersey, Bahamas, as well as Venezuela, Orlando and Virginia.

Part of the conversation happening in this community is the relationship between the C-suite and HR.  Does the C-suite value the work?  How can HR bridge gaps to gain credibility, support, strategic influence and cold hard cash to make a meaningful contribution? What if the C-suite just doesn’t get it?

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OnPoint Consulting’s global study on virtual collaboration found that top performing virtual teams reported higher levels of trust than teams that were less successful, which means that trust is an essential ingredient for virtual team success. 

Despite the importance of trust to virtual collaboration it can take much longer to build trust when working from a distance because team members rarely see one another and, quite often, have never met in person.

While we typically rely on interpersonal trust, which is based...