”Fair, Square, and Legal: Safe Hiring, Managing & Firing Practices to Keep You & Your Company Out of Court,” by Donald H. Weiss, AMACOM (American Management Association), 316 pages, $24.95
Employment quotas … reverse discrimination … conservative appointees to the Supreme Court. … These are among the hottest buttons in today`s news.
There`s almost no one who doesn`t have an opinion on rights in the workplace. Many of the opinions are as uninformed as they are ardent.
Donald H. Weiss, a personnel executive with Citicorp in St. Louis, has written a politically correct but nonetheless instructive backgrounder on the evolution of laws and regulations governing employer/employee relations in the United States.
Although the book is aimed at managers, it establishes a context for employers and employees alike to know where they stand vis-a-vis each other, and to assess the continuing political furor over employment discrimination and affirmative action.
Weiss limits his use of the legal jargon that clouds so much of the commentary about employment practices without minimizing the importance of the statutes and case law that created the current state of affairs. Managers who leave these matters to their human relations departments do so at their own peril, he warns.
Do you know what a ”protected class” is? A bona fide occupational qualification? Reasonable accommodation? The expectation of privacy?
Constructive discharge? Negligent hiring? An internal labor market?
Defamation? Unwelcome advances? Firm choice? Termination at will? A unilateral contract?
Weiss explores these and other concepts in the lexicon of employer/
employee relations law. The history and precedent value of these laws and rulings demonstrate that proper relations are not a matter of whim.
As Weiss points out, there`s no reason why any of this should be a mystery, despite the best efforts of lawyers to obfuscate in behalf of their professional franchise. Most of what legislatures and courts have said is simply common sense, fair dealing and the Golden Rule.
The notion that the trend in employer/employee relations is like a pendulum that may or may not have swung too far in favor of the employee is a false and useless image that carries the erroneous implication that the trend might swing back the other way, Weiss suggests. Here`s his bottom line:
”Companies that do not practice fair hiring and employment methods will lose their competitive advantage.”
Viewed in that light, much of the debate about quotas and affirmative action can be seen correctly as cynical pandering for special-interest votes. On the one hand, Weiss` mapping of the legal minefield proves how strained employer/employee relations can become in this litigious society. On the other hand, having clear, broadly understood guidelines on these matters can liberate the workplace for more productive pursuits. That seems to be Weiss` mission.
For many employers and employees, however, workplace guidelines define the end of responsibility, not the beginning. A company with a no record of employment-related litigation is not necessarily a happy, productive place to work.
The informal hiring quotas and other litigation repellents many companies use today in their hiring and management programs appeal to the worst instincts of callous and incompetent managers who`d rather not bother with the tougher job of attracting and motivating the best and the brightest. Being safe in your hiring and management practices is not necessarily being good.
At the same time, exploiting the nuances of employer/employee law can become a virtual preoccupation for employees who should have been fired years ago. Standing up for your rights is not the purpose of having a job.
Therefore, Weiss stumbles when he derides recent Supreme Court decisions that have sought to limit forced social engineering in the workplace. If he believes that employer/employee relations generally have benefited from the last 30 years of lawmaking, why does he now want that evolution to stop?
