Since the 1960s, and especially since the 1990s, there has been an explosion in state and federal workplace laws aimed to protect employees from employer mistreatment, including wrongful termination.
“Most of the laws [HR] deal[s] with did not exist before 1990,” James Reidy, an attorney at Sheehan Phinney Bass & Green PA, said while speaking at SHRM25 in San Diego.Claims against employers are now quite commonplace, he noted. Additionally, the labor market is thin, and so are the margins, so employers must balance retention versus dismissal.
The risks of costly missteps with discipline and discharge are a source of great stress for HR professionals.
When it comes to employee termination, managers must work in tandem with HR to ensure there is the proper rationale and documentation for dismissal. Managers are “responsible for training, encouraging, and motivating staff, but they’re also responsible for evaluating performance and providing critical assessments,” Reidy said. “They are the critical people who document this stuff for you.”
It is important to have managers and supervisors document details of performance because “last-minute documentation and backfilling is never a good idea.” If an employee has been at the company for 15 years, Reidy said, now is not the time to start evaluating their performance.
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