A heads-up to employers everywhere . . .

As we disclosed previously here on the Blawg, today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. (No, we’re not making this up. Click here for everything you could ever possibly want to know about this auspicious occasion.)

Accordingly, our advice would be to avoid taking any adverse employment action against anyone who engages in pirate-ishness today. However, action may be taken to address any of the following:

1. Pillaging
2. Ingestion of rum or any other illicit pirate beverage
3. Excessively bad imitation of Johnny Depp or Keith Richards
4. Forcing any co-worker to “walk the plank” without prior written consent
5. Unauthorized sword fighting in any work area and/or on work time

Each year, we as a nation set aside one day to recognize all the hard-working people that help make this country great. In my humble opinion, that’s not nearly enough.

Why not extend the Labor Day love at least 24 hours this year by planning something nice for your employees when everyone returns to work next Tuesday? Bring in Krispy Kremes for everyone to share. Treat everybody to lunch in the company cafeteria or maybe even Taco Bell. Dust and vacuum their cubicles. Sing ‘em a song. Buy ‘em a car.

Study after study shows that workers who feel valued by their employers are happier, better team players, more productive and — as an added bonus that makes the employment lawyer in me smile — waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay less likely to sue.

As the employer of more than three million employees worldwide, we at ManpowerGroup are always looking for creative ways to make employees feel loved. We’d love to hear how you do it. Please leave a comment below or shoot me an email at blawg@manpowergroup.com with your most creative and inspirational employee recognition ideas.  The very best one will win a fabulous prize.

Enjoy the weekend!

One of the best ways to avoid needless employment law disputes is to stay in touch with what your employees are thinking, feeling and doing. As part of our never-ending quest to keep you up-to-speed on the latest developments affecting your workplace, the following is our guide to some of the lesser-known celebrations your employees might be observing this month.

CONTEST: Just to make sure you’re paying attention, I included one made-up item. The rest are very real. The first person to post a comment identifying the bogus celebration will win a valuable prize.

Month-long Celebrations

• National Accordion Awareness Month
• International Turkey Lovers Month
• Highway Lane Change Courtesy Month
• National Bathroom Reading Month
• Okra Month

Daily Observances

• Say Something Nice Day (1)
• National Go Barefoot Day (1)
• Heimlich Maneuver Day (1)
• Leave the Office Early Day (2)
• Yell “Fudge” at Cobras in North America Day (2)
• Donut Days (3-4)
• Do-Dah Day (4)
• Festival of Popular Delusions Day (5)
• Daniel Boone Day (7)
• Upsy Daisy Day (8)
• Donald Duck Day (9)
• The Wicket World of Croquet Day (11)
• Corn on the Cob Day (11)
• Recess at Work Day (16)
• Fudge Day (16)
• National Flip Flop Day (17)
• Root Beer Day (17)
• World Juggling Day (18)
• World Sauntering Day (19)
• World Juggling Day (19)
• Go Skateboarding Day (21)
• Stupid Guy Thing Day (22)
• Let it Go Day (23)
• Take Your Dog to Work Day (24)
• Decide to Be Married Day (27)
• Sing Happy Birthday to the Happy Birthday Song Day (27)
• Please Take My Children to Work Day (27)
• National Dress Like KISS in the Workplace Day (30)

What this means for employers. If your employees suddenly start leaving early, yelling “fudge” at dangerous reptiles, wielding croquet mallets, wearing coonskin caps, juggling staplers, guzzling root beer, sauntering jauntily, setting up half-pipes in the cafeteria, giving each other the Heimlich maneuver, doing stupid guy things and/or bringing accordions, turkeys and other people’s children to work, now you know why.

Enjoy the month!

(Source: brownielocks.com, library.thinkquest.org)

Click here to join the 7,184 highly intelligent individuals who subscribe to our Employment Law Alerts.

Every other week or so, I send out a brief summary of all the major employment law developments in an easy-to-digest format. The goal is to give you the news you need to stay on top of the law and out of jail.

The next Alert will be coming out shortly. Enjoy!

California has passed a new law that requires employers to provide 52 weeks of paid leave to all employees.

The All Leave Act of 2008 (SB-401) cleared its final hurdle yesterday when, as expected, it passed the Assembly by a wide 65-12 margin.

“This is a great day for all Californians,” said bill co-sponsor David Lirpa (D-San Jose). ”This law represents an historic bipartisan effort by both sides of the aisle to ease the burden on this great state’s workers,” added the bill’s other sponsor, Barbara Loof (R-Palo Alto).

“I would consider a veto,” said California Jerry Brown as he stepped onto a plane bound for the Cayman Islands. “But, technically, as an employee of the state, I can’t — I’m required to be on leave every day for the rest of my term.”

The new law is effective today, April 1.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, we conducted a poll to get your thoughts on the hot topic of love contracts.

What’s a Love Contract? To protect itself from liability, an employer requires romantically intertwined employees to sign an agreement stating that (1) the relationship is 100% welcome, voluntary and consensual and (2) they will fully comply with the employer’s anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, including immediately reporting any and all harassment, avoiding nepotism/favoritism and working in a professional manner at all times.

The Vote. The people have spoken and it’s virtually a dead heat. Of the 151 voters in day one of our poll, 77 (51%) said love contracts are a good idea. 74 (49%) believe they’re a bad idea. That’s a marked difference from the same poll we conducted last year, which had a 61-39 bad/good split.

My Thoughts. My rather negative view of love contracts was captured quite nicely here in Newsweek. In short, it seems to me that love contracts are a form of over-lawyering that basically forces HR to act as the love police. Effectively and consistently enforce your anti-harassment policies and you should be just fine.

A quote from the Newsweek article gives a bit more depth:

Consensual relationship agreements are just another case of “overlawyering,” says Mark Toth, the chief legal officer for Manpower North America, an outplacement and employment services company based in Milwaukee. “It forces [employers] to become the love police, consistently enforcing who’s dating whom,” Toth says. And he’s not sure if such contracts will necessarily protect companies from litigation. A subordinate signing a love contract might claim that he or she signed under duress or that harassment began after the contract was signed.

One can easily imagine the following conversation taking place in a company that adopts a love contract policy:

HR:  Hello, Greg.

Greg:  Hello.

HR:  I heard you’re dating Marcia. Is that true?

Greg:  No, actually I’m dating Alice.

HR:  Oh, really? I thought Sam was dating Alice.

Greg:  No, he’s dating Carol now.

HR:  Hmm.  I thought Carol and Mike were married.

Greg:  Did you hear that Bobby’s dating Cindy? And that Jan’s dating Peter?

HR:  I quit. (Hands him a stack of love contracts.) Congratulations — you’re our new Head of HR.  Get everyone to sign one of these.

Don’t let that happen to you.

(In the interest of fairness, some lawyers and HR professional are quite fond of love contracts. Check out some of the comments to yesterday’s poll and read the full Newsweek article to get other perspectives.)

Yesterday, we discussed performance evaluation best practices. Here are some worst practices – actual real-life performance review quotes used as evidence in employment litigation (courtesy of Professor Dick Beatty of the University of Michigan Ross School of Business):

• “I would not allow this employee to breed.”
• “The gates are down, the lights are flashing but the train isn’t coming.”
• “He’s so dense, light bends around him.”
• “The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.”
• “He’s got the whole six-pack but lacks the plastic thingy holding it all together.”
• “Since my last report, the employee reached rock bottom and began to dig.”
• “He would argue with a signpost.”
• “If you stand close enough to him you can hear the ocean.”
• “Takes an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes.”
• “If he were any more stupid he’d have to be watered twice a week.”
• “His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity.”

Don’t let this happen to you. Please follow the suggestions we made here yesterday.

Got any performance evaluation nightmares you’d like to share? Leave a comment below or shoot me an e-mail at blawg@na.manpower.com.

One topic near and dear to all employment lawyers’ hearts at this time of year is performance evaluations.

Simply put, if you don’t measure the right things the right way, you’ll encourage the wrong behavior, get trounced by your competitors and probably find yourself in court defending discrimination lawsuits.

Here’s a simple “evaluation evaluation” to help you assess the performance of your performance appraisals.

EVALUATION EVALUATION

Rate your company’s performance evaluation process in each of the following areas (1-10 points):

1. Rating criteria are tied to true customer-focused competitive differentiators specific to each position (versus purely internal-focused and one-size-fits-all).
   Score: ____
2. Rating categories are weighted based on importance (versus all are treated equally).
   Score: ____
3. Objectives are clear and measurable (versus vague and subjective).
   Score: ____
4. Evaluators give candid, honest feedback (versus sugarcoating).
   Score: ____
5. Ratings truly differentiate among employees (versus most get the same score).
   Score: ____
6. Performance input is obtained from multiple sources, including subordinates, peers, managers and key customers (versus manager only).
   Score: ____
7. The evaluation measures both the what (results) and the how (behavior, collaboration, people management and ethics).
   Score: ____
8. Progress versus objectives is part of a regular on-going discussion with employees (versus a form-based one-time-only annual meeting).
   Score: ____
9. Top executives use the system (versus ignore it or do their own).
   Score: ____
10. Performance evaluations are closely linked with incentives, promotions and terminations.
    Score: ____

OK, now total up your points. Here’s an official evaluation of your evaluation evaluation:

• 0-30 points: Deficient (bankruptcy and class action lawsuits imminent)
• 31-50: Needs Improvement (bankruptcy/lawsuits highly likely)
• 51-65 points: Mediocre (bankruptcy/lawsuits likely)
• 66-80 points: Good (bankruptcy/lawsuits unlikely)
• 81-100 points: Outstanding ($$$ and happiness highly likely)

For more on performance-related issues, I highly recommend The Differentiated Workforce by Dick Beatty and others (Harvard Business Press 2009).

Help avoid workplace violence and promote peace on earth by resolving this age-old dispute: What’s the very best holiday movie of all time?

The polls are closing soon — cast your vote by clicking next to your favorite on the right-hand side of the Blawg (or by clicking here).

After 320 votes, it’s neck-and-neck among the leaders:

1. It’s a Wonderful Life (21%)
2. A Christmas Story (18%)
3. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (17%)

Bringing up the rear is The Santa Clause, with a whopping 0 votes (1 vote behind Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, believe it or not).

Thanks for your participation in this important endeavor.

Each week, we post a thought-provoking question for your consideration. Last week’s question was based on real-life court cases on the topic of body art. 

Here’s the question, followed by a breakdown of your 326 responses:

A cashier shows up for work wearing a dozen large earrings, multiple eyebrow piercings, a nose ring and a highly inappropriate neck tattoo. Citing your company’s dress code policy, you ask her to remove all but two of the earrings and to cover up the tattoo. She says that she’s a member of the Universal Church of Body Modifications and can’t comply for religious reasons. You fire her and she sues. Who wins?

a.  The employer (59%)
b.  The employee (41%)

You are correct — the most likely answer is indeed “a.”

Generally speaking, employers are allowed to enforce reasonable job-related workplace appearance rules, as long as they are consistenly applied.

The facts in this question were based on the much-ballyhooed case of Cloutier v. Costco. Cloutier, a cashier, demanded that she be allowed to wear facial piercings based on her religious beliefs as a member of the Church of Body Modfication. When Costco rejected Cloutier’s demands, the EEOC sued on her behalf. The court balanced the relative burdens and sided with Costco, finding that its policy was reasonable and that Cloutier’s “church” doesn’t require that piercings be worn at all times.

Interesting Factoid: Nearly half of Americans in their 20s have a tattoo or other piercing (beyond traditional ear piercing), according to a study by the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. The study also indicates that the number will continue to rise.

Bonus Parenting Tip: As one alert Blawg visitor pointed out, parents now have an official court case to point to when they tell their kids that tattoos and piercings could hurt their job prospects.