What Can You Do To Prevent Your Employees From Suing You? November 17, 2015Featured, My BusinessOff

As an employer, you have certain responsibilities to the people that work for you. For instance, you have to ensure that their working environment is safe. You also have to make sure there is a dispute process in place to tackle any issues.

The trouble is; many employers find themselves in hot water from a legal standpoint. Some fail to tackle problems like discrimination or safety head on. While others are just plain useless at providing the right training for their workers.

As you can imagine, employers that aren’t responsible for their staff could get sued. If you run a business, it’s important that you lower the risk of such an event happening to you. If you follow my tips on this blog post, you’ll have a happier – and safer – working environment:

Do regular risk assessments of all workstations… Safety should be your number one priority in the workplace. Your workers have a right to carry out their duties in a safe and secure environment. The last thing they want to do is go home injured because of lax safety measures at their workplace!

That’s why it is crucial you do regular risk assessments of all working areas. There are plenty of guides online that can show you how to get started. But, in essence, it just boils down to checking for any hazards. Examples include faulty wiring, trip and slip hazards, and so on.

By doing regular risk assessments, you can reduce worker’s compensation costs. In fact, you could even eliminate those costs entirely. That’s because there would be no claims to file!

Have a dispute resolution process in place… What happens when there are issues between two or more members of staff? You can’t just tell them all to be friends and get on with their work! As a responsible employer, it’s your job to investigate such disputes and act accordingly.

The best thing to do is have a proper dispute resolution process in place. You should also make that process known to your staff. For instance, you may wish to detail the procedure in your employee’s handbook.

In a nutshell, you should not avoid or ignore any conflicts in the workplace. You need to make sure they get dealt with in a swift and satisfactory manner. Growing numbers of workers sue their employers because of issues such as discrimination. Don’t make your company one of those statistics.

Don’t fire workers unless you’ve got a good reason… Sometimes you might need to dismiss employees if they get caught stealing, for example. But, there are also complicated reasons for getting rid of people. Gross misconduct in the workplace is one such example.

Firing someone isn’t as simple as kicking someone out of your office. You need to ensure your back gets covered from a legal point of view before you dismiss anyone. I recommend consulting with a corporate lawyer before dismissing anyone.

Final thoughts… As you can see, there are many reasons why a disgruntled employee could sue you. I hope today’s article gives you some ideas on how to be a more responsible employer.

Photo by Baranq | Shutterstock

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