Tag: Firing

February 7, 2024

Insubordination. IP disclosure. Misconduct. Breach of restrictive covenant. All of these are legitimate reasons to fire someone, but what do HR managers and business owners need to know about the legal technicalities surrounding employment termination? Components of a legal termination […]

October 27, 2023

The question of whether employers can legally demand that their employees return to the office has become a hot topic of late. With the pandemic seemingly on the back foot, many employers are keen to welcome their people back to […]

July 25, 2022

The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals (whose rulings apply to all Texas employers) has determined that the COVID-19 pandemic is not considered a natural disaster, thus it is not an exception to the federal law that requires businesses to […]

February 3, 2022

Last March, we wrote about a surprising ruling in which the Massachusetts Appeals Court concluded employers in the state aren’t legally prohibited from firing employees for exercising their right to file a rebuttal in response to a negative document placed […]

January 19, 2022

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids discrimination based on numerous protected categories (e.g., race) in any aspect of employment, including hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, and any other term or condition of employment. It’s not […]

May 12, 2021

The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals (whose rulings apply to all Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin employers) recently interpreted the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) in a case involving an interesting set of facts. The employer altered an employee’s […]

June 15, 2020

Understanding the effects from the first few months of the pandemic can be valuable in helping understand what will happen next. A recent report sought to understand turnover and hiring trends for the month of May. The report, called “COVID-19 […]

November 26, 2019

Part of ordinary business operations involves letting employees go. How you let them go and, perhaps more importantly, how they feel about being let go can have a large impact on what happens next. You don’t have to be an […]

June 26, 2019

Relationships—both personal and professional—can be complicated. Just like first dates, job interviews offer candidates the chance to show a prospective employer the best possible version of themselves: smart, charming, funny, and responsible. As an employer, you ask exploratory questions about […]

May 9, 2019

Amazon is all about the money. They fully admit to firing people based on a computer algorithm. They also are a huge company, with over 600,000 employees. With that many employees, you’ll end up with a lot of pregnant women–each […]

February 13, 2019

Regulation of marijuana, be it medical or recreational use of the drug, continues to be a vexing issue for HR departments in the U.S. At least 30 states have legalized medical marijuana, while more than 10 have signed laws permitting […]

December 28, 2018

Startup culture is all about disruption. It’s perfectly normal for one person to work two or even three jobs within a year, bouncing from one organization to another in the hope of finding the right fit. It is hard when […]

November 16, 2018

A California appellate court ruled that a systems analyst terminated allegedly for poor performance following a disciplinary probation and suspension was entitled to a trial on her claim of disability discrimination, even though the employer demonstrated a legitimate business reason […]

November 9, 2018

Startups with small teams are like families. Firing a member of that family is rarely easy — especially when the person in question works remotely. “When we are evaluating terminating someone — eliminating their livelihood — we have to work […]