2008Recession1. Company Secrets:  When companies lay off employees more and more employees get add responsibilities and wear many different hats to make up for the lack of staff in order to keep productivity high.  Most of the time this includes access to parts of the server and other company information that contains the secrets to the company’s secrets.  To ensure that your secrets are held in your hands and not your employees this is a perfect time to beef up your Computer, Internet and Email Usage policy and your Social Media Policy.

2. Electronic Communication Harassment: With the down turn in the economy most companies have been cutting back a lot on pay and benefits to their employees.  This has added more stress on the employees back at home with paying bills and other expenses.  Due to this situation there has been an increase in lawsuits from employees to the employer for what is classified as Text Harassment.  With the increased popularity of smart phones, PDAs and cell phones in the business climate employers are communicating a lot with their employees through text messages.  It is vital that you are communicating to your employees in full words not abbreviations like lol (laugh out loud) or np (no problem).  There are so many different types of abbreviations that many of them mean the same thing.  The best way to prevent any potential law suits to happen it is extremely important that you beef up your Cell Phone. PDA SmartPhone Policy to include specifications on texting.  Click here for a free sample policy.

3. Equal Pay: With all of the pay cuts employers are doing to save money there has been an increase in pay discrimination cases.  It is vital that if/when you do a pay cut that you do it across the board.  The best way to do this is to cut everyone’s pay, including all executives, by a percentage across the board (10%, 20%, etc).  This will help prevent law suits from happening.

Now there is another concern that you must be aware of.  When you are downsizing your staff and you are giving more responsibility to your employees it is important to national, federal and state regulations in regards to breaks.  There is more work to do with less staff and it is important that you give them their required breaks and lunch breaks.  If you don’t you are exposing yourself to potential lawsuits.  If you are unaware of the laws for your state please contact me.

4. You Are Union Bait: In my opinion this is my number one concern for businesses in today’s economic condition.  With the all of the cut backs in benefits, pay and staff business are doing and more responsibility employees are getting unions are chomping at their bits to convince employees, regardless of what industry you are in, to form a union.  Even more pressing is that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is still actively in the process in Washington and the Federal Labor Relations Board (FLRB) (Oversees all union activity) has a new president who is extremely aggressive in forming unions and is very close with President Obama.  Unions are hurting and this is an opportune time for them to grow.  Remember unions aren’t limited to specific industries.  It is PERTINENT that you reward your employees and still have strong employee recognition program.  In fact DON’T eliminate parts or your employee recognition program, BEEF IT UP!!!  You don’t want your staff to feel rejected or not worth anything in this tough market place.  Yes it may cost you some cash; however you will be save thousands if not millions of dollars compared to what you could be paying your employees if they unionize.  If you are worried and need some advise click here.

5.  Don’t Age Discriminate!  One of the attorneys that I work with mentioned to me that there has been an astronomical increase in Age Discrimination law suits due to business cutting back on higher paid employees and the majority of these individuals are in their 60s.  I strongly recommend that when you release any employees with a severance package that you DON’T give them a generic package.  You must customize each severance package with the individual in mind.  Remember the severance packages need to comply with the Older Workers Benefits Protection Act (OWBPA).

Remember Age Discrimination doesn’t just apply to downsizing or terminations but also to comments that imply age.  I strongly recommend that you promote your employees to not tease people in the office.

6. Preparing for the Turnaround: Most businesses do a lot of cut backs in a down economy.  But how are you preparing your business for when it does turnaround?  When businesses start to hire more aggressively for top talent your employees will be more inclined to look at those opportunities.  So, how do maintain the best talent within your business?  Succession Planning.  Have a solid game plan in place to cross train employees so that they feel more valuable is vital to your future success once the economy does recover along with rewarding employees even when the market is down.

 7. Social Media Apocalypse! With the advancement in today’s technology it is vital that HR Departments stay ahead of the curve.  For instance, many businesses allow their employees to use social media to attract new business.  However, employees have been abusing these sites because it is so convenient to get information out to the market.  Having a solid social media policy and team in place is vital.  For more information check out my post on establishing a social media policy.