How You Can Avoid Lawsuits

As an employer you have a responsibility to ensure that complaints are taken seriously, investigated timely and thoroughly, appropriate parties are disciplined based on factsand that documentation is maintained and secured for your records.

Priority #1: Be Responsive to All Complaints

• Never brush a complaint off
• Always remain neutral
• Keep an open mind and consider that the claim may be true
• Act immediately, same day or no later than next day if you have a good reason
• Gather statements from all parties with signatures and dates

Priority #2: Document and Keep Evidence Secure

• File all notes about complaints and meetings in a separate claim file
• Pull and file records, evidence and/or video of mistakes and/or behavior

Priority #3: Enforce Discipline

• Discipline appropriate parties who were confirmed to violate policy through fact finding
• Discipline any manager who was witness to incident who failed to address issue immediately

Keep in mind that there are always three sides to any story or complaint and your job is to get down to the facts of what has happened. It's not to say he or she was right but what has actually transpired based on what you can confirm. Make sure to advise all parties on what they did right and what they should've done differently. 

How to Minimize the Impact of Flu Season on Your Workplace

There's a lot you can do to prevent flu from invading your workplace, making your employees sick, increasing the risk of accidents, and creating havoc with work schedules. Here are some recommendations from Flu.gov.

• Promote vaccination. Encourage all employees to get vaccinated for seasonal flu. Make sure your employees know where they and their family can get seasonal flu vaccination in the community. Find out about health providers, pharmacies or clinics that offer seasonal flu vaccinations in your community. Partner with a pharmacy or provider to get your employees vaccinated. Or, if possible, offer seasonal flu vaccination opportunities right at your workplace.
• Educate employees to recognize the symptoms of flu.  Symptoms of flu include fever or chills and cough or sore throat. In addition, symptoms of flu can include runny nose, body aches, headache, tiredness, diarrhea, or vomiting. Workers who have flu-like symptoms should be asked to go home. Continue to advise workers to check for any signs of illness before coming to work each day.   
• Encourage hand cleanliness by providing education and reminders about the importance of frequent hand washing. Make sure all employees have easy access to running water and soap or alcohol-based hand cleaners.
• Encourage "respiratory etiquette" by providing education and reminders about covering coughs and sneezes with tissues, and easy access to tissues and trash cans.
• Promote routine cleaning of surfaces and items that are more likely to have frequent hand contact. Provide employees with cleaning agents.
• Prepare for employees to stay home from work and extend the time sick employees stay home to at least 7 days. People who are still sick after 7 days should continue to stay home until at least 24 hours after symptoms have gone away, even if they feel better sooner. Employees may stay home because they are sick, are at higher risk for complications, need to care for sick household members, or because schools have been dismissed or childcare centers have closed and they need to care for their children. Review sick-leave policies and consider making them flexible and consistent with public health recommendations.

Safety Daily Advisor