Our Blog Archive for March 2010

Retaliation is now the most commonly filed claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). In general, retaliation claims are likely to be successful in trial and recover significant damages. Since most managers have no idea what retaliation is and how they can significantly contribute to retaliation claims, these new statistics have employers on edge.

Employees can file a charge of retaliation if they feel they suffered adverse action (demotion, poor job assignments, the “cold shoulder” etc.) because they filed a discrimination complaint with their employer, or because they participated in a protected activity, such as a discrimination investigation. The original claim doesn’t have to be successful, as long as it was made in good faith. That means that if someone files a discrimination claim and it was found that discrimination did not in fact occur, the employee can still win a retaliation claim if they feel adverse action was taken against them because of their original claim.

Managers rarely understand the “stand alone” nature of these retaliation claims, and are shocked to learn that an unsuccessful discrimination complaint can still support a successful retaliation claim. Particularly when managers feel that discrimination claims are not valid, they can engage in high risk behaviors (like expressing anger over the claims) that create serious legal liability for their employers.

Retaliation claims are frequently brought along with discrimination claims, which means that the record number of discrimination claims reported by the EEOC the past two years feeds the unprecedented rise in retaliation claims as well. As a result, it is vital that employers are equipped with policies and training that educate management about how to reduce risk of retaliation claims and how to make these claims easier to defend.

Our turbulent economy has forced employers to trim budgets, cut staff and get more done with less. But when it comes to ethics training, the majority of employers are maintaining their budgets, and in some cases, increasing them.

In a recent survey of more than 1700 senior legal and HR professionals conducted by ELT, 58.2% of respondents indicated that despite the poor economy, their ethics and compliance training budgets have either stayed the same or increased.

83.5% of those surveyed have a published Code of Conduct, and 55.2% regularly train employees on their Code. These employers understand the need to maintain an ethical workplace at a time where tension and turmoil are high for employers and employees alike.

While it’s encouraging to hear the majority of employers have sustained their ethics and compliance budgets this year and are training on their Codes, that number should be 100. Think of Enron. Enron had a great Code of Conduct. But serious problems arose because senior leaders were not following the Code, and employees did not understand when or how to report misconduct. Training and awareness could have prevented a lot of the ethical missteps, and stopped the downward spiral sooner.

Obama has also been focusing on enforcement of business ethics and workplace laws, and he’s putting his money where his mouth is. Not only does he require every appointee at every executive agency to sign a detailed ethics pledge, his administration has increased federal funding to enforce ethics and compliance with critical laws and regulations, including Sarbanes-Oxley, the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, the Federal Acquisition Regulations, the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Civil Rights Act.

Many of these laws and regulations include mandatory training guidelines to educate the workforce about ethics and compliance. Employers who can prove they’ve done training can also establish powerful legal defenses and reduce fines and sanctions.

ELT’s new Ethics & Code of Conduct online training course translates employers’ unique Codes into concise, targeted ethics training for employees, managers, and senior leaders. ELT’s highly customizable, modular design lets employers choose the topics most relevant to their Code, create different course versions for different audiences, and track Code distribution. Featuring full motion video and interactive exercises, the program is designed to grab employees’ attention and present them with real-world ethical dilemmas in a dynamic, virtual environment.

A well crafted Code of Conduct is essential to an employer’s ethics and compliance program. But at the end of the day, the Code is just words. To truly impact behavior and shape workplace culture, the Code needs to come to life for your employees. The only way to do that is with compelling, interactive ethics training.