General guidelines for dealing with employees: Have standard procedures for all aspects of employment. Follow those procedures instead of re-inventing the wheel each time you are faced with an employment issue. Refer to the procedures when you are coaching or disciplining an employee. Contractor vs. Employee. Make sure you don't misclassify an employee as an independent contractor. If you have control over someone's environment, work and are the only client, you probably have an employee. The IRS does not like to find out you haven't been paying employment taxes by calling an employee an independent contractor. Employee evaluations & appraisals - if you have them, use them. One of the first things a governmental agency or attorney will ask for in an employment claim is the employee's performance file. If an employee is not performing up to level, the performance review process is one of the places to document your observations and let the employee know what standard is expected. Investigate complaints. Once you find out about a problem, make sure you investigate it quickly and objectively. Juries and government agencies want to know that once you learned about the problem, you took action. Be seen as fair & humane in all employment decisions. Not only is this important to a judge and a jury. Employees are less likely to feel an injustice has occurred and their co-employees will support your actions. The media won't think the story is nearly as interesting if the person is treated fairly and a plaintiff's attorney is not as likely to take a case that doesn't have "juicy" facts about mistreatment. Have steps thought out before reacting & no surprises. Watch the quick reaction especially in interviewing, disciplinary & firing. Make sure you have the accurate facts before reacting. Employment actions should be logical and shouldn't be surprises to your employees. Make sure they know the rules and consequences for breaking them. Be consistent in how you handle interviews, disciplinary actions and termination. You don't want to be accused of favoritism or discrimination. Return