A Manager's Guide to Employment Law

Book excerpt: Managers at all levels are constantly challenged to do more with fewer employees, to motivate diverse groups of people, and to face up to tough people problems in their workforces. An important key to managers' success is accomplishing these goals while protecting themselves and their companies from legal liability. Yet some in management tend to blame legal requirements for hindering progress toward solving problems. U.S. law, however, provides managers with broad discretion in many employment situations and in most cases helps ensure that managers perform their essential functions in a way that is fundamentally fair while still supporting company goals. A Manager's Guide to Employment Law will help managers make day-to-day decisions on how best to manage their employees and handle issues of legal liability. Expert author Dana Muir identifies the subtle and unnecessary mistakes managers make that cause legal headaches and shows how becoming familiar with basic principles of employment law will enable them to develop an internal compass to help make the right decisions. Each chapter focuses on legal concepts of broad application in today's workplace, providing real examples of problems managers face and offering strategies for addressing those problems.