Good article on preventing discrimination claims

Workforce.com has this article by attorney Michelle T. Johnson “The Car Wreck You Can Stop” (referring to discrimination claims).

Her perspective is an illuminating one: “For several years, I was an employment attorney working for law firms hired to defend the interests of corporations and businesses against lawsuits and complaints brought by employees. I am also an African-American woman, and even when a case doesn’t involve race or gender, I find that I can frequently detect from the facts just the point at which an EEOC complaint or lawsuit was inevitable. Events and statements that may be seen as merely ignorance or insensitivity by a manager of one race, for example, may be viewed as full-fledged illegal discrimination by an employee of another.”

The title is derived from this analogy: “[M]onitoring potential employment problems that might blossom into discrimination claims is not like waiting to see if people will get in a car wreck. In a car accident, two total strangers can collide in a split second without having been in each other’s universe just 10 minutes before. In the average case involving employment relationships, complaints and lawsuits are the result of repeated interactions, each affected by the one before it.”

One useful suggestion mentioned in the hypothetical example she discusses is the exit interview. This is a fantastic practice. For example, if someone claims constructive discharge due to sexual harassment, but in the exit interview said she quit because she wanted to go into a more challenging line of work — and when asked what she liked about the job said “the pleasant atmosphere and friendly employees,” you’ve got a winner (don’t laugh, I’ve seen something similar).

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