Let’s clear up something right away. When I talk about PIPs, I’m not referring to Gladys Knight. (For those that don’t know who Gladys Knight is, I can’t help you).

But PIPs are Performance Improvement Plans. They are typically a list of goals outlined by a company to an employee that the employee must

Several years ago, I saw Bruce Springsteen in concert. (Remember those?)

It was over three hours long and by the time we were done, I remember turning to my friend and saying, “Now THAT was a concert.”

Then, a few years back, we were in New York for the weekend (remember weekends away?) and Bette

Can an employer ever win a motion for summary judgment on a discrimination case in state court?

The prevailing wisdom is no.  A fool’s errand, some might say.

But a new Connecticut Appellate Court case (Alvarez v. City of Middletown) shows at least what’s possible.

The case has some details that stand out. The

Not every case that comes out from the Connecticut Appellate Court makes headlines.

Take the case of Walker v. Department of Children & Families, a new case that will be officially released next week (download here).

It is a fairly ordinary discrimination case — albeit a rare one where the employer has been successful on a motion for summary judgment. It is also a textbook example of how slow the legal system can be, with the court decision coming eight years after the employee was fired.

The plaintiff was hired as a social worker in June 2004 and was notified that he needed to successfully complete a “ten month working west period.”  His first performance review, about 10 weeks in, was generally favorable.  By December, though, he was transferred to a new unit and was required to prepare documents to be filed in court and attend court proceedings.Continue Reading Appellate Court Upholds Summary Judgment for Employer

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak to the Connecticut Technology Council’s IT Summit.

The panel discussion, entitled “Social Media: How to Manage Your New Digital Workfoce and Your Workforce ‘Friends’”, explored the impact of social networking on how businesses communicate with customers and employees, and how to reconcile the need for security and control with the desire to remain flexbile and competitive.

My law partner, Glenn Cunningham, served as panel moderator and Christopher Luise, executive vice president at ADNET Technologies, LLC joined me.

One of the questions that was raised during the IT Summit was one that I sometimes hear.  Paraphrasing, the question was essentially this: “I think social media is just a waste of time for employees.  There is no return on investment for it. And what am I supposed to do with a young employee who spends four hours on Facebook each day?”

There’s a lot of subtext to a question like this and it would be easy to discount the person’s views as someone who just “doesn’t get it” with social media.Continue Reading “My Employee is on Facebook Four Hours a Day. What Do I Do?”

At the core of every employment relationship is the expectation that the employee will perform the job satisfactorily.

But what happens to those performance expectations when an employee has a disability?

As the federal government has acknowledged, The Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits “employment discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities, generally do[es] not

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For anyone who has been following the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decisions interpreting wage & hour, discrimination and retaliation claims, yesterday’s decision in Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics (download here), can hardly come as a surprise.

Indeed, in a 6-2 decision, the Supreme Court concluded that to "file" a complaint, an employee need only provide

Here’s a quick update on some items and topics that have been covered by the blog over the past year:

  • Earlier this week, I raised the issue of whether the rising unemployment rate would also lead to more employment lawsuits. Reuters yesterday released a very good and balanced article on the subject. I shared my

"Get Rid of Performance Reviews!" proclaims a UCLA professor in this morning’s edition of the Wall Street Journal:

To my way of thinking, a one-side-accountable, boss-administered review is little more than a dysfunctional pretense. It’s a negative to corporate performance, an obstacle to straight-talk relationships, and a prime cause of low morale at work. Even the

Nearly six months ago, a landmark ruling by the Connecticut Supreme Court held that Connecticut’s anti-discrimination laws required employers to provide a reasonable accommodation to disabled workers, much like the federal counterpart, the ADA.

As I noted in an earlier post about the case, Curry v. Allen S. Goodman, Inc., the Court suggested that the employer had a