Category: Workplace Violence

Book pages fanned out

The NLRB Reverses Course (again) on Employee Outbursts and Protected Concerted Activity

What happens when an employee starts yelling at the boss, makes profane social media posts about work, or engages in other “abusive conduct?”  In many cases, employers can follow their own policy and impose discipline if appropriate.  But, where profanity and heated outbursts come up in the context of complaints about the terms and conditions of the employee’s job, the...

Threatening Behavior — A Mental Health Disability?  Quirky Question # 132

Threatening Behavior — A Mental Health Disability? Quirky Question # 132

Quirky Question # 132: One of our employees has been very belligerent of late.  He has made comments to co-workers that were intimidating and frightening.  Some of his co-workers have considered them to be threats of violence and have reported them to our HR group. HR investigated, corroborated the accuracy of the allegations, and confronted the employee.  He basically admitted...

Observations About Workplace Violence, Quirky Question # 43

Observations About Workplace Violence, Quirky Question # 43

Quirky Question # 43: We are a governmental agency.  There recently was a highly publicized situation in which an employee at a company across town shot and killed his two supervisors and wounded several other employees before taking his own life.  Yesterday, one of our more problematic employees, known to have a strained relationship with his boss, was overheard remarking...

Quirky Question # 29, Maintaining Electronic Records

Quirky Question # 29, Maintaining Electronic Records

Quirky Question # 29: Our company has offices in California.  This year we want to improve our document retention practices.  We’ve decided to maintain electronic records of personnel files.  Can we do this in California?  We were told that California law requires the records to be available at the job site.  If this is true, can we switch to an...

Racist Ideas, Quirky Question # 16

Racist Ideas, Quirky Question # 16

Quirky Question # 16: I am both disappointed and embarrassed to report that one of our employees is an outspoken White Supremacist.  His views are abhorrent to me personally, as well as to nearly all of our company’s employees, both minority and non-minority.  The organization to which our employee belongs advocates violent conduct toward minorities.  Given that fact, should we...

Employee Injury, Quirky Question # 3

Employee Injury, Quirky Question # 3

Quirky Question # 3: I was called out to our company’s parking lot (we run a manufacturing facility) during a break because of a report that an employee had been injured and was bleeding outside our building.  Upon my arrival, I learned that the injured employee had created a homemade “shooting device” from a pipe, firecrackers, and ball bearings.  He...