An Employment Lawyer Can Help With Personnel

Managing employees can be complicated and often requires obtaining advice from an employment lawyer. Personalities are interesting enough to contend with, but legal issues can be downright perplexing. There are many aspects of staff management that this legal professional can assist you with, including employee privacy requirements, drug and alcohol issues, and leave taking mandates.

Privacy

As an employer, you have access to the private documents of your workers. There are laws on the books detailing exactly what you can and cannot divulge. There may be times when an outside party wants information about one of your workers. For example, an employee’s creditor, ex-spouse, or other individual might ask for specific information. Do you know what is legal to share? If you have terminated an employee and another company’s human resources director calls to inquire about that worker, what can you say legally? These are questions that can be answered by your employment lawyer. Giving out protected information and violating your workers’ privacy can land you in big trouble.

Drug and Alcohol Problems

If one of your workers arrives to punch into the time-clock smelling of alcohol, what are your rights as an employer? Can you send your worker home, fire them, or require drug testing? As the owner or manager of a company, you have certain rights, yet so does your worker. Of course you don’t want inebriated staff members on the job, but you have to handle this delicate situation properly to protect your business.

Leave Taking

When employees get called away to serve in the military, what are your obligations regarding length of time away with guaranteed reinstatement? If you don’t know the answer to this question, you better put a call in to an employment lawyer. You’ll also have workers who need to take time off to have babies, to care for ailing family members, or for their own illnesses. You need to run your company with the right number of staff members, but you also need to honor your legal obligations regarding leave taking.

Running a business can be challenging when it comes to handling personnel issues. Your needs and the needs of your employees may be in conflict on occasion. On top of that, there are legal requirements mandated by the government. You want to treat your workers fairly, adhere to the laws of the land, and protect your company. With the guidance of an employment lawyer, you can do just that. It’s wise to make the acquaintance of a law firm specializing in these issues in advance, so you can turn to them when the need arises.