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2. Being a jerk to your employees
It may seem like common sense, but treating employees with “dignity and respect” can go a long way in helping to keep a company out of legal jeopardy, according to Gottlieb.
Gottlieb said his law firm frequently gets phone calls from employees with gripes that their performance was not judged correctly or about their boss being rude, demeaning, or even condescending.
“None of those things are in and of themselves unlawful,” said Gottlieb.
However, he said, those calls could end up opening the door to more legally inappropriate misconduct.
“One thing that I find over and over and over again is people call a lawyer when they’re angry and have gripes with the way they’re being treated, and then during the course of a conversation with a lawyer other stuff might come up that otherwise might not have,” Gottlieb said.
This could lead to what a potential lawsuit could be pinned on, according to the attorney. Issues employees initially call the firm with may be totally irrelevant to the law, but then it may be uncovered that the person is being paid unlawfully, said Gottlieb.
“There may be a pregnancy discrimination issue that the person wasn’t even thinking of, or there may be any number of issues that they weren’t even thinking of,” Gottlieb said. “And if the employer just treated their employee with dignity and respect and sensitivity such that they didn’t feel the need to call a lawyer in the first place, that would be a way to avoid a lot of issues.”
“The point is,” said Gottlieb, “if employers treat people nicely with dignity and respect and compassion other issues that lawyers might be able to identify could be avoided.”
3. Misclassifying employees as exempt from overtime
Zambrano said that another common issue he encounters is employers misclassifying employees, sometimes in order to save money for the company.
Oftentimes employees will be misclassified as salaried employees exempt from overtime pay when they should be paid an hourly rate with overtime compensation, according to Zambrano.
“That’s another mistake I see a lot,” said Zambrano, who explained employers regularly face lawsuits for overtime pay violations and misclassifying employees.
“A lot of personal assistants will go through this,” Zambrano said.
Employees will routinely call Zambrano’s firm with grievances about being “overworked and underpaid,” he said. “But what I am learning is that they’re overworked and incorrectly paid — they should be paid by the hour,” said Zambrano.
When it comes to the classification of an employee, it’s not about the amount of hours an employee works, but the type of work that an employee does, Zambrano said.
“The more independent judgment and discretion you have in the execution of your duties, the more likely you are correctly paid on a salary,” he explained.
4. Poor handling of employee pregnancy
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These kinds of points-based attendance policies have led to several wrongful termination lawsuits filed by West Coast Trial Lawyers against both Walmart and Amazon in recent years, according to Zambrano.
A Walmart spokesperson previously told BI that the retail giant will continue to defend itself against the litigation. An Amazon spokesperson has told BI that the points system the megacorporation uses has human oversight and that the company works with its employees if they’re dealing with an emergency or any unforeseen circumstances.
Zambrano said his firm has been getting multiple calls a week in recent months from people reporting they were wrongly fired from their jobs after racking up too many points for absences, even though their leave should have been protected or was already cleared with managers.
“This stuff is happening very routinely, and people are just being laid off just because they hit these points, and there’s no one fixing it,” Zambrano said. “It is absolutely crazy.”