Posted on February 20th, 2017
Introduction
When it comes to lawsuits against businesses, the term “easy money” may come to mind.
After years and years of doing these cases we wanted to take a step back and explain the real reasons employees sue.
Sometimes it really is as simple as an employee taking advantage of a rigged system but in most cases, the reality behind why employees sue their employers is a lot simpler than that, more primal; and that’s because it all derives from one source: emotion.
We all like to think we leave the personal agenda at the door when we step into the workplace, but human nature dictates otherwise.
In fact, if there’s one place personal relationships probably matter most, it’s work. It’s how camaraderie and collaboration are established and how respect among employees and supervisors are formed.
All of which can help determine the longevity and success of your business.
Employer-Employee relations can make or break you. There is no law that requires employers to be “nice”, or even respectful to their workers. But if an employee feels or perceives they have personally been brushed off, disrespected, or treated unfairly, the chances they will sue you are overwhelmingly higher than if you had a good relationship with them based on mutual respect.
And since the law is on the employee side, they have nothing to lose by filing a suit against you.
Lets take a look at the 2 most common reasons employees will decide to file against their employers.
Reason 1: Dislike their direct supervisor
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just sue everyone who “hurt our feelings”? Well, luckily for employees, they can do just that. When a worker feels put down and unappreciated by their supervisor, a baseless lawsuit could be around the corner.
If employees are unhappy with how they’re treated, there can be unavoidable tension in the workplace. Thus, minor or nonsensical issues can tip the scale towards a legal solution for an employee who feels “victimized”.
The reality is, just because an employee feels disrespected, doesn’t mean a law was broken.
But unfortunately, sometimes employees will use these feelings of dislike towards their supervisor to contact a lawyer that will be more than happy to find a labor law violation compatible with their grievance.
These lawsuits are scarcely just about the violation in and of itself….it’s almost always personal.
When one adult is directly responsible for the work results of another, there is plenty of potential for tension. Tension can lead to resentment. And resentment can lead to the employee finding a reason to make legal claims against your business.
Remedy:
Treat your employees well. Be consistent and fair with everyone.
If you look at the broader aspect of employment, it can be a somewhat unnatural system; trading time for money.
People are naturally resentful, even when paid well, if they feel the precious time they are spending isn’t worth the money they are making.
Try to hire someone who actually wants to be there, not just someone who wants to collect a paycheck. Unless they absolutely love their job, most people on some level despise the feeling of being “held” somewhere for 8 hours, 5 days a week.
Workplace relationships between staff and supervisors almost always improve when the employees value the work as much as the employer.
Bottom line:
When employees feel they are appreciated, they are not only more likely to excel as workers, but significantly less likely to sue as well.
Reason 2: Expectation Changes
It’s only natural for employers to make changes over time to benefit the company.
Unfortunately, when new policies and procedures are enforced, employees will often feel resentful because they suddenly feel like they are being made to do additional tasks or not allowed to do something they were able to previously do.
Maybe employees used to get cigarette breaks and now they don’t. Despite that offer being previously granted as a courtesy, not a reasonable expectation of the job, they may now feel they’re being “punished”.
This could lead to resentful feelings from the employee towards you as the employer. And again unchecked resentful feelings from an employee is not something you want.
It often leads to the employee trying to find a way to “get back at you” and they can quickly find out the best way to do that for them is contacting a greedy employee side attorney to help them file a labor claim.
Communication plays an integral role in setting expectations. When an employee’s perceived expectations of the job are contrary to the actual job duties it can create an environment where an employee feels used or exploited.
Make sure the expectations of the job are clear to all employees. If not properly conveyed, a task that is a function of that position could be misconstrued as penalizing them.
What one may see as “extra work” or “inconsistent with policy”, is usually just a lapse in communication.
You also want to make sure expectations are as fair as possible between all employees. A common reason employees sue is the feeling that they are being singled out and treated unfairly compared to co-workers.
If the same rules apply for all your employees it is pretty hard for them to rationally claim they are being treated unfairly.
But if you or your supervisors are enforcing company policy on one employee but letting others slide by that could be a potential problem.
As hard as it may be you want to try not to even give the appearance of playing favorites with your employees.
Though some of these situations may be completely groundless, these very scenarios can set the stage for a suit if the employee has the right council.
The Outliers:
The 2 primary reasons why employees sue are listed above; they either feel wronged, hurt, or unappreciated. This can then lead to them wanting to get back at you and taking advantage of the one sided labor laws that completely favor the employee.
But sometimes, people sue for one simple reason: MONEY.
Employers can be easily blindsided by scams if they’re not careful. Some people will scheme from the moment of hiring, looking for reasons to sue the employer and exploit the company for money.
We have had many cases where once we looked into the background of the employee making claims against our client, we found they had a long history of labor claims.
The employee would work somewhere for awhile, find their employers weakness and when the time was right start threatening claims against them. They receive a settlement and then repeat this process at their next job.
You can usually recognize these type of hustlers by their language and actions. If they start mentioning labor laws and complaining about potential infringement on their rights, especially in writing, they are probably working on setting you up.
In these types of situations, you can treat the person like gold and it wouldn’t matter, they’re just focused on their potential payout.
The best you can do is, well…what you should be doing anyway.
Make sure all of the California labor laws are properly enforced at your company and that the rules are being adhered to at the highest of levels.
And of course have an Employee Policies and Procedures package designed specifically for your business to keep you out of these messes if an employee does make a claim against you.