Human Resource Blog

Yes, this is legal in Alabama and every other state. An employer is allowed to show favoritism to family members. Favoritism simply means treating one employee better than another. If all Hispanic employees were required to clock in and out, but other employees were not, that would be illegal discrimination. But there is no law that would prevent an employer from treating family members better than other employees.

Favoritism is not a best practice in HR, and many employers have a policy against it. It may be a sign of poor management — but it is legal.

Most US employers do not have a formal written policy on business cards. Misuse of a business card is covered by other written or unwritten policies within the organization.

An employee could misuse a business card by lying. For example, an employee could use his legitimatebusiness card to create the false impression that he is in a position to hire employees, or to select vendors for the company. In this case, it would be the lying and not the business card that is the problem. If the employee lied for personal financial gain, that would be fraud. An employee who had business cards printed with the company name and logo, but with a fictitious title would be lying, misrepresenting the company or falsifying company documents. Almost all companies have policies against those behaviors. For example, an accounting clerk might have cards printed that indicated he was the company CFO.

Business card abuse is very uncommon.

There is no law regarding the number of immediate supervisors an employee may have. Many employees report to two individuals, as when a Paralegal is assigned to 5 lawyers, or when a hotel front desk clerk is accountable to the General Manager, Front Desk Manager and the Manager on Duty. In a sense, every employee has more than one boss — if the CEO asks you to do something, you are expected to comply.

Nevertheless, this unauthorized *supervisors* conduct is a problem. She is conducting herself in an unprofessional way by demeaning, berating, slandering and berating supervisors to their employees. This unsavory indivudual has taken advantage of what she sees as a power vacume to make workers lives miserable. What she is doing is damaging to the company. As an employer, you should act quickly by having a private conversation with this person and reminding her that she is not in charge. Then let employees know that if her behavior continues, you want to know.

This is a simple question with a deceptively complex answer.

Under the federal FLSA or Fair Labor Standards Act, a salaried employee can be either exempt, or non-exempt. Exempt employees are paid the same salary every week, regardless of the quantity or quality of work performed. Exempt employees are never entitled to overtime, even if they work 100 or more hours per week.

A non-exempt employee is entitled to overtime when he or she works more than 40 hours in the week. In addition, the employee can be paid less during weeks in which he or she workers less than 40 hours.

Exempt or non-exempt status is determined by a) salary and b) the employees primary responsibilities. In order to be exempt, the employees salary must be at least $455 per week. The FLSA recognizes 5 classes of exempt employees: Outside Sales, Executives, Administrators, Computer Pros and Professionals.

Finally, there is no law that any employee must be treated as exempt. Even the CEO can be paid an hourly wage, if the employer prefers. When an employee is treated as non-exempt, they are non-exempt and are eligible for overtime.

We vote for two separate meetings.

The problem here is that the floor supervisor behaved inappropriately, but if he or she is chastised in front of the employees, it undermines the supervisors authority.

The floor supervisor and her boss should meet, and the boss should counsel the supervisor on more appropriate ways to manage people. The floor supervisor may be disciplined for treating an employee with disrespect by shouting at him, or the supervisor may simply be warned.

Then the floor supervisor and her boss should have a meeting with both employees, to resolve the differences between the two employees. (The floor supervisor should have had such a meeting to begin with, rather than letting the problem deteriorate into a shouting match.) This will be like any other session with two employees. Each employee will get the chance to present his or her side. Then the supervisor will find common ground, and offer a solution. Both employees will agree to the solution, and to work together in the future. The employee who shouted should be disciplined. There is no need to discipline the other employee. The floor supervisor should apologize for shouting, and indicate that she will not do it again.

The floor supervisor should emphasize that next time either of them has a problem, they should bring it to the floor supervisor, instead of confronting the other employee.