Employees are every employer’s greatest asset – successful businesses have realized that if they take care of their employees, the employees will take care of the business. 

However, the internal workforce is also an employer’s greatest risk and liability exposure. Many employers have not figured out the secret of how to avoid and mitigate exposure to workplace misconduct, including harassment, discrimination, retaliation, wrongful discharge and other claims and lawsuits.  

In addition to the threat of employee-driven complaints in today’s hyper-litigious society, employers must deal with a multitude of other personnel relations problems.  Running a business would be much less complicated if leaders didn’t have to continually address:

• Interpersonal work relationship conflicts (such as lack of teamwork) between coworkers.
• Performance management challenges.
• Counseling and discipline.
• Low morale.
• Employee turnover.
• Electronic communications misuse (social media, for example).
• Romantic, sexual or dating relationships between coworkers.

Deficits in addressing human relations risks may result in substantial financial costs, including:

• A loss of revenue and productivity.
• Expenses related to investigations, settlements, defense and litigation.
• Skyrocketing insurance premiums for employment practices liability and sexual abuse/misconduct.

Beyond the legal and financial risks, organizations under a cloud of misconduct allegations face challenges to recover from the damage to reputation, trust and respectability.

An organization or business entity must uphold its moral and legal duties to protect its employees and other persons associating with it from harassment, discrimination, retaliation, sexual misconduct, unfair work practices, and other wrongdoing.  All business entities face tremendous misconduct risks especially because of a perceived lack of transparency and failure by management to deploy effective misconduct prevention efforts.

Those in less-powerful positions who may know of illegal or improper behavior must feel that it is safe to speak out.  Relying solely on internal personnel and outside legal counsel to address workplace conduct issues can be problematic. These individuals can be perceived, fairly or not, as having a vested interest in protecting themselves and the organization.  As a result, information that could be acted upon and resolved prior to legal action or public exposure may be stifled. 

But when independent experts validate the measures taken by the organization to protect everyone involved with it, the organization is deemed more credible in courts of law and public opinion.

Proven solutions exist for employers to prevent or reduce personnel loss and litigation.  Organizations simply must be open to examining methods of enhancing internal policies, procedures and practices related to human relations in the workplace.