"The Manager's Guide to HR: Hiring, Firing, Performance Evaluations,
Documentations, Benefits, and Everything Else You Need to Know,"
By Max Muller; AMACOM; New York,
New York; 2009; 296 pages; $24.95

If you haven’t been paying attention to the growing complexity of managing human resources (HR), you’d better prepare for a nasty surprise. There’s difference between yesterday’s personnel practices and the cost of today’s HR lawsuits. Labor lawyers recommend a settlement even when employers appear to have clear cut cases in their favor. That’s because an employer can easily spend more than $75,000 fighting a case they can easily lose if they haven’t conformed to the letter of recent state statutes and case law.
For example, the State of New York, once at the cutting edge of employee-oriented legislation, now lags far behind the current edge-cutter, California. In fact, some HR people and corporate attorneys have become so frustrated with what they consider the employee bias of California’s labor laws, they have nicknamed the state the “People’s Republic of California.” There were similar sentiments a generation ago when New York was the leader in employment law.
“The Manager’s Guide to HR” is co-published by the American Management Association and the Society for Human Resource Management. Its author, Max Muller, has been involved in HR law for more than 30 years. He is well known in both general management and HR management circles.
One of the major reasons why there is a fair amount of complexity in the field of HR is the issue of jurisdiction. Where federal law simply doesn’t exist to cover an issue, state law applies, unless it can be shown that the company is located in a federally governed jurisdiction (the District of Columbia, for example) or that the employee resides or works in a federal jurisdiction (Puerto Rico or a Native American Reservation). There also may be other jurisdictional tests that apply.
In addition, it’s not uncommon for an employer to specify in an initial employment agreement that all litigation between an employer and employee be settled by one of the state-based panels of the American Arbitration Association. For example, it’s fairly common in the northeastern U.S.A. to select an arbitration panel in the State of New York. An employee’s attorney, who prefers a more liberal venue, will go “jurisdiction shopping.” They may find a friendly court that requests the New York arbitration panel to shift the matter to another state, usually one far more favorable to the plaintiff.
There’s another point where the jurisdiction can easily cause confusion. In two 1998 U.S. Supreme Court decisions the court recognized that the employers (defendants) had a defense against sexual harassment because the employees (plaintiffs) never reported the problem to the defendant’s senior management or HR departments until months afterward when the employees sued the employers. In another venue, however, the court found a way to get around the problem using the issue of damages. Author Muller notes:
“Basically, in California, there will not be a summary judgment against the plaintiff; however, the amount of damages will be reduced by the degree to which the harm could have been avoided if the employer had timely followed the employer’s internal remedies.”
In other words, the employer may escape higher damages because the employee failed to report the harassment until well after it had taken place. However, the company would still be guilty of condoning the harassment even though management knew nothing about it until they were sued.
The real strength of the book rests primarily on its being a reference source. It covers virtually every HR issue raised in the U.S. by labor law through 2008. It’s simply organized, easy to read, and can help you avoid expensive HR issues. “The Manager’s Guide to HR” deserves a place on every supervisor’s bookshelf and in every HR Department.

-- Henry Holtzman

 

Here are the current top 10 bestselling books for business. The list is compiled based on information received from retail bookstores throughout the U.S.A.

1. “Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution – and How It Can Renew America,”
by Thomas L. Friedman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux…$27.95) (4)
Why and how “green alternatives” can save the planet and the USA.
2. “Bad Money, Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism,”
by Kevin Phillips (Penguin Group…$25.95) (5)
How the global economy dropped into an intensive care situation.
3. “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life,”
by Alice Schroeder (Bantam Books…$35.00) (1)*
Why there has always been far more to Buffet than meets the eye.
4. “The Post-American World”
by Fareed Zakaria (W.W. Norton & Co …$25.95) (3)
Why the 21st Century will not be “the American Century.”
5. “The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008,”
by Paul Krugman (W.W. Norton & Co…$24.95 (9)
Why 2009 is beginning to look a lot like 1933.
6. “Outliers: The Story of Success,”
by Malcolm Gladwell (Little,Brown & Co…$27.99) (7)
Why the cause of success can be linked to where you were born.
7. “Debt Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know About,”
by Kevin Trudeau (Equity Press…$25.95) (2)
What banks and credit card companies prefer you not to know.
8. “Go Put Your Strengths to Work: Six Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance,”
by Marcus Buckingham (The Free Press…$30.00) (4)
How to identify and use your unique strengths at work.
9. “The Ascent of Money: The Financial History of the World,”
by Neil Ferguson (Penguin Group…$29.95) (6)
Why money can make the world go around or brake it to a halt.
10. “Strengths-Based Leadership,”
by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie (Gallup Press…$24.95) (**)
Strengths that build better leaders and more committed followers.
____________________
(4) -- Indicates a book’s previous position on the list.
** -- Indicates a book’s first appearance on the list.