It is not long since the days when human
resource practices were at their basic. Thus, human resource personnel would be
involved in recruitment, interviewing, hiring, orientation, payroll and perhaps
organizing parties for employees (Diamante & Neale, 2007). While such
functions are still within the purview of human resources, that domain has
since expanded to include other aspects of that would never have been
contemplated. Often cited as a significant departure from the traditional
practice, is the increasing resort to adversarial litigation in solving work
related disputes. Critics of this phenomenon trace its origin to the increasing
levels of safety, legal, regulatory requirements. In other words, common sense and compassion in
the workplace has been replaced by litigation.
Some of the legal, safety and regulatory
requirements are contained in Americans with Disabilities Act, Occupational
Health and Safety Act (OHSA), U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as
well as by Department of Homeland Security. The laws and regulations have
created several rights and obligations on both the employer and the employee.
For example, the safety regulations put the responsibility on employers to
create safe working conditions for their employees (Diamante & Neale, 2007).
On its part, the Americans with Disability Act outlaws discriminating on
employees on a various enumerated grounds. These new requirements have created
an incentive for employees who feel aggrieved by the decisions of their
employers to seek redress in the courts of law. The consequence of increased
litigation of workplace disputes has resulted into a radical change in human
resource practices.
For instance, there has been a move towards
integrating HR practices with other departments of business organizations
(Diamante & Neale, 2007). These moves have been necessitated by the need to
mitigate risks resulting from lawsuits. A case in point is the move to
integrate HR practices with information technology departments. Courts have on
occasion found companies liable for losing important data that would have been
material in disposing workplace cases that find their way before courts. Such
companies have ended up losing the case, thereby, paying hefty compensation for
cases that they would have otherwise won had they ensured that the relevant
data was available to the courts. Cases where companies have ended up paying
hefty sums in compensation in the form of damages to employees include Zubulake v. UBS Warburg and Coleman v. Stanley Morgan each of which
was a gender discrimination and falsification of financials cases respectively.
The above cases and similar others, coupled
with the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure since 2006, is forcing human
resource, legal and IT departments to integrate their services as a risk
control approach(Diamante & Neale,2007). In Zubalake, the court awarded $
20 and $ 9.1 million in punitive and compensatory damages to an employee. Some
relevant emails in the company’s IT network were missing at trial. The jury was
instructed to assume that this failure on the part of the company to backup the
emails should work against its defense. The implication of the case is that
organizations should be able to predict the kind of data that may be useful in
a potential litigation. It is a prediction that only cooperation between human
resource, legal and information technology departments respectively. Lastly,
the new laws and regulations have seen companies buy employment practices
insurance liability.
Reference
Diamante, T.,
&Neale, P.J. (2007).The Human Resources Profession Catalyses Change to Mitigate Risk: Electronic Discovery,
Information Management, and Corporate Culture on the Line. Human Resource
Advisor, 13-23.
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