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1. FEATURE STORY:
PRIVACY PROBLEMS PERSIST

While President Bush's struggle with privacy issues affecting national security in recent years has made national headlines, American employers have been beleaguered by their own set of privacy problems in workplaces across the country. Yet those same employers display a surprising lack of urgency when it comes to erecting defenses that might protect them from legal incursions based on alleged privacy missteps.

Take dating, for example. Newspapers and TV/radio commentaries were filled with reports this past summer of the California supreme court ruling that greatly expanded the liability of employers when it comes to the effect of supervisory dating on third-party co-workers. Yet in a national survey probing employer attitudes and actions on specific privacy issues, a stunning 80% of the respondents admitted they did not have a policy forbidding workplace dating. And an even larger 92% said they didn't forbid dating customers, vendors, or even competitors.

Those were among the results of AHI's 2005 Survey Of Workplace Privacy Policies And Practices conducted in October last year among a select group of executives involved in decision-making in the Human Resources departments at their organizations. For more details on the Survey, click here.

Among other notable results were:

• A substantial 79% of the respondents claimed that they do monitor their employees' use of computers, e-mail, the Internet, etc. But only about half (52%) use filters on their e-mail or Internet systems, thus leaving themselves wide open for spam and other non-business messages that are often part and parcel of hostile environment sexual harassment lawsuits.

Note: The need for monitoring employee computer usage was recently underlined in a post-Christmas decision from a New Jersey appeals court that held an employer liable for negligence when the company took no adverse action against an employee it suspected of accessing child pornography.

• Sex is the number one target when it comes to filters. For e-mail, words of a sexual nature take the top spot (79%), and for the Internet, sexually graphic websites (91%).

• Better than four in five (83%) of the employers do have dress codes in place, and almost two-thirds name public contact as the main factor in drafting such policies. Interestingly, nearly a third said top management preferences were important in establishing dress codes.

• Speaking of dress codes, it would seem the demise of "casual Fridays" has been overstated, as over half (54%) of all employers allow them.

WHAT’S IN AN EMPLOYEE’S NAME?

Answer: The basis for a national origin discrimination claim. That was the case for one employee, whose manager thought a Westernized version of his name would create a better chance for...View the full story on our website.

FREE REPORT OF THE MONTH:

Check out the new Free Report, "HR Resolutions For A Lawsuit-Free New Year," which is a roundup of 16 compliance hurdles and how to clear them so you can hit the ground running in 2006 without getting tripped up by grievances and lawsuits. In addition to the 16 actions you do not want to follow in the new year, you also get messages you will want to convey to all your managers as part of your planning process.

Kick back, relax, and take a few minutes to check out the HR Soapbox, "Cold Offices Translate Into Lukewarm Performances" in which an editor explores how temperature can affect productivity.