By Eric B. Meyer
Management-side employment lawyers preach it until they are blue in the face: companies should always document employee performance and disciplinary issues.
Why is this so important? Here’s a real-world example.
This case is Day v. Morgan. Here are the only facts from this case that matter:
The plaintiff argued that his former employer had discriminated against him by firing him because he was disabled. To establish a claim for wrongful discharge under Americans with Disabilities Act, a plaintiff must prove, among other things, that his discharge occurred under circumstances that raise a reasonable inference of unlawful discrimination.
Here, the court dismissed the plaintiff’s claim because the record revealed that the plaintiff was having job performance problems when the plaintiff was under no physical restrictions, including the start of his employment and near the end of his employment. Further, the plaintiff could not explain his poor performance during these time periods and he could not show that he was satisfying the School District’s legitimate expectations at the time of his termination.
So what do you do when an employee has performance or other disciplinary issues in the workplace?
This was originally published on Eric B. Meyer’s blog, The Employer Handbook.