Office Policies & Manuals

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last December issued guidance indicating that employers may encourage or possibly require COVID-19 vaccinations, but policies must comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Start your new year on the right foot by auditing your human resources systems and records. To diminish the possibility of legal issues and to ensure that your practice seeks to comply with labor and employment laws, it is important to perform an HR audit. An audit can include timekeeping and wage statements and all of the following.

With so much emphasis on the need for employers to establish written policies mandated by federal, state and local laws, it’s easy to overlook the important day-to-day employee management policies on everything from hygiene and smoking to use of personal electronic devices. Discussed below are four areas of employee conduct and attire expectations that you might consider addressing through a workplace policy, if you don’t already have one in place.

A new state law prohibits discrimination on the basis of hair textures or protective hairstyles that are historically associated with race. Senate Bill 188, also known as the CROWN Act, was signed in July by Gov. Gavin Newsom and will take effect Jan. 1, 2020. California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act was amended by the law to include in the definition of race “traits historically associated with race, including, but not limited to, hair texture and protective hairstyles.”

Employers often struggle to balance the need for expanded practice hours to accommodate patient schedules and the costs associated with nonexempt employee overtime. In California, employers have the option to greatly reduce overtime costs by adopting an alternative workweek schedule. What exactly is an alternative workweek schedule, and is it good news for employees and employers?

When it comes to your dental practice, one of the most important documents in your HR toolkit is your employee manual. Not only can definitive employee policies resolve disputes, but they can thwart issues before they arise, protecting both the employer and the employee from any sort of misperception and the potential for litigation.

Every employee’s employment life cycle ends eventually, whether due to resignation, retirement, termination or other reason. In the dental office, any employee who separates should do so in a structured and professional manner with minimum disruption to the patients, staff and practice. Still, depending on what triggers an employee’s departure, separation can be an awkward situation for employers to navigate. Such discomfort can be lessened if clear policies and practices are in place.

Employees miss work for myriad reasons, but what happens when an employee is a no-show and has not communicated with the employer about his or her absence? There are no telephone calls, emails or texts — the employee has made no contact of any kind with the employer. While this can be a frustrating situation, it is not a “free ticket” to terminating the employee.