Q. We conduct yearly performance evaluations, during which we review whether employees have met expectations. If an employee fails to meet those expectations, can we legally decrease the employee's salary?

Q. One of our employees is over age 70 and has recently had memory problems and a car wreck. What (if anything) can we do to protect ourselves from potential workers' comp claims should he injure himself?

Who doesn’t hate performance reviews? They destroy morale and teamwork, says Samuel Culbert, a management professor at UCLA, and they hurt the bottom line. The alternative: Instead of a one-side-accountable, top-down review, consider a both-sides-accountable performance preview.

For years, employers tried to argue that an employee who received federal Social Security disability payments couldn’t claim she was also covered by the ADA and entitled to reasonable accommodations.

If you are a supervisor working for an Illinois state agency, there’s a bit of good news on the lawsuit front. You can’t be personally sued by an employee for exercising your supervisory functions, even if she claims your supervision amounted to intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Employers routinely require applicants to whom they have extended job offers to take tests for illegal drugs. If they pass, they get the jobs. If they don’t, employers can legally rescind the offers. But here’s a case in which an employer completely mishandled this everyday procedure, and now will probably pay a high price.

The global financial meltdown has workers fearful and downright angry. If you plan on surviving the recession, your managers must acknowledge the fear and anger employees may feel. Don't let these seven gripes pollute your workplace.

When people lose their jobs, they often look for some reason other than their own poor performance. And since they are off work, they have lots of time to think about the past, including real or imagined slights they endured at the hands of co-workers and supervisors.

There’s no doubt Generation Y will fundamentally change corporate America. It’s already started. Managing Gen Y is a hot topic among consultants, HR executives and talent management professionals. For a Gen Y’er like me, this is great news. We’re primed to change the workplace for the better. Here’s how we’ll do it.

After data management company NetApp added coverage for autistic children to its health plan in 2006, 31 of the organization’s 5,000 employees used the benefit the first year. A total of 43 have tapped it so far ...

Executives are spending seven fewer minutes eating lunch than they did five years ago, according to a survey by staffing service OfficeTeam. The average executive lunch break is 35 minutes.

Beginning this month, the new amendments to the ADA take effect. Among those rules is one that says employees are disabled even if they can mitigate the effects of that disability with medication or other aids ...

Before you use attitude as one of the reasons for rewarding one employee over another, consider how you will defend that decision if another employee thinks it was based on discrimination. Here’s how to use attitude as a decision factor.

You never know which employee is going to sue you over a lost promotion, poor evaluation or other perceived slight. That’s why you should always keep careful track of all work deficiencies and document what role they played in every employment decision.