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Risk Mitigation & Litigation Avoidance: Part 2

Implementing Best Business Practices

Understanding the importance in establishing best practices in your business is the first step in avoiding litigation and mitigating risk. Implementing those business practices comes next. Litigation Principal Tracy Francis suggests some key practices that should be implemented in your business.

Learn From Mistakes

If something has been a problem before, don’t let history repeat itself. Sometimes a company just needs to take a step back and take a hard look at itself and examine its culture as a business to make sure there are no red flags, and if there are red flags, proactively do something about it.

Company Compliance Check

Make sure you are following the law. This doesn’t just mean don’t harass people or don’t discriminate against people. Make sure your company is compliant with wage and hour laws, OSHA, HIPPA, and other regulations where you can face legal trouble if non-compliant.

Documentation

When you are working with people it is key to document everything, such as:

  • Incidents or Issues. Include employee’s responses and all follow up taken. This ensures you have record of the situation, all correspondence, and all internal steps taken to address and/or resolve the matter.
  • Performance Reviews. Document performance reviews and include honest feedback. In the event an employer wants to terminate an employee due to performance issues, if that employee’s performance review doesn’t depict those claims of unsatisfactory performance, that review doesn’t provide much support for the suggestion of termination.
  • Complaints and Concerns Procedure. Have a documented and communicated procedure in place in which employees can make complaints and voice concerns. This process should make it easy for employees to express themselves and the issues they may be having. If an ‘open-door policy’ is being promoted to employees, make sure it’s actually open and without strings attached or fear of potential repercussions.

Addressing Issues

When issues are present, they must be addressed and not ignored. In the event of terminating an employee, make sure there is a legitimate basis for doing so and evaluate the risk associated with that decision to avoid backlash. In certain situations, companies may want to consider severance agreements to be certain a claim won’t present itself in the future.

Lead by Example

When implementing policies and procedures, they need to be ones in which everyone can follow uniformly and fairly and will do so upon their integration.

The implementation of these business practices will allow for a collective effort to be made simply by following established practices and procedures set forth to avoid litigation through risk minimization.

If you’re unsure if your business has appropriate best practices in please for risk mitigation and litigation avoidance, please reach out to request a consultation or visit Tracy’s bio for her contact information to reach out to her directly.

Author

  • Tracy S. Francis

    Tracy S. Francis

    Tracy Francis is a Principal at McCarthy Lebit in the firm's litigation group where she focuses her practice on business litigation, complex commercial, class action, fraud, employment, product liability, environmental, intellectual property, and defamation litigation. Learn more about Tracy and her practice.

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