Are you prepared for Opening Day—legally speaking?
Jim Juliano - Spring 2009

With Opening Day fast approaching, here’s a checklist to help team and facilities owners minimize their liability this season. Take a few moments to make sure your legal bases are covered with my

Top 12 things to do before Opening Day

1. Shape up your employment practices. Review employee procedures and policies; amend the employee manual, if needed. Make sure there is a signed salary letter for every salaried employee. Obtain signed receipts for your employee manual to document that you have taken steps to ensure that employees are aware of requirements. Run background checks (if you have the proper permission) for employees who handle money or work with children. Establish procedures for the handling of cash and inventory procedures to prevent employee theft.

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Avoiding electronic distractions in the workplace
Jim Juliano - Spring 2009

E-mails, YouTube videos, text messages, a practically infinite number of online sites for news, fantasy sports, shopping, investing and pretty much everything else—they’re all at your employees’ fingertips all day, every day.

How can you help your employees avoid technological temptations in the workplace?

A certain amount of personal activity will creep into a workday no matter what, even among hardworking and dedicated employees. But every employer looks for better ways to keep people on task and focused on the mission of the business.

Legally speaking, one way to discourage your employees from logging onto eBay at work is to let them know that everything that passes through company equipment belongs to the company.

That means, for example, that personal e-mails are not private e-mails. The employer has the right to any material—e-mails, documents, faxes, voice mails, etc.—written or received on any office equipment.

How do you get the message to your employees? One fundamental step is to make sure that your employee manual clearly states that any information that finds its way to the office computer system and any other office electronic equipment belongs to the employer, and that the employee has no legal expectation of privacy in that information. This message applies to any electronic devices, even handheld PDAs, that the employer purchases for the employee.

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