What happened in the house of SHRM? Last week, a judge denied the Society for Human Resource Management’s attempt to prevent a jury trial on charges of maliciously engaging in race discrimination. The judge put it best: this is a “messy employment discrimination case.”
The Facts: A former employee complained internally that her supervisor “systematically favored” White employees over Non-white employees. HR assisted the supervisor in drafting an email which instructed the employee to finish two projects by the end of the month. The employee complained of retaliation. Either that day or within two days–the timeline is in dispute–HR allegedly drafted her termination documents before fully investigating her claims.
It is not clear whether the employee met the deadline for the projects, but SHRM fired her once the deadline passed. She then sued, alleging discrimination and retaliation. SHRM moved to dismiss on the grounds that she was fired for failing to meet the deadlines. Who can argue with that? For one, the employee’s recent performance reviews, which were excellent and made no mention of deadlines. On top of that, a White teammate declared that she had missed deadlines and was not disciplined. Oh, and there was the timeline problem.
The Liability: Did SHRM use a seemingly neutral deadline as retaliation? Now the jury will decide. SHRM stated it is prepared to “vigorously” defend the claims. What is known so far–and more will be told at trial of course–does not look great. SHRM admitted it began drafting documents about project deadlines after the retaliation claim and before an investigation. The judge also noted: “Defendant is a HR membership organization that trains people on how to do HR tasks.” This case could be very costly for SHRM.
The Takeaway: Trainings on performance evaluations, investigations and many other important HR functions are a fundamental best practice and our experienced attorneys do them all the time. Based on our decades of training experience– plus our day to day role assisting HR– we have developed a certification program, Foley Fundamentals. It is an easy way for you to develop your skills, advance your career and keep your department in compliance. Contact Attorney Wendy Hansen for more details. We can help.