Harassment is verbal or physical conduct that denigrates or shows hostility or aversion toward an individual because of that person's (or that person's relatives', friends', or associates') race, skin color, religion, gender, national origin, age, or disability, and that:

In certain instances, such as when a state or federal law requires it, you may have to have a rule or policy in your workplace. The law may require you to have a written policy, to post the policy, and to administer the policy in a certain way. Here are a few areas that may be regulated by federal or state laws:

Overly restrictive work rules mean nothing but trouble. Not only do they create unnecessary hardship for employees, but they make you seem unreasonable and unconcerned about the feelings and needs of your employees. If you have a rule, you should be able to give any employee who asks a good, business-related reason for having it. The reasons should be clearly related to the employee's job, and you should not impose personal opinions or beliefs on your employees in the form of work rules.

While every employee's conduct should be governed by some work basic rules, the specific work rules you choose should be appropriate and reasonable for the work your employees do and the working conditions to which they are subject.

Work rules can help you create and maintain an orderly atmosphere that is pleasant to work in where employees can work effectively. Creating such an atmosphere is to your benefit as an employer because employees tend to be more creative and productive when they are content.

There are basically two types of rules: those that are legally required and those that are optional. When considering which rules to have, your first consideration should be to comply with any laws that require you to have a certain rule or policy. After that's done, you can focus on other rules that are legally optional but that may also be helpful in managing your employees.

If you don't have clearly stated work rules, how can you enforce any rule fairly? If you fire or discipline one employee for breaking a rule and don't fire someone else for the same action, you could be violating either federal or state antidiscrimination laws. Having clear work rules ensures that every employee understands what is acceptable behavior and what isn't. A clear definition of what is required and the consequences of failing to comply make it easier for you to respond consistently to work rule violations. An ambiguous rule or uneven enforcement of any rule opens your actions to challenge as arbitrary or discriminatory.

While the federal and state governments have not handed down a list of all the work rules that you must have, there are some laws that affect the employer/employee relationship. These laws may require you to establish some rules in your workplace to ensure that your employees comply with applicable laws.

Even if you are an at-will employer, when you terminate someone, you want your reasoning and your actions to be sound and defensible. One way to do this is to have a few basic, clearly stated work rules that have been communicated to your employees. Then, an employee who breaks a work rule does so with the knowledge that the conduct is unacceptable and that such behavior might result in termination. An employee who is aware of the existence and purpose of a reasonable work rule, but who chooses to disregard it, will have difficulty challenging any disciplinary action you may take.

One of the most persuasive reasons for having a set of solid work rules is that they can protect your business. Many employers have rules that protect them from liability — both legal and financial — and give them more freedom in managing and disciplining employees. Having certain work rules and policies in place may be the best way to protect your business from problems such as:

It's tempting to feel that, if work rules aren't required by law, there's no reason to bother with them. While you may save yourself some time initially by not worrying about work rules, chances are that not having them will cause you some problems in the future, particularly if you have at least a handful of employees.

Generally, the law prohibits an employee who is entitled to a retirement plan distribution from assigning the payments to someone else. The exception is for Qualified Domestic Relations Orders, which are court orders in a domestic relations case (divorce, for example) that require you to send the benefits to someone other than the employee (usually to the ex-spouse or children).

In a perfect world, your workers would think exactly the way that you do. They would come in and leave when you expect them to, they would dress the way you expect them to, and they wouldn't do anything that would necessitate formal rules and discipline. But no two people think alike, and everyone has a different perception of what the work environment should be.

There are a great many forms that must be completed for each ERISA plan. If you're lucky, your administrator (agent/insurance company/retirement plan administrator) will take care of these for you. Make sure you're both clear on who's going to do what. Don't leave getting these forms completed to chance!

A Qualified Medical Child Support Order (QMCSO) is a legal document from a court of law ordering you to include a child or children as dependents under your employee's coverage. The situation most typically arises in a divorce case where one of the parties succeeds in having the court order the other party to provide health insurance for the children.

When an employee participates in a benefit or retirement plan and he or she gets a divorce, you may be faced with a court order requiring you to take action in one of two situations:

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act, better known as ERISA, is a federal law that affects certain administrative aspects of employee benefit and retirement plans.

ERISA requires that plan administrators do most of the legwork in complying with ERISA so you may not have to do much of anything unless you're acting as your own administrator. In many cases, if you have a plan with an insurance company, that company acts as plan administrator and takes care of these obligations. There are three main components to ERISA compliance:

Under ERISA, a welfare plan is any plan, program, or fund that an employer maintains to provide:

The employee generally pays the full cost of the insurance premiums. In fact, the law allows the employer to charge 102 percent of the premium, and to keep the 2 percent to cover your administrative costs. When an employee gets extended COBRA coverage due to disability, you can charge 150 percent of the premium for months 18 through 29.

COBRA stresses communication to the employee of the right to continue benefits when a qualifying event occurs. Some of the communications requirements are listed below.

Complying with COBRA can be a pretty taxing job. Even big companies save time and money by outsourcing administration to companies that specialize in doing it. Even still, you should know some basics about the administrative side of this important law.

Events that trigger coverage are called qualifying events. The following are qualifying events:

The following types of plans generally need to be offered to employees when COBRA is triggered (but only if you already offer them to employees):

If you're subject to COBRA, and if you have a group health plan, you have to provide COBRA benefits to qualified beneficiaries. A qualified beneficiary is anyone covered under your group health plan on the day before an event that causes loss of coverage, and it includes: