Lesson two, assessing the complaint. And this lesson, you will learn how to differentiate amongst complaints of illegal activity versus company policy violations or employee conflicts. Most complaints file will fall under one of these categories, with many falling under employee conflicts. So knowing the difference as a leader will help you in addressing complaints more effectively. Let's start with illegal activity. For reference point, I am referring to employment law because of course, there's a ton of laws on the books as we all know.

There's also a federal law and a state law regarding employment in the state laws are generally more stricter. We'll cover that later in the Lesson. But at the federal level, the Equal Employment Opportunity, which we call EEO laws, under Title seven of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, makes it illegal to discriminate against or harass someone on the basis of their race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, which includes sexual harassment. This law also makes it illegal to retaliate against a person because a person complained about discrimination or harassment, filed a charge of discrimination, or participated in an employment discrimination investigation or lawsuit. In addition, this law also requires that employers reasonably accommodate applicants and employees sincerely held religious practices, unless Doing so will impose an undue hardship on the operation of the employers business. Now, there's some additional laws and of course, I didn't include them all.

On the slide here, I'll just mention them briefly the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Equal Pay Act, the age discrimination and Employment Act. The Americans with Disability Act as the genetic information non Discrimination Act, and the list continues. These laws are governed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the EEOC, and that's where employees will oftentimes go to File discrimination claims. For additional information on each of these laws. I recommend you go to the EEOC website for more information. But most importantly, if employees are filing complaints around this Definitely be consulting with your in house legal counsel and HR.

As we discussed earlier, the state and local EEO or civil rights laws are much stricter than the federal laws. For an example, if you notice that the federal law, sexual orientation wasn't included, however, it is definitely included in state and local laws. And as we most know, they're trying to push that in the federal California generally has more laws and are much more stricter. Even the Human Resources certification Institute, who awards certifications in HR has a different designation for their professional certification for California because they have so many different laws than Other states. As I mentioned earlier, if you would like to get additional information on these laws for the EEOC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, visit their website@lc.gov. And that will take you to some additional laws.

In California, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing governs their laws. So you may want to visit their website for California. That's d f h.ca.gov. And then for your state laws, they actually do have a site is called state laws dot find law.com all in one word. That will bring you to props for your individual states. Does a complaint rise to illegal activity?

If the issue or concerns included in the complaint that was filed, fall into one of the categories that we discussed around the federal and state laws, then it would be investigated by your company's HR and legal department. And in some cases, even the EEOC or df he, if the employee filed with those agencies. This would be considered an investigation for potential illegal activity versus company policies or employee conflicts, which we will discuss later in this lesson. company policy violations many company policies are contained in the company's employee Code of Conduct handbook and most of them do include federal, state and local laws that we discussed earlier. They also include policies that are more specific to their organization. And many of the common policies for many companies are conflict of interest related to the business using company equipment or property for personal use, false time reporting, just to name a few.

Some of them may also include workplace bullying, hazing and other inappropriate behaviors that do not necessarily rise to illegal activity. Employee conflict. Employee conflicts are which we most know, are personal disagreements or clashing with someone at work. Many of the complaints filed in my experience which has been many turn out to fall and to employee conflict, even though the allegation of a complaint was harassment or discrimination. So, more likely than not, this complaint will not be substantiated, because it does not rise to the illegal activity we talked about earlier or in many cases of violation of company policy. It is just what it is it is an employee conflict between coworkers or between a leader and their employee.

But it leaves employees so disappointed because they, in their mind feel that I know they said something that offended me. And perhaps they did, but it does not rise to illegal activity. And that is such an important part to get across to probably both employees and leaders that there is a difference between illegal activity and company policy violations as well as is this an employee conflict that needs some type of conflict resolution support or some mediation if the leader if you're in the position to do that, or perhaps some human resources intervention. However, in most cases, the leader is encouraged to address these issues with the proper support of course, because it does not rise to illegal activity. My hope is that you as the leader will take away some of the tips from my Module One on the act of listening and how to be open and engage your employee and de escalate some of the conflicts.

Later in the course, we will be covering tips on conflict resolution that will also helping you as a leader resolve some of those issues. Keep in mind that unequal treatment does not equal unlawful treatment. We couldn't possibly treat everyone exactly the same. Let me give you an example. You have an employee that you have selected to be on a project because they are a very high performing employee he. On the other hand, he has a co worker who has been in that department much longer than him.

However, he does not perform as well as the other He was not selected. He believed that because he's been in the department longer, he should have been selected and files a complaint on on equal treatment. If the employee you selected indeed was a higher performer, and you do have a legitimate business reason, but that selection that is not unlawful, nor is it a company policy violation. Now that we've covered the different types of complaints around illegal activity, company policy violations, and employee conflicts, let's take some time to explore the different types of complaints. Following is a worksheet with eight different scenarios for you to identify whether it is illegal activity, a company policy violation or employee conflict? Let's get started.

To access the worksheet containing the scenarios, click on the blue button where it says assessing employee complaints. How did you do on the assessing employee complaints activity? I'm hoping you did great. In fact, I'm confident that you did great. Either way, after completing that worksheet, you will be better prepared to address employee relations issues. And wrapping up lesson two, we have discussed the distinguishing characteristics to help you identify the differences between illegal activity company policy violations and employee conflict.

I hope you We're able to take away additional tools for your toolkit to help address employee issues. And lesson three, we will discuss tools to help your employees to proactively improve their effectiveness and reporting complaints. I look forward to seeing you in lesson three.