Here’s a recent example that I encountered.  An HR friend was interviewing for a job and called to ask my opinion about it.  As she reviewed the responsibilities, I thought the job sounded OK, except for the part where they told her that she wasn’t going to be handling employee relations.  Keep in mind that she was interviewing for the company’s sole HR job.  She was smart enough to ask who handled employee complaints.  Their response – the CEO or the Controller.  My advice – run like the wind!  And interestingly, the EEOC agrees with me.

HR Morning featured the recent EEOC v. V&J Foods, Inc. case.  You can read more about the case here.  Basically, the judge in the case said that “the company was at fault for not making it clear that the first option for a victim should be to contact the company’s human resources department with the complaint, and that the company should have had such a process in place, including contact info for HR.”

With no disrespect to the CEO’s of the world, there are too many people out there who think they can “also do HR.”  And too many things get brushed under the rug and/or covered-up when HR is not involved.  Lawsuits, like the one mentioned above, will continue to be the result.  So if you’re the company’s sole HR person and they tell you that you’re only going to recruit and handle the benefits – it might be time to start asking some questions…

But the “sue first, ask questions later” situation is exactly what a District Judge is accusing attorneys from the EEOC of doing.  You can read the entire story here, as reported by HR Morning.

The end result – get this – the company will receive $4.5M from the EEOC.  Do you know what is pretty interesting?  As HR Professionals, we always preach the importance of doing thorough investigations.  But it sounds like that is what the EEOC is accused of not doing.  It should be interesting to see how this plays out in court, as I’m sure the EEOC will appeal…