Risk & Business Magazine Cooke Insurance Group Fall 2016 | Page 6
LIABILITY SCORECARD
Employment Practices
Liability Scorecard
BY: COOKE
INSURANCE GROUP
Understanding Your Level of Risk
A
s a business leader, you make
important personnel decisions
on a daily basis. From hiring
new workers to assigning duties,
each of your decisions affects
employees in a unique way. Although
these actions are critical to running your
business, they also create exposures that
could lead to costly claims by employees or
governmental regulators.
Even if they are not warranted, claims
for wrongful employment practices can
disrupt operations, damage your business’s
reputation, hurt employee morale and
negatively impact your bottom line.
What’s worse, even if a business fosters
a welcoming work environment and
takes all of the necessary precautions to
safeguard its employees, it can still face an
employment practices liability claim.
note that each section will have its own
instructions related to scoring. Please
review them carefully. After you have
completed all of the sections to the best
of your ability, add up your score and
determine your level of risk by utilizing the
information at the end of this document.
Thankfully, businesses can rely on
employment practices liability (EPL)
insurance to protect against a wide
range of wrongful employment practices
claims, including wrongful termination,
discrimination, sexual harassment and
retaliation.
SECTION INSTRUCTIONS
The following points will be assigned for
each response:
YES: 0 POINTS
NO: 3 POINTS
UNSURE: 3 POINTS
INSTRUCTIONS
To better understand the level of risk your
business faces on a daily basis, please
answer the questions below. Please
HR PRACTICES
YES
NO
1. Does your business have a formal HR or personnel department?
q
q
q
2. Are the individuals that handle HR and personnel functions for your business
formally trained in HR matters?
q
q
q
3. Does your business have an in-house counsel that it consults on employmentrelated matters?
q
q
q
4. Does your business retain the services of an outside law firm that specializes in
labour and employment law?
q
q
q
5. Does your business have an employee handbook that has been reviewed by legal
counsel?
q
q
q
6. Does your business distribute an employee handbook to all employees?
q
q
q
7. Does your business obtain signed acknowledgement from all employees indicating
that they have received and reviewed your employee handbook?
q
q
q
10. Does your business maintain written hiring and interviewing guidelines?
q
q
q
q
q
q
q
q
q
11. Does your business have formal guidelines and written procedures for disciplining
and terminating employees?
q
q
q
12. Does your business require managers and HR professionals to approve all proposed
employee terminations?
q
q
q
13. Does your business have outside counsel review all proposed employee
terminations?
q
q
q
14. Does your business have an outplacement program to assist discharged employees?
q
q
q
8. Does your business use an employment application for all applicants?
9. Does your business use written job descriptions for all positions in the organization?
6
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FALL 2016
UNSURE
SCORE