On June 17, 2013, EEO Legal Solutions launched SEEN, the Small Employer Education Network, on LinkedIn.
SEEN has two primary aims: (1) to provide free legal compliance resources for small and mid-sized employers; and (2) to change how employers are SEEN, as depicted by trial and plaintiff employment lawyers, politicians beholden to trial and/or plaintiff lawyers, and governmental agencies (e.g., EEOC, OSHA, DOL, NLRB).
In the overwhelming majority of workplace legal disputes, the employer has committed no wrongdoing whatsoever. The mere accusation of discrimination, retaliation, and/or harassment, however, forces employers to spend exorbitant sums in legal defense fees that they cannot later recover, even after proving they did nothing wrong right in the first place. Employers of all sizes are now STUCK between the increasing risk and incidence of workplace litigation and the ever-increasing cost of defense. SEEN seeks to take the cost out of the compliance conundrum by sharing articles, publicizing free compliance-oriented resources, and providing a forum to draw on the collective wisdom of a wide variety of practitioners such as attorneys, HR professionals, EPL representatives, labor economists, occupational psychologists, etc.
Further, SEEN seeks to change the public dialog surrounding workplace legal disputes, as frequently circulated by the EEOC and the employee-side bar—to wit, that without them, employers would discriminate against and harass employees with impunity. In fact, most employers actively strive to comply with the quagmire of laws touching the employment relationship, a reality seldom SEEN in the press. Whereas the headline “Employer Harassed and Discriminated against Deaf Employee” (taken from an actual EEOC press release) garners front-page placement, media outlets seldom report when employers systematically disprove such allegations, as in the example above. Perhaps for similar reasons, media outlets seldom report on the incredible acts of generosity, magnanimity, and humanity that employers, particularly small to mid-sized ones, routinely extend their employees. SEEN provides a forum for employers to strengthen and show their commitment to workplace regulatory compliance.
Please join SEEN on LinkedIn!