Devoted to Corporate Attorneys, Corporate Lawyers, and Corporate Counsel

The following is not meant to be legal advice.

On November 10, 2007, a human resource professional specializing in employee relations spoke in San Francisco about performance management.

Defamation may occur when managers share information about employees’ characters with each other before giving the reviews to the employees.  It may also occur when managers share information with managers at other companies before a hiring decision.  If managers are going to say something about employees, they should make sure what they say can be verified.

Employee reviews should be kept to the job or requirements so that the comments are not considered discrimination.  For example, if a person is on leave, the employer should not evaluate the person for not being flexible in not taking customer phone calls while on leave.  The person should be evaluated fro the time that he/she is on the job.