Discrimination of single employees?
Newcomer
4 Posts
We are planning a cruise vacation for all of our employees that have been with our firm for over 3 years. We want to pay for the spouse to go also, but we don't want to pay for an unmarried girlfriend or boyfriend. I wanted to know if this could result in a discrimination law suit because we're giving an additional benefit to the married employees. Let me know what you think.
Comments
I do not recommend you paying for "spousal guest nor significant other guest".
PORK
Why don't you want to pay for the DP or SO?
I don't know of any Arizona laws that would prohibit this, but then again, I am not a lawer.
We do pay a portion of our employees group health benefits for family, and we do not give the single employees anything back for not putting family members on our plan.
I know that this is not quite an apples to apples comparison, but in the end, it is a situation where where we give something to employees with families, and do not offer anything of equil value to single employees.
Good luck with this. Sounds like kind of a "good" problem to have.
In the end, there is always one group that feels that someone else got a little bit better deal than someone else.
Rob
Why not make it a "plus one" trip for everyone- my friends would love to go and maybe some of the spouses could not make it but would feel obliged to make every effort to for a "company trip".
Just an idea.
There is no law in AZ that will make trouble for you. But the attitude that will eminate from your single employees will!
Keep your neck out of the noose!
It is like getting the cruise for 1/2 off.
That's a good deal.
Just a suggestion,
Lisa
I think you guys should allow a guest nomatter who it is. The dilemma will be one room or two. Bring a guest and pay for one room only. Everybody's happy.
All of the above is good information, but,please check with your insurance carrier to discover company liability for other person's on a company sponsored trip. Another consideration is "wage and hour" issues, if any portion of the ee's business day is included while on this company sponsored trip, it is especially important for you to understand for the non-exempt hourly workers. Once when we brought store managers into the homeoffice for merchandising training a three day week-end of training. a few of the exempt managers could not make it and they sent their assistant managers, a non-exempt position. No one thought of the situation until well after the fact and a disgrunteled asst. manager ask for her hours and O/T to be paid. Once we realized the substitution had happened we checked and the employee had to be paid for the hours as worked plus hours driving as hours worked.
What a mess and all you want to do is to do good by your employees!
PORK
An employee gets a free trip, the company wants to believe in some level of family values, and every single employee thinks they are getting shortchanged and in your words "pissed off".
For a bunch of HR pro's none seem to want to defend the company line.
Recommend they can take a child, take a parent, take a grand parent, but where on earth did everyone think because they choose one lifestyle the rest of the world should kiss their liberal lifestyles behind and accept it.
Contrary to what you are thinking if you read this far, I respect personal choice BUT it does not mean a company or anyone must make you feel right about your choice.
Ask employees who think unmarried people shouldn't have these relationships and what they would think about the company, maybe they would be "pissed off".
These regs were in place to protect married people, not single folks (unless you annouced you were getting married, and this decision caused negative employment ramifications.)
PORK
The company wants to be very generous to it's employees by planning a cruise. The best and overwhelming advice is to pay for the employee only and allow them to bring one guest.
Thanks for your info. I appreciate you perspective on the matter. We hadn't realized that might be a problem. The cruise is over a Friday and a Monday. We were planning on paying them for those days, but maybe I'll have to check on whether or not we have to pay them for Saturday and Sunday. Thanks!
What happens on the cruise, stays on the cruise. You might be on to something!!!!!
My $0.02 worth.
DJ The Balloonman
That goes for the married ladies who don't want their husbands attending.
Lisa /:)
I believe I was the first on this tread to recommend the same thing you did, Pay for the employee and let the guest be paid for by the ee or the guest.
May you back off just a little bit and accept a Blessed day for yourself and your company.
PORK
PORK
Company Morals vs. Company Morale.
I think the best way for the company to maintain it's moral stance without affecting morale is to do as suggested and only pay for the employee.
This way if the ee wishes to bring a spouse or SO is entirely up to them. And if they even want to hold hands or even kiss (I know it's shocking, but it's 2004 now x;-) ) that's their decision also.
Good luck.
Thanks for your info. I appreciate you perspective on the matter. We hadn't realized that might be a problem. The cruise is over a Friday and a Monday. We were planning on paying them for those days, but maybe I'll have to check on whether or not we have to pay them for Saturday and Sunday. Thanks!"
Oh man! Am I reading this right? Is the reason single's can't bring someone because it's an 'over-nighter'? If that's the case, then I'm laughing my behind off right now!
I think it's simply a matter of wanting to reward employees AND their spouses and penalizing those of us who have the good sense NOT to have spouses. x;-)