Interview on the legal perspective of business issues.

This article is an interview I conducted with Jeffrey Paulsen, Principal of

Paulsen Law Firm PLLC, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. It is presented as a series of articles to be presented in this forum.

We touched on just a few different issues and perhaps in the future Jeff will agree to visit again. Here is another part of the discussion:

Gerry: One of the most common areas that I see poorly handled is employee management. Management of poor performers is often highlighted with a termination and I have not seen any business that seems to handle a termination well. Do you agree? Why is it difficult?

Jeff: Many business leaders are educated and trained in their particular disciplines such as finance, accounting, marketing, sales, supply chain management and other typical disciplines of business leaders.  These individuals have been able to achieve success because of their knowledge, hard work and understanding of how to make a business successful using these disciplines.  Many business leaders are not trained, nor are they generally interested, in the “softer” functional areas such as human resources management. Often, business leaders are happy to have these concerns handled by the human resources staff; believing that the staff will implement the human resources policies directed from top management.  From my experience, I have seen minimal resources allocated to the non-revenue producing functions, such as human resources.  This often results in managers not understanding how to write a job description, conduct a performance review or handle employee discipline or terminations effectively.