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- In this video, I'm gonna expose four nasty tricks that Human Resources uses to cheat their employees out of money, rights and their jobs. If you're not aware of these it's only a matter of time before you fall for one. My name is Branigan and I'm an employment lawyer. Oh, and these tricks get worse as we go on, so keep watching. (upbeat music) Trick number one is the mighty "Open Door Policy." If you open up your employee handbook there's a 90% chance that somewhere in there it says that human resources has an "open door policy." Regardless of the language used most people understand that to mean HR is there, they want to hear your concerns and complaints, and if you go to HR, they will keep your complaint confidential and you'll be protected from retaliation. This is absolutely not true. They almost never keep your complaint confidential. I've talked to hundreds of employees who went to HR in confidence only to find out shortly thereafter that their complaint was shared with the very person that they were complaining about. But it gets much worse than that. Most companies actually use the open door policy as an early warning system so they can get a heads up on any complaints, and quash employee dissent and complaints before they spread. I've talked to hundreds of employees who have complained about something legitimate and shortly thereafter they got written up, and shortly after that they were fired for some sort of vague and nebulous reason. And as a part of this, HR routinely tells people that if you utilize the open door policy, you'll be legally protected from retaliation. But that's untrue! Legally, you are only protected from retaliation if you've made a complaint protected by law. And I've made several videos about this subject and I'll provide links at the end if you wanna know more about that. But most HR people know that you're not protected, and if it suits their objectives, they will tattle to management and you'll get fired soon thereafter. Now, don't get me wrong, there are absolutely times when you should go to Human Resources and complain in writing. And I go much deeper into that in my video series on "How to Complain to HR Correctly." And I'll provide links at the end of this so that you can watch that. But you should not complain until you fully know why you're doing it, how to do it right, and how to minimize the risks. While the open door policy is a nasty trick it doesn't even come close to the worst on this list. So stay with me. Trick number two, Workplace Investigations. Let's say you go to HR to verbally complain about a coworker who's been harassing you and other female employees. The HR rep will listen attentively and take notes. You tell her about what happened to you and you give her the names of other victims at work. The HR rep then says that she is going to launch an investigation into the matter. This unfortunately is a lie. There are no due process rights within a company. Yes, she is gonna launch an investigation, but not to find out what actually happened. Her investigation is going to be about how she can best protect the company. You see, human resources is not your friend. The company pays her paycheck. Her job is to protect the company from employees like you. And if a potential lawsuit is brewing, her job is to document the things that help the company, not you. So she will likely destroy her notes that she took during your meeting. She will only interview the witnesses that help the company not the ones that corroborate your story. Every time she communicates with you going forward, it'll probably be either in person or on the phone, not in writing. She will start working with your direct supervisor to document your performance deficiencies so she can write you up in a few minutes to paper your personnel file so that down the road, if you sue the company the company could say, look, we wrote her up several times. She was a bad employee. And the worst part of all of this is that when she finishes her investigation, I guarantee she will create some kind of investigation report that concludes there was no evidence of any wrongdoing. Even if the HR rep genuinely believes that you were harassed, she will never put it in writing because her job is to protect the company, not you. Now, with all that said, if an investigation is going on at your job, should you refuse to participate or let this knowledge prevent you from submitting a legitimate complaint to HR? No, absolutely not. You must play the game and participate. If you don't, down the road in litigation the jury will think that you were the problem, not the company. You must always think to yourself how would a jury view my actions here? Asking yourself this question is key to doing the right thing in most employment situations. If you're getting value out of this video click the subscribe button down below. I make lots of videos about employee rights so if you wanna stay in the loop, click the button. Trick number three, they lie. All right, well, in most interactions with HR there's no reason for them to lie to you. However, there is no legal requirement that they be truthful with you. So when things start to get tough when there is a dispute, you can count on them protecting their paycheck at your expense. So in addition to what we've already talked about here today, what are the common situations when HR is going to lie to employees? Well, they routinely lie in write-ups and performance improvement plans. They can say that you were late all the time for work when you weren't. They can say that you were insubordinate when you weren't. They can say that you had a bad attitude when you didn't. And if the cumulative effect of all these small lies ultimately leads to your termination, they know that they can get away with it because the law of defamation doesn't have much teeth in employment law. I made a video about defamation. If you wanna know, I'll link below. They also routinely lie during lawsuits. This is super common. I've questioned a lot of HR reps under oath during depositions. They will say that they gave you several verbal warnings when they didn't or they will deny that other people have complained about the issue that you've complained about. Why do they do this? Well, they do it to protect their job. Think about it. If they tell the truth, they're probably gonna cost their company a whole bunch of money. So they lie, so they don't get fired. The only way to hold them accountable is to have a really good lawyer who can impeach them properly during the case. But this trick, this line still isn't even close to the worst trick on this list. The next one is the worst. It has screwed millions of Americans out of billions of dollars, and I'm not exaggerating. Before we get to it, I should say one last important thing. I have a license to practice law in California. A lot of people who see my videos wanna contact me and that's great, but the free consultation process at my office is for California workers who got fired from their job and they believe that they have a case for harassment, retaliation, discrimination or wrongful termination. If that applies to you and you think I've earned your phone call, don't be afraid to gimme a call for a free consultation. Trick number four, and this is the worst, arbitration. My office gets literally thousands of calls each year and just about every single one of those people we asked the following question. Did you sign an arbitration agreement when you started work at the company? Most people respond by saying, what's arbitration? And therein lies part of the insidious deception of this trick. Very few people even know what arbitration is and what its implications are for workers. But don't worry, I will explain. Here is how it works. After you accept the job offer, HR says, congratulations and then they slide over a bunch of documents for you to sign. Happy to have a new job most people quickly sign them without ever reading them. And somewhere between 20 to 40% of employers have their new employees sign an agreement called arbitration. Or the arbitration agreement is buried in the employee handbook and the employee signs an acknowledgement page that says they agree to the terms in the employee handbook. Now, if you try to refuse the arbitration agreement, lets say you refuse to sign it, HR will probably rescind the job offer. Okay, well, what does arbitration actually say? Well, an arbitration agreement says that if there's ever a dispute between you and the company you can't sue them in the public court system. You have to sue them through private arbitration. And if valid, that agreement forces you to fight for your rights in a secretive, binding judicial process where if you lose you have no right to appeal. So you can't sue in the public court system. How it works is if you file for arbitration, an arbitrator which is usually a retired judge or a former defense attorney, becomes the judge and jury for the case. This arbitrator is paid hundreds of dollars an hour by the company to act as a neutral adjudicator. And if you have any common sense at all you're asking yourself if the arbitrator is getting paid thousands upon thousands of dollars by the company that you're suing, how often do they actually rule in the employee's favor? Well, the answer is not nearly as often as they rule in favor of the company. So let's say you have a great case against the company. When your case is forced into arbitration its settlement value becomes substantially less than if it were in the regular court system. That's great for the company and terrible for you. And I've talked to dozens of my employment lawyer colleagues, and they all say that arbitration dramatically reduces the value of the case. And if you extrapolate this out on a nationwide basis, billions and billions of dollars of employee money is lost. But that is not even the worst part. Yes, you can sue them in arbitration and you might get something. Sometimes you get something that's pretty much okay. But most arbitration agreements say that you cannot sue them on a class-wide basis. That means you can't bring a class action against the company. Why does that matter? Well, let's say the company has failed to pay you $5,000 in unpaid overtime. $5,000 is a lot of money but that is not nearly enough to justify hiring a lawyer and pursuing a case against the company. The costs of that case will quickly overwhelm the value of it. Those smaller claims are just not worth pursuing even on a contingency basis. But if you and your lawyer can gather together a hundred plus people and sue on a class-wide basis, then the case becomes economically viable to pursue. So if you're paying attention what this means is if there's an arbitration agreement, those smaller claims just don't get pursued, period. There you go, the company gets away with theft. By my estimate and many other lawyers I've talked to without question tens of billions of dollars of employee money across America is lost each year because of arbitration. Without question, arbitration is the worst trick that HR and employers use to steal employee wages and minimize the size of harassment, retaliation and wrongful termination claims. Well, okay, Branigan, how can you avoid this? Well, that's a big subject in and of itself and I don't have time unfortunately to cover it today, but if you want me to make a video on arbitration let me know in the comments section down below. Believe it or not this is my third video on human resources. And if you've watched the other two, you know that I don't really believe that all HR reps are bad people. I just believe that their incentives are horribly misaligned. There are some good people in the profession so hopefully your company has one of them. And the four tricks I've outlined here today are only the tip of the iceberg. So let me ask you, would you like me to make another video on tricks like this? Was this helpful? Finally, if you've been fired unlawfully, arbitration or not, don't be afraid to call a lawyer. The free consultation process at my office is for California workers who got fired from their job and they believe that they have a case for harassment, retaliation, discrimination, or wrongful termination. If that applies to you, don't be afraid to reach out to me for a free consultation. I hope this video was helpful. Have a great day. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)