The at-will doctrine, under which most states operate,
provides that an employee or a company can terminate the
employment relationship at any time for any reason.

Just about every business owner and supervisor is aware of
this doctrine.  However, they interpret at-will employment
literally, and think that they can fire employees with
complete immunity.

HR CONTRARIAN POINTER: Yes, technically, you don’t need a
reason to fire someone.  But practically, you are well
advised to have supporting documentation and to give a
reason for a dismissal.

In the absence of a well documented reason for a
termination, the employee is free to bring a claim of
harassment, retaliation, discrimination, or any number of
other issues that may violate civil or employment laws.

Additionally, such claims are filed some months after a
termination and actually go to court a year or more later. 
Without documentation, you are at the mercy of the
testimony of witnesses, especially the testimony of the
employee who will show how he/she was victimized while
working for your company.

And, what is going to be your testimony when the former
employee’s attorney asks you, “What was the reason that
you fired my client?”  If you answer with, “I don’t need a
reason, we are an at-will employment state,” then you just
figuratively handed the plaintiff’s attorney a blank
check.

The at-will doctrine is not a “get out of jail” card that
allows you to act recklessly.  Without good documentation,
you are leaving the fate of your company to jurors who
will be swayed by the theatrics and emotional comments
that a good plaintiff attorney will use to his/her
client’s advantage.

We often hear the challenge to “think outside the box.”

However, researchers have proven that thinking inside the
box is far more valuable in generating practical ideas
that can be implemented immediately as opposed to
pie-in-the-sky ideas.

HR CONTRARIAN POINTER: Employees in any organization have
the capacity to create breakthrough ideas if (A) given the
opportunity and (B) the process is structured correctly.

The concept behind the researchers’ approach to
brainstorming is to pose concrete questions that focus the
participants at a brainstorming session, rather than
asking generic questions about how to make a product
bigger, smaller, lighter, heavier, more rugged, etc.

Researchers created these concrete questions by reverse
engineering existing products/services to find the
specific questions that led to the original
product/service. 

Samples of these concrete questions are:
1) How are people using our product in ways we never
intended?
2) What is the biggest hassle in purchasing our product?
3) Which customers could become major users if only we
could remove one barrier?

As an example, question #1 above led to the development of
mountain bikes when leaders in the bicycle industry began
asking why people were tearing up traditional bikes.

If you would like to read more about this approach to
creativity, you can find it in the article, “Breakthrough
Thinking From Inside The Box,” by Kevin P. Coyne, Patricia
Gorman Clifford, and Renee Dye, Harvard Business Review,
December 2007.

The article contains a list of 21 great questions for
generating new product ideas as well as a sample logic
tree for reverse engineering strategic questions for your
particular industry.

Here is a link to a PDF version of this article:
http://www.siumed.edu/dme/jc_articles/Hoffman%201207.pdf