Posted on

Retaliation Definition – Incidents and Outcomes

Dictionary definition of word retaliation, selective focus.

Understanding the retaliation definition can help top management in a company avoid violations of this nature. Human resources managers, supervisors, and other staff need to be aware of the specifics of workplace retaliation so that this doesn’t become a problem in the office.

When employees report an incident to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or are involved in an investigation with them, they cannot be subject to any forms of workplace retaliation. Everyone in the company should know the retaliation definition to help reduce misunderstandings on the topic. Additionally, preventative measures can be put in place to avoid these issues.

What Is Retaliation in the Workplace?

You may be wondering, what does retaliation mean? This is a term that is specific to workplace retaliation. It consists of a manager or other employer retaliating against another employee because of their involvement in a “protected action.”

What is a protected action? Of course, not everything is protected. Suppose an employee is underperforming or has done something against company policy. In that case, a manager has a right to act, possibly demoting or disciplining the employee. If the employee files a complaint about this, their action would not be protected. However, if the employee engages in a protected action, such as reporting discrimination or sexual harassment, and the employer retaliates against them, that is illegal.

A protected action involves an employee reporting any wrongdoing to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or upper management. The federal anti-discrimination laws enforced by this entity prohibit retaliation.

What Actions Are Protected From Retaliation in the Workplace?

Some of the specific actions an employee may take that are protected from retaliation include:

• Filing a discrimination charge based on any protected category, such as race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability, or genetic information

• Filing a harassment charge based on a protected category, as mentioned above

• Complaining to the employer or other entity about discrimination or harassment

• Testifying in an investigation or lawsuit related to employment discrimination

• Reporting sexual harassment

• Asking for disability accommodations

• Reporting being asked to participate in discriminating against other coworkers

• Reporting unsafe working conditions or OSHA violations

Workplace retaliation laws also apply to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Equal Pay Act (EPA). So, any employee that reports on violations in these areas is protected from retaliation, too.

What Actions Are Retaliation?

Actions that fall into the category of retaliation in the workplace may be overt or subtle. Both are prohibited and may be grounds for disciplinary action.

Overt actions may include the following:

• Hindering the employee from participating in meetings or other events

• Keeping the employee from getting a raise

• Hindering the employee from a promotion

• Demoting the employee to a lower-paying position

• Reducing the number of hours that the employee receives for work

• Giving the employee a negative performance review

• Moving the person to an unfavorable department or location

• Making the employee’s work environment uncomfortable in some way

Subtle actions that may be classified as retaliatory are:

• Exclusion from activities that may be more personal in nature. For example, company picnics, employee birthday celebrations, coworker lunches, etc.

• Ignoring the employee in an obvious manner. For example, as soon as the person walks into the room, the manager walks out or talks in a whispered voice, making it obvious that they don’t want to include the other person.

• Extreme micromanagement of the employee.

• Creating a toxic environment for the employee.

• Being overly critical (especially if the manager was previously not this way).

Employees are always protected from retaliation whether their claim turns out to be true or not if they honestly believe it to be true. However, the employee must show a direct connection between the action and the retaliatory behavior.

Take Action to Prevent Retaliation in the Workplace

The best way to prevent retaliation in the workplace is to be proactive. Preventative steps by the management can keep the workplace operating smoothly and ensure leaders are following proper protocols. The following action steps help ensure that retaliation in the office doesn’t become an issue:

Put Guidelines in Place

Company leadership must have written policies that guide management, human resources, and employees about workplace retaliation. You can put these policies and rules in the company handbook, so everyone has easy access to them. Make sure they clarify the EEOC, anti-harassment, and anti-discrimination laws.

Hold Training Sessions

Once your written policy guidelines are in place, bring the staff together for a training session to review the information. Make sure they understand what retaliation in the workplace is, allowing employees to ask questions if they’re unsure about the information.

When new candidates are hired, make the training part of their onboarding experience.

Establish Procedures for Employees Who Have a Complaint

Employees should know what to do if they have experienced retaliation from someone in management. The company handbook and training should outline the steps they should take if they feel any of their rights have been violated. For example, they believe they were denied a promotion due to anti-discrimination laws, etc. Sometimes it can be easily established that discrimination was not the reason for being bypassed for promotion. When employees feel there is transparency and protocols for addressing these issues, you’ll have less stress.

Make Sure the Management Documents All Discipline Issues

Whenever an employee must be disciplined (which will happen from time to time), be sure the manager or supervisor in charge documents it thoroughly, providing the reasoning behind the discipline.

Have Regular Meetings with HR to Review Disciplinary Action


Before management writes someone up or disciplines them, it’s important to meet with human resources first to discuss the situation. Human resources can advise the supervisor about whether they are within their rights to take disciplinary action.

Also, everything will be documented with another party, showing they had a valid reason for the action, and they’re protected legally.

Posted on

FTE Meaning — Full-Time Equivalent

Colorful drawing showing "FTE" in a circle with lines and icon images saying "Full" "Time" "Equivalent"

Understanding more about full-time equivalent (FTE) will help your business with budgeting issues or meet certain legal requirements. You may need to determine how much you will spend on a project so you can have the right resources. In this case, knowing the FTE meaning will aid you as you prepare the budget. It will also keep you on track with the Affordable Care Act requirements for paying out benefits.

Understanding FTE

The FTE meaning is full-time equivalent but is also sometimes called whole-time equivalent. It represents the number of hours one full-time employee works in a week. It provides a unit of measurement by which management can project costs, time, and personnel for various tasks. It provides a standardized way to assess employee hours and measurements.

An FTE provides a metric for your business to calculate stats such as profits or expenses spent per employee. It also helps management keep on top of the hours they are paying for versus only how many employees they have working for them. Simply knowing the number of employees that you have doesn’t tell the whole story. Instead, knowing the FTE provides more information.

FTE Employee

As the acronym implies, an FTE employee is the equivalent of a full-time employee. What does that mean exactly? If your business considers 40 hours a full week of work, then an employee who works 40 hours would be equivalent to one FTE. If an employee only worked 20 hours in a full week, this employee would be equivalent to 0.5 FTE. This is how you would count an FTE for internal purposes, but when it involves compliance with other agencies, such as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), other guidelines must be followed (more on that below).

Why You May Need to Use FTE

There are various reasons you may need or want to use FTE for your business. Some companies need to track FTEs because of laws such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Laws stipulate that companies with 50 or more FTEs must offer group health insurance. Keep in mind that the ACA considers 30 hours one FTE. Even if your business counts 40 hours a week per FTE, it’s 30 hours in the eyes of the ACA.

You may also want to use FTE for the following:

  • Calculate personnel requirements for projects you’re working on
  • Budgeting your resources
  • Salary calculation
  • Accrual of paid time off for employees
  • Analysis of staffing

Steps to Calculate FTE

As noted above, FTE is expressed as a unit of measurement that directly relates to how many hours a week the employee works. You can calculate FTE by taking the total number of hours worked by part-time employees in a week, month, or year plus the total number of hours worked by full-time employees and dividing by the average number of hours worked by full-time employees. (For a year, that is 2,080 hours with 40-hour workweeks and 1,560 hours with 30-hour workweeks, which is considered full-time for ACA reporting).

You can follow these steps to calculate it accurately:

Start by creating a list of all your employees and the hours they worked.

Now, you can separate your employees into two lists, which include full-time and part-time employees. Be sure to keep the hours they worked next to their names.

Add up all the employees that work full-time and the number of hours they work in one column and do the same for the part-time employees in another column. It will look like this:

  • Full-Time Employees: 15
  • Hours worked per week: 40
  • Part-time Employees: 20
  • Hours worked per week: 15

Accounting for vacation and holiday time, let’s assume the employees work 40 weeks a year. The next step is to multiply the number of employees by the hours by the number of weeks (40). Using the example above, you would have the following:

  • Full-time employees: 15 x 40 x 40 = 24,000
  • Part-time employees: 20 x 15 x 40 = 12,000

In some instances, your employees won’t all work the same number of hours. So, you may have several columns of information that you’ll need to multiply for the FTEs.

This provides the total number of FTE hours per year. You may want to determine the monthly amount or even the weekly amount. You can easily adjust this by multiplying the appropriate monthly hours or weekly hours versus yearly hours.

If you want to find out more about the FTE value for a specific position, you can divide the number of hours worked by the number of hours considered to be full-time. If you use 40 hours as full-time, someone who works 35 hours has a 0.875 FTE. Someone who works 30 hours has a 0.75 FTE.

Some businesses may realize that they are getting more benefit or production out of full-time employees, or it could be the other way around.

FTE Calculation Example

Let’s examine a sample company to see how an FTE would work. Here is an example:

The Fusion Company is bidding on a contract and needs to ensure they charge the right amount. They need to know the appropriate number of employees to do the job. The job is estimated to take about 750 hours of work, and the bid calls for you to complete the work in 60 hours. Here is the FTE calculation that management can use:

750 (total hours) / 60 (hours in the workweek) = 12.5 FTE

This indicates that the company will require 12.5 employees to work a full-time shift each day to fulfill the requirement. The company can select eight full-time (40 hours a week) employees and four part-time (20 hours a week) employees or any other combination that equals 12.5 FTE. Keep in mind that two part-time employees who work 20 hours a week will equal one FTE.

Understanding FTE can assist management with many aspects of business operations. Whether it’s for project management or ACA compliance, knowing how to calculate it will be an asset.

Posted on

Retention Rate Definition (and Formula)

Drawing of a figure in suit flying toward an open door marked "Exit" and a huge magnet draws him back into the room.

Analyzing a company’s employee retention rate is essential so leadership can determine if there are departments or areas that need improvement. If so, they can work on developing strategies. Assessing the employee retention rate can also give insight into the overall health of a company. Consequently, you can create employee retention strategies to combat high employee turnover rates.

What Is Employee Retention Rate?

An employee retention rate measures how many employees are retained at the company during a specific period. You can do this by comparing how many employees are at the company on a starting date with how many of the same employees are still there on the ending date. The starting and ending date is for a measurable period that the company chooses, such as one quarter or a year.

Importance of Understanding Retention Rate

Employee retention is an essential part of operating a successful business. If you have a high turnover rate, you’re spending a lot of money on replacing employees. You have money invested in the employees’ training, which is lost if they leave. You also must spend additional funds to recruit, interview, and hire new employees when they leave. A company with a high retention rate will be healthier and better positioned for the future. Implementing strategies for retention is a key element of success.

Knowing the retention rate will alert companies to any issues they may need to address. It also provides them with better insight as to how their current employee retention efforts are doing. If the rate is low, they know modifications are necessary. If it’s high, they can keep on the same path they’re on.

Most companies perform employee retention rate calculations regularly, such as quarterly or annually, so they can keep on top of this issue.

What Is the Retention Rate Formula?

Let’s look at how to calculate retention rate. You can use the following formula to get a retention rate:

Determine the total number of employees who were at the company at the start of the period (we’ll call this amount “A”).

Next, count the employees again at the end of the period and see how many of the original employees there are (this amount is “B”). To find out how many employees are left, you can subtract “B” from “A” (this is “C”).

A – B = C

Now, you will perform the second part of the calculation. Take the number of employees that left (“B”) at the end of the period and divide it by the total number of employees (“A”). For example, B ÷ A. The answer will be a decimal, which needs to be converted to a percentage, so you’ll have the rate. Multiply the decimal by 100 and simply add the percentage sign. Now you have the retention rate. The full formula looks like this:

Step 1: A – B = C

Step 2: B ÷ A = decimal x 100 = retention rate

Examples of Retention Rate Formulas

It’s easier to understand the retention rate calculation by looking at some examples. These examples take the formula and put it into practice.

Example 1

A marketing firm has 50 employees at the beginning of the first quarter. On the last day of quarter 1, 42 of the original employees still work there. Let’s plug in our data to determine the retention rate.

Starting number of employees is: 50

Number of employees who left during the period: 8

Remaining number of employees is: 42

Calculation: 50 – 8 = 42 employees remained during the quarter.

The next step is dividing the remaining employees by the total number of employees at the beginning: 42 ÷ 50 = 0.84

Now, multiply 0.84 by 100 to convert it to a percentage. The retention rate is 84%.

Example 2

A local auto dealership has 245 employees at the beginning of the fiscal year. Of the 245 original employees, 185 were still employed at the company on the last day of the year.

Starting number of employees is: 245

Number of employees who left during the period: 60

Remaining number of employees is: 185

Calculation: 245 – 60 = 185 employees remained over the course of the year.

The next step is dividing the remaining employees by the total number of employees at the beginning: 185 ÷ 250 = 0.74

Now, multiply 0.74 by 100 to convert it to a percentage. The retention rate is 74%.

Example 3

A production company has 1,565 employees at the beginning of the calendar year, and 1,425 of them remain at the end of the calendar year.

Starting number of employees is: 1,565

Number of employees who left during the period: 140

Remaining number of employees is: 1,425

Calculation: 1,565 – 140 = 1,425 employees remained during the quarter.

The next step is dividing the remaining employees by the total number of employees at the beginning: 1,425 ÷ 1,565 = 0.91

Now, multiply 0.91 by 100 to convert it to a percentage. The retention rate is 91 %.

Tips to Increase Your Retention Rate

If your retention rate is lower than you expected or wanted, you can implement these tips to help improve it:

  • Hire right. Start with employees who match the business culture and are a great fit for the job.
  • Have an open-door policy for employees who are having problems or difficulties in the workplace.
  • Be sure to reward your employees according to their performance. You can use merit increases, job promotions, and other incentives to keep them engaged.
  • Offer training and educational opportunities, so employees continue to grow and thrive.
  • Provide a salary and benefits package that makes employees feel the compensation is fair.

Posted on

Understanding the CASDI (California State Disability Insurance) Program

Employment law book on an office table.

In the state of California, for those who are unable to work due to a non-work-related injury or illness, there is a program that will help replace lost wages called the California State Disability Insurance (CASDI) program. Under the CASDI program, eligible workers can continue to earn a portion of their wages when they are incapable of returning to work.

For employers, it is important to understand the CASDI program, what it is, what employees are eligible for this program, and how it is funded. This can help employers assist their employees in navigating the system. Learn more about CASDI below.

What Is CASDI?

If you employ workers in the state of California, CASDI is a program that can benefit your employees during a period of time in which they cannot perform their normal work duties. CASDI stands for California State Disability Insurance and is a state-specific, short-term disability insurance and paid family leave wage replacement program.

Through CASDI, when a worker needs time off — not due to a work-related injury or illness — they may be eligible to receive state-sponsored disability insurance that will help to replace lost wages.

It is important to note that CASDI only provides monetary benefits to workers. It does not protect their job. However, in the state of California, an employee’s job might still be protected based on the Family and Medical Leave Act or the California Family Rights Act.

Who Is Covered by CASDI?

According to the state of California, there are currently more than 18 million workers who are covered by the CASDI program. This partial wage-replacement plan is available to those who cannot work due to non-work-related illness or injury, pregnancy, or childbirth.

Common reasons for an employee being covered by CASDI include the following:

  • They are missing work due to caring for a seriously ill family member.
  • They are bonding with a new child.
  • They are participating in a qualifying event that is due to a family member’s military deployment to a foreign country.

It is important to note that the state of California outlines detailed requirements to ensure eligibility, which are as follows:

  • An employee must be unable to do their regular work for at least eight days. CASDI does not kick in until the eighth day.
  • An employee must be losing wages due to their disability.
  • They must be actively employed or looking for work at the time their disability began.
  • An employee must have earned at least $300 from which CASDI deductions were withheld.
  • They must be under the care and treatment of a qualifying practitioner.
  • They must complete and submit a claim no earlier than nine days after their first day of disability but no later than 49 days after.
  • Their qualifying practitioner must complete a portion of their application.

When an employee applies for CASDI benefits, their citizenship or immigration status will not affect their eligibility. Additionally, while their employer will be notified that they have submitted a CASDI claim, all medical information will remain confidential.

How is CASDI funded?

CASDI is a state-run disability insurance program that is funded through deductions. These deductions are taken out of an employee’s paycheck automatically. Currently, every time an employee is paid, 1.1% of their wages will contribute toward the CASDI program.

However, CASDI deductions are only paid on income of up to $145,600 a year. This means that any money earned above this amount is not subject to the 1.1% tax. This creates a limit on the total amount an employee will pay annually toward the CASDI program.

How Much Will an Employee Receive from CASDI?

When an employee applies for CASDI, if they are eligible for benefits, their total weekly pay will be calculated based on the wages they were previously earning. A weekly CASDI benefit is equivalent to around 60% to 70% of wages earned in the 5 to 18 months leading up to the claim start date.

However, for wages to qualify, an employee must have been paying CASDI taxes on those wages. This deduction is usually noted as CASDI on a pay stub.

How Can an Employee Apply for CASDI?

If an employee wants to apply for CASDI, they can use the SDI Online Portal provided by the State of California. To complete their application, they will need to verify their identity and have their qualified practitioner submit documentation regarding their inability to work.

What is the Purpose of CASDI?

The CASDI program is designed to offer wage replacement for California workers who are incapable of performing their normal work resulting in the loss of wages. CASDI, similar to other disability insurance programs, aims to ensure that when someone is incapable of working, they can still meet their basic needs.

For example, if an employee becomes too ill to perform their normal work, in California, CASDI will help make sure that during their illness, they can still pay their bills and afford standard necessities. This is a critical stopgap for those who are facing long periods of time during which they are not capable of earning their regular wages.

How Should I Notify Employees about the CASDI Program?

If you are an employer in the state of California, you can help your employees understand the potential benefits they could receive from CASDI in two key ways:

  1. Post notices: The state of California offers posters that will provide detailed information about the CASDI program. If you have a physical office or retail location, be sure to place these posters in an area where employees can easily access them.
  2. Add information to your employee handbook: When designing your employee handbook, include links to the California disability insurance portal. This will allow employees to explore critical information regarding all disability insurance programs.

The CASDI program can help your employees navigate a period of time in which they are incapable of performing their normal job duties. Be sure to check back with the California Employment Development Department for updates to state-specific programs.