Example - Justifying Inconsistent Treatment

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In general, you treat all of your employees the same way, holding them accountable for their work, rewarding them when appropriate, and imposing disciplinary measures when necessary. You do not base employment decisions on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information (including family medical history)

In some instances, however, you may need to treat employees differently or deviate from your past behavior or your employee policies.

For example:

• You may decide to hold an employee to stricter performance or conduct standards than you impose on other employees because the employee has a high profile role that merits the stricter standards.
• You may suspend one employee for failing to complete an order on time and issue warnings to other employees who failed to complete orders on time because the first employee has repeatedly missed deadlines and the other employees have never missed a deadline before.
• You may need to postpone a promotion because your business's current financial situation does not allow you to grant the promotion in the originally anticipated time frame.

In these situations, to prevent misunderstandings, it may be helpful to explain to the employee why you are treating him differently.

If there are no circumstances that justify treating the employee differently, you may want to determine whether it is possible to accomplish your objective(s) in a manner more consistent with your past behavior or your employee policies.