Suppliers Gifting Employees: One Lawyer’s Opinion
In Tuesday’s blog, I wrote about the OD practice owner who was surprised to find that his main lab was paying his optician thousands of dollars without the OD's knowledge or consent.
I recently spoke to attorney Phillip Byrum of Husch Blackwell Sanders LLP in Chattanooga, Tennessee about the legality of key suppliers compensating your employees without your knowledge and what you can do about it.
Mr. Bryum advised me that practice owners were generally well within their rights to ask employees if they are receiving any type of monetary compensation or gifts from suppliers.
He also said that business owners can prohibit the practice if you so choose. My advice is — don’t be heavy handed and if you have any questions, be sure to consult a labor attorney on how to handle this matter in your particular state.
If there is any question in your mind this may be occurring in your practice, I suggest you write a diplomatic letter to both your employees and suppliers outlining your office policy on the matter.
Create A Written Office Policy
I also asked Neil Gallimard OD, a practice management consultant who also owns a large single location private practice in Munster, Indiana, for his opinion on this situation.
Neil said that his standard employment agreement requires all employees to turn in any gifts or compensation received from suppliers over to the practice.
Those gifts are then given out as prizes at employee meetings or during holiday time. Good idea!
What Do You Think?
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Best Regards,
Jerry Hayes, OD
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Disclaimer: The information and opinions contained on this site are for discussion purposes only and are NOT intended to serve as legal, accounting or investment advice. ©2010 Jerry Hayes, OD. Not to be reproduced without written permission of the author.
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I agree. Each practice owner
I agree. Each practice owner should be finding out if any of their employees are receiving 'gifts' from suppliers.
r.e.: suppliers gifting employees
What would be interesting is to find out exactly WHO is collecting the majority of these gifts/monetary rewards? Is it a lab manager, or the person who handles shipping/receiving?
I do like Neil Gailmard's idea of collecting the rewards and distributing them as prizes. They could also be used as incentive awards in lieu of bonus money--depending on the value of the reward (i.e. a big screen TV, vs. just an MP3 player), these could be earned by the first employee to hit a production goal, etc.