What are things managers need to know - but other leaders forget to tell them?

Nearly two years ago, I wrote a blog on 9 Things You May Not Know as a Manager (But Probably Should), focused on people leadership - things like why how you say something can matter more than what you say, or why to think about "when" an employee will make a mistake, rather than "if" they will.

This one's different. My background includes nearly 20 years as an employment lawyer, and this time I'm covering the legal side - things that can be painful lessons if you learn them too late. As I say in this video, this isn't legal advice (it's important for lawyers to give that caveat). But it's the practical version of what every manager should know, before you need to know it.

Here's the breakdown, tip by tip.

1) Know What Laws Actually Apply to You

You don't need to be a walking legal encyclopedia. But you do need to ask a key question.

If you manage people in different cities, states or countries, the rules can be wildly different - overtime, breaks, notice periods, all of it. I'm located in Georgia, where we don't have many extra employment laws beyond the federal ones. But California, Colorado, Illinois or New York? Completely different laws, even differing by cities. If you manage a global team, that's even more true. I've worked in organizations spanning more than 80 countries, and the differences outside the US can be dramatic.

You don't need to memorize every law. But you do need to ask your HR team, proactively: What do I need to know about the laws that apply to my team? They might need to ask outside employment counsel, or it might be a good topic for a manager training. But ask before something happens - not after.

2) Right-to-Work and At-Will Aren't the Same Thing

This is almost exclusively a concept in the United States. But even people in the US mix these terms up all the time - but you won't!

Right-to-work is about union membership - whether someone in a unionized workplace has to join the union, or can opt out. It varies state by state. At-will is about the employment relationship itself - if there's no contract for a set period, either you or the employee can end it at any time, for any legal reason.

So when someone says "well, it's right-to-work, we can let them go whenever" - what they actually mean is at-will. I have no idea how these ended up getting mixed up so frequently, but they do.

And speaking of, "we can let them go whenever," keep reading.

3) At-Will Isn't a Magic Cloak

This is one of the biggest misconceptions I see managers make.

Just because an employee is at-will doesn't mean that they're immune from every other law on the books. For example, discrimination protections - based on gender, age, pregnancy, disability, veteran status and plenty more - can still apply.

At-will means that, without an employment agreement saying otherwise, either an employee or employer can end employment at any time. But the law doesn't end there. Plenty of federal, state and local laws can still apply.

For example, if you let go an employee who's the oldest on the team and they can point to five other people performing worse than them, they're likely calling an employment lawyer. Or if you fire two US employees for talking about their pay, one of them might post about it on Reddit - and have someone comment that they should look at Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. Or if you let go a large enough group of employees, you might have to give them notice under a federal or state WARN Act. In other words, laws work together - and at-will doesn't trump them.

So if you're putting someone on a performance plan or letting someone go, at-will status isn't a reason to skip the call to HR. It's still worth asking yourself: Would they be surprised? And is there anything here that could look like this is based on a protected characteristic - even if that's genuinely not the reason?

4) Your Words Matter More Than You Think

As a manager, team members often consider you a representative of the organization. A court might do so as well. Which means the things you say - even the ones you meant as a "joke" - can end up somewhere you didn't expect. A legal claim. An email thread projected on a screen for the whole courtroom to see. A deposition, years later, about a comment you don't even remember making.

"I was just joking" doesn't hold up as well as you might think. What felt harmless in the moment can read very differently later, out loud, in a room full of strangers deciding whether it actually was.

You don't need to walk on eggshells. You do need to be mindful - in meetings, in email, in Slack - because your words carry more weight than a colleague's would.

5) You Can Be Held Personally Liable

This one surprises a lot of managers: it's not always just the company on the hook. Depending on the specific location and situation, individual managers can be named personally in some suits - this could include wage and hour laws, interfering with someone's legally-protected leave, giving a knowingly false reference, or other claims tied to how you personally handled a situation.

That's not a reason to skip out of being a manager. It's a reason to take it seriously. Managing people is one of the most significant factors in how businesses perform and how people work and live - which is exactly why it's worth doing well.

6) How You Manage Impacts Your Bottom Line

I make videos about the importance of treating people like humans at work, and occasionally hear, "Work is work - people need to deal with it." But point #6 isn't just about how people feel at work, although that matters plenty. It's about the P&L you're responsible for.

How you manage affects how much people care about their work, how they learn and perform, and how long they stay - all of which show up in your results. It also brings direct costs: legal fees, settlements and judgments come out of somebody's budget. Sometimes that can mean your department's budget.

And those costs add up faster than people expect, even if you don't believe you broke the law. That legal demand letter from an employee's lawyer might end up not leading to a lawsuit, or a suit that's dismissed or settled. But there's still a cost. The most recent data I could find on specific numbers is the 2017 Hiscox Guide to Employee Lawsuits, which found that small and medium-sized businesses paid an average of $160,000 to defend and settle an employment claim. That study was nearly a decade ago, and that number has no doubt increased significantly since then.

In other words, if you're like a lot of managers - laser-focused on hitting your numbers - consider this: the conversation you've been avoiding because it's uncomfortable is usually a lot cheaper than the situation you have to deal with later because you avoided it.

7) Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean You Should

I said a version of this in the "9 Things" video, too - but that one focused on managers needing to keep in mind how their decisions to do things like deny vacation requests can impact a lot more than just that trip.

For this, I'll say - legality is the floor. It's not the standard.

Plenty of managers will go their whole careers without getting involved in litigation. But those that do end up involved (even as a witness) know that it's often exhausting and emotionally draining for everyone involved. And it rarely comes down solely to whether something was technically legal. It often matters how the conversation was handled. That heated email you fired off after a bad day? That's what can end up as an exhibit, for all the world to see.

Whatever the law does or doesn't require where you are, the way you treat the person in front of you - and the way you'd want to be treated if the roles were reversed - is still the better filter.

None of this is about becoming a lawyer. It's about knowing enough to ask the right questions, pause before you react, and treat your team like the humans they are - which, it turns out, is also the version of management that just might keep you out of a courtroom.

If you're in HR: Your managers are making these calls every day, usually with zero training on what's actually true versus what people assume. Manager Method gives them a scalable, practical way to build good instincts before a bad one turns into a claim. See how it's worked for other organizations, and set up a call if it resonates.

If you're a manager: This is exactly the kind of real-talk training inside Manager 101 - the tips no one hands you when you get the promotion, so you have the skills and confidence to know what to say and do before you're in the middle of it. Check out Manager 101.

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