Must you notify laid-off staff of job openings?

Sometimes, workers who are laid off are told that they're eligible for rehire. But make sure your supervisors know to never promise to consider (or contact) laid-off workers for any future positions. Put the ball in the employees' court. Let them know where you post all job openings and how they can apply.

As a new ruling shows, unless your organization makes a specific promise to contact laid-off workers about job openings, they can't usually claim they should have been notified.

Recent case: Calvin, who is black, was laid off from his driver job. At the time, Calvin was told by his boss that he'd be eligible for rehire later. However, the company never called him back. It eventually hired a new driver who is white.

Calvin sued for race bias. But his claim came long after the deadline passed for filing an EEOC hiring-bias complaint. He argued that the date he actually discovered that he'd been replaced by a white driver was the date that counted.

The...