News

With absenteeism a major drain on productivity, more employers are using a trick from the third grade—perfect-attendance awards—to motivate employees to come to work. Here’s why such awards probably aren’t the best carrots.

Jonathan Segal, a partner at Duane Morris LLP, tells HR professionals to stay cognizant as he witnesses “an explosion and evolution” of antisemitic views. He advises them to condemn antisemitism as they would other workplace -isms.

If you are in the restaurant or entertainment industry and require employees to wear revealing outfits at work, prepare for an unfortunate if entirely predictable consequence: Customers may harass your workers. That’s a genuine legal risk, and it’s just as serious as if a supervisor was doing the harassing.

We use an applicant tracking system to help with screening and hiring. Until recently, we were able to link the ATS privacy policy to notify applicants of their privacy rights to the information they submit. They have now told us we need to link to our own privacy policy. Can we adopt theirs (copy and paste) as our own?

We provide company cell phones for our employees. Sometimes it can be a hassle to use two phones, the company and personal. If we decided to have our employees use their personal cell phones, could that be a jeopardy for the company?

A memo makes clear that the DOJ wants whistleblowers to come forward with allegations of rogue DEI programs.

It’s fine to hold managers to a higher standard of conduct than regular employees. While a subordinate might be excused for a minor rule breach, his supervisor could legitimately be disciplined for breaking the same rule. Just make sure your handbook outlines this greater expectation.

Most handbooks explain the kinds of employee misconduct that might warrant termination. However, it’s impossible to envision every situation that might add up to a firing offense. That’s OK. If an employee does or says something that clearly requires immediate discharge, don’t let the lack of a handbook policy stop you from acting.

No law specifically prohibits a workplace rule requiring employees to only speak English on the job. However, the EEOC is aggressively challenging English-only rules under Title VII, which bars national-origin discrimination.

Enforce your dress and grooming code too rigidly and you could find yourself on the losing end of a failure-to-accommodate lawsuit. Here’s a case showing that common medical problems may require employers to bend their dress-code rules to accommodate employee disabilities.