Not all medical conditions that individuals have are covered disabilities under the law. To count, the individual must have a physical or mental condition that substantially impacts a major life function. That’s the test for whether employers must accommodate.

• Employee or contractor? Discover how to make the right call at a time when the rules are in flux.
• Exempt or nonexempt? Learn to use the right tests to classify employees as either nonexempt, eligible for overtime or exempt, not eligible. Hint: Having a solid, up-to-date and accurate job description is essential.
• Breaks, travel, on-call. Stop wasting money or risking lawsuits by learning when to pay hourly workers for travel time, on-call hours, meal breaks, training time and more.
• After-hours tasks. In the era of smartphones, email and remote work, learn what must be paid time for hourly workers.
• Docking pay. Know when the law allows you to dock the pay of salaried employees and when you absolutely can’t.
• Remote and hybrid work. Handle the tricky commute time for hourly remote or hybrid workers.
• Overtime. How to pay it—and how to legally prevent unauthorized OT.
• Fixing mistakes. How to resolve pay and classification errors without triggering a lawsuit or DOL investigation now that the PAID program is back.
• New rules. Learn about new overtime rules, how to comply with the PAID program and the new law regarding tips.

Black women’s employment rate fell 1.4 percentage points in 2025, dropping to 55.7%—one of the steepest single-year declines in 25 years, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sued a Tennessee employer for alleged practices that should have died in the last century. It’s a warning that all employers need to make sure every division, location and supervisor understands what’s acceptable and what can never be tolerated under any circumstances.

Just 4% of employers offering 401(k) plans have amended them to allow the new $1,000 emergency withdrawals authorized under SECURE 2.0, according to financial services firm Vanguard.

We may be conducting a restructuring that will involve layoffs. Do we need to rewrite job descriptions after?

President Donald Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address covered health-care costs, retirement savings, workplace tax relief and border enforcement.

Discrimination lawsuits involving allegations not within the EEOC’s priorities will increase in direct relationship to the types of cases the agency is prioritizing. Think more age, race, sexual orientation and gender identity, genetic information, equal pay and disability discrimination cases.

Call it a brag book, wins log or impact file. The name matters less than the purpose. At its core, this practice creates a running record of contributions that HR can reference when the stakes are high.

Employers should self-audit to determine whether they may be inadvertently discriminating based on a protected classification.