When compliance, culture, performance and development all compete for space on the same calendar, the year can quickly become crowded or lopsided. A strong 2026 plan doesn’t start with picking courses; it starts with mapping the year’s natural rhythms, regulatory deadlines and awareness months so training lands when it’s most timely and relevant.
We want to encourage our staff to perform volunteer work and therefore want to begin offering PTO for doing so. Can we limit the kind of volunteer work we will allow PTO to be taken for?
It is essential for managers to understand what to do when an employee requests a religious accommodation. This training is a good start.
However, it is important for HR to become involved in the religious accommodation process as soon as possible, as there is a substantial legal liability risk. Religious-discrimination lawsuits are proliferating, and the EEOC is increasingly eager to pursue employee allegations of religious discrimination. For that reason, do not allow supervisors to make accommodation decisions on their own. And once a religious accommodation has been implemented, do not allow supervisors to deviate from it.
Every year, employers must remind employees of policies regarding paid or unpaid time on a holiday. If you haven’t already done so, with Christmas and other observances approaching, now’s the time to send those messages.
Sometimes business is booming. Other times, not so much. We appear to be heading into a downturn, and that means you may have to make some hard decisions, including terminations of some long-time employees. Is there a way to do so compassionately? According to lawyers at Littler participating in a recent webinar, the answer is yes. Here’s how to do so.
If all three bills are enacted and signed by the president, all employers would soon be able to offer comp time in lieu of overtime, the Department of Labor would be limited in which employees it considers tipped employees and the DOL’s PAID program would become an official part of the FLSA.
• Investigating Allegations of Harassment: Kathy Perkins
• Immigration Challenges and Enforcement: Chris Thomas
• What Can Save Employment and Labor Law? Philip Miscimarra
Generally, employers can require employees to treat customers with respect and consideration. But can they really require workers to fake it?
If you haven’t required supervisors to get HR involved in the approval process, you should. A supervisor’s informal accommodation can backfire otherwise, making it very hard to revoke the accommodation. That’s what happened in one recently filed lawsuit.
• Why you need to limit where remote work takes place, whether it happens regularly or occasionally.
• Learn why in most cases remote work isn’t a right, but sometimes is a required reasonable accommodation, including new rules for religious accommodations.
• Discover how to ascertain if one of your teleworkers is also working for another employer.
• Hybrid work doesn’t fix your remote-work legal problems–in fact, it could multiply them. Learn how to minimize the risk.
• Why you need harassment rules for telework NOW.
• Comply with laws that require you to pay remote and hybrid workers for the surprise expenses they incur on your behalf.
•Understand state and federal laws on timekeeping and breaks for remote staff.
• Learn how to properly classify remote workers as exempt vs. non-exempt, and employee vs. independent contractor.
