A judge issued a nationwide injunction that said the EEOC exceeded its authority in 2024 when its Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace told employers they risked violating Title VII if they denied transgender workers access to the restrooms of their choosing, prescribed gender-specific dress codes and called them by pronouns they did not prefer.

We have remote workers in our state and in other states. How do we handle expense reimbursement for remote workers? Does it depend on whether the employee chooses remote work or we mandate it?

The Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Groff v. DeJoy made it much harder for employers to justify denying an employee’s request for religious accommodations. Since then, most refusal-to-vaccinate lawsuits have been settled in favor of employees.

Everyone who has ever worked with other people knows that co-workers don’t always get along. Whether it’s disagreements about how to perform a job, who is slacking and who has to pick up the slack, who gets stuck with the worst assignments or just ordinary personality clashes, minor conflicts often flare up at work.
It’s up to managers to make sure little disagreements don’t explode into major crises that do lasting damage to the team and even the whole company. This training covers basic strategies and tactics managers can employ to manage conflict among their direct reports.

• Key elements of an effective investigation. Understand the core components of a thorough investigation and when it’s necessary to launch one.
• Triggering events. Learn which types of employee complaints and situations require immediate investigation and which can be resolved through other means.
• Legal obligations. Discover which employment laws mandate investigations and how to stay compliant.
• Interviewing techniques. Plan and strategize each interview, implement a checklist and document findings accurately to build a solid investigation report.

• Signs that your office may be infected with negativity.
• The hidden costs of a chronic negativity problem.
• Diagnosing what makes some people so negative.
• Employees from the dark side: Whiners, complainers, critics and pessimists.
• Active troublemakers: Tattletales, gossips, bullies and rabble-rousers.
• Effective weapons in the war against negativity.
• How you may actually be rewarding your employees’ negative behavior.
• A 5-step behavioral coaching process that really makes an impact.
• How to re-engage resentful employees by flipping their “motivational switch.”
• Using the Team Turnaround process to “disinfect” an entire group.
• Termination: When removing the cause is the only cure.
• Recognizing systemic problems: Signs of a toxic workplace.
• Strategies for saving your sanity in a toxic organization.

OUR APOLOGIES - WE EXPERIENCED TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES AT THE END

• Employee or contractor? Discover how to make the right call.
• Exempt or nonexempt? Learn to use the right tests to classify employees as either nonexempt, eligible for overtime or exempt, not eligible, as well as the latest court rulings related to overtime pay.
• Exempt salary minimum. What’s the current minimum salary for most exempt status?
• Breaks, travel, on-call. Stop wasting money or risking lawsuits by learning when to pay 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.
• Docking pay. Know when the law allows you to dock the pay of salaried employees.
• Remote work. Why every employer should review their telecommuting policies.
• Inspections, audits. What to do if DOL or ICE agents show up and demand your pay records or arrest your 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.

• Understand “real world” FMLA scenarios. We’ll explain how to manage the common FMLA problems you face daily, including reining in intermittent-leave abuse with strict call-off compliance, when intermittent leave is for a family member’s chronic illness and how to avoid potential legal pitfalls associated with leave (such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, PWFA and workers’ compensation)..
• Use compliance tools correctly. Learn how to use the tools of compliance to address unscheduled and intermittent leaves (certifications, call-in rules, attendance procedures and more), and how to account for intermittent leave by the hour.
• Proper certifications. Know what to do when the FMLA call-offs exceed the intermittent-leave certification you have on file.
• When to say no. Employees can use intermittent leave every day to change their schedule permanently. Know when and how you can say no to such demands.
• Leverage your follow-up powers. Know when you can contact an employee’s doctor about the need for leave and request a second opinion.
• Know how to track time off. The FMLA and the PWFA allow pregnant workers short bursts of unscheduled leave. Learn how to track both concurrently.
• Learn lessons from recent court rulings. They lay out a path for the best (and worst) steps to complying with intermittent-leave laws.
• Identify the key questions to ask. You should ask a certain set of questions each and every time an employee seeks leave.

Here’s what you’ll learn throughout the four-week discrimination series:

• 04/03/25: Age. Understand the rights of aging employees and head off age-discrimination lawsuits.
• 04/10/25: Religion. Learn practical strategies for preventing religious discrimination in the workplace, including the process for offering reasonable accommodations.
• 04/17/25: Sex. Comply with laws that guarantee equal rights and opportunities in the workplace, ensuring that all individuals are treated fairly regardless of their gender.
• 04/24/25: Race. Ensure you are complying with civil rights laws that prohibit unequal treatment based on race.

• Why you need to limit where remote work takes place, whether it happens regularly or only occasionally. Complicated state hiring and payroll issues for multi-state remote workers make it essential to know where your remote workers (and job candidates) are located.
• Remote work isn’t a right—in most cases. You control where work gets done … or at least you should. But sometimes remote work is a required reasonable accommodation. We’ll explain—in plain English.
• Beware the disloyal teleworker. A new trend has teleworkers cheating on their employers by working for two or more at the same time. Learn how to spot and stop this.
• Hybrid work. You may think requiring regular in-office work at least part of the time fixes remote-work legal problems. It doesn’t. In fact, it often multiplies them.
• Harassment on the rise. Shockingly, more workers are reporting sex-, age- and ethnicity-based harassment than ever—especially when teleworking. You need new harassment rules for telework NOW.
• New telework rules for managers. Discover how to train your managers to successfully supervise off-site staff without resorting to privacy-violating surveillance that can trigger lawsuits.
• Telework expenses. Comply with laws that require you to pay remote and hybrid workers for the surprise expenses they incur on your behalf.
• Timekeeping and pay. Understand state and federal laws on timekeeping and breaks for remote staff. Plus, know when you can pay some teleworkers less than hybrid or office workers.
• Common classification mistakes. Learn how to properly classify remote workers as exempt vs. non-exempt, and employee vs. independent contractor. Jobs change and so does classification.
• Forced hybrid work. Discover how to force fully remote workers back to the office part-time.