Increasingly, U.S. Supreme Court decisions turn on the exact language Congress chose to use when writing laws. The justices often rely on the ordinary meaning of the words contained in legislation.

Earlier this year, the Littler Mendelson law firm surveyed 350 in-house lawyers, business executives and HR professionals and asked them what their greatest concerns were for managing employees this year. Here are their top three.

If you’re planning on hiring teenagers this summer, remember the Fair Labor Standards Act has strict rules regarding the jobs and hours teens may work.

Under the ADA, workers with disabilities who aren’t yet eligible for leave or who have used up their accrued leave and FMLA entitlement may be able to take more time off as a reasonable accommodation. However, there is no ADA right to indefinite leave.

During the hiring process, critical insights often emerge between the lines of résumés and during unguarded moments in interviews. For HR professionals, detecting these signals—whether they’re explicit comments that raise eyebrows or subtle inconsistencies in background verification—requires expertise and careful attention.

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.