Last Friday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 95 into law, providing California employees with up to two weeks of supplemental paid sick leave (SPSL) for COVID-19 absences, including paid time off for vaccination. The new law reinstates and expands the prior California supplemental paid sick leave law that expired on December 31, 2020
Government Agencies Eye Larger Targets: How Employers Can Navigate the Increase in Systemic Litigation
Government agencies are increasingly setting their sights on larger targets, ramping up enforcement efforts to root out systemic discrimination. This has important ramifications for employers who may suddenly find themselves defending a claim that, for all intents and purposes, feels like a class action, even though it started as an individual agency charge. With advancements in technology, large data sets on workforces are more common than ever, and government agencies are taking advantage of this and will not hesitate to request data on classes of individuals to search for trends indicating potential discrimination.
EEOC Intensifies Campaign against Systemic Discrimination
In her first public speech since being named as Chair of the EEOC, Charlotte Burrows pledged that the federal government’s workplace civil rights agency will emphasize enforcement of laws to combat systemic discrimination. This commitment to addressing systemic discrimination is consistent with President Biden’s plans to combat racism. (In January, Biden signed an executive order creating a government-wide “racial equity review” and underscoring enforcement of anti-discrimination laws. Read more here.)Continue Reading Government Agencies Eye Larger Targets: How Employers Can Navigate the Increase in Systemic Litigation
Taking Your Pay Equity Analysis To The Next Level: Performance Ratings Audits
Most US multinationals conduct regular pay equity audits, but for further insights into promoting equity and removing potential bias in compensation, companies are increasingly exploring adding performance ratings audits to the standard review cycle.
Performance ratings can often have a large impact on an employee’s rate of pay and/or bonus compensation. However, for many companies, performance ratings are discretionary, given by managers without specific guidelines or training to follow and without many (or any) checks and balances. In addition, considerations regarding leveling of job descriptions, both at the time of hire and as employees matriculate, may impact performance ratings. Because the results of a pay audit are only as good as the data inputs, it makes sense to take a closer look at how the underlying data comes to be.Continue Reading Taking Your Pay Equity Analysis To The Next Level: Performance Ratings Audits
Five Trends That Will Reshape the Way We Work
Special thanks to guest contributors John Evason and Monica Kurnatowska.
The pandemic instantly proved that remote work is possible for a large swath of workers, but also brought a sharp focus on issues such as mental well-being, team engagement, productivity, data privacy and cybersecurity risks, and much more.
Simultaneously, as businesses were trying to
Biden DOL Signals Change to Joint Employer Rule
The US Department of Labor is developing a new regulation on joint employment under the FLSA, a possible first step towards reversing the Trump administration’s business-friendly rule on the joint employer standard.
First Public Notice of Possible New Regulation
On February 23, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) posted on its
Trump Era DOL Independent Contractor Guidance Withdrawn
As predicted here, on February 19, the DOL formally withdrew gig-worker guidance from the Trump administration. The DOL’s Wage and Hour Administration ditched a pair of interpretative letters from 2019, including one that platform-based companies could have used as a legal defense against claims that their drivers are employees subject to the Fair Labor
New DOL Final Rule On Independent Contractors Is (Likely) No More
The DOL’s just-issued final rule on employee vs. independent contractor classifications under the FLSA seems likely to be reversed. On January 20, the White House issued a memorandum to the heads of all executive departments and agencies ordering them to halt all non-emergency rulemaking and regulatory activity issued under the previous administration pending review by
Biden and D&I in the Workplace: A New Direction
In his first day in office, President Joe Biden signaled that his administration will take a different approach to D&I in the workplace than the previous administration. Corporate leaders should continue investing in D&I work, implementing policies that create equity and foster inclusion for underrepresented minorities, such as enforcing zero-tolerance rules for discrimination, harassment and
Join Us for FutureWorks: A Series on Renewal Strategies for a Transformed Workplace
Companies are facing critical business challenges in regard to their most important asset – their people. While workforce transformation is not a new concept for global organizations, the pandemic has forced us to rapidly adapt our standard ways of working and how we engage with employees to ensure the long-term viability of the business. We
Resource Navigator for US Employers | Practical Employment Law Guidance
We identified and mapped out our most relevant blog posts, articles and video chats to serve as a quick and handy roadmap to recovery and renewal for your company.
Our 2021 Employment & Compensation Resource Navigator provides US multinational companies organized links to Baker McKenzie’s most helpful, relevant thought leadership in one brief document. Arranged