• The HR Specialist - Print Newsletter
  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
  • The HR Weekly

Employment Law

Throw a bucket of ice water on summer payroll problems

04/16/2025
Regardless of whether employees work in the office or remotely, the one thing they’re all thinking about now is vacations and long weekends. As you gear up for employees’ summer vacation requests, remember the Fair Labor Standards Act has a lot to say about working hours and calculating overtime when employees take a day off during the week.

Appeals court OKs Wilcox return to NLRB, Supreme Court says not so fast

04/14/2025
Another day, another court, another status change for once-again former National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox.

Your choice on diabetes accommodations: Pay little or nothing now or $150K later

04/14/2025
Most disability accommodations don’t cost much at all to provide. Penalties for violating the ADA by not accommodating an employee’s health needs can be expensive indeed.

Understand how pregnancy accommodations differ from other accommodations

04/14/2025
Accommodations under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act can look very familiar at first glance. Like disability accommodations under the ADA and religious accommodations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, pregnancy accommodations under the PWFA require having an interactive conversation with the employee designed to identify what changes the employer can make to accommodate the employee’s needs. But the similarities between the laws end there.

Electronic signatures: What employers need to know

04/09/2025
For centuries, a signature at the bottom of a piece of paper has meant someone agrees with what the document says. Can keystrokes carry the same legal weight as pen strokes? Yes. Two federal laws establish the legality of e-signatures in this country: the UETA and E-SIGN.

Racial remarks? Respond quickly and forcefully

04/09/2025
As a manager, it’s your responsibility to ensure that none of your people behave in a way that diminishes the sense of mutual respect and dignity in your unit. That’s what insensitive racial remarks do.

Schedule cut to accommodate pump breaks? Not so fast

04/09/2025
While breaks to express breast milk may disrupt the workday, they’re a legal entitlement meant to allow working mothers the ability to earn a paycheck while providing their child with nourishment widely believed to be the best food for growing infants.

Wilcox again removed from NLRB, leaving it unable to conduct business

04/07/2025
The NLRB again lacks enough members to conduct substantive business, although it continues to receive unfair labor practices complaints.

EEOC data show rise in claims alleging neurodiversity discrimination

04/07/2025
While still a small subset of EEOC disability discrimination cases, resolution of claims related to autism more than doubled between 2016 and 2023, rising from 0.4% of 1.5% disability bias cases.

Recognize legal peril of automatically rejecting requests for religious accommodation

04/04/2025
Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Groff v. DeJoy, employees and their lawyers have been testing the limits on how far employers must go to accommodate religious beliefs and practices.