In what will become an annual tradition for my last post of the year, I bring you the holiday classic, ’Twas the Employment Law Night before Christmas. To all of my readers, thank you for a great 2019. I’ll see everyone on Jan. 6, 2020, with fresh content to kick off the new year. ’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the office Not a creature was stirring, well, just one of the bosses; The bonuses were paid by the company with care, In hopes that no ungrateful employees would swear. The workers were home all snug on their thrones; While visions of deadlines danced on thei ..read more

Unemployment in the United States stands at a 50-year low. The quit rate of workers hovers near an all-time high. And the number of open jobs the number of unemployed individuals. Workers have reaped the benefit of this employment boom, through more job options and bigger paychecks. But it has ramped up pressure on HR departments grappling with recruiting and retaining top talent. To help overcome these challenges, many are eyeing a double-edged sword: artificial intelligence. AI holds immense promise. Technology that mimics human thinking by making assumptions, learning, reasoning, problem-s ..read more

From a diversity and inclusion perspective, this has been a tumultuous decade. There has clearly been an increase in conversation about moving the dial on D&I, but how much has really changed? It’s easy to feel discouraged when women make up only 17 percent of executives in consulting, 15 percent in financial services, and 11 percent in tech. However, increased advocacy, laws and pressure addressing this problem has begun to make changes. The proportion of women on boards of the FTSE 100 has increased from 12.5 percent in 2010 to 32.4 percent in 2019. But the numbers don’t tell the whole s ..read more

Jennifer Petriglieri, author of Couples That Work, explains why the quest for work-life balance is a lie and how couples can truly thrive in both love and in work. As the number of dual-career couples continue to rise, she says, such relationships are now the new normal. Anyone who is in this type of relationship knows the difficulties of maintaining a happy, healthy and equal relationship while simultaneously pursuing their career goals. Despite all of the talk about splitting responsibilities 50/50, Petriglieri argues that there is a surprising lack of guidance on ..read more

Mani Mueller was among the millions of working Americans balancing a full time career and providing care for an elderly parent. Mueller, who works for a Madison, Wisconsin biotech firm, was able to balance work and caregiving, but nearly 32 percent of employees have had to leave a job during their career due to caregiving responsibilities. This doesn’t have to be the case. U.S. organizations have the opportunity to do more for this growing population of employees ..read more

In recent decades, the American workforce has undergone sweeping changes. Globalization and technology have conspired to reduce the percentage of middle-wage, middle-skill jobs in the economy. The explosive growth of Internet-based communications has made remote work — whether locally or globally — much more central to many employers’ business models. Even the structure of work relationships has changed, as short-term, part-time, and independent work have become commonplace. These changes, and others, have forced millions of today’s workers to play a much more active role in building and manag ..read more

I love writing about mental health, and I finally had the hour to watch the American Association of Suicidology’s Facebook Live conversation between suicide prevention expert and psychiatrist Dr. April Foreman and one of my favorite television personalities, Rachel Bloom. She’s the Emmy Award winning creator and star of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” a television show that does a good job of destigmatizing people who have a mental illness. The main character on the show, Rebecca Bunch, has borderline personality disorder, or BPD. This interview originally came out in October during National Suicide Pr ..read more

This week, the National Labor Relations Board decided two cases that rolled back key Obama era anti-management NLRB decisions. Apogee Retail LLC d/b/a Unique Thrift Store, which overturned Banner Estrella Medical Center and held that work rules requiring confidentiality during the course of workplace investigations are presumptively lawful. Caesars Entertainment d/b/a/ Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino, which overturned Purple Communications and held that an employer can lawfully restrict employee use of its email system as long as it does so on a nondiscriminatory basis. Apogee Retail is a mu ..read more

After a year of gathering 20 very worthy nominees, whittling it down to 10 awful finalists, and compiling hundreds upon hundreds of your votes, today is the day to declare the Worst Employer of 2019. While all of the year’s nominees were worthy adversaries, the winner truly stood head and shoulders above the competition. But, before naming the winner, let’s count down the non-winners. Honorable Mentions (each receiving less than 10% of the vote) 10. The Exorcising Employer — manager tells employee he has to submit to an exorcism to cure his marital problems 9. The Little Rascal Racist ..read more

Sherryl Darby has the BRCA1 gene, otherwise known as the breast cancer gene, the best known gene associated with breast-cancer risk. Approximately two months after she started working as an administrative assistant at Childvine, an early childcare provider, Darby opted to have a double mastectomy to decrease her risk of developing breast cancer in the future. Two weeks later, Childvine fired her. Despite the close-in-time link between Darby’s surgery and her termination, the district court dismissed her ADA lawsuit. While “normal cell growth” is a major life activity the ADA protects, the cour ..read more