benefits – Page 2

September 16, 2020June 29, 2023

305 Fitness works out pandemic woes while pumping up employee health

New York-based 305 Fitness bills itself as “a dance cardio workout with a live DJ. It’s fun, wild, and hard AF.”

As COVID-19 took hold earlier this year, leaders of 305 Fitness faced a workout of their own that was hard AF — and gravely serious. With indoor dance studios featuring black lights, lots of neon and Miami club scene-inspired music, 305 Fitness was forced to close its brick-and-mortar locations in New York, Washington, D.C., and Boston, as well as pop-up studios in Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Revenues immediately plummeted by 90 percent, said 305 Fitness Chief Operating Officer Sam Karshenboym.

There were difficult conversations with landlords regarding rent abatement in the short term. They also made as many cuts as possible to keep the business afloat, Karshenboym said.

“The bulk of the cuts came down to really, really difficult decisions we had to make in HR and staffing,” he said. “We reduced our full-time team from 28 to 10. And we had to furlough all of our 250 part-time employees across six cities. All remaining full-timers on the team took a very significant pay cut.”

Health care for fitness staff

Stories of such drastic cuts sadly are all too frequent in a pandemic-ravaged business world. Like other fitness centers and health clubs nationwide, remaining open to the public as the pandemic set in was not an option. But in a business climate where every dollar counts, 305 Fitness executives opted to retain its health coverage for remaining employees.

Also read: View your schedule at a glance and make changes as needed.

“We wanted to offer access to health care,” Karshenboym said. “It’s one way that we can support our team in a way that made it easy for them and also works for us financially.”

305 Fitness retained its partnership with concierge health provider Eden Health. Concierge health — a subscription-based, membership medicine business model — is one health care alternative that’s become more attractive for smaller companies wanting to provide employees with 24-hour digital care, same-day in-person primary care, and behavioral health services.

The fitness company initially contracted three years ago with Eden Health, which in August announced an infusion of $25 million in Series B funding, bringing its total to $39 million in venture capital raised. Eden Health is known for its direct-to-employer health care delivery model, “bringing in-person and virtual health care together to deliver an exceptional patient experience to the employees of mid-market companies,” according to an August press statement announcing the funding.

Also read: Decentralized scheduling in nursing helps care for health care professionals

“We received a lot of feedback from our team about how grateful they were that they got to use Eden Health during quarantine,” Karshenboym said. The 305 Fitness staff is primarily in their 20s and 30s, he added, and depending on the role, they are paid hourly or per class.

“It’s great during the pandemic for obvious reasons. It’s virtual care in a time when all you can do are virtual things. I worked closely with our director of HR to unveil it some time ago, and it’s been a really great experience.”

Protecting employee safety

Karshenboym said some staff members have used the pop-up clinics, and in October they will provide flu shots to 305 Fitness staff at an Eden Health clinic.

305 Fitness, health — 305 Fitness COO Sam Karshenboym.

“While we weren’t able to offer health insurance for our part-timers, we were excited to offer Eden Health as a great health-related perk,” he said.

As fitness studios nationwide were shut down in March, 305 Fitness faced many unknowns at the time, primarily around asymptomatic carriers potentially spreading COVID-19. There also was the daunting task of transitioning to a virtual working world with a pared down staff.

“The bulk of what we’re doing is still virtual,” he said. “What is in person is our outdoor classes, where we are requiring 6 feet social distancing before and after class; 15 feet during class; and masks before and after class.”

Transparency and supporting the team

To help supplement its revenues 305 Fitness offers digital certification for instructors living outside its studio markets to teach 305 techniques locally. They have certified over 300 people since March who are teaching either virtually or outdoors in their communities, Karshenboym said.

“It’s been a challenging year for all of us, at 305 and outside of 305,” he said. “I know we’re not unique in that way. It’s really just about how we as a company support our team members and our community as best as we can. The free daily workouts offered on YouTube have been a primary way we’ve been able to stay connected to our community on a daily basis. We really try to have them be fun and carefree and high energy and silly and a sort of momentary outlet to de-stress and disconnect from reality.”

Case study: With safety a top priority, Easy Ice slipping past COVID-19 challenges

Despite the cutbacks Karshenboym said they aren’t hiding anything from their staff. Transparency has been key to engaging their employees, he said.

The fitness company hosts free daily morning meditations for employees and its client base, as well as free workshops around self-care, resilience, confidence, and staying productive through Eden Health. Earlier this summer, 305 Fitness offered over $40,000 in creative grants to furloughed staff to support them in their creative pursuits and projects, he said.

“We’ve been offering as much transparency as we can as a leadership team through town halls, regular emails, check-ins, whatever we can do to offer the team more information into what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, how we plan to get through the pandemic and survive this,” he said. “There’s so much unknown in the world, and if we can make things known, at least within the world of 305, that makes it a little bit easier for our team to navigate this time.”

See wage costs in real-time and adjust staffing levels and assignments to drive profitability with Workforce.com’s Live Wage Tracker.

September 10, 2020June 29, 2023

PFS dials up a rapid work from home solution for its call center staff

Call centers typically are staffed by dozens, if not hundreds of employees during any given shift.

Most employees sit at workstations in relatively tight quarters in large, open rooms as they assist customers tracking an order or seeking to initiate a return. Such work environments, however, had to undergo an immediate makeover in March as the COVID-19 pandemic set in. By June, a remarkable 42 percent of the U.S. labor force was working from home full time, according to Stanford University research.

Dallas-based PFS, a global ecommerce call center provider for high-profile consumer brands including Yves Saint Laurent, L’Oreal and Asics running shoes, was well aware of the pivot it needed to make. Immediate, wholesale changes in where and how its call center employees worked was imperative given safety and social distancing regulations.

With an accelerated shift to online shopping, it was crucial for PFS employees to provide uninterrupted service to customers as company executives sought solutions to keep its employees healthy and productive, said Dawn Brewster, vice president of PFS global customer care.

Some employers had difficulty implementing a productive work-from-home model. Companies with large hourly employee bases faced time and attendance concerns as well as legal hurdles. But PFS, whose hourly workers account for about 90 percent of its employee base across its four contact centers, was ahead of the curve, Brewster said.

Also read: Shift scheduling strategies can be improved through technology

“Creating a work-from-home model in such short notice amid a pandemic was a challenge at first,” Brewster said. “We needed to prioritize our employees’ safety and ensure our clients received the same level of customer experience, regardless of where agents were operating from.”

PFS quickly built a model that helped employees emotionally and physically, Brewster said, adding that they conceived and implemented a work-from-home plan in just two weeks.

“The urgency to shift our call centers remotely without any lag in output for our clients was a challenge that our team was able to rise above,” she said. “We designed a solution that translated our typical processes and technology to a remote solution, ensuring that any operational shifts were designed with the employee in mind first.”

Case study: Safety as a top priority helps Easy Ice slip past COVID-19 challenges

PFS employees remain 100 percent remote through the company’s work-from-home model, which allows employees to avoid the complications COVID-19 presents for normal in-office experiences, Brewster said.

“We have made our employees’ mental and physical health our top priority,” she said. “Through Communities in Microsoft Teams, employees can interact with other employees to ask questions or share best practices for how to respond to various customer requests, much like they would on-site at the contact center. We have done everything possible to simulate an on-site environment to support our agents through this difficult time.”

PFS continues to operate multiple shifts through its work-from-home model, Brewster said. Employees clock in remotely using various time-and-attendance platforms, she added.

“Multiple shifts are standard practice for us,” she said. “We typically have six to seven shifts running between 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., depending on client’s requirements. We can support as many shifts required, up to and including 24/7 support.”

To date PFS has not reopened its centers. Yet PFS executives have been pleasantly surprised at the results of implementing a work-from-home policy, said Brewster, who has been at the forefront of making sure PFS’ remote work model was a success.

Also read: Workforce tracking solutions do not always track with company culture

What began as a response to an immediate need to prioritize employee safety actually resulted in improved contact center metrics, she said. Employees are happy to be working from home and it shows. Quality assurance review rates have improved as supervisors and managers maintain employee engagement through increased team and individual meetings, she said.

“PFS has seen a drop in attendance issues and we’re experiencing lower attrition rates across clients,” Brewster said. “We helped our employees transition to working from home, giving them all of the necessary tools to be successful. This has led to an overwhelmingly positive response from both clients and employees. We have increased our quality-assurance review rates, and supervisors and managers are maintaining employee engagement through increased team and individual meetings.”

Given the immediacy of such a drastic shift in its workforce, PFS executives adhered to patience and adaptability to shift employees to remote work environments. Brewster suggests other organizations should consider breaking up shifts to offer flexible scheduling, adopting new technologies and increasing communications and training with its employees.

“Embracing these shifts offers an immense upside for organizations,” she said. “We’ve seen increased performance and happier employees since the shift to work from home. Additionally, we have been able to expand our recruiting capabilities now that we are no longer tied to a physical location.”

Do time logs right and let everything follow by integrating it with other vital parts of managing your staff. From ensuring the right person clocks in for the shift to paying staff correctly, it all starts with the Workforce.com Time Clock App.

August 12, 2020August 12, 2020

Elevator anxiety may be a rising concern among workers returning to the office

Has COVID-19 caused you to have elevator anxiety, as in a fear of being inside of a 7′ x 5′ box with other people? According to a not-quite scientific Twitter poll with over 4,000 responses, more than six in 10 workers will not use an elevator to get to their office.

These results beg the question, are elevators safe despite our apparent (and in my mind perceived justified) reluctance to use them

Believe it or not, the answer is that despite their small size and cramped quarters, given what we currently know about COVID-19 and its transmission, elevators should be safe in most instances.

According to Axios, most elevators are well ventilated, and we’re not inside of them long enough to worry about viral exposure.

Still, if you want employees to feel safe and comfortable riding in an elevator to travel to and from work, you should (or your landlord should) implement some basic coronavirus protocols:

Limit capacity based on the size of the elevator car.
Mark designated and distanced standing spaces on the floor.
Require masks or facial coverings inside the elevator car.
Encourage standing with one’s face to the walls and not the door (or the other passengers).
Discourage speaking.
Install hand sanitizer dispensers outside and inside elevator cars, make sure they stay filled, and encourage their use before pressing buttons.
Stagger shift, break, and lunch times to avoid long elevator queues or crowded cars.

My current office (i.e., home) lacks an elevator. But, if I had to go back to my office office, I’m “Team Stairs” all the way until the pandemic ends.

August 8, 2020October 28, 2020

Connecting to community with Grand Finale Desserts and Pastries

Justin Raha of Grand Finale Desserts and Pastries knows exactly why his business has been so successful.

Starting out as a baker’s apprentice with a passion for pastry, Raha eventually founded Grand Finale, starting out with a focus on wedding cakes and chocolate. He diversified to include more types of baked goods and pastries. Now, the small business employs five people and enjoys a good reputation among the local community of Grand Haven, Michigan.

Locals supporting local

“We use Michigan blueberries, Michigan strawberries, Michigan raspberries. We use dried fruit and we try to use Michigan sugar, and we get Michigan eggs, and so everything that we’re getting we’re trying to get as local as possible.” These ingredients are what makes Grand FInale’s treats so special, Raha said. The result? Quality products at affordable prices, with the added bonus of supporting other local businesses in the area.

Raha’s commitment to using local ingredients and participating in community events has solidified Grand Finale’s charm — they aren’t just another bakery in the area, but a recognizable name in the neighborhood.

Also read: Building a safety policy was vital to Shawmut Design and Construction’s health

“We give back to the community a lot which is really big. We have a really strong local community that is all about growth and support of each other and different tasks, fundraisers, organizations, and groups,” Raha said. “And so any opportunity we can to help out more for our community we try to do that, which has gotten really substantial in kick back toward our business because people see that we give back to the community and donate to them. Because of that they tend to want to come to us.”

Smoother payroll with time clock software

Raha found Workforce.com through the mobile app store and thought to try it out. After trying a few other apps, he found Workforce.com the most user-friendly and affordable for Grand Finale’s needs, especially the notification aspect that allows requests to come in through email. Now, the small business has been using Workforce.com’s time clock software for over a year, as well as the employee scheduling features to keep track of operations.

While employee schedules are consistent, what the time clock software has done for them is make shift durations much easier to track. With all the data about when employees clock in and out, calculating wages is faster — Raha just sends the timesheets over to his accountant, and a process that used to take an hour now lasts 15 minutes.

Sweet gestures

Whether it’s the local farmers’ market, events supporting mental health programs or environmental fundraisers, Grand Finale Desserts and Pastries is there to lift the spirits of anyone who tries their baked treats. Building trust between small business owners and customers over time, through authenticity and visible effort are the key ingredients to the bakery’s success.

“They know we’re good,” Raha said. “They know that their money is going to stay local and get back into the community.”

August 5, 2020June 29, 2023

Who pays for employer mandated COVID-19 tests?

The inevitable has happened. One of your employees has tested positive for COVID-19.

You do what you’re supposed to do. You clean and sanitize your workplace.

You communicate with your other employees to let them know that you’ve had someone test positive. You reinforce all of your coronavirus safety rules, protocols and procedures. And you require the COVID-positive employee to isolate and not return to work per CDC guidelines.

Those guidelines recommend that a positive employee not return to work for either of: 1) being three days fever-free, respiratory symptoms have improved, and it’s been at least 10 days since symptoms first appeared; or 2) the receipt of two negative tests at least 24 hours apart. You opt for the latter, believing that negative tests will provide you and your employees better confidence that COVID-19 will not reenter your workplace when that employee returns.

Who pays for these coronavirus tests?

We have several of federal statutes, old and new, that guide the answer.

As to the cost of the testing itself, we look to the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Both the FFCRA and the CARES Act contain requirements that group and individual health insurance plans cover COVID-19 diagnostic testing without cost-sharing, co-pays, or deductibles. This requirement not only includes the cost of the test itself, but also the cost of any related office, urgent care, emergency room, or telehealth visits.

Second, if for some reason an employee is not covered by applicable health insurance, EEOC guidance strongly suggests that the ADA requires employers to cover the costs of COVID-19 testing. The EEOC’s Enforcement Guidance on Disability-Related Inquiries and Medical Examinations of Employees Under the ADA provides that an employer must pay for all medical-exam related costs when an employer requires the examination because the employer reasonably believes the employee poses a “direct threat.” According to the EEOC, “COVID-19 poses a direct threat.” Therefore, the ADA would require an employer to cover the costs of diagnostic testing related to keeping that direct threat out of the workplace.

What about compensation for taking a COVID test? Is the time an employee spends taking a COVID-19 test (including the time spent traveling to and from the testing site) “working time” such that it must be compensated? The answer to this question is likely “yes.” While there is little guidance on this issue, we can look to a 1997 opinion letter by the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, which states, “[A]ttendance by an employee at a meeting during or outside of working hours for the purpose of submitting to a mandatory drug test imposed by the employer would constitute hours worked for FLSA purposes, as would attendance at a licensing physical examination during or outside of normal working hours.” If time spent submitting to a mandatory drug test or a physical or examination counts as “hours worked” for which an employer must compensate an employee, then it’s safe to assume that a required COVID-19 test falls into the same category.

Simple questions, complex answer. Bottom line, pay for the testing if the employee lacks health insurance to cover it, and pay the employee for the time spent related to the testing. It’s not only the law, but it’s also just the right thing to do.

July 13, 2020October 4, 2021

Human capital management: Enriching your human resources

Human resource management is an ever-evolving discipline in business management.

Dating back to the early 1900s, experts recognized that managing a workforce goes beyond carrying out transactional tasks and ensuring that there are hands on deck to get the job done. Gradually, more attention is given to understanding employee well-being and its importance in delivering quality work.

One expert who delved into the study of the workforce was James R. Angell, president of Yale University and the Carnegie Corp. He started a joint initiative between the Engineering Foundation and National Research Council to propel a research movement that looks into the science behind workforce management through unifying modern engineering, labor management, and educational bodies. It has given birth to Workforce.com today and for 98 years, this initiative has delved deep into the issues within the workforce and understand best practices in human resource management.

As market trends change and employee behavior and preferences shift, an organization’s human resources management practices should also pivot to meet these developments. Today, it is all about engaging the workforce to push the business forward and is a key component of business success.

Human Capital: Investing in your organization’s best asset

Human resource management, as its name suggests, is an area of business management that ensures a holistic experience for the organization’s most important resource — its people. It’s involved with the following:

Recruitment: Recruitment is the core foundation of building an organization’s human capital. It is involved in identifying the needs of the company and the particular roles that can fill those gaps. Attracting, screening, and onboarding candidates are all part of the recruitment process. The goal of the recruitment process is to successfully find candidates whose skills, values and motivations are aligned with the organization’s goals and culture.
Compensation and benefits: Compensation and benefits refer to what the company gives its employees in exchange for their work or service, and they include monetary and non-monetary components. A company’s compensation and benefits package includes an employee’s salary and government-mandated benefits. Other perks and incentives can be part of the deal such as insurance coverage, gym membership, housing allowance, company-sponsored trips and events.
Labor law compliance: Running an organization is governed by employment laws. Human resource management is involved in creating company policies that comply with labor regulations. Labor law regulations vary per region and they can change from time to time. That being said, a crucial part of human resource management is staying at pace with these changes and ensuring that company policies remain compliant.
Training and development: Training and development are focused on nurturing the potential of employees. Training refers to programs that are geared toward improving skills or learning new technical knowledge needed to perform tasks. Meanwhile, development is focused more on programs that enrich an employee’s overall growth concerning soft skills, leadership, communication, and adapting to certain situations.
Retention and engagement: Human resource management is also involved in creating strategies to keep employee turnover to a minimum. Retention and engagement programs are proactive steps to ensure that employees are motivated to perform their best not just for a paycheck but because they have a clear alignment of values with the organization. All of these parts should move cohesively to ensure the best experience possible for staff at every stage of the employee lifecycle.

Overcoming human resource management problems

Human resource management involves a lot of moving parts and these can come with their own sets of challenges. Here are common challenges in human resource management and ways to solve them.

Difficulty in attracting the right talent.

Delays in hiring can be costly, but an unfit hire can also be detrimental to an organization. So how do you know a candidate is fit for the role? While skills and experience are important in assessing whether an applicant is qualified or not, it’s also essential to look into whether they can fit into your company culture.

How to solve:

It’s all about clarity and a good candidate experience. Create your job ad in such a way that it highlights what you’re looking for and what’s in it for a qualified candidate when they get in. Provide information about the working style and culture that you have in your company. This will attract people who both have the required skills and similar values as you. At the same time, this can also filter out candidates who have a different working style and culture preference. Another common challenge is convincing candidates who are highly skilled and qualified yet passive. These candidates are most likely in touch with a lot of recruiters and are considering more than one job offer. How do you stand out? Look into what motivates this type of worker. Investigate what that person is looking for in an employer and see if that aligns with your goals, culture and compensation package. Customize your messaging accordingly.

Boosting your brand as an employer can also help increase your chances of attracting the right talent. According to research from Glassdoor, organizations that invest in employer branding are three times more likely to make a quality hire.

Poor candidate experience can also be the thing between you and a quality hire. Communication is at the core of solving this. Make sure that all details and instructions are clear at every stage of the process. Timely feedback and response are also crucial. Take a look at your current process and see how it’s affecting candidate experience and employer brand. Glassdoor found that organizations that create a strong experience for candidates improve their quality of hires by 70 percent.

Dealing with too much paperwork.

Human resource management deals with a lot of information — from employee details, company policies and other essential business documents. And too much paperwork can be a burden, especially when done manually. It can take time away from more valuable tasks like strategizing and optimizing programs and processes.

How to solve:

There are digital solutions that can remove the tedious task of processing paperwork. For instance, digital employee onboarding solutions help eliminate the long forms that new hires need to fill. They enable new staff to log in their information and upload important documents online. This ensures better accuracy of information, improves the employee onboarding experience, and allows for a better way for a new hire to spend his first day at work.

Understanding and applying labor laws.

Staying compliant with labor laws is a must. However, understanding regulations, applying them in policies, and staying at pace with labor law changes can be very challenging.

How to solve:

Implement a compliance strategy to avoid any potential financial and reputational repercussions of failing to comply. A compliance strategy is a set of programs and processes that’s geared towards ensuring regular updates and audits of policies and communicating any changes with staff promptly. Given the ever-evolving nature of regulations, it’s best to build a strategy and assign a working group to focus on compliance. Technology is also helpful in staying at pace with changes. For instance, some solutions automate labor law updates and ensure that these are reflected in the payroll computation.

Retaining employees.

Attracting the right talent is just half of the battle. The other half is retaining them and keeping them satisfied with their role, especially those that are performing above and beyond.

How to solve:

It’s all about consistent growth and learning. Employees are more likely to stay the course when they are given opportunities to grow and are recognized as a vital part of the organization’s success.

Training and development programs are essential to retaining employees. But creating these programs is not a one-time thing. That’s why it’s important to have regular alignments with your staff. Regular check-ins can help you get a pulse on their current sentiment about working in the organization, satisfaction with their roles, and the challenges or gaps they’re facing. From there, you can customize programs or identify next steps that can help them stay engaged.

It also pays to have a competitive compensation and benefits package. One of the things to keep employees happy and make them know that they are valued is by providing not just what they need to get their job done, but also offering other incentives that will motivate them to perform better and stay aligned with the values of the organization.

Engaging talent at every stage of the employee lifecycle.

Human resource management plays an important part in engaging employees, and it is a continuous process throughout every stage of the employee lifecycle, from onboarding up until the time an employee leaves an organization. All of these stages affect culture, staff morale, and the success of the company.

An organization is only as good as its employees. It’s imperative to nurture and cultivate staff no matter where they are in their tenure with the organization. Doing this takes time. That’s why it’s important for human resources to have the right technology in place so that they can reduce time on administrative tasks and focus more of their energy on engaging employees.

June 24, 2020June 29, 2023

Are employees taking paid leave under the FFCRA?

According to a recent poll conducted by the National Partnership for Women & Families, less than one in five employees have either taken or plan to take paid sick or paid family leave under the FFCRA.

Of the 19 percent who has actually taken, or intend to take, paid FFCRA leave:

9 percent say they are using new leave protections for their own illness or isolation.
8 percent say they are using new leave protections due to a family member’s isolation/illness.
7 percent say they are using new leave protections to care for a child due to child care or school closure.
6 percent said they took leave, but not because of the new policy.

Yet, a higher number, more than one in four employees, have no idea that this paid leave even exists or are unsure if they will use it. Of this 28 percent of employees:

17 percent said they were unaware of the new protections.
11 percent are not sure if they will use the new protections.

These numbers seem low to me. So I’ve created my own poll, which you can take below.

I’ll publish the results tomorrow.

June 23, 2020June 29, 2023

Must you accommodate an employee with a high-risk family member?

One of the questions I have received most from clients during this pandemic comes in some variation of the following: “An employee [does not want to come into work/wants to work from home/wants a leave of absence] because s/he lives with someone who is at high risk for coronavirus complications. What do we do?”

In other words, must you accommodate an employee for the employee’s close family member’s disability?

According to the EEOC, the answer is, “No.”

Is an employee entitled to an accommodation under the ADA in order to avoid exposing a family member who is at higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19 due to an underlying medical condition?

No. Although the ADA prohibits discrimination based on association with an individual with a disability, that protection is limited to disparate treatment or harassment. The ADA does not require that an employer accommodate an employee without a disability based on the disability-related needs of a family member or other person with whom she is associated.

For example, an employee without a disability is not entitled under the ADA to telework as an accommodation in order to protect a family member with a disability from potential COVID-19 exposure.

According to me, however, the answer is, “It depends” (on how you’ve historically treated similar requests by similarly situated employees).

The ADA not only protects employees with disabilities, but it also protects employees associated with individuals with disabilities. There is, however, one critical difference between these two types of protections. The former imposes on employers an obligation to offer reasonable accommodations, while the latter does not. This difference, however, does not mean that employers in all cases can deny accommodations to employees associated with individuals with disabilities.

If an employer has a history of accommodating employees similarly situated to an employee requesting an accommodation for an employee associated with someone at risk for coronavirus complications, the employer would be open to claim of disparate treatment by denying the employee’s accommodation request. Thus, an employer must scrutinize its decision to deny an accommodation request for an employee’s family member against similar requests by other similarly situated employees to avoid a claim of disparate treatment.

Of course, the ADA is a floor and not a ceiling. An employer is always free to accommodate any employee’s request for any reason. As the EEOC points out, “[A]n employer is free to provide such flexibilities if it chooses to do so.” Further, during the pandemic, the DOL “encourages employers and employees to collaborate to achieve flexibility and meet mutual needs.”

Moreover, there are myriad business reasons why an employer might choose to grant an accommodation in this case.

It’s the ethically or morally correct thing to do.
It will help you to retain a quality employee.
Granting the accommodation will create goodwill, strengthening the employee’s loyalty to your company.
You will avoid the potential for bad press or negative social media if you deny the request, or worse, fire an employee seeking an accommodation under these circumstances.

For these reasons, I generally favor granting the accommodation. Unless there is a legitimate and overriding business reason to deny an accommodation request to an employee who, during the COVID-19 pandemic, seeks remote work or a leave of absence because he or she does not want to endanger a high-risk family member, grant the request. It’s the right thing to do, and, depending on the circumstances, it might also be the legal thing to do.

May 18, 2020June 29, 2023

House proposes significant expansions to paid leave under Families First Coronavirus Response Act

The House of Representatives on May 15 passed the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act, H.R.6800. Among other things, it proposes significant clarifications and expansions to the Emergency Family And Medical Leave and Emergency Paid Sick Leave provisions of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.

What are these proposed changes?

Emergency Family And Medical Leave

Expands emergency FMLA coverage to all employers, not just those with less than 500 employees.
Expands the definition of “parent” to include foster parents, adoptive parents, stepparents, parents-in-law, a parent of a domestic partner, and someone who stood in loco parentis to an employee when the employee was a child.
Provides emergency FMLA to an employee who is —
- self-isolating because of the employee’s own COVID-19 diagnosis;
- obtaining a medical diagnosis or care if the employee is experiencing the symptoms of COVID–19;
- complying with a recommendation or order by a public official with jurisdiction or a health care provider to self-isolate on the basis that the physical presence of the employee on the job would jeopardize the employee’s health, the health of other employees, or the health of an individual in the household of the employee because of the possible exposure of the employee to COVID–19 or because of the exhibiting of symptoms of COVID–19 by the employee;
- caring for or assisting a family member (also defined in the amendments) because the family member is self-isolating because of a COVID–19 diagnosis, because the family member is experiencing symptoms of COVID–19 and needs to obtain medical diagnosis or care, or because a public official or health care provider makes a recommendation or order that the presence of the family member in the community would jeopardize the health of other individuals in the community because of the possible exposure of such family member to COVID–19 or exhibiting of symptoms of COVID–19; and
- caring for a family member who is incapable of self-care because of a mental or physical disability or is a senior citizen, if the place of care for such family member is closed or the direct care provider is unavailable due to COVID–19.
Permits an employee to elect, but an employer cannot require, the substitution of paid time off for emergency FMLA.
Allows employees to take paid sick leave intermittently or on a reduced work schedule without regard to whether the employee and the employer have an agreement with respect to whether such leave may be taken intermittently or on a reduced work schedule.
Prohibits an employer from requiring certification by an employee in support of an emergency FMLA leave to not earlier than five weeks after the date on which the employee takes such leave
Extends the sunset date of emergency FMLA from 12/31/2020 until 12/31/2021.

Emergency Paid Sick Leave

Clarifies that paid sick leave under the FFCRA must be offered in addition to any paid leave offered by an employer, and prohibits an employer from changing its policies to avoid providing any additional paid leave.
Allows employees to take paid sick leave intermittently or on a reduced work schedule without regard to whether the employee and the employer have an agreement with respect to whether such leave may be taken intermittently or on a reduced work schedule.
Prohibits an employer from requiring certification by an employee for the need for paid sick leave for leaves less than three consecutive days of paid sick time, and further prohibits an employer from requiring such certification earlier than seven workdays after an employee returns to work.
Provides for a new allotment of 80 hours of paid sick leave if an employee changes employers.
Requires restoration of an employee to the same or equivalent position at the end of a period of paid sick leave.
Extends the sunset date of paid sick leave from 12/31/2020 until 12/31/2021.

Sen. Mitch McConnell has already said that this bill is DOA in the Senate in its current form but it’s unclear if this statement specifically referenced the FFCRA amendments. Stay tuned to see if any of these proposed amendments gain any traction in the Senate. I’ll keep everyone updated as this bill progresses.

May 6, 2020June 29, 2023

How do parents return to work without available child care?

Child care is the issue that has gotten the least attention in discussions about employees returning to work.

As states begin to slowly reopen and return employees to work, working parents are left wondering who will care for their children if schools, day cares and camps are closed.

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act provides working parents with some relief with its 12 weeks of paid child care-related leave. But that law has limits.

It does not apply to businesses with 500 or more employees, and businesses with less than 50 employees can exempt themselves from the childcare-related leave provisions.
It limits an employee’s leave allotment to 12 weeks, meaning that if an employee started taking childcare-related paid leave when the FFCRA took effect on April 1, he or she will exhaust their paid leave on June 24.
It does not apply if there is anyone else available to care for an employee’s child(ren) during the employee’s working time.

And the FFCRA does not account for parents who are stretched the point of exhaustion, working their full workdays remotely, and then working another full workday managing child care-related responsibilities. Consider the following hypothetical from the New York Law Journal.

Maya is an investment banker in New York City and typically works a 10-hour day. Maya has a nanny care for her infant daughter while she is at the office. During this pandemic, Maya is forced to work at home and her nanny is unable to help. Maya now has to handle a 10-hour/day job using less-than-ideal remote access technology—her remote desktop does not operate as smoothly as her office computer; she has one screen on her home computer as opposed to three in her office; she does not have direct access to her assistant or her other staff; she does not have the full panoply of office supplies and other corporate-level printing and copying, etc. With all these hindrances, Maya must work 12 hours to accomplish the same work she previously did in 10. On top of that, she must care for her infant daughter all day, which conservatively involves approximately eight hours of direct, hands-on attention. For Maya to cover her responsibilities (minus any time for even a short break), she must work a 20-hour day. And, she must do this every day, indefinitely, until the circumstances of this pandemic change.

Or consider, for example, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who on May 5 said that some K-12 schools are considering starting the 2020–21 school year on a split schedule. Half of a school’s students would attend in-person classes on Mondays and Tuesday, and the other half of Thursdays and Fridays. Students would distance learn on the days they aren’t in school in person.

This plan is great for helping schools manage social distance, but it’s terrible for working parents who are left scratching their heads figuring out who will help manage distance learning and otherwise watch their children on the days they aren’t in school, and who will provide child care after school.

What’s an employer to do?

1. Don’t discriminate. Family responsibility discrimination remains unlawful under Title VII. While federal law does not expressly include “family responsibility” as a protected class, the EEOC has long held that Title VII’s prohibits discrimination against parents as parents if you are treating some more favorably than others (e.g., dads better than moms, or men better than moms). There are also, a few states that expressly prohibit parental discrimination. If, for example, you have to make decisions about layoffs, you should be considering whether working parents are disproportionately included.

2. Consider accommodations to aid working parents. Work from home is already an accommodation, but there are others that could help here. Modified work schedules (which the Department of Labor favors in its FFCRA guidance), designated breaks, and the provision of additional work supplies such as laptops and printers could all ease the burden on parents working from home. Our goal here should be helping employees figure out solutions to get their job done, not harming employees (and the business) by erecting barriers that prevent it.

3. Finally, and most importantly, flexibility is key. Ohio’s Stay Safe Order mandates that manufacturers, distributors, construction companies, and offices allow employees to “work from home whenever possible.” If employees can work remotely, let them work remotely. Flexibility, understanding, and compassion is the best answer I can offer for the foreseeable future.