Category: Commentary & Opinion

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Could a Smart Mirror Make Us More Productive or Invade Our Privacy?

When you hear about a smart mirror, you think it’s a future endeavor. Then you hear it’s a real thing happening right now, and others have created similar tools — like HiMirror, a smart mirror that tracks your skin health. Or the one with a personal and business application — MirroCool, a personal assistant smart mirror and camera.

When I got an email about MirroCool, which uses facial recognition technology and keeps track of your calendar events and to-do lists, my mouth dropped. Not because it sounded like the next technology people would be grabbing,

but because it sounds like a choke on our increasingly shrinking private lives outside of technology.

MirroCool is the creation of the company’s founder and CEO Wojtek Kaszycki, who worked in business and investment in Poland for more than 20 years. Given his wide expertise in IT, consulting and finance, he set out on a new adventure to create the smart mirror that also acts as a personal assistant.

The advanced facial recognition system makes it a selling point and no longer seems like something you’d find in a futuristic film. But while it also seems convenient for organizing your day, taking selfies with friends and reading your face, it feels more like just another thing to connect to all of our devices and does not sound like it will improve any productivity, as it is meant to do.

Kaszycki begs to differ, and said the mirror is compatible with organizational apps on smartphones you use daily to sync up and provide all the information you need for your morning routine.

“What is the perfect personal assistant? A person or device that gives you information when you want and when it is done in a way that you don’t lose your time,” Kaszycki said.

Sure, efficiency is key, but having a mirror in my bathroom still sounds invasive. While it can be placed anywhere you wish — whether that is in the bathroom, in the living room or in an office space, the bathroom is getting the most points in terms of advertisement for the mirror’s locations.

It knows all my information and can tell me what I need to know based on smiles or frowns, but I don’t want to be bombarded with all my daily tasks first thing in the morning. When I am doing my hair — or the seldom occasion that I wear makeup — the last thing I want is to see bubbles of information blasted back at me from my reflection. How many productivity hacks do we need these days?

MirroCool’s Instagram shows examples of messages the smart mirror can shoot at the user to be ready for the day.

Kaszycki hopes for just one in the future and sees the mirror as a one-stop memo. Technology is becoming more intelligent and is ever-changing; mirrors will always be a necessity, he said.

“MirroCool is safer and more secure than a regular smartphone,” he said. He reasons that smartphones connect to the internet, whereas the mirror is connected to just the MirroCloud, which does not store personal data but rather numbers from face recognition vectors. If the cloud were to be breached, hackers would not be able to connect the numbers to specific people.

Kaszycki also shared that you can turn the camera off for more privacy and always need to turn it on manually to take a photo. He said privacy is the biggest concern of his customers, but hearing these features did calm me down about user safety, although not enough to use a MirroCool.

I asked my friends and coworkers if they shared my same opinion, and they all felt similarly terrified of the addition of a smart mirror in a sacred place like the bathroom. With all the increased tech in our lives, meditation and yoga are seeing an uptick in our generation who want to get away from all the screens — myself included. Picking up a fiction book rather than reading online or watching the real sunset instead of it being through a screen is so much more meaningful these days; even at work, people are adapting to methods of not being so “on” all the time.

Although one could put the mirror in the hallway or even a workspace for communal use, the tools we already have — our smartphone, computer, smart watches and even tablets — help people manage their lives, stay productive and remind us to send flowers to grandma. Having a mirror at work to ping us for meetings or work-related events is a waste of wall space; we already have our computer and phone beeping at us constantly.

The Kickstarter campaign surpassed its goal within two days of being open.

My skepticism might be small in the target audience of the product. MirroCool Inc. launched its smart mirror on Kickstarter  on July 11 to an anxious crowd ready to get their hands on the new personal assistant. By day two, the campaign had reached its backing goal of $50,000. Currently, it stands at over $68,000 with 15 days to go. Kaszycki said he hopes to reach between $500,000 and $700,000, and most of the backers are from the U.S.

I am struggling to find out who would want a selfie-taking-assistant mirror in their sacred space or how it would amplify their lives, but the campaign shows that there’s clearly a market for this new item. While I cannot foresee myself ever using it, I can reach to see the appeal of a mirror that takes that perfect selfie you want when you are looking back at yourself. I, like so many these days, am not ready to jump into the immediate future; sticking with a cell phone that tells me the weather and reminds me to check my laundry is innovative enough.

Ariel Parrella-Aureli is a Workforce intern. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

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Don’t Let Off-the-clock Overtime Claims Become a Game of Rock, Paper, Scissors

Jon Hyman The Practical Employer

Defending claims for off-the-clock work is one of the most difficult tasks employers face under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

An employee (or worse, group of employees) says, “I (we) worked, without compensation, before our shift, after our shift, or during our lunch; pay me (us).” Often, these employees have their own personal, detailed logs supporting their claims. And the employer has bupkis. It then must prove a negative (“You weren’t really working when you say you were”), which places the employer in a difficult and often unwinnable position. It’s a wage-and-hour game of rock-paper-scissors, where paper always beats air.

When we last examined Allen v. City of Chicago — a case in which a class of Chicago police officers claimed their employer owed them unpaid overtime for their time spent reading emails off-duty on their smartphones — an Illinois federal court had dismissed the claims, holding that most of the emails were incidental and non-essential to the officers’ work, and, regardless, the employer lacked specific knowledge of non-compensated off-duty work.

Last week — in what is believed to be the first and only federal appellate court decision on whether an employer owes non-exempt employees overtime for time spent off-duty reading emails on a smartphone — the 7th Circuit affirmed [pdf].

The court started its analysis with the basic principle that “Employers must 
 pay for all work they know about, even if they did not ask for the work, even if they did not want the work done, and even if they had a rule against doing the work.” From there, however, the court applied the rule first announced by the 6th Circuit in White v. Baptist Memorial Health Care, that an employer is not liable for unpaid, off-the-clock overtime if:

  1. the employer has a policy and process requiring that employees report off-the-clock work;
  2. employee(s) ignore the policy and do not report the off-the-clock work for which they are claiming unpaid overtime; and
  3. the employer does not prevent or discourage its employees from accurately reporting off-the-clock work and unpaid overtime.
Based on this rule, the 7th Circuit concluded that that the district court correctly held that the plaintiff-officers were not entitled to overtime compensation for their off-the-clock emailing.

Plaintiffs 
 worked time they were not scheduled to work, sometimes with their supervisors’ knowledge. They had a way to report that time, but they did not use it, through no fault of the employer 
. Reasonable diligence did not 
 require the employer to investigate further.

In response, the officers argued constructive knowledge—e.g., the employer could have discovered the uncompensated work by comparing the time slips to email records—notwithstanding the employer’s policy. That argument failed, as the 7th Circuit correctly pointed out that the proper legal standard is should have known, not could have known, and that in the face of policy requiring the reporting of uncompensated off-the-clock overtime, an employer’s access to records does not constitute constructive knowledge.

What is the lesson for employers to take away from Allen, and White before it? Employers must have a reasonable process for employees to report uncompensated work-time, and must not prevent or otherwise discourage employees from using that process. Under the FLSA, it is the employee’s burden to show work during non-working time. A policy that underscores that onus by requiring employees to report times during which they were working “off-the-clock” will place employers in the best position to defend against claims for compensation for unreported, off-the-clock time, and should nullify any personal time logs or other records the employees have to the contrary.

In other words, now is as good a time as any to dust off your employee handbook, open to your “overtime” policy, and, as soon as possible, make sure it contains this language to best insulate your pay practices from dangerous and expensive off-the-claim claims.

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This Week in Controversial Workplace Benefits

Writing about benefits can get dry sometimes.

“Employees like health care,” some survey found. OK, cool. I agree.

Then there’s a week where you come across a lot wild, timely, meaty stories that bring up a lot of questions and frustration. And this isn’t even including everything that’s happened in the U.S. health care space.

I’ve Got You Under My Skin: The most controversial benefits story I’ve seen this past week is regarding a Wisconsin-based tech company that is inserting microchips in 50 of its employees’ fingers. Employees, who signed up for this voluntarily, can use them to get in the building and pay for food at the cafeteria. Some people are excited about this.

Then there’s the more skeptical side (also the side I happen to fall on). This video sums up the concerns pretty succinctly. It could be a slippery slope where this technology “goes from being voluntary to involuntary and then it’s out of your hands.” Also, the video cautions employees to be careful about the agreements they have with employers, since there are a lot of questions out there about what happens with this data and how future companies can use it.

microchip
A Wisconsin-based tech company is inserting microchips in 50 of its employees’ fingers — voluntarily, of course.

If wearables in the workplace of any kind — whether they’re strapped around your wrist or inserted in your finger — are really the future, then not setting boundaries present day makes no sense. Yes, employees can be cavalier about the data privacy aspect of this all now. But later? There are future implications.

[Also read: “Would Your Employer Microchip You?”]

Don’t Overthink It: Another controversial but often talked-about benefits topic nowadays is paid family leave in the United States. From what I’ve seen and read, the controversy isn’t around whether companies should or shouldn’t offer it. Heck, both presidential candidates in the recent election talked about expanding paid leave, and that might have been the only thing they agreed on in a campaign that felt like it lasted years. The controversy has been more around how much leave and who should be eligible. Birth mothers? Fathers? Single parents? Only married parents? Adoptive parents?

A lot of this felt ridiculous as somebody who grew up the time I did. I can’t fathom why companies wouldn’t offer paid family leave to fathers or single mothers or adoptive parents. It’s 2017. The “traditional family” model isn’t reality for a lot of people anymore, nor should it be.

The Harvard Business Review can explain this better than me. It just released a report that provided some very valuable information on this topic. It advocates for a simple paid leave policy. According to the report, “When it comes to new parents, you need just two simple categories: disability leave for women who are physically unable to work due to pregnancy, childbirth or related conditions, and parental leave that’s equally available to all employees, regardless of gender or caregiver status.”

Makes sense. Especially in today’s workplace where, as this report points out, even policies that have primary and secondary caregiver plans can be flawed. It mentions one company whose policy expressly states that the pregnant woman is assumed to be the primary caregiver. If the point of the primary/secondary differentiation is to allow the mother and father to decide who will have the primary role on their own terms, how can policies like that exist? This is why is makes more sense to have a simple, equal parental leave applicable to all employees.

[Also read: “Dad Friendly Work Policies Begin Growing Up”]

The Doctor Won’t See You Now: Telemedicine, also called telehealth, is the remote diagnosis and treatment of patients through technology. It’s something that more and more companies are adapting, but that doesn’t mean employees are utilizing it. Researching the topic for a larger story in Workforce’s September/October print issue, I came across a lot of the benefits, limitations and challenges of telemedicine. Telemedicine has a lot of potential, but it’s still relatively new, at least on a mainstream scale. It began in the late 1960s within smaller, niche populations. But, in the employer market, we’ve seen interest jump an impressive level just in the past five years.

As one of my editors noted, a big criticism is that when a patient contacts a doctor via telemedicine, the doctor may just tell them to go to the ER anyway in order to protect themselves in case of a wrong diagnosis.

From what I’ve read and who I’ve spoken to, that’s not really the case. For common or seasonal diagnoses like a cold or the flu, doctors can easily diagnose it over the phone. That’s the whole point, to discourage patients from going to the ER when they don’t need to and to offer medical care with more convenience and less cost.

I recently came across a survey that found that unnecessary ER trips was especially prevalent for people in their 20’s. They visit ER doctors more than any other type of doctor for general health concerns that could be easily diagnosed and treated more affordably by a primary care physician.

So, yes, in some cases telemedicine doctors may tell patients to go to the ER anyway. But I’m optimistic. If so many people are using the ER and racking up unnecessary medical costs now, why not consider an option that could offset that?

Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.

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Would You Let Your Employer Microchip You?

Jon Hyman The Practical Employer

Our family dog, Loula, is microchipped. Our vet offered it to us as a service when Loula first joined our family. It provides some peace of mind in the sad event that Loula goes missing and ends up in a shelter or vet office. They would be able to read the rice-grain-sized RFID chip embedded in her leg, discover that she belonged to us, and return her.

Loula, however, is a dog, she’s not an employee. Which is why I’m troubled that a Wisconsin employer has decided to offer microchip implants as a “service” to its employees.

From The New York Times:

On Aug. 1, employees at Three Square Market, a technology company in Wisconsin, can choose to have a chip the size of a grain of rice injected between their thumb and index finger. Once that is done, any task involving RFID technology — swiping into the office building, paying for food in the cafeteria — can be accomplished with a wave of the hand.

There is nothing illegal about this practice. Employees are providing their consent to the procedure, the implant is 100 percent voluntary and is reasonably safe. Indeed, 50 out of Three Square Market’s 80 employees volunteered for the implant, an astonishingly positive response.

But, if you ask me, chipping employees sure is creepy. No matter the current intent, it’s just a tad too Orwellian for my taste. Or, if you don’t believe me, ask Alessandro Acquisti, professor of information technology and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, like The New York Times did:

Another potential problem, Dr. Acquisti said, is that technology designed for one purpose may later be used for another. A microchip implanted today to allow for easy building access and payments could, in theory, be used later in more invasive ways: to track the length of employees’ bathroom or lunch breaks, for instance, without their consent or even their knowledge.

“Once they are implanted, it’s very hard to predict or stop a future widening of their usage,” Dr. Acquisti said.

Today’s cafeteria payments are tomorrow’s location tracking. Microchips are for dogs, not employees. Let’s keep it that way.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

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Is Joint Employment the Issue That Unites Our Divided Government?

Jon Hyman The Practical Employer

I cannot recall a time when our government has been more divided across ideological and party lines. (I don’t count the early 1860s, because that’s not a time a can remember.) Thankfully, an issue has come along to build a peace bridge over the streets and through the halls of Washington, D.C.

This issue — joint employment, via the Save Local Business Act [pdf], which clarifies that two or more employers must have “actual, direct, and immediate” control over employees to be considered joint employers.

Some background.

Two years ago, in Browning-Ferris, the NLRB rewrote its long-standing rules on joint employment. It expanded and liberalized its standard for when two employers qualify as “joint employers” over a group of employees, rendering each liable for the labor-law violations of the other. It accomplished this expansion by adding “indirect” or “potential” control, in addition to “actual” control, as the lynchpin of joint employment.

Subsequently, the DOL followed suit, adopting the same rule, although in recent months it has backed off.

The Save Local Business Act, introduced with bipartisan support, looks to undo that which the NLRB has wrought, by restoring the “direct control” test for joint employment in both the NLRA and the FLSA.

A person may be considered a joint employer in relation to an employee only if such person directly, actually, and immediately, and not in a limited and routine manner, exercises significant control over the essential terms and conditions of employment (including hiring employees, discharging employees, determining individual employee rates of pay and benefits, day-to-day supervision of employees, assigning individual work schedules, positions, and tasks, and administering employee discipline).

Proponents of the bill tout its “commonsense framework” that gives “much needed clarity and certainty” to “this harmful scheme” which threatens an estimated 1.7 million jobs by holding secondary employers (such as franchisors and contractors) liable for the alleged sins of primary employers (such as franchisees and sub-contractors).

While support for this bill is not universal, if this bill can get Dems and the GOP working together to solve a problem, then it must be doing something right.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

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NBC Reignites Privacy Debate by Requiring Job Seekers’ Social Media Passwords

Jon Hyman The Practical Employer

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

George Santayana

It’s been eight long years since Bozeman, Montana, set the internet on fire by requiring that job applicants for municipal positions turn over passwords to their personal social media accounts as part of the application process. In the wake of that story, states rushed to introduce legislation prohibiting this practice; many succeeded. And, the story more or less died.

Thank you, NBC, for reigniting it.

From the New York Post:

A fired NBC employee claims a recruiter who initially contacted her for a job as an audio-visual coordinator told her NBC “specifically asked for good-looking employees”— and wanted to see pictures before she could get her foot in the door.

Stephanie Belanger says the recruiter asked her “to show her Facebook/Instagram profile to NBC before she could be interviewed.”

Despite all the the negative press that this story is going to receive, I would be surprised if one-percent of one-percent of all employers have even considered asking a job applicant for access to a private social-media account, let alone carried through on the thought by making it a hiring requirement.

And do you know why most (nearly all?) employers do not do this? It’s bad HR policy, with significant legal risk:

  • EEO Risks: Mining Facebook and other social sites for information on job applicants can reveal a wealth of protected EEO information (age, religion, protected medical information, genetic information). The risk is great enough when the information is publicly available; it is exponentially heightened when you gain unfettered access to information shielded by a password. For some thoughts on best practices on conducting Internet searches on applicants or employees, click here.
  • Stored Communications Act Risks: At least one court has concluded that an employer who requires employees to disclose passwords to social media sites violates the federal Stored Communications Act, which extends liability to parties that exceed authorization to access electronic communications. While this area of the law might be unsettled, testing it could prove a costly mistake.
Legal issues aside, this story raises another, more fundamental, question — what type of employer do you want to be? Do you want to be viewed as Big Brother?
Do you want a paranoid workforce? Do you want your employees to feel invaded and victimized as soon as they walk in the door, with no sense of personal space or privacy?
Or, do you value transparency? Do you want HR practices that engender honesty, and openness, and that recognize that employees are entitled to a life outside of work?
Social media provides a lot of benefits to employers. It opens channels of communication between employees in and out of the workplace. And, when used smartly, it enables employers to learn more about potential employees than ever before. You can learn if an employee has good communication skills, is a good cultural fit, or trashed a former employer. But, this tool has to be used smartly to avoid legal risks. Requiring passwords is not smart.
While it seems like we cannot recall a time without social media in our lives, it remains a new and developing form of media. The rules and regulations that govern it are still evolving. Moreover, governments are looking for opportunities to regulate it.
If a small minority of businesses pursue this poor HR practice, state legislatures and Congress will continue pursuing legislative solutions. Do not provide the government the opportunity. Can we all just agree that requiring social media passwords is a bad idea and finally move on from this story?
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.
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Why Passion and Caring Aren’t Enough to Drive Diversity Efforts

A recent posting for a diversity-related job in a medium-sized organization included an all-too-common phrase in its description of the ideal candidate: “Must have a passion for diversity.”

Aside from “passion” and a few years of experience, the description said little else of substance about the ideal candidate’s qualifications. I could already tell the organization was off to a rocky start.

I can’t recall ever seeing a single job description in any industry for a finance director that included “passion” as one of its desired qualifications. The same goes for any other strategic leadership position, except for human resources, and that’s where the problem lies. In old school organizations, diversity and inclusion aren’t seen as strategic priorities like finance. In old school organizations, senior leadership doesn’t know their mission critical “why” for doing D&I, much less what meaningful goals to assign to that function.

Passion then becomes a substitute for clarity, competence, effectiveness and results. This leads to three problems.

  1. The D&I leader and D&I initiatives will struggle to be taken seriously and effect any meaningful change. How is “passion” to be measured, or translated into results that matter?
  2. Most of the people with “passion” for D&I are those most disadvantaged by its lack — women, people of color and LGBT people. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with a member of a historically underrepresented group spearheading diversity efforts, the widespread nature of this practice reinforces the notion that D&I is only about, and for, members of those groups.
  3. Passion can get in the way, especially when it bumps up against the “caring imperative.” I recently had an online exchange with a person of color who took issue with one of my articles because they believed the article gave white people fewer reasons to care about people of color. But while caring is important to drive commitment (as with any strategic initiative), the goal of D&I is not greater caring, but more effective behaviors and more equitable systems and processes.

Caring is not required for a person to follow an equitable process or do more inclusive behaviors, especially once these become habit. Also, examples abound of people who care deeply but wreak havoc with their ineffective behaviors.

One of my favorite examples is a community leader in a city where I once lived who was deeply knowledgeable and passionate about diversity and equity, but managed to divide, undermine and alienate one community group after another with her lack of emotional intelligence and personal accountability. Organizations can likewise care about D&I, yet yield discriminatory or inferior results driven by inequitable systems and organizational biases, like in the oft-cited (and replicated) resume study. Intent does not equal impact.

Passion can also get in the way when it impedes one’s ability to look at “data” and make difficult, strategic decisions. I made this mistake myself as an internal D&I leader in a large organization. My passion and caring got in the way of taking seriously the fact that D&I in our organization was driven almost entirely by my energy and the personal capital of my high-ranking boss. We lacked meaningful commitment from key C-suite leaders, and this not only impeded our progress, but lead to clashes resulting in me leaving the organization.

This is not to say that passion and caring should be absent from D&I initiatives. In fact, all strategic leadership positions and initiatives should require both! But passion and caring alone aren’t enough, and certainly shouldn’t substitute for: (1) a mission-critical business case for D&I that is driven by senior leadership; (2) measurable, meaningful goals; (3) a trusted D&I leader with robust expertise and a track record of results; and (4) accountability.

The science is clear: diversity plus inclusiveness is an excellence multiplier. Therefore, D&I requires a commitment to excellence the same as any other strategic priority. Passion and caring aren’t enough on their own.

Susana Rinderle is president of Susana Rinderle Consulting and a trainer, coach, speaker, author and diversity & inclusion expert. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

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Justice Department Takes a Stand in Favor of LGBTQ Discrimination

Jon Hyman The Practical Employer

LGBTQ prohibitions continue to make headway in the courts. While Congress has remained silent on the issue, more and more state and federal courts hold that the law’s existing prohibitions against sex discrimination implicitly cover sexual orientation and other forms of LGBTQ discrimination.

The latest appellate court to take up this issue in the 2nd Circuit, in Zarda v. Altitude Express. Just last week, the Department of Justice filed its amicus brief [pdf] in this case. Yet, in that brief, the DOJ argued that Title VII’s prohibition against sexual stereotyping as sex discrimination does not include LGBTQ discrimination. This position advanced by the DOJ is contrary to that already espoused by the 7th Circuit, many district courts, and the EEOC.

Just because the DOJ argues that Title VII does not include LGBTQ discrimination does not mean that you are not free to adopt anti-LGBTQ-discrimination policies in your workplace. In fact, I urge that you must. I predict that 10 years from now, history will view those that stood in favor of LGBTQ discrimination the same as it views those that stood opposed to the civil rights movement 50 years ago. Employers, it is time to take a stand, and stand on the correct side of history.

My challenge to employers? On this issue, do what is morally correct, the law be damned. Ignore Title VII, ignore the EEOC, ignore the DOJ and ignore the courts. It is incomprehensible that in 2017 an employer can legally fire someone because of who he or she loves, dates or marries. Do right by all of your employees. Enact policies prohibiting LGBTQ discrimination in your workplace. Send the message to all of your employees that you are an employer of inclusion, not exclusion.

And yes, I’m tired on sounding like a broken record on this issue. But until we as a nation come to a national consensus, this message is worthy of playing on repeat.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.

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Treat Harassment by Non-employees no Differently Than Harassment by Employees

Jon Hyman The Practical Employer
Consider the following lawsuit the EEOC filed against a California senior-care provider:

The civil rights agency found that Rashon Sturdivant, an experienced care provider, faced daily harassment, including racially offensive remarks about “brown sugar” and “black butts,” requests to perform sexual acts, and lewd comments about her body. The client also masturbated in front of her and groped her when she performed routine tasks like helping him sit up in bed or cleaning him. Although Sturdivant and other care providers informed R. MacArthur of his conduct, the EEOC charges that the employer failed to act on these complaints and also retaliated against Sturdivant by refusing to reassign her to another client.

This employer mistakenly assumed that the law does not cover employees harassed by non-employees. Nothing is further from the truth. In fact, an employer’s obligations to an employee harassed by a non-employee are exactly the same as if the alleged perpetrator was an employee — to take prompt remedial action to ensure that the harassment stops and does not reoccur. In other words, the employer must:
  1. Be prompt. Upon receipt of a complaint of harassment, a business must act as quickly as reasonably possible under the circumstances to investigate, and if necessary, correct the conduct and stop from happening again.
  2. Be thorough. Investigations must be as comprehensive as possible given the severity of the allegations. Not every complaint of offensive workplace conduct will require a grand inquisition. The more egregious allegations, however, the more comprehensive of an investigation is called for.
  3. Consider preliminary remedial steps. While an investigation is pending, it is best to segregate the accused(s) and the complainant(s) to guard against further harassment or worse, retaliation. Companies place themselves in a much worse position if they are too lax instead of too cautious.
  4. Communicate. The complaining employee(s) and the accused should be made aware of the investigation process—who will be interviewed, what documents will be reviewed, how long it will take, the importance of confidentiality and discretion, and how the results will be communicated.
  5. Follow through. There is nothing illegal about trying remedial measures less severe than ending the relationship in all but the most egregious cases. A valued customer may be no less valued after asking an employee about her underwear, for example. If the conduct continues, however, the discipline must get progressively more harsh. If you tell an employee that termination is the next step, you must be prepared to follow-through.

I’ll give EEOC San Francisco District Director William R. Tamayo the final word on this issue:

The customer is not always right. The law requires employers to ensure that workers are protected from sexual harassment, even when that workplace is non-traditional, like a client’s home, and even when the alleged harasser is a customer or client.

Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. To comment, email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hyman’s blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.

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The Next Generation of Benefits Leaders

Like many of you reading this article, I stumbled into HR as a career.

As a journalism student who had never heard of employee benefits or HR or consulting, I was drawn to benefits because of the complexity and challenge of making sense of such meaty topics. But I soon discovered a much deeper sense of purpose in this work — and that purpose has kept me both in benefits and incredibly passionate about this industry.

Here’s why: Employee benefits touch the health and financial security of nearly all Americans and millions of people around the world.

Working in benefits is one of the few careers in which you can know you’re making a difference in what’s really important to people — almost all the time. Whether you’re working as a provider, a consultant or in an employer HR department, you’re having an impact on a lot of lives. You’re doing work that matters. The same can be said about so many other important areas of HR — training, learning and development, organizational development, to name just a few.

But how many people outside our industry know that? Does anyone grow up wanting to be an HR pro?

I’ve been thinking about this since my company, Benz Communications, concluded our interview series of 27 benefits pros as part of celebrating our 10th anniversary last year. (You can read all the interviews on LinkedIn.) They are an inspiring group of benefits leaders at large employers and benefits providers.

When we asked, “How did you get into employee benefits,” nearly everyone we spoke with confessed they stumbled into their career in benefits, and then fell in love with the space — much like I did. Without exception, what struck us was the absolute passion and the sense of pride and purpose these benefits leaders have about their careers.

Sarah Lecuna said she “fell into” benefits. “I wanted to be in the HR function, but wasn’t sure where would be the best fit for me and I the best fit for it. When I got a job in benefits I thought it would be temporary, but I love the work, the ever-changing landscape, and the impact it has on people’s lives.” Now she’s the global benefits leader at Intuit Inc. And Lecuna was named one of Workforce’s Game Changers in 2014.

Allison Wendelberger also didn’t get into benefits by design.

“I was finishing grad school and didn’t have a clear path in mind. Since I was a math major, I decided to take a couple of actuarial exams to make my rĂ©sumĂ© more enticing,” she recalled. She landed at HR consultancy Mercer and then spent 15 years with Aflac until she moved to her current role as business development manager for ITA Group.

“Essentially, we create programs that motivate behavior change in all the people who matter to an organization,” she explained.

Virgin Pulse President and CMO Rajiv Kumar started out as a doctor, but said, “Working in employee benefits allows me to positively impact the greatest number of lives. In clinical practice, I’d only be able to see a finite number of patients each day. Virgin Pulse, on the other hand, has touched more than 5 million lives around the world. The potential is inspiring.”

Inspiring, it is. The scope of all we touch in benefits is huge, which most people don’t realize.

“I love the fact that we make an impact at both an individual level as well as a social level. In benefits, I have a view of the difference we make not only in our employees’ lives, but also in our company culture, communities and even legislation. I find it extremely gratifying,” said Rosemary Arriada-Keiper, senior director of global benefits at Adobe.

Most people want careers that give them a sense of purpose. They want to do work that has meaning and value in the world. Employee benefits are ideal in that sense. But how do we make it less happenstance for great young people to get into the industry?

Clearly, our profession isn’t exactly front and center when children are aspiring to what they want to be when they grow up. There’s no Benefits Adviser Barbie or HR Director Lego set for our career.

But, we can all play a role in making HR a more desirable — and earlier — career aspiration. Accepting external speaking opportunities, sharing our stories and talking in the press about the great work our companies do is a start. Finding ways to brag about your career at your kids’ school or a college career fair can’t hurt, either.

All of those efforts can help inspire the next generation of game changers.