On Saturday, millions worldwide (2.6 million, according to USA Today) marched for womenâs rights. On Feb. 2, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee will hold its confirmation hearing for labor secretary nominee Andrew Puzder.
âWhat does one have to do with the other,â you ask? Consider this â
Puzder is CEO of CKE Restaurants, the parent company for fast-food chains Carlâs Jr. and Hardeeâs, and he approved that message.
No doubt, Puzder would be good for many issues that are important to my readers: the $15 minimum wage, the DOLâs pending overtime regulations, and the NLRBâs radical expansion of joint-employer liability. On each of these issues, he and I are in strong agreement, and I would welcome his voice leading the business charge at the DOL.
Yet he also believes that objectifying women is an acceptable way to sell burgers. On this point, he and I differ dramatically. Indeed, despite all of his other policy position, this one fact should disqualify him from heading the federal department responsible for Americaâs workers (46.8 percent of which are women, according to the DOLâs Womenâs Bureau).
Salon quotes Puzderâs defense of his companyâs ads:
I like our ads. I like beautiful women eating burgers in bikinis. I think itâs very American. I used to hear, brands take on the personality of the CEO. ⊠And I rarely thought that was true, but I think this one, in this case, it kind of did take on my personality.
My sonâs now 17, but when he was 13 he didnât want to eat at âthe kingâ [or] âthe clown,â he wanted to eat where his brother ate, so he wanted to be a young hungry guy. Iâm 64, I want to be a young hungry guy. Some young ladies in your age group like to date young hungry guys.
This âpersonalityâ has no business directing our nationâs labor policy. Surely, there must be other qualified candidates that hold similar positions of key labor issues such as minimum wage, overtime and joint employment without this sexist baggage.
On Feb. 2, I will be watching Puzder’s confirmation with great interest to see how he answers the inevitable questions about these advertisements, and with greater interest to see how the R’s on committee handle the same topic.
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hymanâs blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
Itâs gloomy, itâs overcast, itâs Inauguration Day. I gotta say, Iâm sad. I watched CNN as the Obamas left the White House for the last time, and it truly felt like the end of an era.
Not just because I have no idea what the next four years will bring, but because the Obamas were â are â iconic. Their poise, their elegance, their sheer presence set precedents, knocked stereotypes sideways and made a mockery of long-held beliefs about black peopleâs capabilities and the so-called hidden underbelly of racism in this country. That underbelly, scaly, rough and distended, came to public, neon light once President Barack Obama ascended to the highest office in the land.
But through the slights and disrespect, the opportunists who joined his Cabinet only for the springboard to other powerful, more financially lucrative roles, the relentless and rude questioning of his heritage, his background, his suitability and his intelligence, President Obama remained our leader. He remained a man of the people.
It reminds me of the first time I met him. Have I told you this one already? If so, allow me this indulgence today, hmmm? It is a great story.
When we met, President Obama was still a senator and had not yet announced his presidential candidacy. I knew it was coming; I was dating a lobbyist for the Chicago Public School system at the time, and he told me. Anyway, we were at a wedding in Hyde Park â rather, we were milling around outside on the lawn after the ceremony â and my ex introduced me.
We shook hands and smiled, and then-Sen. Obama asked me, âSo, Kellye. What do you do?â
I was unemployed at the time, but I answered, âIâm a writer.â
My ex said, âNo, Kellye. He means what do you do for a living.â
We both looked at him. There was an awkward, terrible pause. Then Obama said, âOh, youâre a writer. Did I tell you that I was the editor of the Harvard Law Review?â And he went right on talking as though that fool hadnât said a word, as though he hadnât embarrassed me in front of a man who would later become one of the most important figures in history.
Obama gave me back my dignity after someone carelessly snatched it away, and he did so effortlessly and immediately. It spoke volumes about his character and what kind of leader he would be. I knew then that I would vote for him. And I did, twice.
President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama made me a better person. I know Iâm not alone when I say that the example they set was a very high bar, but it was one I enjoyed reaching and exceeding. They let the world know what I always knew: race and gender are descriptors, accidents of birth. They should not be clear-cut signals for oneâs future success.
Most minorities instinctively know this, but the pressure! The pressure the misinformed and ill-intentioned can put on you will wear you down so low, youâll forget what you know. Doubts will creep in as enforced stereotypes and bias shape your existence in ways you didnât agree to, but have no choice but to go along with.
The Obamas gave the countryâs minority populations explicit permission to dismiss those stereotypes, to refuse to knuckle under to that bias â if not completely in workplace practice, at least in the privacy of our individual minds and hearts. I thank them for that. I thank them for setting such a lovely example for the world, and for all of us in it who needed that connection and similarity, that unwavering encouragement and audacious spirit of hope.
This morning I re-posted a list on Instagram titled The Obama Record. It featured some of the highlights from his presidency. Among them: longest streak of job growth on record, 11 million new jobs created, corporate profits up by 144 percent, Donât Ask Donât Tell repealed, education and job opportunities for veterans, equal benefits for married gay couples, Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
This is just a small sampling from the list, and I chose to repeat these because they speak most clearly to his efforts around diversity and inclusion and his aid to everyday employees and to the companies that employ them. President Obama cared about equality. He cared about equity, and he cared about the American workforce.
He will be greatly missed.
Kellye Whitney is associate editorial director for Workforce magazine. Comment below or email editor@workforce.com.
Set in Seattle, Frasier is full of witty dialogue and honest conversations that normalize mental health problems. Outside of sitcom-land, the DMEC is one organization which aims to normalize them as well.
This is my first âFrasierâ blog of 2017. Iâve decided itâs my mission to remind people what a treasure this 90s gem is. It explores everything from serious mental health issues to complicated familial dynamics to silly everyday misunderstandings. I did my research this weekend and discovered that no blog exists that is dedicated solely to âFrasier.â No CafeNervosa.net. No MartysChair.edu. No SherryPlease.com. Oy vey. Time to step up my game.
As I write this, I think of a particular podcast that rises to a similar challenge. âFrasierphilesâ describes itself as the only show with a âFrasier First Focus,â the first time that phrase has ever been used, realistically. Itâs hosted by Mark Robison and Darren Mitcheem, one of whom says, âAll I think about every night is how f****** good Frasier is.â (Me too!) The other describes the television series with the phrase, âItâs like looking at a beautiful cabinet!â in the first podcast episode. A beautiful cabinet full of sherry, perhaps, or cans of Ballantine? Iâd say a beautiful cabinet full of witty dialogue and honest conversations that normalize mental health problems.
A stretch, perhaps, but it brings me to the heart of this blog, a conversation I had with Terri Rhodes, CEO of the Disability Management Employer Coalition. The DMEC recently released a report about mental health in the workplace, and its primary thesis was the importance of making the business case for mental health and normalizing mental illness. One in five people deal with a mental health situation on a daily basis, according to the report.
Currently, many employers offer mental health services such as screenings through health risk assessment programs or EAPs, but being able to make a business case is important if employers want to put together a new program that specifically addresses mental health, said Rhodes. Using aggregate (not individual) data from disability claims and FMLA claims, for example, can help put a dollar sign to the impact of mental illness in terms of absences, productivity and presenteeism. In this way, using data identifies that there is, in fact, a problem.
A current problem regarding mental illness in the workplace is stigma, said Rhodes, who seeks to normalize it in the workplace and show that for the most part it is treatable. âNot all mental illness is, âThe sky is falling!â Those are outliers,â she said.
We also discussed what mental health training for managers should look like. âIn the past, even in HR, weâre told, donât say anything, donât ask somebody how theyâre doing, donât talk to them,â she said. âWhat that does is increase the stigma.â
Terri Rhodes, CEO of the DMEC
Itâs important to teach managers and supervisors that mental illness is not bad and train them how to address it in their workplace. Rhodes recommended, for example, a couple of free training programs offered through the Partnership for Workplace Mental Health and Stamp Out Stigma.
This type of training should hit a few key notes, according to Rhodes. For example, managers should be able to look out for signs that somebody may be having an issue. They should be able to speak about mental illness rather than avoid the topic.
The communication-avoidance paradigm seemed a bit impossible to me at first. As unhelpful as avoidance is, how open can communication regarding mental illness actually be without seeming invasive? What is the right way to communicate without probing?
Rhodes recommended that managers be inclusive and friendly rather than be afraid of asking any questions at all when it comes to mental illness. Appropriate questions could be, How are you doing? Or, is there anything you need that will help you do your job better?
Rhodes also mentioned that 10 years ago, employers seemed to lose interest in mental health, but sheâs seen a shift in attitude in the past couple years. Employers have been more willing the address mental illness. The problem itself â the high cost mental illness can have on the workplace; stigma; etc. â hasnât changed, she said. âBut employersâ awareness of their ability to make an impact is different.â
Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor. Comment below, or email at aburjek@humancapitalmedia.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.
Some people need service dogs to get to work. But many more simply want to take their dogs to work. What is the protocol? What are the HR rules on this? And what are the penalties for illegally taking a dog to work?
Are you thinking about opening up your business to employeesâ pets? You will find very few resources on the internet to help. And, you will need a written policy before you allow pets in. Here are some considerations:
People come first. Despite your desire to allow pets â whether as a perk, a recruitment tool or both â your employees still make up the core of your enterprise. If you have to choose between an employee or a pet, you should always choose the employee.
One of the biggest legal risks is the Americans with Disabilities Act. If an employee is allergic to animals, pet owners must understand that they may have to leave their animals at home as a reasonable accommodation. Other possible accommodations include creating sufficient separation between the allergic employee and the pet, segregating the pet to a specific part of the facility, or improving ventilation. Ignoring the pleas of an allergic employee, though, will open you up to potential ADA liability. On the converse, in all but the most extreme circumstances, you are likely required to allow a service dog (or miniature horse) as a reasonable accommodation, even if you prohibit all other pets.
Remember: Pets are cute, but it’s people first in the workplace.
Animals must of âoffice broken.â Animals with any bite history should not be permitted. Moreover, any aggressive behavior, such as growling, barking, chasing, or biting, should result in the animalâs expulsion on the first complaint. Animals should also be house broken, friendly towards people and other animals, and not protective of their owners or their ownersâ spaces. Finally, you should define when animals must be leashed or caged, and what is expected of employees when they have to leave the workplace during the work day.
Respect for property. Designate a specific area outside for animals to go to the bathroom (preferably away from the entrances), and make sure pet owners understand that it is their responsibility to clean up messes outside and accidents inside.
Licenses and vaccinations. Before being permitted to bring animals to work, owners should verify that vaccinations are up to date, and that the animal licensed and free of parasites and insects.
Liability. Employees should verify, in writing, that they have sufficient home ownersâ or rentersâ insurance to cover any damage to person or property caused by the animal. You should also consider indemnification in case your business gets sued, and a written paycheck deduction authorization for any damage caused.
If you are considering having a pet-friendly workplace, I recommend contacting employment counsel to walk you through the risks and to assist in drafting an appropriate policy.
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hymanâs blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
It is the new year, which means itâs time to snap out of our indulgent holiday habits and get back to real-life goals and aspirations.
For my team, this means launching 2017 campaigns for our clients. After all, this is an ideal time to get employees engaged in benefits! There are countless benefits and programs that can be easily promoted and tied to the typical New Yearâs resolutions: losing weight, eating healthier, actually using that meditation app on your mobile phone, paying off that holiday-induced credit card debt, finally getting your will or estate in order and many more.
Whatâs a little more challenging, though, is creating a set of personal work-related goals. For anyone in benefits and HR, this is an excellent time to plan ahead, reflect and prioritize. Iâd like to suggest a few aspirational resolutions for you and your team.
I will carve out time to think strategically.Â
Oh, peace and quiet. Time to think and reflect. As I write this â on a plane where the Wi-Fi is fortuitously not working (because I need to focus on this article!) â Iâm reminded of how hard it is to have just a little time without interruption. Uninterrupted time may be our most precious resource. And itâs one that you must create and protect. More than likely, that means scheduling it on your calendar, prioritizing it as a team and building it into the way you work. What better time to start than now?
I will help my team think about the employee experience as a whole.
As each area of HR gets more sophisticated, and as the complexity of integrating systems and vendors persists, it is more important than ever to think holistically about the employee experience. What are you asking employees to do, step by step, to meet certain goals? Is there a consistent feel, emotion or brand experience across your programs? Can you create more value by connecting tools and resources? These are hard questions to ask and hard to dig into, but they can start to change the overall value of HR. If youâre overwhelmed deciding where to start, look at your new-hire experience. It is an obvious area of opportunity for most companies and one where your efforts will almost certainly create an immediate and measurable ROI.
I will not blame employees.
When I talk with HR and benefits leaders, I often hear these frustrations about employees:
âThey just donât care.â
âThey donât understand.â
âThey wonât take the time to learn it.â
âThey donât seek information thatâs out there.â
While most of this is true, it most definitely is not because employees donât care. Rather, itâs because we have created insanely complicated systems and weâre asking average people to figure them out â largely on their own.
So in 2017, letâs stop using the employees-will-never-get-it excuse and start building systems and programs that they can use with confidence. A tall order? Yes, for sure, but not if you commit to the following resolution, too.
I will prioritize making it easier for employees to make good decisions.
Iâve spent my career trying to help employees âunderstandâ our health care and financial systems. But, in the past couple of years, I have gradually let go of the idea that they can actually understand them.
That decision has been inspiring and motivating. Hereâs why: we know it is almost impossible to get people to fully understand all the things they need to do to live happily ever after. But we can design programs and systems that make it easy for people to make good decisions and a little harder to make bad ones. This is the essence of the whole field of behavioral economics, an area of study that has really made its way into the workplace in the past several years and one that we employ in our own work. Behavioral economics offers a more strategic â and practical â approach to helping employees, and it can be applied across all areas of HR.
I will celebrate success with my team.
Just as focused time is a scarce resource, in too many organizations recognition is uncommon as well. Plenty of organizations are working on systems that promote workplace recognition, or theyâre finding ways to build it into their culture. Just as important, though, is to create rituals among your closest team members. Find ways to recognize each other more often this year, and watch how much that helps you fulfill all the aspirational goals weâve just talked about.
The first day of the new year was pretty eventful for Lamar Austin. The 30-year-old welcomed a son and got fired on the very same day â Jan. 1. âŠ
On Dec. 31, Austinâs wife Lindsay went into labor. He decided that he was going to stay by her side for the birth of their son ⊠. Yet, in order to do this Austin had to forgo two days of work as a part-time security guard with a company called Salerno Protective Services while his wife was in labor.
âI thought, âIâm just going to do what I feel is right for my family,â and thatâs it,â he told the Huffington Post.
Austin, a military veteran and father of four, had just started the job and was on a 90-day trial period. Despite having shown up to all his previous shifts, he received a text at 1 a.m. on Jan. 1, informing him that he was terminated due to his absences.
Thankfully, my faith in humanity is not shaken. The Huffington Post reports that Austinâs email has been flooded with job offers since this story broke.
And, yes, I get it. New employee. No FMLA. Unclear whether he properly called off work. But seriously? Military vet. New father. Fired via text while by his wifeâs postpartum bedside. Am I wrong to think that Salerno Protective Services deserves this nomination?
We will circle back at the end of the year to see if any employer can top this. But, for now, congratulations Salerno Protective Services, you are my first nominee for the Worst Employer of 2017. Follow along all year for future nominees, and an exciting year-end poll to name the winner (or is it the loser?) of this new feature.
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hymanâs blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
Dueling meetings regarding Obamacare took place last week on Capitol Hill, with President Barack Obama leading the Democratic lawmakers and Vice President-elect Mike Pence leading the Republicans. Both sides discussed the future of the Affordable Care Act and of health care in America.
The Republicans want to replace and repeal, but they donât yet have the replacement plan. According to ABC News, after repealing it, they would delay any major changes for 18 months to three years in order to find a replacement. The Democrats want to make sure the health care law stays intact. Obama reminded Democrats that real lives are at stake and that the ACA is popular with many voters.
Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump said earlier this week on Jan. 10 that he wants to repeal the ACA soon but pass a replacement “very quickly or simultaneously.” Â
Whatever the future of the Affordable Care Act is, it will have an impact on employers who provide health care and employees who rely on the ACA for coverage.
What the country needs is a bipartisan replacement which provides a patientsâ bill of rights but is also easy for business owners to execute from the administrative standpoint, said Gretchen Van Vlymen, head of human resources at StratEx, an HR consulting firm.
Gretchen Van Vlymen, head of HR at StratEx.
âThe heart of Obamacare is great,â said Van Vlymen. âThatâs the patientsâ bill of rights, which has important parts like making sure younger people up to 26 can stay on their parentsâ plan and ensuring that people with preconditions can get health insurance.â
Even with a Republican president and a Republican majority in both the House and Senate, she believes the patientsâ bill of rights will remain intact. Republicans, from a PR standpoint, probably wonât want to take away insurance from people who need it the most.
That being said, certain mandates wonât last from a business standpoint, like the individual mandate requiring individuals to have health insurance and the employer mandate requiring employers to cover full-time employees.
A major takeaway from this meeting is that the impact of Republicans repealing the law but having no replacement plan would have major consequences, said Van Vlymen.
âThat scares me a little,â she said. âI want to make sure if we do repeal the law, we replace with something bipartisan that makes sense.â
Whether Republicans and Democrats will come up with a bipartisan plan is a different story.
âI hope that politicians are thinking about not only employees but also HR practitioners and business owners who have to follow the rules,â said Van Vlymen. âI hope this becomes a more cooperative effort than a divisive one.â
Meanwhile, as businesses move forward, what they should do is realize that the ACA is still law and that they need to follow it unless it is repealed. With a Republican plan likely in the future, it would benefit HR people to make sure they educate themselves and employees on health savings accounts and high deductible plans, which may be the future of health care in the workplace.
Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor. Comment below, or email at aburjek@humancapitalmedia.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.
How did that case turn out for the employer? Not well. From the EEOC:
Saint Vincent Health Center will pay $300,000 constituting back pay and compensatory damages to a class of six aggrieved former employees ⊠.
In addition to requiring monetary relief and offers of reinstatement for the six employees, the consent decree contains multiple injunctive components. Under the decree, if the Health Center chooses to require employee influenza vaccination as a condition of employment, it must grant exemptions from that requirement to all employees with sincerely held religious beliefs who request exemption from the vaccination on religious grounds unless such exemption poses an undue hardship on the Health Centerâs operations, and it must also notify employees of their right to request religious exemption and establish appropriate procedures for considering any such accommodation requests. The decree also requires that when considering requests for religious accommodation, the Health Center must adhere to the definition of âreligionâ established by Title VII and controlling federal court decisions, a definition that forbids employers from rejecting accommodation requests based on their disagreement with an employeeâs belief; their opinion that the belief is unfounded, illogical, or inconsistent in some way; or their conclusion that an employeeâs belief is not an official tenet or endorsed teaching of any particular religion or denomination.
Ouch.
What does this mean for employers? Iâll allow Philadelphia District regional attorney, Debra M. Lawrence, who prosecuted the Saint Vincent Health Center case, to explain.
While Title VII does not prohibit health care employers from adopting seasonal flu vaccination requirements for their workers, those requirements, like any other employment rules, are subject to the employerâs Title VII duty to provide reasonable accommodation for religion. In that context, reasonable accommodation means granting religious exemptions to employees with sincerely held religious beliefs against vaccination when such exemptions do not create an undue hardship on the employerâs operations.
In other words, if you require flu shots for your employees (a policy I wholeheartedly endorse), you must be willing to exempt certain employees as an accommodation for their religions (and disabilities, as well).
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hymanâs blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
Itâs only the 4th day of January and we already have an early contender for employee of the year. I cannot do this story any justice better than the original article in the New York Post.
This human resources director is taking legal action to find out who wants her to eat a bag of dâks.
Melody Lenox filed a lawsuit Tuesday after she was less than amused to receive a package of gummy penises. Lenox, who works for Axxess Technology Solutions in Dallas, alleges this is not the work of a generous individual, but someone trying to harass her.âŠ
The package, which came from a company aptly named Dâks By Mail, was sent to her on Dec. 7. She sued the company demanding it reveal the pranksterâs identity so she âcan put an end to the harassment,â according to the suit.
On the company website, Dâks By Mail markets itself as a âgreat way to tell your friends, family, loved ones, or enemies to EAT A BAG OF DâKS.â
OK, 2017, you are officially on the clock to find a worse employee. There are 361 days and counting.
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hymanâs blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
We are going to begin 2017 near where we brought 2016 to a close â gun-owner protections.
Shortly before the end of Ohioâs 131st legislative session,
Eleventh-hour legislative wrangling removed certain provisions that would have elevated âconcealed handgun licensureâ to a protected class under Ohioâs employment discrimination law, on par with race, color, religion, sex, military status, national origin, disability, age, and ancestry. The enacted version of the bill removed these protections, while maintaining employeesâ concealed-carry rights in their vehicles.
The question is, does this omission make a real-world difference? Under Ohio law, the termination of an at-will employee that jeopardizes a clear public policy articulated in the Ohio or United States Constitutions, federal or state statutes, administrative rules and regulations, or common law creates a cause of action for wrongful discharge in violation of that public policy.
Ohio Revised Code section 2923.1210 now protects the right of a person who has been issued a valid concealed handgun license to transport or store a firearm inside the personâs privately owned vehicle while parked on employerâs property. Thus, if an employer terminates an employee because the employee is lawfully storing a gun in his or parked car on the employerâs property, that employee likely can assert a wrongful discharge claim.
In other words, S.B. 199 elevates concealed handgun licensure to a protected class in function.
I applaud the Ohio legislature for removing the anti-discrimination protections from this bill. I am concerned, however, that it did not go far enough by leaving the wrongful-discharge loophole in place.
Jon Hyman is a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis in Cleveland. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Hymanâs blog at Workforce.com/PracticalEmployer.
It is the new year, which means itâs time to snap out of our indulgent holiday habits and get back to real-life goals and aspirations.
