Employer violates pregnancy act by not providing accommodation for employee who later miscarried: One employer did not want to continue providing accommodations to a pregnant employee, and it was a game changer.  According to the EEOC's lawsuit, “[the employer] violated federal law when one of its stores ... refused to allow a pregnant employee with impairments to take emergency leave to seek medical attention, forcing her to quit. The pregnant customer sales associate, who had diabetes and hypoglycemia, experienced spotting at work and asked the store manager to allow her to take unscheduled emergency leave to seek medical attention.  Although the store manager and team lead could have covered for her, the store manager nonetheless told the customer sales associate that she could not leave until they found a replacement for her. They were unable to do so. The store manager told the customer sales associate that she had already asked for too many accommodations. The customer sales associate had no option but to resign so that she could seek immediate medical attention, per her doctor's advice.”  She miscarried later that day, the EEOC said. The case settled for $205,000.  Source: Pierson Ferdinand 3/27/24

It’s an employer market for raises and benefits:  Although merit increases in 2024 appear to be higher than inflation at 4-5%, fewer employers plan to bump up salaries this year, remote work is hanging by a thread, and pay transparency continues to face resistance — even with new laws requiring it in more states.  Those are the not-so-cheery findings of a new survey from Payscale examining compensation across industries.  “At present, employers have the upper hand in the job market, at least for white-collar salaried employees,” according to the researchers. Base pay increases in 2023 averaged 4.8%, the highest level in two decades, but this year’s increases are expected to average around 4.5%, a hair above the current inflation rate of 3.2%.  The report, conducted between November and December, of more than 5,700 employers based primarily in the U.S. is a reality check for workers who have grown accustomed to negotiating for higher pay and flexibility in where they work as employers struggled to fill positions the past few years.  Further, the voluntary turnover rate has fallen from 25% in 2022 to 21% in 2023, and far below 36% in 2021, according to Payscale’s data.  Source:  Yahoo News 3/23/24

New benefit for employees – housing assistance:  In a survey of 1,020 employers and workers about office perks, performed by the bonding and insurance company JW Surety Bonds and published in January, 47% of respondents said they would be willing to return to the office in exchange for housing benefits. Additionally, 69% said they would be willing to change their job or career for employer-based housing benefits. In a sign that housing assistance could be a stronger perk than more traditional offerings, 43% said they would take less vacation time in exchange for help with housing costs, and 30% said they would prefer housing assistance over a pay raise. "As housing costs soar, these findings clearly indicate a trend of employer-based housing benefits gaining momentum," Ricardo Rodriguez, a creative-team member at JW Surety Bonds told Business Insider. "A strong interest in employer-based housing benefits could potentially redefine employee expectations of traditional compensation packages in the next 5 to 10 years."  The issue though is that these benefits would likely be taxable to employees, so Congress should weigh in.  Source: Business Insider 3/21/24

It pays for your employer to be disability friendly:  As many as one in four American adults have a disability. More opportunities for remote work have allowed more adults with disabilities to enter the U.S. workforce. The percentage of these adults in the workforce has increased from 20% to 37% over the past five years. Still, the workforce participation of individuals with disabilities is about half of those individuals without disabilities.  According to a 2023 Accenture report, in conjunction with Disability:IN and the American Association of People with Disabilities, organizations implementing disability-inclusive policies and practices often have better financial performance than similar organizations. Examples of disability-inclusive practices include using videos with captions and seeking regular input on improvements from employees with disabilities.   The report, which expanded and built upon a similar report from 2018, examined 346 U.S. companies participating in the Disability Equality Index. As compared to similar-size companies, the companies who utilized disability-inclusive policies tended to have:  6 times more revenue; 6 times more net income; and 2 times more economic profit.  Source: Hall Benefits Law 3/21/24

OMB recommends new race for reporting purposes:  OMB published a set of revisions to Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 (Directive No. 15): Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity, the first since 1997. This process started in June 2022, with the first convening of the Interagency Technical Working Group of Federal Government career staff who represent programs that collect or use race and ethnicity data. Since that first convening, they’ve reviewed 20,000 comments and held almost 100 listening sessions to finalize the important standards we are announcing today.  The recommendations are as follows:

• Using one combined question for race and ethnicity and encouraging respondents to select as many options as apply to how they identify.
• Adding Middle Eastern or North African as a new minimum category. The new set of minimum race and/or ethnicity categories are:
  • American Indian or Alaska Native
  • Asian
  • Black or African American
  • Hispanic or Latino
  • Middle Eastern or North African
  • Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
  • White
• Requiring the collection of additional detail beyond the minimum required race and ethnicity categories for most situations, to ensure further disaggregation in the collection, tabulation, and presentation of data when useful and appropriate.

Next steps: the standards instruct federal agencies to begin updating their surveys and administrative forms as quickly as possible, submit an Agency Action Plan for complete compliance within 18 months – which will be publicly available, and finish bringing all data collections and programs into compliance with the updated standards within five years of today’s date.  Source: OMB 3/28/24