Rap music supports harassment complaint: The U.S. 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals allowed a lawsuit to continue in which a hostile work environment by allowing explicit rap music to be played in a Nevada warehouse was one of the charges of the lawsuit.  The Court stated that "[m]ore than offhand foul comments, the music at S&S allegedly infused the workplace with sexually demeaning and violent language, which may support a Title VII claim even if it offended men as well as women."  This ruling also aligns with the Second, Fourth, Sixth, and Eleventh circuits holding that widespread sights and sounds can amount to sex discrimination under Title VII.  Watch and listen to what’s played at work.  Source:  Law360 6/7/23

Independent Contractor Rule to be out by October: In a court hearing, the U.S. Department of Labor may finalize its independent contractor rule by October. The regulations were previously slated for May. Stakeholders were invited to comment for several months, and the DOL told a court Friday it was still reviewing some 54,000 responses. The rule, although Acting Secretary Su denied it to the House Committee last week, will enact the ABC California rule meaning most ICs will be considered employees.  The rule does not explicitly state ABC, but is a six part test.  Boiled own, substance over form, it is the ABC California test.  Source:  HR Dive 6/12/23

Women more likely to be hurt by AI implementation in workplace: While artificial intelligence is seeding upheaval across the workforce, from screenwriters to financial advisors, the technology will disproportionately replace jobs typically held by women, according to human resources analytics firm Revelio Labs. Revelio Labs identified jobs that are most likely to be replaced by AI based on a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research. They then identified the gender breakdown of those jobs and found that many of them are generally held by women, such as bill and account collectors, payroll clerks, and executive secretaries.  AI is more likely to take over repetitive jobs, the kind that are mostly held by women. For example, OpenAI Inc.’s ChatGPT model can search, review, and summarize large volumes of text quickly, tasks that would normally take paralegals much longer to accomplish. In recruitment, AI can automate the process of sorting through resumes, a task that used to require more people, said Hakki Ozdenoren, economist at Revelio Labs.  Source:  BNN Bloomberg 5/26/23

Employer health care satisfaction at 68%: The AHIP report found that 68% of respondents believe employer-sponsored insurance is important for employee recruitment, and 77% believe it’s important for retention. Most respondents, 63%, are satisfied with their current employer-sponsored coverage, while 23% are dissatisfied, and 14% say they are neither. The top factors that drive their satisfaction include comprehensive coverage, affordability, and choice of providers.  In addition, 68% said they prefer to receive coverage from their employer than through the government. About 82% said their health insurance plan covers preventive services, 76% said it gives access to quality providers, and 53% said what they pay is reasonable. The benefits consumers most care about are emergency care at 62%, prescription drugs at 58%, and preventive care at 55%, the survey also showed. Another 68% of Americans with employer-sponsored insurance think it’s vital for health plans to cover telehealth services. In addition, 73% of respondents said the federal government should continue the pandemic-era telehealth flexibilities.  Will the satisfaction rate be the same if costs go dramatically up next year as many surveys indicate?   Source:  MedCity News 5/29/23

Should you have a “pay to quit” program? Companies often need to reduce the size of their workforce. But how do managers decide which employees to let go and which ones to keep?  The problem is, employees know that companies value motivation, so they have a strong incentive to appear motivated, even if they’re not. To work against that tendency, managers need to create incentives that will encourage employees to reveal their true levels of motivation. One such strategy is to offer employees money to resign voluntarily — the so-called Pay-to-Quit strategy. Zappos, the online shoe and clothing retailer, was the first to employ the strategy, making what has become known as “the offer”: a bonus for new hires to quit following a four-week training period if they didn’t feel that their job was a good fit for them. Zappos started the bonus at $100. When almost no trainee took the offer during training, they raised it all the way up to $4,000, and still almost no one took it — a sign that the company’s workforce was highly motivated. If you’re considering adopting a Pay-to-Quit program, make sure you follow these five rules: 

1. Be transparent.
2. Offer the right amount.
3. Be selective. Target the audience.
4. Set a deadline.
5. Monitor and evaluate. 

The program will likely need adjusting as implemented.  Source: Harvard Business Review 5/29/23

Tapping into a new talent pipeline using skill-based hiring:  Many jobs still require degrees.  About 62% of adults in the U.S. don’t have a bachelor’s degree, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau. These job candidates may be overlooked because they lack academic credentials, even if they have relevant skills for the available job position.  In addition, a recent Indeed survey found that 64% of job seekers believe they’ve been overlooked for a job that they were otherwise qualified for because they didn’t have the degree listed in the job description. According to the survey, job seekers believe employers should consider other factors such as experience (83%), career/skills certifications (72%), and skills assessments (65%) rather than degrees. Skills-based hiring has become more popular this year, although it appears employers may not be adopting it fast enough to meet demand, according to a recent report. In-house training, apprenticeships, and other nontraditional approaches are helping organizations to overcome the gap. Some job candidates are struggling to add skills and training credentials to hiring platforms to apply for jobs, according to new research. Many hiring platforms don’t provide adequate fields to capture the information, or the information about alternative credentials can be “lost in translation” when extracting data.  Source:  HR Dive 5/26/23