Early mornings are when I do my best thinking and feel most energized. For years, I valued that time, but I did not always use it with intention. Reading The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma helped me put structure around something I was already doing and showed me how powerful the first hour of the day can be when it is used deliberately.

A Trump Account is now available for children under 18 years old and can be used as a tax savings vehicle by parents.  For a child to be eligible, they must be under 18 years old and have a social security number.  It is similar to an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) but for minors. 

The most common reason well-intentioned employers face costly lawsuits is everyday manager mistakes.  These managerial mishaps can quietly snowball into six-figure legal problems.

A new MyPerfectResume survey of 1,000 U.S. workers shows that secondary income is no longer a backup plan. It is now a core part of how employees manage their finances. According to the 2026 State of Secondary Income Report, 72% of workers rely on at least one additional income source, up slightly from last year and signaling a long-term shift rather than a temporary response to inflation.

The Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program, administered by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in cooperation with state workforce agencies, runs a semi-annual survey that collects data from approximately 1.1 million non-farm establishments. It produces detailed employment and wage estimates by occupation across more than 580 areas such as states, metropolitan regions, and nonmetropolitan areas as well as the nation as a whole.

HIPAA Notices of Privacy Practices required to be issued by February 16th: Group health plan sponsors should take note of the February 16, 2026, deadline to update HIPAA Notices of Privacy Practices (“NPPs”) to reflect recent privacy updates for Part 2 records.  HIPAA requires that covered entities, such as group health plans, provide notices to covered individuals describing how the covered entity uses and discloses protected health information (“PHI”).

A surprising new trend has emerged where one in three dating app users are actually on the platform for career networking and job-seeking purposes. Although many users have found success in this tactic, claiming they have gained mentorship, landed interviews, and even job offers, it presents unique challenges, especially from a human resources perspective.

Severance pay is a topic that often surfaces when employees leave a company, yet many people don’t fully understand how it works. Whether someone is laid off, terminated, or leaving voluntarily, severance pay can play an important role in easing the transition. This FAQ-style guide breaks down severance pay in simple terms.

Recent research from TalentLMS surveyed 1,000 U.S. employees reveals deep gaps between how protected employees feel and how organizations actually respond to misconduct, highlighting widespread fear, silence, and unequal accountability in today's workplaces.

Discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) have largely centered on how the new technology will change the way we work. The rate of this change, it is safe to say, is happening more quickly than other technological disruptions. For example, the advent of computers was glacial compared to how quickly AI is being adopted. According to the American Management Association's 2025 research, 95% of organizations now use AI, with 58% reporting daily use—a dramatic shift from just two...

Artificial intelligence is being used more frequently in HR, particularly within employee relations, and its adoption is expected to continue growing over the next several years. A SHRM study found that 43% of organizations already leverage AI in HR-related tasks. One result of this shift is a reduced demand for certain HR roles. For example, IBM reportedly laid off approximately 8,000 employees, with many of the cuts occurring in HR, and had already replaced about 200 HR roles with AI...

EEOC rescinds harassment guidance: The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission voted 2–1 to rescind its Biden-era workplace harassment guidance, which had faced nearly two years of legal and political scrutiny, particularly around provisions protecting transgender employees and those seeking abortions.

Troy, MI – January 20, 2026 – ASE, one of the nation’s oldest and largest employer associations, has released its Organizational Challenges & Outlook Survey, highlighting the issues Michigan-based organizations expect to face in 2026 and how those concerns are largely extensions of challenges faced in 2025. The findings suggest organizations are entering the new year with few surprises, but with heightened urgency around long-standing workforce and economic pressures.

ASE recently surveyed 149 ASE member companies across Michigan, and the results confirmed what many of us have been feeling. The top three challenges expected for 2026 were attracting and retaining talent (49.7%), economic uncertainty (44.3%), and employee engagement or workforce issues (30.9%). With 44% of you naming economic uncertainty as a top challenge, I know this is weighing heavily on your minds as you plan for the year ahead.

Is your social feed full of “remember 2016?” posts? Playing off that trend, we thought it would be fun to look back at the headline article published in EPTW this week in 2016, “Can Lack of Daylight Affect Performance?” Ten years later, plenty has changed, but for those of us in the Midwest, winter still looks and feels the same. Cold mornings, short days, and heading to and from work in the dark are still part of the routine for many. The question we asked back then...