Quick Hits - June 23, 2021 - American Society of Employers - ASE Staff

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Quick Hits - June 23, 2021

Starting July 1, Michigan background checks may take longer: The state of Michigan has issued a rulemaking that requires redaction of date of birth (DOB) from public records effective July 1, 2021.  There appears to be a misunderstanding of the rule language.  When the Court adopted its amendments to protect personal identifying information (PII) two years ago as part of ADM File No. 2017-28, the rule included language that “a party may stipulate in writing to allow access to his or her protected personal identifying information to any person, entity, or agency.” MCR 1.109(D)(9)(b)(v). Any potential employee could provide such consent and allow access to his or her PII. Therefore, background screenings can continue to be conducted under this rule.  However, given the way the rule is being implemented, an insufficient number of identifiers will be available to match the applicant, which means that background screeners will have to stop reporting Michigan criminal records to employers, property managers, and volunteer agencies, unless they can continue to obtain date of birth from court records.  ASE is working with the PBSA (the association for background checks) on this important issue for our members.  Any questions, please contact Susan Chance at [email protected]. 

Is your website accessible?  Given the rising lawsuits under the ADA Title III on accessibility of websites and career pages, a tool is available to check the accessibility level of your website.  WAVE is a suite of evaluation tools that helps authors make their web content more accessible to individuals with disabilities. WAVE can identify many accessibility and Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) errors, but also facilitates human evaluation of web content. Their philosophy is to focus on issues that we know impact end users, facilitate human evaluation, and to educate about web accessibility.  For more information click here.  As an FYI, even the federal government websites have a long way to go.

Connecticut to require posting of wage ranges for jobs:  Effective October 1, 2021, Connecticut will join California, Colorado, Maryland, Toledo, Cincinnati, and Washington State in requiring employers to provide wage range information for their positions.  Similar to Colorado and Washington, the law will require disclosure to both applicants and current employees.  Under the new law, Connecticut employers must:  Provide an applicant the wage range for a position for which the applicant is applying upon the earliest of (1) the applicant's request, or (2) prior to or at the time the applicant is made an offer of compensation.  Provide an employee the wage range for the employee’s position upon (1) the hiring of the employee, (2) a change in the employee's position with the employer, or (3) the employee’s first request for a wage range.  The law defines “wage range” as the “range of wages an employer anticipates relying on when setting wages for a position, and may include reference to any applicable pay scale, previously determined range of wages for the position, actual range of wages for those employees currently holding comparable positions or the employer’s budgeted amount for the position.”  Failure to do so could lead to a lawsuit.  Source: Seyfarth 6/14/21

Should employers consider pet insurance as a promoted benefit? With more people adopting pets over the pandemic, would employer subsidized pet insurance be an important attraction and retention tool for employers?  Americans spent more than $30 billion on veterinary care in 2020.  On average, an emergency trip to the vet with a dog can cost anywhere from $800 to $1,500, according to pet care service site Rover.com. For most Americans — who couldn’t afford an emergency expense of more than $1,000, per a January survey from Bankrate — a vet bill of that magnitude would provide significant financial stress, not unlike a car breakdown or a basement flood.  Employers almost never share in the premium costs, sources said, but in offering the product, they often provide their employees access to a discount. Metlife, for example, provides workers who opt into an employer-offered plan a 10% discount from the price they would qualify for if they approached the company on their own, according to Katie Blakeley, vice president and head of pet insurance, group benefits at Metlife. Workers also benefit from the "due diligence" of the employer comparing different plans and selecting the one they regard as most beneficial, she said.   Source:  HR Dive 6/10/21

When reopening workplace, be “quiet:” With many employees working from home, anecdotal evidence provides that many have said that the less interruptions, the more productive they are.  With offices reopening, productivity shouldn’t fall simply because the mass is back. Employers can still give employees the gift of productivity they’ve enjoyed over the past year with silence and space. Here are some ways to bring the gift of silence and space back to the office.  First, identify whether meetings are necessary or not.  Meetings for meeting sake have been the bane of many employee, so if less meetings and more “me” time is allowed, it may provide greater productivity.  Second, have employees carve out 90-120 minutes once or twice a day dedicated to deep work. Interruptions may only happen for emergencies (and define an emergency). Leverage the communication platforms that have been used over the past 15 months to facilitate and protect these windows.  Finally, communicate about quiet and communication and create shared expectations.  The pandemic has created new norms for workspaces, and employers need to be cognizant of these changes.  Source:  Lets Grow Leaders 6/14/21

Thinking about flexibility at work, this should give pause for thought:  According to many business leaders and human resources pros, the largest pool of employees quitting is those doing remote work. That comes as a surprise to some who were hoping that allowing workers to stay at home this past year and a half would increase people’s satisfaction in their roles when the time came to return. Instead, many are apparently preferring to test the job market even when they are not asked to return to the office. Unresponsive managers and a failure to develop relationships with remote workers are primarily behind the exodus, says Nathan Blain, a Korn Ferry senior client partner and the firm’s global leader for optimizing people costs.  To be sure, many of the remote workers who are quitting are at firms that require them to return to the office. In all, the total number of those leaving or thinking about leaving their work is at a record level. About 4 million people—roughly 2.7% of all workers, including remote workers—quit their jobs in April, the highest level in about 20 years. Moreover, recent surveys show that anywhere from 25% to 40% of workers are actively looking for a new job, leading economists to seeks labels for the trend, from the “Great Resignation” to the “Turnover Tsunami.”  Source:  Korn Ferry 6/17/21

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