EEOC EEO-1 portal closes November 15th: Per EEOC: “If you still have not filed your 2019 and/or 2020 EEO-1 Component 1 Report(s), please do so no later than Monday, November 15, 2021 in order to comply with the EEOC’s mandatory filing requirements. Once the November 15, 2021 deadline passes, NO additional 2019 or 2020 EEO-1 Component Reports will be accepted. If you have already requested assistance from the Filer Support Help Desk and have a pending help desk ticket, we are in the process of addressing those requests and will ensure that you are able to file. We ask that filers only contact the EEO-1 Component 1 Help Desk once regarding the same issue.” Source: EEOC 11/1/21
llinois requiring employers to submit contact info by Nov 3rd for pay reporting purposes: The deadline is approaching for businesses across Illinois to submit contact information to the Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) as part of a change to the Equal Pay Act of 2003 (820 ILCS 112). Businesses are asked to comply by November 3, 2021. The first step in this process is to collect contact information for businesses that are subject to the reporting requirements. IDOL is requesting three email contacts to ensure future communications will reach someone within a business. Contact information can be submitted here: IDOL Business Contact Information IDOL will send additional instructions via email. If a business does not currently have 100 or more employees, contact information is unnecessary. However, the link provided will remain active. If at any point a business reaches 100 employees, it can provide contact information as previously described. Source: CCH 10/29/21
Is HR responding to employee complaints? Employees feel unsafe at work, and when they go to HR with complaints, they’re being brushed aside. 51% of U.S. office workers have suffered from workplace misconduct, including bullying, sexual harassment, discrimination, fraud or bribery, according to the recent Trust Gap report conducted by incident report service Vault Platform. Forty-eight percent of those who have reported instances of misconduct say they’ve experienced it as frequently as once a month. Despite the frequency of these incidents, HR is not taking quick action to prevent or punish misconduct: more than a third of U.S. office workers said they believe their organization would brush aside at least one form of workplace misconduct, and 30% of HR and compliance decision makers agreed that their organization would ignore an instance of misconduct if it was set to damage profits or reputation, the report found. And you wonder why HR gets low ratings. Source: EBN 10/27/21
If they don’t want to get vaccinated, no amount of money will change their mind: Financial incentives, public-health messages, and other tactics used by state and local governments and employers to encourage people to get the Covid-19 vaccine didn’t have a noticeable impact on vaccination rates among those who already were hesitant about getting the shot, new research shows. What’s more, the strategies sometimes had the opposite effect of their intended design on certain groups of people, illustrating how difficult it has been to lift U.S. vaccination rates as the pandemic drags on, according to a recent study published in the National Bureau of Economic Research. “While messages increased vaccination intentions, none of the treatments increased overall vaccination rates,” according to the study, written by professors from the University of Southern California and University of California, Los Angeles, and doctors from Contra Costa Health Services. Similar research from earlier this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which looked specifically at large state lottery drawings of up to $1 million, found that there was little to no change in vaccination uptake. Source: The Wall Street Journal 10/26/21
Will you mandate all employees to be vaccinated? Citigroup told employees on Thursday that it would require vaccination against Covid-19 as a condition of employment in the United States, making it the first major bank to issue such a mandate. “It has become crystal clear that Covid-19 will not be going away anytime soon,” Sara Wechter, the company’s head of human resources, wrote in a LinkedIn post describing the new policy. Ms. Wechter cited two catalysts for the decision. First, because the bank does business with the federal government, it has an obligation to comply with President Biden’s executive order requiring vaccination for people working on government contracts. And mandating vaccinations will also allow the bank to “ensure the health and safety of our colleagues as we return to the office,” she wrote. Citi will consider requests for medical and religious exemptions and will “will do all we can to help our colleagues comply with this new requirement,” Ms. Wechter wrote. However, you may have no choice once the OSHA Emergency Temporary Standards (ETS) are final. Source: NYTimes 10/28/1
International assignments making a comeback: Although the pandemic may have slowed things down, and employers were more in tune previously for local or short-term ex-pat hires, international assignments are making a comeback, according to the recent 2021 Internationally Mobile Employee Benefits Design Survey by Willis Towers Watson. The survey also found multinational organizations have been expanding wellbeing benefits amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the extreme implications related to mobility, there was a pullback on international (expatriate) assignments in 2020. Now, 31% of multinationals are planning to increase the number of assignments in the next year, and only 15% are planning a reduction. Additionally, nine in 10 intend to maintain long-term versus short-term assignments. Fundamental to an IME benefit strategy, most multinational organizations have focused on expanding wellbeing benefits amid the COVID-19 pandemic, including enhancing telehealth services and employee assistance programs (EAPs). Over seven in 10 respondents (71%) now offer EAPs to their IMEs, up sharply from 53% in 2019. Additionally, 44% expanded their wellbeing benefits this year, up from 30% in 2019. Source: Willis Towers Watson 9/30/21
OSHA’s new head confirmed by Senate: And people thought the Senate wasn’t working. The U.S. Senate last Monday confirmed President Joe Biden's pick to run the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, an arm of the U.S. Department of Labor, as OSHA prepares to publish an emergency temporary standard mandating that large businesses require vaccinations or weekly testing. Doug Parker, who has worked atop California's worker safety watchdog, was confirmed to the position of assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health by a vote of 50-41. Parker — who served as chief of California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal/OSHA, after California Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed him in 2019 — will need to hit the ground running. Source: Law360.com 10/26/21