Remote I-9 flexibility continued until April 30: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced another extension of the flexibility in complying with requirements related to Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, due to COVID-19. This temporary guidance was set to expire Dec. 31, 2021. Because of ongoing precautions related to COVID-19, DHS has extended the Form I-9 requirement flexibility policy until April 30, 2022.
Looking for older workers? When recruiting in this challenging market, consider these sites: The AARP Job Board, FlexJobs, NEWSolutions, RentAGrandma, RetiredBrains, RetirementJobs, Seniors4Hire, Work at Home Vintage Experts, and Workforce50 are online platforms tailored to helping older adults find employment, and most are free or have modest fees. Posting a job on these websites indicates that the employer is open to hiring older, more experienced workers and gives a good vibe to diversity. Source: AARP 3/3/22
Logging into a computer may be compensable time: Nelnet Diversified Solutions is a student-loan company with call centers in Colorado and Nebraska. From those call centers, Nelnet's employees "service student loans and interact with debtors over the phone and through email." The employees worked from in-office computers as part of their routine work activities. They also could not perform their job without accessing the software on the computer, as they needed information on the software to service the student loans and communicate with the debtors, which was the purpose of their job. Significantly, the employees also had to sign into their computers before they could clock into the employer's time-keeping system. As a result, the employees were spending approximately two minutes of uncompensated time per shift waiting for their computers to start up. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the employer had to retroactively pay its employees for this uncompensated time. The decision was based on two main findings: First, logging into the computer was an "integral and indispensable" part of the employees' primary work. Second, the uncompensated time was not so minimal that the employer should be excused from compensating the employees for it. In other words, the court ruled that the company had to pay for that two minutes for the machine to boot-up. Source: Parsons Behle & Latimer 3/3/22
Turns out, Congressional staffers have management issues and want to form a union: A recent push to organize congressional staffers into labor unions that has divided lawmakers as they hunt for ways to resolve ongoing conflicts over workplace issues on Capitol Hill was the topic of a hearing. Several Democratic members of the Committee on House Administration, which oversees the operations of Congress, said during the hearing that lawmakers need to pass a resolution to approve regulations that would give congressional committees and office staffers the ability to organize. Even if the House passes the resolution and unions begin representing staffers, unions would be limited in what topics they can bargain over, John Uelmen, general counsel for the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights, said. Under the CAA, the only subjects that management must bargain over with a union are conditions of employment, which include personnel practices and policies that affect working conditions. Source: Law360 3/2/22
Just like school, employees like assigned desks: Many employers are using the return of workers to reconfigure their offices. As they try to open more spaces for in-office collaboration and anticipate a smaller fraction of their staff working in-person each day, organizations are cutting the number of desks and ending the practice of assigning them for most workers. Desk sharing, which includes practices like “hot desking” or “hoteling,” isn’t new; some organizations like management consulting firms have had workers share desks for decades. It’s a logical solution to configuring post-pandemic workspaces—potentially even allowing a company to reduce the amount of office space it requires. There’s just one problem: human nature. Alison Hirst, who teaches Organization Studies at Anglia Ruskin University in the UK, has been studying flexible desks since coming across the practice in 2006. What she found: Choosing a different desk every day is work—work nobody wants to engage in. “It’s kind of like make-work, a pointless activity you have to do before you can start work,” she explains. People who lose their desks “will say they feel lost,” adds Graham Brown, associate professor at the University of Victoria’s business school who has studied hot desking. “They find it very disruptive.” Source: Charter
Learning and development budgets are increasing: In an effort to stave off the great resignation, employers are opening pocketbooks to retain their employees. Employers plan to increase learning and development investments in 2022 according to a survey of nearly 300 HR professionals by software marketplace Capterra. The company found that 41% of organizations increased their L&D budgets in 2021, whereas nearly half, 49%, plan to do so this year. The trend may be in part explained by job turnover; Capterra said 25% of businesses with above-average turnover during the past 12 months were increasing their budgets, compared to 13% of businesses with below-average turnover. Budgetary increases are not uniform, per the survey. Small businesses have tended to keep L&D spending the same since 2020, which Capterra said may be related to decreased revenue expectations in recent years. Still, 32% of HR leaders representing small businesses expected to increase their budgets in 2022, a slight jump from the 25% who said the same in 2021. The results coincide with other surveys on the subject. Are you increasing your L&D activities? ASE offers both in-person and virtual training. View our catalog here. Source: HR Dive 2/25/22
Like a bad penny, it’s back: The blacklisting regulation is back. This time, a proposed rule from the U.S. Department of Agriculture would require federal contractors to certify their labor law compliance, reviving efforts under former President Barack Obama that fizzled out. The rule would add provisions to all but the smallest contracts that require contractors to certify that they are in compliance with 15 specific federal laws and executive orders that establish worker protections, as well as comparable state laws. They also would have to certify their subcontractors and suppliers' compliance and disclose previous issues and future adjudications of noncompliance if any arise. The USDA said it will consider contractors' certifications to be subject to the False Claims Act. The FCA is designed to prevent obtaining public dollars through fraud. It lets private individuals sue an alleged bad actor on behalf of the government and keep a portion of any funds that are recovered as a reward. Under the Obama administration, a Texas federal judge in October 2016 blocked the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council's regulations and U.S. Department of Labor's guidance that would have implemented the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order. Their process for requiring disclosures and disqualifying contractors violated the First Amendment by compelling speech and violated due process, the judge said. Source: Law360 3/4/22