EverythingPeople This Week!

The remote work experiment is soon to become the return-to-work (RTW) experiment.  Reacclimating back to an on-site workforce will present an enormous change.  Returning to the workplace could mean recalling furloughed employees, transitioning away from mandatory remote work, or ramping back up toward full productivity. Maybe all three. Help your workforce make the psychological shift back.  Management teams should lead with empathy and demonstrate an understanding that while...

Many organizations are reviewing their security and surveillance policies and looking to update them.  A common question coming into the ASE Research Hotline is whether the employer can utilize video surveillance and have voice/sound recording.  The simple answer is yes for video and maybe for voice/sound recording.

A recent EPTW poll showed that 61% of respondents were feeling zoom fatigue, and now there is research to confirm that it’s real.  Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL) examined the psychological consequences of spending hours per day on video platforms and found that video calls are tiring people out – creating zoom fatigue.

ASE has received many questions regarding the salary history ban many states have enacted recently. A salary history ban prohibits employers from asking applicants about their current or past salaries, benefits, or other compensation.  

ASE’s 2019/20 Michigan Policies and Practices Survey reports that although most employers offer all necessary time off to employees that are in the military or national guard, most do not offer any supplemental pay to employees that go on military leave for such activities as annual National Guard training or Army Reserve active duty services.  Based upon a 7th Circuit Court of Appeals decision handed down at the start of February, this may be about to change.

Daylight Savings starts March 14th:  Set your clocks forward one hour Sunday morning, March 14^th. Daylight Saving Time was first proposed by George Vernon Hudson in 1895, and its use in the U.S. was first mandated during World War I. It was subsequently used on and off for years by various countries and U.S. states. 

Employees, at times, seem to be better lawyers than the employment lawyers – or so they think.  How many times has HR or a supervisor been threatened by an employee for violating their rights or discriminating against them when in reality, they are simply trying to get an employee to perform and follow direction. Employers have broad discretion for terminating employees according to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Michigan.

One (or two) questions that have been brought to ASE by employers when requesting a review of their employee handbook over the last year has been, do we need a COVID-19 policy? And/or what other policies do I need to have in place given the pandemic?

One of ASE’s wellness partners, BurnAlong, recently partnered with hr.research Institute to conduct a survey, “The State of Employee Health and Well-being 2021.” The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted employee well-being and employers must react.

Most employers are at least somewhat familiar with the restrictions placed on employment credit checks by California and New York City, but there are additional states and cities with restrictions on employment checks.

Are you having a difficult time recruiting?  Some industries are thriving and eager to hire, which should be welcomed in an economy that has recovered only a little over half of the 22 million jobs lost during the coronavirus pandemic.  

If COVID has taught us anything, it’s that we must be resilient during extreme times of change like we’ve experienced during the pandemic.  However, new research shows that only 19% of U.S. workers possess a high level of resiliency.

Corporate wellness, while always an important part of the workplace experience, has recently become crucial to maintaining high employee morale. Nearly a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more employees are counting on wellness programs to help them cope with the everyday stresses that life offers, and, in turn, more and more organizations are stepping up to the plate.

The Governor’s office has formed a diverse group of leaders, including business, to work with and assist with its COVID vaccination campaign. As vaccination ramps up in Michigan, employers will benefit from inoculated healthy and safe workers. However, it is recognized that education is needed about how and when workers can line up for the COVID-19 vaccination.

As stated previously in EPTW, the Biden Administration is moving fast to rewrite the Trump Administration’s labor policy and regulations. Following the quick replacement of key Trump era National Labor Relations Board personnel, last week Congressional Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate re-enrolled the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, (PRO). It had been previously passed in the House last year but went no further. Unlike the often temporary regulatory and decision-based policy...