HR News—Articles

The 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) this month provides an opportunity for your organization to celebrate the most significant legislation to protect the civil rights of disabled workers in the United States.

As significant tariffs are imposed on international trading partners and supply chains, more and more U.S. businesses and organizations will experience higher costs and economic challenges that will put pressure on their bottom line.

Title VII hasn’t gone away, it’s just veered off in a different direction.

Organizations with employees in multiple states face additional challenges when it comes to legal compliance.

While we currently have a strong U.S. jobs market, we don’t have enough people to fill those jobs, and 2025 will see ongoing labor challenges.

t’s well known that the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 was amended to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to “prohibit sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy” for employers with at least fifteen employees.

“Skills-first,” or “skills-based,” hiring is hiring based on the abilities of applicants to do the job, rather than the commonly required four-year college degree, which may or may not indicate actual skill level.

“Skills-first,” or “skills-based,” hiring is hiring based on the abilities of applicants to do the job, rather than the commonly required four-year college degree, which may or may not indicate actual skill level.

Workplace ageism is discriminatory behavior directed at an employee because of a perception that the person is either too old or too young to be the best fit for the job.

Retaining good employees has always been integral to an organization’s stability and success.

This is the age of DEI and an emphasis on the importance of developing and maintaining a healthy workplace culture, yet workplace incivility—disrespect, insensitivity, and rudeness among those we interact with at work—is on the rise.

HR metrics are data- and statistics-driven measures of the effectiveness of initiatives and activities that fall under the purview of Human Resources.

When managers, supervisors, or coworkers differ politically, especially at a time when the country is so politically divided and a major election is approaching, tensions can rise and sparks can fly between people who are passionate about their beliefs, allegiances, and candidates.

While employers and HR professionals have made great progress in the area of diversity, equity, and inclusion in recent years, there’s an area in which DEI efforts have been lacking: social class.

The term neurodiversity was coined twenty-five years ago to further the acceptance of autism as a natural variation in the way people’s brains process information, sensory perception, and social interaction.

The (FLSA) requires that when most U.S. employees work more than a 40-hour work week, they get paid more.

“Shift swapping” is simply the practice of allowing hourly employees to trade regular work shifts with one another should one of them need to.

We’re all presented with ethical choices—that is, those that require us to think about right and wrong—all the time in the course of doing our jobs.

The federal government still considers marijuana a federally banned substance, but thirty-eight states have legalized it for medical use and twenty-four have legalized it for recreational use.

As significant tariffs are imposed on international trading partners and supply chains, more and more U.S. businesses and organizations will experience higher costs and economic challenges that will put pressure on their bottom line.

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) requires U.S. employers (with at least fifty employees) to allow their employees to take up to twelve weeks off.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has announced its new Strategic Enforcement Plan for 2024 through 2028.

Each March since 1995, by presidential proclamation, we’ve highlighted the often unsung contributions of women over the course of U.S. history during Women’s History Month.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, defines workplace violence as “any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening disruptive behavior that occurs at the work site.”

Black History Month is an important annual observance that recognizes African American history and achievement.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 27 percent of U.S. employees currently work from home, some full-time and some combining remote and on-site work.

It’s hard to believe, but the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission hasn’t updated its enforcement guidance on workplace harassment since 1999.

The word “civility,” from the Latin for “citizen,” simply means being courteous, or polite.

The Thanksgiving-through-New-Year’s holiday season, portrayed in the media as simply a joyful time of family gatherings and celebration, can also be, for many, one of stressful social expectations, financial strain, and perhaps even feelings of loneliness and letdown.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has brought remote working into the mainstream, the need for “work-life balance”  is something American workers have long taken for granted.

Improve Your Office Day, celebrated annually on October 4, has rather obscure origins, but the day continues to be a helpful reminder for individuals and organizations to take stock of their work environments and make some positive changes.

National Hispanic Heritage Month is a month-long celebration of Latino culture held from September 15 to October 15 in the United States every year since 1988.

The perfect time for organizations to acknowledge the hard work of their employees is Labor Day, the first Monday in September.

Since 1971, when Congress designated August 26th as Women’s Equality Day, an annual commemoration of the passage of women’s suffrage in the U.S., many businesses, institutions, and other organizations have seen the day as an opportunity to continue the advance of equity for women in the workplace.

Let’s face it, we’re living in politically fraught, divisive, and often volatile times.

At a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that “from Reconstruction, to Jim Crow, to the present day, our economy has never worked fairly for Black Americans—or, really, for any American of color.”

Juggling work and family is always challenging, but doing it in the same space is especially so.

HR professionals are both excited and concerned about the advances in “generative artificial intelligence” (generative AI).

In 2021, Juneteenth, a long-celebrated commemoration of the June 19, 1865, order to emancipate enslaved African Americans in Texas, became a national holiday.

The month of June is LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer) Pride Month, or, simply, Pride, a time to celebrate this diverse and vibrant community with parades, concerts, and educational events.

Empathy—the ability to put oneself in another person’s shoes and understand how they feel on an emotional level.

More and more, our increasingly diverse organizations strive to attain work environments that are inclusive, empathetic, and psychologically safe.

 “Compliance” refers to an organization meeting its legal obligations, that is, obeying the laws and regulations that mandate how it manages its business, staff, and treatment of its customers.

“Psychological safety” means having confidence that expressing your concerns, sharing your ideas, and thinking out of the box at work won’t result in negative consequences.

Social media has become integral to so many aspects of our daily lives, and integrating our working lives into the mix is a natural progression.

Organization policy for remote and hybrid (remote/onsite) work is an essential tool that promotes equity across an organization and increases productivity.

Upskilling and reskilling are ways that organizations train and educate both employees and leadership.