Workforce Bulletin

Recruiting qualified applicants and hiring top talent have always been time-consuming endeavors that come with constant worry about making a wrong hire. Added to this, the COVID-19 pandemic effectively put a halt to employers’ ability to evaluate applicants in-person. These factors, and others, have led many employers to adopt or to, consider adopting, artificial intelligence (AI) tools to optimize recruitment by introducing efficiencies, reaching a broader pool of applicants, increasing consistency and uniformity in the evaluation of applicants, and, in some cases, helping employers meet diversity, equity, and inclusion goals. Typically, employers opting to use AI, contract with third-party vendors that offer AI-powered algorithms, which perform a variety of functions, such as cognitive assessments, personality tests, and video interviews.

Enacted on December 4, 2020, the Internet of Things Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2020 (the “IoT Act”) is expected to dramatically improve the cybersecurity of the ubiquitous IoT devices.[1] With IoT devices on track to exceed 21.5 billion by 2025, the IoT Act mandates cybersecurity standards and guidelines for the acquisition and use by the federal government of IoT devices capable of connecting to the Internet. The IoT Act, and the accompanying standards and guidance being developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will directly affect ...

A critical component of a successful employer-employee relationship is the employer’s fair and equitable treatment of employees, often embodied in the employer’s employee engagement, retention, and compensation practices.  When it comes to compensation, U.S. employers must comply with federal and applicable state equal pay laws that prohibit discriminatory pay practices, and a myriad of state and local laws banning inquiries into, or the use of, prior salary history in setting pay.  Yet, compensation bias and discrimination still exist and continue to be the subject of ...

As featured in #WorkforceWednesday:  In this episode, hear from EEOC Commissioner Keith Sonderling. As a sitting commissioner, Mr. Sonderling has a unique perspective on priorities, new initiatives, and the outlook for what employers can expect from the agency in 2021. Attorney David Garland leads the conversation.

Employers and the New Administration is a special podcast series from Employment Law This Week®, with analysis of the first 100 days of the Biden administration. Special podcast episodes air every other #WorkforceWednesday.

If you’d like to hear ...

On February 22, 2021, Governor Murphy signed three separate cannabis reform bills into law that formally legalize the use and possession of recreational marijuana in the Garden state: (1) the “New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory, Enforcement Assistance, and Marketplace Modernization Act” (the “Cannabis Act”) (NJ A21), which legalizes the recreational use and possession of cannabis or cannabis products (collectively “cannabis items”) for adults; (2) a  decriminalization law (NJ A1897), which legalizes the possession of up to six ounces of cannabis and provides for ...

The Westchester County Human Rights Commission (the “Commission”) has announced that the county’s Earned Sick Leave Law, which went into effect on April 10, 2019, has been preempted by New York’s Paid Sick Leave Law (“Law” or “PSLL”), which took effect on September 30, 2020. Westchester County’s law had required that eligible employees accrue one hour of sick time for every 30 hours worked, up to a maximum of 40 hours per year.

As we previously covered, the PSLL applies to all private employers and employees in New York State, and requires employers to provide up to 40 ...

The Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) has issued March 2021 guidance for employers on “Compensation, Paid Leave and the COVID-19 Vaccine,” advising employers on providing employees with time off and flexibility in order to get the first (and as necessary, the second dose) of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Mandatory Vaccination Programs

The IDOL guidance states that pursuant to the Illinois Minimum Wage Law and the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, if an employer requires employees to get vaccinated, then the time the employee spends getting the vaccine “is likely compensable,” ...

The New York City Council is planning to evaluate how effectively both the City, as an employer, and private employers disseminated and implemented COVID-19 workplace guidance over the past year with the goal of strengthening how the public and private sectors manage future public health emergencies. On February 28, 2021, the Council enacted Int. 2161-2020 (the “Law”), which establishes a board to review the workplace health and safety guidance that agencies and private employers issued to their respective employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. The newly formed board will ...

As featured in #WorkforceWednesday:  In the past week, regulatory withdrawals, rollbacks, or new proposed rules are impacting everything from COVID-19 vaccine incentives to joint-employer status.

We previously discussed the EEOC’s proposed new wellness program incentive rules under the ADA and GINA in our post, How Big Can the Carrot Be?  The proposed rules were to replace the EEOC’s previous “health-contingent” wellness program regulations, which had been struck down by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia because they allegedly permitted large incentives that the court found were essentially coercive and thus in violation of the ADA and GINA proscriptions permitting only voluntary disclosures of disability or genetic-related information ...