Should My Employee Manual Have Facebook or Social Media Policies?

A Video FAQ with M. Thomas Langan II.

The use of social media in the workplace continues to increase. To help protect your business, a good idea may be to adopt social media policies for your company.

The first thing a social media policy should do is define social media. This should include social networking sites, blogs, e-commerce sites, video sharing websites, but also leave the definition open to include future social media platforms.

Second, the policies should follow a general employee code of conduct. Here it should prohibit unlawful conduct, sexual harassment or the disclosure of confidential information on social media platforms.

Third, you should require employees to separate their workplace identity from their personal identity so when employees use social media, they should make it clear when they are representing your company and when they are representing their personal identity.

When drafting these policies, you should make it clear that it shouldn’t be overreaching or in any way hamper certain employee rights. For example, they should not prohibit talking negatively about the company or talking about wages in general as this could implicate several employment laws.

© 2014 Parsonage Vandenack Williams LLC

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Should My Business Have an Employee Manual?

A Video FAQ with M. Thomas Langan II.

Employee manuals are not required by law, but they can be a good idea for most businesses. An employee manual serves 3 important functions:

1.  It can protect the employer. If your company is in an at-will state, then an employee manual can make it clear that the relationship between you and your employees is at-will, and, absent any other written agreement, their employment can be terminated at any point.
2. An employee manual can explain to employees what acceptable workplace behavior is. Here you can explain policies towards sexual harassment, discrimination, tardiness, insubordination, timekeeping, etc., while providing examples where applicable.
3. An employee manual can explain employee rights under employment laws such as ADA, FMLA, equal employment opportunities, etc.

If  your company chooses to adopt an employee manual two key aspects are to enforce it consistently and update it regularly.

© 2014 Parsonage Vandenack Williams LLC

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If I Start a Business, What Employment Laws Should I Be Aware Of?

A Video FAQ with M. Thomas Langan II.

If you start a business and hire employees, there can be several employment laws that you should be aware of. Generally speaking, employment laws are on a sliding scale approach. If you only have 1 or 2 employees, your company will generally be exempt from many employment laws; however, as  your company continues to grow and expand, it will start to become subject to more and more of these employment laws.

• Employee Retirement Income Security Act. If your company offers employment benefit plans or health plans you could be subject to ERISA. ERISA governs these plans and makes sure that they are offered and implemented in a fair and financially sound manner.
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA governs workplace safety and applies to most businesses.
• Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA generally prohibits employers from discriminating against qualified employees or applicants with disabilities.
• Family and Medical Leave Act.  FMLA  requires certain employers to provide for job protection or unpaid leave for employees facing certain medical- or military-related events.

There are many employment laws that could apply to your business, but knowing which ones your company is subject to is very important.

© 2014 Parsonage Vandenack Williams LLC

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Supreme Court Rules Cell Phones Protected From Warrantless Search

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled today that police may not search the cell phones of people they arrest without a warrant. The decision centered around two cases where police officers arrested suspects. The officers then later searched through their cell phones to find additional evidence.

Police officers generally need a warrant to search a person or their property. But, there are several exceptions to this rule. For example, officers can search the area in a suspect’s immediate control after arrest. Here, the officers argued this included the suspects’ cell phones.

 The Supreme Court disagreed. It focused in part on the fact that searching a person’s cell phone—including data stored in the cloud—was much more intrusive than searching the area immediately around them. This decision is likely to significantly impact data privacy issues in a number of different areas.

© 2014 Parsonage Vandenack Williams LLC

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Executive Order by President Obama Will Bar Federal Contractors From Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity

President Obama is expected to sign an executive order in the next few weeks which will bar federal contractors from discriminating against employees based on their sexual orientation or their gender identity.   The executive order would apply only to those employers with a contract with the federal government, and not all employers.

The final language of the executive order has not yet been released, so it is unclear what, if any, exceptions to the general rule may be made.  Also, it should be noted that even after the executive order is in place it may be rescinded or revoked in the future.  We will continue to monitor this evolving situation.

© 2014 Parsonage Vandenack Williams LLC

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Fashion Trends, Religion and the Law: How Religious Beliefs Can Affect an Employer’s Dress Code Policies

Recent news reports suggest that men wearing beards, a trend recently experiencing a renaissance, may have peaked and the trend may now revert to a more clean shaven look.  While trends in beard growing, like all fashion, tend to run in cycles, employers are often left scrambling to adopt dress and grooming codes to accommodate the changing trends.  One issue that often lurks just below the surface of dress code policies is “what if the dress – or grooming – of an employee is driven by religious beliefs?”  That is, what if the beard that the employee is wearing is not merely a sign of his fashion sense, but instead a requirement of his religion?

Recently, the EEOC provided guidance on “religious garb and grooming in the workplace.”  The EEOC reminds employers, in most cases, they “are required … to make exceptions to their usual rules or preferences to permit applicants and employees to observe religious dress and grooming practices.”  Certain exceptions may apply, but it is important to recognize that in general employers may not prohibit an employee from wearing clothing or engaging in particular grooming styles if the employee’s reason for doing so is driven by their sincerely held religious beliefs.  The EEOC notes that the rule extends to situations where a conflict exists between what a company may perceive as its “image” and the employee’s religious dress or grooming.

Although fashion trends may ebb and flow, employers should proceed with extreme caution when attempting to prevent an employee from wearing religious dress or engaging in grooming practices in accordance with a sincerely held religious belief.  Such attempts risk a finding that the employer has violated the employee’s rights under the law.

© 2014 Parsonage Vandenack Williams LLC

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Raising the Minimum Wage? Defeated, for Now…

You may have heard about recent efforts to raise the federal minimum wage from its current rate of $7.25 per hour to over $10 per hour. That effort has been defeated, at least for now. The federal government reported that 3.3 million workers earned at or below the federal minimum wage in 2013. Recently, legislation was proposed that would have raised the minimum wage to $10.10 over the next two and a half years. The proposed legislation would have also raised the minimum wage for “tipped” employees and provided for yearly increases to provide for inflation. The Senate rejected this proposed legislation.

Although this most current attempt to raise the minimum wage has been defeated, the issue will likely be revisited in the future. Obviously, any change to the minimum wage laws could have important and immediate effects on businesses both large and small. We will continue to monitor proposed changes to the wage and hour law. Stay tuned…

© 2014 Parsonage Vandenack Williams LLC

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Commuting and Overtime Pay

If you have employees with remote workplace access and long commutes, you may be at risk for a wage headache. Generally, you do not have to pay your employees for normal travel from home to work. But, if your employees work during their commute, you may have to pay them for that time. If a telecommuting employee comes into the office for a meeting, you may owe them pay for their commute. If you knowingly let employees work off-the-clock from home, you might also be liable.

Limit your risk by including a policy in your handbook prohibiting unauthorized work; however, a handbook policy by itself will not protect your business. To reduce your risk further, regularly remind employees of the policy. You should also discipline employees who violate an unauthorized work policy. Increased monitoring is a common form of discipline for unauthorized work issues. In more extreme cases, you might have to cut off e-mail or remote access privileges. It may even be necessary to confiscate employer-owned electronics. If you have telecommuting employees who come to the office for required meetings, you can take extra steps. The easiest way to handle this is scheduling the meeting for the beginning or end of the day.

© 2013 Parsonage Vandenack Williams LLC

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New Required FMLA Poster

Certain employers need to immediately replace their Family and Medical Leave Act poster with a recently released revised new one.  The FMLA poster is generally required to be posted by employers with 50 or more employees and should be displayed in a conspicuous place where employees and applicants can see it. The revised poster implements changes made by recently released FMLA regulations.

The new poster may be found here: FMLA Poster

© 2013 Parsonage Vandenack Williams LLC

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Common FMLA Violations Highlighted in Recent Survey

As part of the Family and Medical Leave Act’s 20^th anniversary, the U.S. Department of Labor recently released the results of a survey on its use and impact.  The results show the generally positive impact the FMLA has had on workers. The survey also highlights several aspects where the FMLA is being misapplied by employers.  Among them include:

• No Fault Attendance Policies.  Many employers reported still using no-fault attendance policies – policies that treat all employee absences the same regardless of the reason – without providing exceptions for FMLA leave.  FMLA-related absences should be excused and may not be used against employees in performance evaluations.

•  Asking Employees on Leave to Perform Work. The survey revealed that when an employee is on leave, the most common method for covering the work is to assign it to other employees.  However, while employees are on longer leaves, 70.5% of employees were asked to perform some work while on leave.  This practice is likely in violation of FMLA’s prohibition from interfering with employees while on leave.

•  Pressuring Employees to Return.  Under the FMLA, employers are not allowed to pressure employees to return to work.  However, the survey shows that 12.4% of eligible employees reported such pressure as a reason why they returned.

The full report may be viewed at Family and Medical Leave in 2012.

© 2013 Parsonage Vandenack Williams LLC

For more information, contact info@pvwlaw.com