Through the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), certain employees are entitled to 12 work weeks of unpaid leave under specific medical or family circumstances, such as parental leave or a serious health condition. In some cases, employees eligible under FMLA take their 12 weeks of leave all at once. However, FMLA does not require leave to be used in a single block. Employees with qualifying circumstances may take their allotted leave in smaller increments that amount to as much as 12 work weeks over a 12-month period—but this “intermittent leave” can cause numerous headaches for employers. It’s important for employers to understand how intermittent leave works and how to best handle its effects in the workplace.

Over the past two years, the letters “WFH” have become a familiar shorthand as more people than ever worked from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, though many employees are returning to their workplaces, many are choosing—or requesting—to continue their remote work configuration. One thing is clear—though working from home may have seemed like a temporary fix at the outset, it’s here to stay. Employers should consider reviewing and updating their policies to be better equipped for the continued presence of remote work and ensure continued success and safety.

The weather outside is terrible, and you want to close down your business for the duration. Can you cancel a work day or send your employees home early without pay for the duration of the closure? The answer is a bit complicated, and it depends on each employee’s classification as non-exempt or exempt where the overtime rules are concerned.

Every four years like clockwork, it happens: presidential politics becomes the focus of our national attention, seemingly dominating all aspects of our lives. The national conversation becomes one of campaign rhetoric, and anecdotal evidence suggests that it has only gotten more divisive. The conventional wisdom says that the two things one is never supposed to discuss at work are religion and politics, yet the political conversation can’t help but spill into the workplace, with the attendant potential for division and conflict. As an employer trying to foster productivity and keep the peace in the workplace, is there anything you can do? As it turns out, there’s quite a lot.

On March 18^th, National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) General Counsel Richard F. Griffin, Jr., issued a report[1] (“the Report”) concerning employer rules and employee handbooks in light of recent employer rule cases. Most of the violations found in these cases occurred under the first prong of the two-prong the test in Lutheran Heritage Village-Livonia,[2] which looks to whether an employer rule explicitly restricts protected activity under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”). The Report used these cases as a guide to provide clear examples of both illegal rules and their legal counterparts, giving employers a valuable tool in evaluating employee handbooks and workplace rules.

In today’s ever-increasing digital world, more employers than ever are turning to telecommuting to help reduce overheard and increase morale of employees. Importantly, however, state and federal laws apply equally to employers and employees, regardless of whether they work on-site or remotely. Among the most common issues and missteps which affect employers with telecommuting employees are wage and hour laws and, more specifically, overtime laws.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, otherwise known as HIPAA, acts in part to provide federal protection for identifiable health information retained by covered entities, which includes most businesses that offer company health plans. While many employers have policies and procedures in place to ensure HIPAA compliance in routine, every day matters relating to the management of employee health data, few employers have developed policies or even considered how to manage protected health information in the unfortunate event of employee death or incapacitation.

Earlier this year, the Kentucky Supreme Court reversed the Kentucky Court of Appeals’ holding in Creech, Inc. v. Brown, and held, in a landmark decision, that continued employment, standing alone, is no longer sufficient consideration to justify or support enforcement of a non-compete agreement. This reverses prior precedent that employer-employee agreements may be executed in exchange for merely retaining one’s job. While the case has an intricate and complex set of facts, this article focuses on the consideration requirement only, as the Kentucky Supreme Court chose not to address any other issues.

Businesses are increasingly relying on social media to establish and grow their products and/or services. While the advantages of using social media are vast (i.e., it is inexpensive, comes with a virtually global audience, and has frequent and immediate contact potential), it does come with risks. Among the dangers is failing to address who owns a social media account. This is very much still an emerging issue in the law, but some existing case law and best practices can provide guidance as to how these ownership cases develop and how they can be avoided.

The Huffington Post recently reported that Jimmy John’s, the national sandwich chain, requires its workers to sign strict non-compete agreements. The agreement was disclosed as part of a lawsuit by employees, and many in the employment industry are wondering if such an agreement is really necessary for the company’s minimum wage workers. These agreements are usually saved for high-level executives or those subject to proprietary information – not the guy behind the counter making a sub.