Accommodations required for these employees The federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) will take effect June 27, 2023. The PWFA requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations– e.g., additional break time to use the bathroom, eat and rest – to employees affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions. An existing law, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act [...]
Small businesses play an important role in the nation's economy. During National Small Business Week, the IRS reminds taxpayers that IRS.gov has resources and tools to help small businesses understand and meet their tax responsibilities. Bookmark these important webpages Small Business and Self-Employed Tax Center: Resources for small businesses with assets under $10 million and for [...]
Most HR professionals would agree that turnover is a source of stress. Losing an employee can feel like losing an investment, and replacing that person has its own costs—advertising, onboarding, training, and coverage to name a few. But we also know that turnover is a manageable cost of doing business, and sometimes even welcome. In [...]
A generative AI system (artificial intelligence software that answers questions), like ChatGPT and Bard, provides immediate responses to prompts based on the information it knows—much of the internet or a smaller content library if that’s what it’s been told to use. These responses usually look and sound authoritative—like a real human wrote them— although the [...]
Several federal agencies released final rules, announcing increased amounts for 2023. Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) Failing to furnish reports to certain former employees or maintain employee records: maximum penalty is $36 per employee per plan year. Failing to file a plan annual report: up to $2,586 per day. Failing to provide requested documentation [...]
The Department of Labor's Field Assistance Bulletin 2023-1 considers what compliance with the FMLA looks like for businesses that have employees working remotely. Specifically, employers may be uncertain about one of the eligibility requirements: having 50 or more employees within 75 miles of the worksite. As the guidance lays out, employees’ personal residences or other [...]
The FLSA requires that employers provide covered employees “reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk for such employee’s nursing child for 1 year after the child’s birth each time such employee has need to express the milk” and provide “a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free [...]
Summarized from Department of Labor Field Assistance Bulletin 2023-1: The FLSA requires covered employers to pay nonexempt employees for all hours worked, including work performed in their home or otherwise away from the employer’s premises or job site. “Hours worked” is not limited solely to time spent on active productive labor but may, for instance, [...]
The Department of Labor (DOL) just released an opinion letter (FMLA 2023-1-A) focused on reduced schedule leave. It covers how intermittent or reduced schedule FMLA leave should be calculated, and whether employees’ schedule limitations would be “better suited” for reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Someone may be covered by both the [...]
Beginning on January 1, 2023, the standard mileage rates for the use of a car (also vans, pickups or panel trucks) will be: 65.5 cents per mile driven for business use, up 3 cents from the midyear increase setting the rate for the second half of 2022. 22 cents per mile driven for medical or [...]
