Employers preparing to reopen their places of business have many logistical considerations, including compliance with state and local health orders relating to face coverings, temperature and wellness screenings, and other measures designed to help keep employees healthy and safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Last week, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) updated its own “Return to Work” guidance by adding Q&A guidance on how employers should handle a “high risk” employee, i.e., an employee with an existing and known disability that may make the employee more susceptible to severe illness from COVID-19.  The guidance is a helpful reminder to employers that even actions taken with the best of intentions may not comply with legal obligations and restrictions.  Below are three important questions for employers to consider in light of the EEOC’s updated guidance.

How does the Interactive Process Apply to COVID-Related Requests for Accommodation?

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (the “ADA”), employers are obligated to consider requests from a disabled employee for reasonable accommodations to the employee’s work environment that would permit him or her to perform the essential functions of the job. While the EEOC’s earlier guidance addressed the nuts and bolts of the “interactive process” during the pandemic generally (including the timeframe in which employers should respond to requests for accommodation and what qualifies as an “undue hardship” during the pandemic), many employers were left questioning how the outbreak of COVID-19 would impact their

Our colleagues from the Employee Benefits group have posted several articles important to our Employment and Labor clients. Please click here to see articles on:

Families First Coronavirus Response Act Part 1 of 2: Small Employer Tax Credits Families First Coronavirus Response Act Part 2 of 2: Impact on Employer Health Plans

Today is Time to Talk Day focusing on ending the stigma of mental ill-health in the workplace.

Mental ill-health costs UK employers up to £42 billion annually due to poor productivity, sickness absence and staff turnover. With the number of stress and anxiety workplace-related cases increasing by over 37% just last year, this is a key topic for employers.

Over the last several years there has been a growing recognition of the need for employers to proactively foster mental wellbeing in the workplace and of the benefits this can bring. This is a noticeable shift from the historic approach, which tended to focus more on dealing with the problems only after staff had gone off sick.

#TimetoTalk encourages staff to have conversations about mental health so that they can be more open about the issue and can ask for support if they need it. This reflects key aspects of good practice that employers can adopt to foster good mental health and wellbeing, including:

developing mental health awareness amongst staff by making information, tools and support accessible; destigmatising mental ill-health, for example via networks and support groups, and training up staff to spot the early signs of a mental health issue so that more targeted support can be provided were needed; and generally supporting staff in need, including offering professional help and where appropriate, making reasonable adjustments to the workplace. These developments can be seen as part of a wider ongoing strategy by the UK government to prevent

Recent figures issued by the French ministry of Justice point out a decrease of litigation cases before the labor court. What are the reasons of such a trend? The French government outlines the positive impact of the Macron’s reforms. On the other hand, Unions replied that now the employees renounce to claim before the labour court. What are the reasons of this decrease? Could you link it or not to political measures?

Francois Alambret recently published an article regarding this subject on Focus RH, a website dedicated to labor and employment topics and specifically to HR directors or managers. Click this link to read it.

https://www.focusrh.com/strategie-rh/organisation-et-conseil/saisir-les-prud-hommes-est-devenu-plus-complique-31482.html

Bryan Cave is proud to present the third version of our in-house counsel’s guide to data privacy and security. The guide provides an overview of laws relevant to a variety of data matters topics, statistics that illustrate data privacy and security issues, and a breakdown of these data-related issues. It covers a range of privacy and security issues that apply in the HR context.

Click Here to download a copy of this new guide.