| Special #64 - August 27, 2020 |
| | We welcome everyone to listen to this Free Webinar Recording
How to Enhance Employee Engagement & Improve Your Organization’s Performance Presenter Pete Tosh From Aug 25, 2020
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| HR and Employment Law News |
| - OSHA.gov Did You Know? You can order printed copies of OSHA COVID-19 posters and guidance booklets for your workplace. - (Reposted Article) Constangy.com News & Analysis: President orders that withholding of SS taxes be deferred, but there are details to be ironed out 8.24.20 - Constangy.com News & Analysis:Common sense prevails on pay for telework. How refreshing. 8.26.20 CDC: Panic buttons, safe areas can protect employees from customer violence over COVID-19 policies PUBLISHED Aug. 26, 2020- ¶47,226 Nearly all employers believe they’ve navigated remote work during pandemic well, but very few have long-term remote strategy in place — SURVEY RESULTS Aug. 26, 2020 - Georgia Department of Public Health COVID-19 Daily Status Report
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| | | | Did You Know?
You can order printed copies of OSHA COVID-19 posters and guidance booklets for your workplace. All items are free and available in multiple languages. Visit OSHA’s publications page to place an order.
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| | | | Reposted Constangy.com News & Analysis: President orders that withholding of SS taxes be deferred, but there are details to be ironed out
By Graham Newsome / Macon Office &
Jeffery Thompson / Macon Office 8.24.20
On August 8, President Trump issued a Memorandum deferring payroll tax obligations due to COVID-19. The Memorandum directs the Secretary of the Treasury to defer the withholding, deposit, and payment of the 6.2 percent employee’s share of Social Security taxes, between September 1 through the end of this year.
The order is intended to provide relief to employees who are facing economic hardship because of COVID-19-related restrictions. According to the Memorandum, “American workers have been particularly hard hit by this ongoing disaster. While the Department of the Treasury has already undertaken historic efforts to alleviate the hardships of our citizens, it is clear that further temporary relief is necessary to support working Americans during these challenging times.”
The Memorandum directs the Secretary of the Treasury to issue rules and regulations pertaining to the deferral.
Payment “shall” be deferred for employees earning less than $4,000, calculated pre-tax, on a biweekly basis ($104,000 annually). This portion of the Memorandum does state that the deferral is available to those whose biweekly income “is generally less than” when referring to the biweekly threshold of $4,000, but it does not mention any other conditions or situations where the threshold might be higher for certain individuals.
The Treasury Department is also directed to consider the possibility of forgiveness for these funds, rather than the repayment. It is likely that Congress will explore the option of forgiveness as well. Otherwise, employees might be forced to pay twice the normal amount of payroll taxes beginning in January 2021, which would be a burden to employees and defeat the purpose of the deferral. Notably, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of other industries recently sent a letter to Congressional leaders requesting that Congress take action to forgive any employee obligation to repay the taxes.
There are several factors that could render the Memorandum moot between now and September 1, including another stimulus bill similar to the CARES Act or guidance by the Secretary of the Treasury. Employers may want to delay taking any action until additional guidance is provided.
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| | | Constangy.com News & Analysis: Common sense prevails on pay for telework. How refreshing.
By Frank B. Shuster / Atlanta Office
8.26.20 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, roughly 24 percent of working Americans performed some work at home in 2019. Because of the nightmare that 2020 has become, with its pandemic, hurricanes, forest fires, and social unrest, the number of Americans currently performing remote work is likely to be much higher than it was in 2019. Although managing remote workforces creates multiple challenges for employers, the U.S. Department of Labor just provided a common-sense solution for one of those challenges – how to track and pay for remote hours actually worked by non-exempt employees outside their regularly scheduled hours.
It should come as no surprise to our readers that an employer must pay for all hours that it knows, or has to reason to believe, a non-exempt employee has worked. This obligation includes paying for hours that the employer did not ask or want the employee to work, and regardless of whether the employee violated a rule prohibiting employees from working outside their regularly scheduled hours. For example, if an assembly line worker scheduled to work six hours actually works eight hours, the employee must be paid for the extra hours regardless of any rule prohibiting work outside of scheduled hours, since there can be little doubt that the employer knew or should have known (from its front line supervisors) about the extra hours of work. If the employee was not authorized to work those extra hours, the employer’s recourse is to discipline the employee, not dock the employee’s pay.
But the law does not require an employer to pay for work it did not know about and had no reason to know about. The DOL’s common-sense guidance relates to this “reason to know” requirement when an employee is working remotely.
According to a Field Assistance Bulletin issued on August 24 by the Wage and Hour Division of the DOL, the standard used by most courts for determining whether an employer should have known that its non-exempt employees were working outside of their regularly scheduled hours is “reasonable diligence.” Under this standard, the DOL asks what a reasonably diligent employer should have known, not what it could have known. As explained in the Bulletin, one way an employer may exercise “reasonable diligence” to learn about its employees’ unscheduled hours of work is by establishing a “reasonable process” for the employees to report those unscheduled work hours. If an employer has a reasonable process and the employee fails to use that process to report unscheduled hours worked, then the employer generally is not required to investigate further to uncover unreported hours. In other words, employers generally are not required to sort through or search other records in order to determine whether employees performed work outside of their regular work hours.
This would not be the case, of course, if the employer discouraged or tried to prevent employees from reporting their unscheduled work hours.
A Field Assistance Bulletin is not binding precedent on any court, and this Bulletin recognizes that the circumstances of particular situations may require different outcomes. Nonetheless, it provides common-sense guidance for employers trying to manage and compensate employees working remotely: Employers should develop a policy and process by which non-exempt employees working remotely can report the hours they work beyond their regularly scheduled hours, and employers should not do anything to discourage the reporting of those extra hours.
Employees who fail to use the employer’s procedures prevent the employer from learning of the need to pay for those hours and thwart the employer’s ability to take lawful actions (such as discipline) to prevent employees from working unauthorized hours. Both should be helpful to the employer in defending against a claim for uncompensated time.
For a printer-friendly copy, click here.
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| | | | HRDive.com BRIEF
CDC: Panic buttons, safe areas can protect employees from customer violence over COVID-19 policies
PUBLISHED Aug. 26, 2020
Dive Brief:
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its COVID-19 guidance this week for retailers and service businesses to prevent workplace violence associated with implementation of coronavirus prevention policies and practices, such as mandatory use of masks, social distancing and limiting capacity.
- Among the agency's employer recommendations are providing employee training on workplace violence response, installing security systems such as panic buttons and alarms and training employees how to use them, assigning two workers to encourage prevention policies are followed and identifing safe areas for employees to go if they feel like they are in danger, such as a room that locks from the inside.
- Employee training should address ways for employees to identify, avoid and respond to violent situations, the agency recommends. Staff should report any potential threats or violent acts to a manager or supervisor and remain aware of and support coworkers during threatening or potentially violent situations. Employees should not argue with a customer if the person makes threats and should not force anyone who is upset to follow prevention policies or other practices related to COVID-19.
Dive Insight:
From physical assault and verbal abuse to employees being shot at, workers have experienced various forms of anger from customers reacting to company policies to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. The Service Employees International Union surveyed over 4,100 McDonald's workers and found that 44% of respondents were verbally or physically assaulted by customers who weren't wearing masks.
These violent interactions aren't likely to dissipate any time soon either, especially as more employers, including McDonald's and Starbucks, and local governments require masks to be worn on premise. On Wednesday, Illinois began requiring restaurant and bar patrons to wear a mask while interacting with staff, including when they place an order, receive food and beverages and when an employee services a table.
But while 65% of U.S. residents surveyed by the Pew Research Center from June 4 to 10 said they wore masks all or most of the time, 44% said they saw other people in their communities wearing masks all or most of the time.
And willingness to wear masks also varies depending on the type of retailer. The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland found in a survey of over 1,100 U.S. residents from July 3 to 7 that over 70% said they were extremely likely to wear a mask when entering a grocery store versus almost 50% extremely likely to wear one while at a restaurant.
Regardless of how customers feel about wearing masks, they have increasingly been shown to keep people protected. For example, in Seoul, South Korea, a Starbucks patron with the coronavirus spread the disease to over two dozen other customers, but four employees wearing masks did not contract it.
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| | | ¶47,226 Nearly all employers believe they’ve navigated remote work during pandemic well, but very few have long-term remote strategy in place — SURVEY RESULTS
Aug. 26, 2020 from GEA HR Answers Now
Terminal has announced their inaugural Remote Leadership Report which reveals that, despite early success, the vast majority of companies are not equipped for a long-term shift to remote work. The research, commissioned by Terminal and conducted by Method Research, explores how company HR and engineering leaders have navigated the rapid and forced shift to a remote workforce due to COVID-19 and their outlook in managing a remote workforce over the long-term.
In exploring HR and engineering leaders' strategic plans and decisions around building remote processes and culture, the study revealed that 95 percent of HR and engineer leaders believe that they successfully navigated the transition to a remote workforce through COVID. However, the data also shows that leaders' actions contradict their perception: Most have invested little to no time or resources in building a remote work process, structure and culture long-term.
- More than two-thirds of HR and engineering leaders say they don't have a long-term plan.
- 45 percent of leaders without a long-term remote work strategy say their culture is okay for now, but not optimized for the long term.
- Even among the few who do have a long-term plan, 61 percent of remote-work plans are less than a year old and 40 percent have been developed solely in response to COVID-19.
- The majority of leaders admit they spent more time planning the holiday party than planning for a remote work future (53 percent).
"The remote work movement is here to stay," said Clay Kellogg, CEO of Terminal. "Top tech talent can now work from anywhere, which means a company's talent strategy is inherently intertwined with their remote strategy. Yet, just 27 percent of engineering and HR leaders say they have a strong and thriving remote culture today, and many lack the expertise to create one. Now is the time for companies to invest in a comprehensive remote work strategy that encompasses culture and infrastructure, so they can attract and retain leadership to fuel sustained innovation through the COVID-19 era and beyond."
The inflection point: COVID-19 accelerated the remote work revolution. COVID-19 removed the last barriers to remote work adoption. After the widespread pandemic-induced transition to remote work, 81 percent of leaders say they are now more confident their company could effectively manage remote work. This sentiment was also reflected in both their personal preferences as well as their anticipation to increasingly move to a permanent remote workforce.
- Almost two-thirds leaders surveyed said they prefer to work remotely if they were given the long-term option.
- Half of leaders (50 percent) anticipate increasing the proportion of their employees permanently working remote in the coming two years.
- One in 4 (25 percent) say the number of employees permanently working remotely will double during this time.
Recognizing remote shortcomings. While many leaders are embracing a shift to remote work for the long-term, they may be overestimating just how easy this transition will be. Two-thirds of HR and engineering leaders (61 percent) admit turnover is low right now due to an economic recession and employees having limited career options with COVID-19, not necessarily because they have a strong remote culture. Moreover, even companies with a long-term remote strategy significantly prioritized company outcomes over employee well-being—a sensible approach given short-term economic pressures but a short-sighted view for long-term value creation.
- When asked what was addressed in their remote work plan, employee productivity was ranked as the chief concern (63 percent) while revising company benefits (29 percent) addressing employee loneliness (32 percent) and employee burnout (21 percent), were at the bottom.
- Only 33 percent reported that their existing plan addresses remote onboarding.
- Not everything translates online, with most companies admitting that Zoom happy hours don't count as company culture (59 percent).
Small companies at risk in the talent wars. Terminal's study found that rising startup leaders fared better than public companies in the early transition to remote work, with 52 percent of leaders at rising startups saying the move to remote was "very successful" compared to only 35 percent at public companies. However, the research also revealed that rising startups are also more susceptible to competition from big tech when it comes to hiring—and they've invested far less in planning compared to mid-sized and large tech companies.
- Nearly two in three (63 percent) rising startups say that big tech going remote will make it harder to find and keep great talent, compared with 44 percent at mid-stage, 37 percent at late-stage, and 43 percent of public company leaders.
- Four in 10 (39 percent) of companies with 100 employees or fewer don't have a plan vs. 24 percent of midsize and 26 percent of large companies.
- Leaders at rising startups report experiencing the most difficulty (19 percent) out of any category of business size in managing remote teams and processes from home.
Surprisingly, salaries stay the same Despite a long tradition of paying workers differently depending on prevailing local wages and cost of living, leaders signaled a new willingness to offer uniform salaries unrelated to where employees live. However, these results also showed that many companies lack a remote-work compensation plan.
- 41 percent of leaders plan to pay all employees the same for the role no matter where they're located.
- 39 percent of companies with 100 or fewer employees don't have a plan vs. 24 percent of midsize and 26 percent of 501+ employee companies.
- Companies with a compensation strategy are more likely to embrace uniform pay. Half of leaders with a permanent remote work strategy say they'll pay all employees the same for the role no matter where they're located.
Source: Terminal.
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Georgia Department of Public Health COVID-19 Daily Status Report: Updated 3pm daily
Update from 8/27/2020 (State of Georgia) - Confirmed Cases 263,074
- Deaths 5,393
- Hospitalizations 24,127
- ICU Admissions 4,397
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Georgia Employers' Association |
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