I had no particular theme for this carnival for October, the month of Halloween. Employment law is a scary enough theme.
Scary stuff
This carnival starts off with Daniel A. Schwartz talking about HR and confidentiality. HR often gets blasted for its lack of confidentiality, but Daniel shows HR can’t always be secretive in Can You Keep a Secret in Human Resources?
Employees that go to work for competitors can prove to be a nightmarish situation. Stuart Rudner gives us a Canadian twist on this situation in Breach of settlement? What happens when employer discovers that former employee is working for a competitor? He shows that parties should agree on everything ahead of time.
Janette Levey Frisch, the EmpLAWyerologist, offers a more positive take on employees competing against their former employers. In her post Your Ex-Employee Chose Not to Compete with You. How Did That Happen?? she offers a creative way to avoid disputes with ex-employees. A nice treat for October!
Doug Haas broaches a subject very frightening to employers, or at least it should be, with two posts on the Fair Labor Standards Act. In his first post Doug tackles commute time in FLSA FAQ: Commuting in an Employer-Provided Vehicle. This is becoming a bigger issue in larger cities. In his second post he talks about a common problem that many employers make. In Rounding Time Entries: The High Stakes FLSA Poker Game, he tells about how a treat for many could become an actual trick for the employer.
As a kid did you ever knock on a door on Halloween and no one answered. You felt shunned and disappointed. Well today shutting people out can be done on social media. Unfriending someone from social media is seen by some as an act of retaliation and they are happy to sue you over it. Is this legal? Jon Hyman answers that question for us in Is digital “shunning” illegal retaliation?
Speaking of the digital world the arena of cyber security can be a scary realm. The group of our employees who were, not all that long ago, dressed in costumes and trick-or-treating, Millennials, pose a scary challenge in cyber security. Norma Bruton, at Blogging4Jobs, tells us how to take some of the fright out in Recruit Millennials Without Raising Cyber Security Risk.
Really scary stuff
People dressed as zombies and walking around with a shuffling gate and slurred speech is fun at Halloween. It is not so fun when it actually due to a stroke suffered by an employee. Communicating may become difficult. Yvonne LaRose provides us with some insight Providing Accommodation that may be helpful to many companies.
Companies do make mistakes with people with disabilities that ultimately becomes a scary situation. In my post One big mistake to avoid with disabled employees you will see how three companies lost out in the trick-or-treat game.
Speaking of disability, around Halloween you end up with a lot of adult revelers who may end up being haunted by the specter of alcoholism. How are they to be treated? Phillips Miles gives us some guidance with a story pulled right from the headlines in Alcoholism and the ADA.
Our final post is a very scary situation that no employer ever wants to face. Unfortunately far too many have. Michael McClory tells us what employers should do when faced with the nightmare of gun violence in What Can Employers Do About Gun Violence In The Workplace.
Sexy costume
Lastly, at a lot of Halloween parties someone wears a sexy costume. If it is an office party that may lead to sexual harassment and that is what Eric B. Meyer tells us about in Something wrong with a little bump n’ grind. Sexual harassment, perhaps. If you are planning to be sexy don’t do it at work.