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With the New 12 months comes new legal guidelines—and the necessity for employers to judge present insurance policies with a pointy eye for compliance updates.
There are a selection of latest native and state-level measures that might have reverberations for employers throughout the nation, says Paola Cecchi-Dimeglio, chair of the manager management analysis initiative for girls and minority attorneys at Harvard Regulation College. In a current Office Compliance Traits 2024 webinar, Cecchi-Dimeglio outlined three items of laws that HR leaders will need to watch in 2024.
New York Metropolis bans top and weight discrimination
New York Metropolis employers at the moment are prohibited from discriminating in opposition to job candidates and workers primarily based on their top or weight, in keeping with an modification to the New York Metropolis Human Rights Regulation that went into impact in November. Nevertheless, the brand new legislation contains an exception for circumstances by which an individual’s top or weight would forestall them from doing the core facets of the job.
Cecchi-Dimeglio says the measure is one other instance of the evolving legislative and societal view of office discrimination. She pointed to the Equal Pay Act and Civil Rights Act within the Nineteen Sixties, and later the People with Disabilities Act and the Household Medical Depart Act of the Nineties. Extra just lately, the federal authorities has prolonged office protections in opposition to discrimination primarily based on being pregnant by this yr’s Pregnant Staff Equity Act.
“There’s a sentiment of everybody wanting extra fairness general,” Cecchi-Dimeglio says.
Consequently, employers are seeing a rise in discrimination complaints filed with the EEOC, she notes.
“Employers need to be extra diligent and extra capable of navigate a fancy panorama,” Cecchi-Dimeglio says.
Heading into 2024, she advises employers to evaluate and replace their anti-discrimination insurance policies, in addition to put money into anti-discrimination coaching for HR in addition to the overall workforce. Importantly, she notes, HR leaders can assist create a tradition the place discrimination complaints are investigated promptly and completely.
Paid household depart legislation to roll out in Minnesota
Beginning in 2024, employers with a presence in Minnesota might want to adjust to the preliminary rollout of the state’s new paid depart program. The legislation gives a monetary security internet for workers who must take day without work for critical well being situations or to take care of a brand new little one or sick member of the family.
As soon as the measure is absolutely carried out in 2026, employers might be required to permit workers to take as much as 12 weeks of paid household depart inside a yr and guarantee they’ll return to the identical or comparable job.
By the center of subsequent yr, employers should submit an in depth wage report that features every worker’s quarterly wages obtained and hours labored, Cecchi-Dimeglio says. By 2025, employers are required to inform workers concerning the paid depart program, and in 2026, they need to submit the premium funds which might be due, which might be 0.7% of an worker’s taxable revenue. Employers, nonetheless, can cost workers 0.35%, or half, of this premium.
Employers that function in Minnesota, in addition to different states, have a handful of choices for compliance with the brand new legislation, Cecchi-Dimeglio says.
“One is to say, ‘I’m going to do that throughout all states the place I function.’ The opposite possibility is to undertake this coverage in simply the state involved,” she says, noting there are advantages and disadvantages to each choices. “One drawback is elevated prices if you happen to present it to all states, and if you happen to select the opposite one, it’s extra advanced to navigate.”
Paid household depart is gaining traction throughout the nation, with states like California, New York and New Jersey just lately adopting employer mandates. Within the absence of such a requirement, some corporations, comparable to Haleon, maker of Advil, and Levi Strauss & Co., are proactively enhancing their depart insurance policies.
Columbus, Ohio to ban inquiries on previous wage historical past
Columbus, Ohio, will be part of a rising variety of cities and states banning inquiries about wage or wage historical past when March 1 rolls round. Below town’s new legislation, employers with at the least 15 workers might be prohibited from making such inquiries.
No matter the place employers are situated, Cecchi-Dimeglio says, the rising wave of native laws on this difficulty suggests employers ought to take into account eradicating wage historical past questions all through the recruiting course of.
Even in areas and not using a wage historical past ban, employers can let job candidates know they won’t ask about previous salaries. Being proactive can assist entice expertise, Cecchi-Dimeglio says, including that candidates could worth such transparency.
The put up 3 office compliance traits to look at in 2024 appeared first on HR Government.
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