HR Works: The Podcast for Human Resources

In this episode, we discuss substance abuse. While always an issue, substance abuse becomes much more widespread and serious during crises. This crisis in particular offers an especially troubling environment for abuse. You may also listen here: https://bit.ly/3cc2Lcc Today’s episode is brought to you by The Standard, a family of businesses united by a shared purpose of compassion for their customers. The Standard’s Workplace Possibilities Program offers a proactive, whole-person approach to disability, helping employers provide customized solutions to help employees stay at work or return sooner. More information on this program can be found here: https://bit.ly/2RevH9U. We are joined by Dr. Dan Jolivet. Dan started working in the behavioral health field in 1980 as he was completing a degree in mathematical statistics and wanted to get some hands-on experience in an applied scientific discipline. Dan has held a variety of roles throughout his career. He has worked in inpatient hospitals, residential treatment centers, partial hospitalization programs, intensive outpatient programs, employee assistance programs and in private practice. He moved into supervision to multiply his impact and began working in managed care soon after that. He joined The Standard as its Behavioral Health Director in 2016 and says his favorite part of the job is still helping people—both claimants and people on his team—find solutions to seemingly intractable problems. Dan received his bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Washington, and his master's degree and a doctorate in clinical psychology from Georgia State University.

In this episode, we go over the latest workplace COVID-19 testing strategies and capabilities. What types of tests exist and how available are they? What strategies are employers using, especially those that require workers on-site like mines and factories? What technologies are being developed and what will testing look like in the future? You may also listen here: https://bit.ly/2REpnbT This episode's guest, Rich Robillard, Managing Director at SBL Testing Technologies Inc. (https://sbltt.com/), helps answer these and other similar questions.

When I first took over this podcast, my very first guest was Ira Wolfe, and we talked about what HR might look like in 2025.  By all accounts, we were well on track to realize that future. But then the pandemic hit and that future has largely been changed. You may also listen here: https://bit.ly/350BEzc In this episode I am pleased to have Ira back with us to ask a few more follow up questions, including what will HR look like next year, and what will it look like by 2030 and 2035? Ira is the president of Success Performance Solutions (https://www.successperformancesolutions.com/), which excels in pre-employment testing software for sales, leadership, service, and production across a number of industries. In addition to being a blogger and prolific business writer, Ira is an accomplished speaker, having visited the stages of TEDx and DisruptHR. He has also published books such as The Perfect Labor Storm and Recruiting in the Age of Googlization: When the Shift Hits Your Plan.

According to our guest this week, retaliation claims surrounding COVID-19 are outpacing many other types of lawsuits. Are your managers well trained when it comes to avoiding retaliation suits? You can also listen to this episode here: https://bit.ly/32V5dzv This episode's guest is once again Maggie Spell (https://www.joneswalker.com/professionals/mary-margaret-spell.html), partner at the New Orleans location of Jones Walker (https://www.joneswalker.com/). Maggie focuses her practice on cases brought under federal, state, and local employment laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. She regularly offers wage and hour compliance advice and has represented employers in numerous Fair Labor Standards Act collective actions and state-law wage and hour class actions.

We recently did a special video interview for Women's Equality Day that we wanted to share with you. You can listen to it here, but if you want to watch the video, check it out here: https://bit.ly/3gQnG5m Music: www.bensound.com

When the pandemic first hit the United States, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) was passed to help protect American citizens. The FFCRA has been in effect for some time since then, and employment lawsuits have begun hitting the courts. You can also listen here: https://bit.ly/3gWirRB In this episode, we are going to go over some of the hot-spots surrounding the FFCRA with returning guest Maggie Spell (https://www.joneswalker.com/professionals/mary-margaret-spell.html), partner at the New Orleans location of Jones Walker (https://www.joneswalker.com). Maggie focuses her practice on cases brought under federal, state, and local employment laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. She regularly offers wage and hour compliance advice and has represented employers in numerous Fair Labor Standards Act collective actions and state-law wage and hour class actions. Please join us next Friday when we'll be releasing another episode where Maggie and I get deeper into one of the most common types of suits that have arisen: retaliation suits.

The early effects of the pandemic on the workforce saw many businesses close, and many others take extreme measures to survive, including downsizing, cutting pay, and reducing or eliminating benefits. Our guests today believe that getting a better handle on your people costs and benefits can help organizations be less draconian in their approach to surviving the ongoing pandemic. We are pleased to have Peter Newhouse with us in this episode. Peter joined Unilever (https://www.unilever.com/) in September 2010 as Global Head of Reward and a member of the Unilever HR Leadership Team, having previously worked as a senior executive at Ford in North America and as Group Head of Remuneration at Standard Chartered Bank in London.  Having graduated with a Law degree, Peter started his career in Reward in 1980 when he joined the American consulting company Organization Resources Counselors Inc (ORC). As well as developing the Reward consultancy services of MM&K, specialists in executive and incentive compensation, Peter has also run his own Reward consulting business, Peter Newhouse & Co.  We also have with us today Ken Charman. He is the CEO of uFlexReward (https://www.uflexreward.com/), an HR and rewards data platform that collates all costs to do with employees (salary, pension, bonus, shares, etc) into one real-time platform. Ken has been involved in major enterprise software projects since 1987, specifically in financial consolidation and reporting systems, and has built high-performance teams in IT start-ups that were acquired by Oracle, SAP, IBM and Sungard.

Unfortunately, COVID-19 has invited a new wave of discrimination, particularly against pregnant women, employees over the age of 65, and those of Chinese or Asian heritage. There are other issues as well, including managing discrimination while employees are working remotely. As your organization meets the other challenges of COVID-19, make sure you are not accidentally discriminating against these and other protected classes. In this episode, we are pleased to with us attorney Barry Hartstein (https://www.littler.com/people/barry-hartstein), Shareholder and Co-Chair of the EEO & Diversity Practice Group at Littler (https://www.littler.com/) in Chicago. Barry has earned a national reputation for a career that includes more than 30 years of counseling and representing employers in a broad range of labor and employment matters. He is a frequent writer, commentator and lecturer on workplace issues. He also has extensive experience as a litigator and has defended employers nationwide in individual and class action claims and wage and hour collective actions. He has particular expertise dealing with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on both a local and national level, which included an invitation by the EEOC chair to address the Commission at a recent meeting in Washington D.C. on the legal standards governing employers’ consideration of criminal arrest and conviction records.

Last time on HR Works COVID-19 Update we began to explore the many new types of wage and hour lawsuits that might be coming your way in light of the pandemic. This week we'll hear from a lawyer that specializes in these types of cases to discuss where she is seeing new lawsuits, what they look like, and what might happen going forward. We are pleased to have back on the show Maggie Spell (https://www.joneswalker.com/professionals/mary-margaret-spell.html), Partner at the New Orleans location of Jones Walker (https://www.joneswalker.com/offices/new-orleans.html) with us. In this episode, she helps us unpack some of the most common pandemic-induced wage and hour violations. Maggie focuses her practice on cases brought under federal, state, and local employment laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. She regularly offers wage and hour compliance advice and has represented employers in numerous Fair Labor Standards Act collective actions and state-law wage and hour class actions.

This episode strives to answer one important question: can COVID-19 testing play an effective role in bringing workers back to the workplace? New information and data about the disease are available every day and with it comes changes in best practices for keeping everyone safe. Meanwhile, many employers are bringing workers back to the workplace and they need to understand the most current testing methods and strategies to keep everyone safe. Our guest is at the forefront of putting together testing strategies and packages for employers as they navigate this challenging time. Dr. Sree Chaguturu is the Chief Medical Officer for CVS Caremark (https://www.caremark.com). His organization is striving to put together strategies and testing capabilities for employers. In this episode, we'll explore what kinds of testing is now and will be available in the future. We'll look at how each can be used most effectively, and where the limitations are. We'll also look at the role of vaccines when they come around, and what things will look like over the next year or two.