ADA: How to spot — and safely deny — unreasonable accommodation requests
Jared Bilski, HR Morning
At the 2017 SHRM Conference & Exposition, Pavneet Singh Uppal and Shayna Helene Balch, partners with the Fisher & Phillips LLP law firm, highlighted some of the reasonable accommodation request employers don’t have to make as well as a simple strategy to determine if a request is unreasonable and able to be denied without fear of losing an EEOC lawsuit
New York today: swanky workplace perks
Vivian Wang and Jonathon Wolfe, New York Times
Around the city, companies are wooing employees with workplace perks that range from the practical, like health care plans or paid vacations, to the fanciful: In-house barista, anyone?
To distract you from your cubicle, we rounded up a few of the coolest perks at offices around New York.
13 ‘Nondefenses’ to workplace harassment
Jonathan A. Segal, HR Magazine
Supervisors may not share with you all the misconceptions they hold when they sit through anti-harassment training, but that doesn’t mean that erroneous beliefs aren’t lurking. When educating your workforce on unwelcome conduct based on race, color, sex and other protected factors, there are 13 “nondefenses” you should cover. Each is a common, but unacceptable, justification for harassing conduct, even if the behavior isn’t necessarily unlawful.
For the ADEA’s 50th birthday: An age discrimination quiz
Robin Shea, Employment & Labor Insider
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act recently celebrated its 50th birthday (it doesn’t look a day over 49). This calls for an age discrimination quiz!
Accommodating anxiety
Christina Nevins, Human Resource Executive
As employers seek new ways to connect workers with the mental-health help they need, experts discuss possible workplace issues and some accommodations associated with depression and anxiety.
More noteworthy HR news
- 2018 Salary increase budgets expected to rise 3% in the U.S.
- Is your company’s flexible scheduling policy actually flexible?
- Extreme commuting
- Our nomination for bad employee of the month
- Job seekers see companies with bad press as a big turn off
- Caregiving benefits growing in popularity
- The high cost of caregiving
- Company’s reaction to claim of unequal pay is a “don’t do” check-list for employers
- 10 small things successful people do every day
- The (high) times they are a changin’: medical marijuana and disability discrimination
- Reconsidering your office layout
- There are 30 million ‘good’ jobs in the U.S. for people without a Bachelor’s Degree. Men hold 70% of them
- Looking ahead at the EEOC
- 12 tips to communicate better and improve business results
- Six words and phrases that make everyone hate working with you
From the lighter side …
If your work commute encompasses passing through some natural habitats, you might be dodging critters on your drive. It’s estimated that wildlife animal-vehicle collisions cost $8 billion a year. Conservationists and engineers have devised a fascinating way to minimize the collisions by building bridges for animals to reduce collisions and roadkill on the highways. Here’s a sampling of various animal bridges and a fascinating article about their effectiveness in reducing collisions in some locales.
Nutritionists say that breakfast is one of the most important meals of the day – it gives you and energy boost and can set the tone for the hours ahead. Check out how people around the world start tier day: 17 Dishes People Eat for Breakfast Around the World,
And as long as we’re on the topic of global food, a few weeks ago we mentioned some recipes that will earn you kudos at the next office potluck lunch – one of them was watermelon bread, quite popular in China and Japan. We found an instructional video should you feel ambitious.