Category: Diversity & Inclusion

Diversity and inclusion (D&I) is an important and ongoing strategy of any HR plan. Ensuring that your company supports hiring, engaging, and retaining diverse workers with varied backgrounds will set your company up for long-term success and an increased bottom line. This topic offers the latest strategies for talent management, key insights from diversity leaders, case studies on D&I in the workplace, and more.

Words are powerful things: racism and hostile work environments

by Brinton Wilkins Humans are unique in their use of words. With them, we explain the world around us, share our thoughts and feelings, teach, and define ourselves. Therefore, it should be no surprise that words also can injure. Trying to excuse words by saying “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody” or “Everyone says that” […]

Survey looks at the difference in work styles of younger, older workers

Online job website CareerBuilder conducted a national survey between May 14 and June 4, polling more than 3,800 full-time workers and more than 2,200 hiring managers across industries and functions. Managers and workers ages 25 to 34 and managers and workers 55 and older were surveyed to get a picture of how the styles of […]

Long-term unemployment seen holding back jobseekers

No law specifically says employers are prohibited from discriminating against job applicants who have been out of work for months or even years. The long-term unemployed don’t have protections spelled out in any antidiscrimination laws – or do they? When jobseekers are part of a protected class that has a disproportionate number of people unemployed, […]

The art of Thanksgiving

by Al Vreeland We’ve become a nation of firefighters. Not the heroic sort riding red trucks and saving lives, but the frenetic sort running from hot spot to hot spot, handling daily crises in order of priority. And we usually don’t take time to appreciate the people who help us. So as we belly up […]

No gender confusion means no discrimination

It has been said that the more things change, the more they stay the same. That certainly applies to the following case involving the employment application of a biological female who identifies as a male. While the scenario might be somewhat unusual, the legal issue is one that has been around for decades: Can you […]

Federal government touts increase in employment of people with disabilities

When President Obama signed Executive Order 13548 on July 26, 2010, he specifically set a goal of hiring 100,000 people with disabilities by 2015. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) not only lead federal agencies in the first two quarters of 2012 with 4.2 percent of all new hires being people with disabilities, the agency […]

Finding work-life balance in a workforce with diverse needs

by Tammy Binford Work-life balance gets a lot of buzz in the workplace. Everyone is concerned about being productive at work while saving time for other important parts of life. Just the term work-life balance can invoke an image of employees teetering on a tightrope, with career, family, friends, hobbies, and other interests pulling from […]

Reassignment as a reasonable accommodation under the ADA

by Burton J. Fishman Of the many contentious accommodation issues under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), perhaps the most hotly debated is whether reassignment to a vacant position is a reasonable accommodation. Although the ADA lists “reassignment” as a possible accommodation and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) supports that position, many courts have […]

Say what? Asking employees to take language classes

by Brad Cave Q: Will I be in violation of federal discrimination laws if I provide an “English as a second language” (ESL) employee English language training at the company’s expense? A Any possible discrimination charge under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would be based on national origin. The Equal Employment […]

Faithfully expecting: religious accommodations and employer-mandated vaccination policies

An “informal discussion letter” from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) indicates that employers should carefully weigh religious objections by pregnant employees, specifically in the context of employer-mandated vaccination policies. Background In February 2012, a healthcare provider wrote the EEOC requesting a formal interpretation of the application of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act […]