Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd’s Employment Group is pleased to announce the schedule for our upcoming Employment Law Seminars.
HR professionals are invited to join us for a program that will cover current issues in Employment law in a fast-paced, plain-English way. These complimentary seminars qualify for 3.0 hours of continuing education credit with CLE, SHRM and HRCI credits available.… Read More...

Following the April 3, 2018 YouTube workplace violence tragedy, many news sources reported that there were 500 workplace homicides in 2016, the most recent workplace homicide statistic from the Bureau of Labor Statistic. The Bureau of Labor report, found here, noted this was “an increase of 83 cases from 2015” and that the “2016 total was the highest [number of workplace homicides] since 2010.” The report also revealed that 409 (82 percent) were homicides to men and 91 (18 percent) were homicides to women.” Further, “homicides represented 24 percent of fatal occupational injuries to women in 2016 compared with 9 percent of fatal occupational injuries to men.”

Gun-related tragedies are foremost on our minds due to the number of mass shooting tragedies occurring in our schools, at music events, in certain areas of the country, as well as other gun-related deaths.… Read More...

The 2018 federal appropriations bill signed into law on March 23rd includes an addition to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) stating that “[a]n employer may not keep tips received by its employees for any purposes, including allowing managers or supervisors to keep any portion of employees’ tips, regardless of whether or not the employer takes a tip credit.” The amendment also nullifies certain regulations issued by the Department of Labor in 2011, including regulations which prohibited an employer from using an employee’s tips as part of an invalid tip pool even where the employer was paying the employees the full minimum wage without utilizing a tip credit.… Read More...

According to the Centers for Disease Control (“CDC”), the United States experiences a flu season each year. With this year’s flu season considered one of the worst since the 2009-2010 pandemic, many employers wish to implement policies to protect the workplace and wonder whether they can implement policies mandating vaccination for their employees.… Read More...

Glassdoor, the website described as “Yelp for workplaces,” claims that 83% of job seekers in the United States read its reviews. For the uninitiated, Glassdoor is a website where anonymous employees and former employees comment on a company’s workplace – sharing information on topics such as salary levels, workplace policies, office politics, and much more.… Read More...

On January 5, 2018, the United States Department of Labor announced that, going forward, it would utilize the “primary beneficiary” test for determining whether interns are employees under the FLSA, consistent with recent rulings from appellate courts. Its updated Fact Sheet #71, a copy of which is linked here, explains the test, which examines “the ‘economic reality’ of the intern-employer relationship to determine which party is the ‘primary beneficiary of the relationship.” Fact Sheet #71 outlines 7 factors that courts should apply on a fact specific basis in making this determination, with no single factor being dispositive:

  1. The extent to which the intern and the employer clearly understand that there is no expectation of compensation.
… Read More...

A recent article in The New York Times questioned the propriety and effectiveness of a sexual harassment investigation conducted by a company’s Human Resources Department. The article noted the “inherent conflict of interest” at play because HR departments “while officially responsible for fielding employee complaints, also work for a company that faces potential liability.” The authors’ conclusion was that “[t]he result can often be that human resources personnel are more inclined to suppress allegations than get to the bottom of them.”

While I would question the above characterization/conclusion, and my own experience with HR-led internal investigations is that the great majority of HR departments conduct fair, honest, good-faith investigations, the article raises an interesting issue: Should HR departments more often look to outside consultants and law firms to conduct the investigations?… Read More...