News

Salary budgets may no longer be climbing, but they are far from operating on autopilot. New survey data shows employers entering 2026 with greater confidence in their pay planning, shifting away from reactive increases and toward more deliberate compensation strategies focused on performance, retention and internal equity.

It may be time for employers to do some contingency planning should civil unrest hit locally. Here’s what employers can do.

Federal telework policies moved back into the spotlight after the Office of Personnel Management updated its guidance to emphasize in-person work as the default for most federal employees. While the revisions align with the Trump administration’s January 2025 return-to-office orders, the guidance also outlines practical guardrails that HR teams outside the government can use as benchmarks when reviewing their telework frameworks.

With winter weather in full force, it’s time to review the FLSA’s rules for working from home, if you haven’t already.

The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed to allow qualified disabled workers the opportunity to enter the workforce if they can perform the essential functions of their job with or without a reasonable accommodation. But employers shouldn’t assume a disabled applicant can’t perform the job even with an accommodation before they hire the otherwise qualified applicant.

The EEOC made the request days after regaining a quorum, allowing Andrea Lucas to move forward with revising or eliminating the guidance altogether. She voted against the guidance in 2024, particularly the parts that found that harassment based on gender identity violates Title VII’s sex-discrimination provisions.

It is likely that this will be an official reversal of the Biden administration’s independent contractor rule, which made it more likely that a worker would be classified as an employee rather than an independent contractor.

Two new opinion letters address FMLA leave during company closure and travel to and from medical appointments.

If an employer chooses to pay an employee at the overtime RATE for a holiday worked, how does this factor into the regular rate-of-pay calculations?

It’s becoming clear that the EEOC intends to use litigation as the preferred tool to enforce the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act until employers understand their obligation to accommodate pregnant workers in a way that preserves earnings whenever possible. To that end, the EEOC just sued U.S. Steel in a case that highlights how not to handle pregnancy at work.