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Serving as an HR director can be tough. Still, HR professionals are expected to do the right thing. Federal laws like Title VII protect HR professionals from retaliation for bringing discrimination and harassment to light, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has a long history of vigorous enforcement of retaliation protections. A recent EEOC settlement makes that clear.

The federal government is heading for a showdown with states over who gets to shape the future of AI. A White House executive order outlines an aggressive plan to challenge state-level AI regulations through lawsuits and potential limits on federal funding.

It appeared that a Biden-era OSHA heat-standard regulation was on the verge of final approval, with the final step—review of comments received—imminent. Instead, competing bills in Congress may either block the regulation or provide OSHA with legal cover in the form of specific legislative authority to set heat standards.

Our immigration laws require employers to cooperate by making sure employees have the proper documentation when hired and moving forward. But those laws set standards for how ICE can gain entry to non-public areas of your business. That’s to avoid unnecessary disruptions unless ICE has a compelling need.

Holiday events can strengthen team bonds, but they can also amplify risk when alcohol, a relaxed atmosphere and end-of-year stress converge. Marjorie Mesidor, an employment attorney and founding partner at Mesidor PLLC, says HR can set the tone long before anyone steps into the venue.

If an employee is injured on the job and on workers’ comp, may we issue an FMLA eligibility notice besides workers’ comp? What is the best practice to handle such situations?

Shadow AI exposes your company’s most sensitive data to leaks, may violate the privacy of clients/customers/employees and worse. How big a problem is this?

A Colorado jury awarded $11.5 million to a former Society for Human Resource Management employee on race-discrimination and retaliation claims. Employers do not need to take a side to learn from what happened. The themes in this case surface in workplaces of every size.

Employers may not realize they’re perpetuating past discrimination by not equalizing pay across protected characteristics. Nor may they realize, for example, that female employees in one division whose jobs are substantially equivalent to male employees in another division are being underpaid. That lack of awareness may end up costing an employer thousands, if not millions, of dollars in a lawsuit.

In a case that illustrates how much even minor wage-and-hour violations can rack up huge bills, Starbucks cafés in New York City will pay over $38.9 million to workers shorted on pay or otherwise harmed by poor wage-and-hour practices.