HR has become something of a punching bag lately. Bolt CEO Ryan Breslow made headlines last month when he told a workforce conference that his HR team was “creating problems that didn’t exist” and that those problems disappeared once he let them go. The comment went viral, and…
The recent hantavirus outbreak linked to an international cruise ship has once again put infectious disease risk, and mandates aimed at mitigating that risk, in the public spotlight. While health officials emphasize that the risk to the general public remains extremely low, the outbreak has triggered a familiar legal question: how far must…
Effective February 1, 2026, all California employers are required to provide employees and new hires with a “stand-alone written notice” of key workplace rights. This new requirement is the result of SB 294, also known as the “Workplace Know Your Rights Act,” which we previously blogged about here. This…
Fast Company recently published an article about how advancements in AI are making one-on-one meetings irrelevant. For decades, the one-on-one meeting has been essential in the world of management serving as a touchpoint meant to build trust, boost engagement, and coach performance. However, in today’s AI-enhanced and…
Governor Newsom signed AB 2299 which requires all California employers to prominently display a new whistleblower rights poster in the workplace effective January 1, 2025.
On May 22, 2023, the California Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision expanding employee whistleblower protection. In People ex rel. Garcia-Brower v. Kolla’s Inc., the Court held that the definition of the term “disclosure” in California Labor Code section 1102.5 includes reporting of a violation of a state or…
On February 9, 2023, Feedspot announced that Workplace Legal’s blog had been selected as one of the top employment law blogs in California. Feedspot’s ranking of the “70 Best Employment Law Blogs” lists Workplace Legal at #41, ahead of several national employment law firms. We spend a lot…
In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Stanford Professor of Economics Nicholas Bloom and his co-authors argue that today’s work-from-home push is being hampered by a “major disconnect” between employees and management. That disconnect centers around notions of productivity and attendance. With respect to productivity, for example, managers…
As employers across the country consider and implement layoffs, Harvard Business School Professor Sandra Sucher writes that “[R]esearch shows that layoffs continue to have detrimental long-term effects on individuals and companies.” In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Professor Sucher and her colleague, Dr. Marilyn Morgan Westner, explain how…
On June 15, 2022, in a blockbuster case known as Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana, the U.S. Supreme Court finally answered a burning employment law issue here in California – whether California’s rule prohibiting the use of arbitration agreements to force an employee to waive her right…