As I blogged about here and here, California and San Francisco recently enacted new laws prohibiting employers from asking applicants about their prior “salary history.” California currently joins Delaware and New York City as the only other jurisdictions that currently prohibit all employers from asking about salary history during the employment process. (Note: Several other… Read More
Posts Categorized In: HR Strategy
The Workplace Impact of Legal Marijuana in California
Many Californians celebrated the arrival of 2018 standing for hours in long lines at their local pot dispensary. That’s because the 2016 law legalizing recreational marijuana in California — known as Proposition 64 or the Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA) — officially became effective on January 1, 2018. On that date, residents of municipalities… Read More
California Court Makes it Easier for Overweight Employees to Sue Their Employers
California law has not (yet) recognized weight as a protected category along with race, gender, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, medical condition, and many others. However, more than 25 years ago, the California Supreme Court held that an overweight employee could qualify as a “disabled” under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) — and,… Read More
How Good Leaders Get Valuable, Candid, and Critical Feedback
Today I came across a short but interesting article from Harvard Business Review about how effective leaders get honest, critical feedback from their co-workers. The article’s author, Ron Carucci, argues that you don’t need to have a formal 360 evaluation system to get valuable feedback; in fact, the author argues, due to anonymity a 360… Read More
California Court Confirms: Employers are Liable for Sexual Harassment by Non-Employees
With all of the recent news surrounding workplace sexual harassment and sexual misconduct by politicians, news anchors, celebrities, and other high-profile persons, it comes as no surprise that a California court has weighed in on the issue of workplace sexual harassment.
Accidental Pay Stub Violations Create PAGA Liability
What happens when an employer inadvertently hands out pay stubs that the employer does not realize are missing some required information? Well, given that this is California, you can probably guess the answer.
The Toxicity of Office Politics to High Potential Employees
Despite the fact that science has given us robust tools to identify, measure, and evaluate indicators, organizations often make employee evaluation mistakes.
When Joking With Employees Leads to Bad Behavior
Recently, Harvard Business Review author Kai Chi Yam published an article entitled, “When Joking With Your Employees Leads to Bad Behavior.” The author’s goal was to understand the impact that a leader’s jokes can have on the behaviors and actions of his/her employees. After conducting lengthy research with workers in the United States and China, the… Read More
How to Hire the Right Person
Recently, Adam Bryant of the New York Times published an excellent article on hiring entitled, “The Hiring Manager’s Guide to Hiring the Right Person.” In speaking with over 500 corporate leaders for his “Corner Office” series, Mr. Bryant asked each of them, “How do you hire?” Those conversations are synthesized in this article, and the… Read More
Your Emotional Intelligence Impacts Your Success as an Employee
According to an article by Daniel Goleman and Richard E. Boyatzis in today’s Harvard Business Review, an employee’s emotional intelligence — often referred to simply as “EQ” or “EI” — is a predictor of success in the workplace. EI contains four different major categories of intelligence: (1) self-awareness, (2) self-management, (3) social awareness, and (4) relationship… Read More