Can I eSign South Dakota Employee Compliance Survey

Can i document type e sign employee compliance survey south dakota

hi I'm Lance welcome to SHL fireside chat Grenier how are you doing doing really well excited to have our guest we got Kate Bischoff an employment lawyer and consulting consultant really excited we'll get into that in just a moment but as a reminder my name is Lance Andrews background in industrial and organizational psychology and an assessment consultant and Rene want to give a quick intro for yourself yeah so this whole form is really to connect professionals that are dealing with talent and talent related issues in this new kovat 19 world and our first guest here is Kate Bischoff in Kate has a really impressive resume so with an interesting background ranging from we went to law school you were a practicing attorney including at a very big employment law firm spent some time as an HR practitioner and currently I don't know if I have time to have a grip sheet here to look at listing all the things that you've got your hands in but you've got your own consulting firm so your own law and consulting services firm thrive law and consulting you're the co-host of the hostile work environment podcast the new the new co-host which I highly recommend it's a good podcast a guest speaker adjunct law professor of HR compliance I personally recommend your Twitter feed Thank You active blogger new contributor to ER e and so much more so Kate I'll let you give yourself an introduction but welcome and thank you for joining us here today well thank you very much for having me I'm excited to be here yeah I'd normally introduce myself as someone who suffers from law degree but I try not to be the stereotypical lawyer I don't own a suit I don't go to the courtroom anymore I spend my time working with employers to do better so about a third of what I do is kind of training base where it's respectful workplace or manager training another third is helping them write policies and procedures so that they can do things in a particularly compliant way that hopefully doesn't just smell like compliance all the time hopefully it has it's kind of human for and an aspect to it and then the last third I do is workplace investigations so I'll have a client get an accusation of harassment I'll go do an investigation find out what happened and then make recommendations from there so all three of those buckets kind of feed each other and it's super fun I would not change a thing about my job okay I've enjoyed getting to know you through the virtual forums that we connect in and nice to meet you in person yes just to start I'll just kind of jump writings I was actually reading today you had a new blog posted on ER II and it's very timely related to something that we're actually dealing with a lot of our customers on and how what is changing and what can employer what can employers do and what can't they do with the the the the new environment of things that are so if you could kind of maybe summarize some of the things you're seeing so because we are in a declared pandemic the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission the EEOC has kind of become much more lenient about how they treat disability law in particular right now an employer can withdraw a job offer if the candidate has a ovid they can take employee temperatures at the start of the day they can ask about medical information that they normally wouldn't be able to ask about because we're in this pandemic setting B and because we're trying to reduce the spread of kovin 19 at some point that will end and will we be able to turn off those things that we've had in the workplace now so no doctor fell she was out there this weekend mentioning that there might be immunity certifications so our recruiters and employers gonna be asking for can I see your immunity certification were you exposed to Kovan 19 do you have the antibodies have you been vaccinated all of those questions normally would be prohibited under the Americans with Disabilities Act but is that going to translate post pandemic are we still gonna be able to ask those questions I'm hoping not I'm hoping that we get to a point where we say you can't ask those questions any more because lead to disability discrimination they lead to age discrimination for those high-risk groups etc so when when officially does that does 88 go back into effect when is that what's the trigger there so I have a favorite emoji right now it's this emoji it's I don't know there isn't I haven't seen clear guidance in the EOC of when this necessarily will end but at some point it will end whether it is 18 months from now whether it is nine months from out I don't know but at some point the protections that exist in the ad a have to be turned back on and I fear that they won't be turned back on I fear that if I am an applicant who is 60 years old or 63 years old and I'm looking for a job at Walmart or something the response to that is you're in that high-risk group so I'm not gonna hire you and I fear that we're going to create this environment where it makes it easier because well we don't want them to have kovat so we're gonna be more protective and that kind of paternalistic piece just leads to discrimination and harassment so so right now it sounds like people can ask if you have had kovat or currently have it or can can they continue down that path to ask about lots of other pre-existing conditions that would just predispose you to have potentially a worse outcome if you were to contract Thanks yeah I think potentially you can ask about asthma and diabetes that pre get the pre-existing conditions that puts you at more risk for the potential for death under cover 19 I see that you could be able to ask those questions right now because it's we're looking from a pandemic perspective that's it we don't want you to expose you to these risks but we also can't say oh you current employee I'm gonna fire you because or I'm gonna furlough you because you have asthma and I want to protect you like that is still disability discrimination on the employee end and the the WoW employee relations while they are an employee are we still gonna be able to do that for applicants is my my concern mm-hmm the the the muddying of the waters even if we try to course back like that dad just feels like it's gonna be a nightmare to reach to retrain folks and to get everybody back on the same page even about what you're supposed to be doing much less kind of like the will and enthusiasm for doing whatever that is right I think we've been thrown into this very very quickly of you know we have to change how we do things because now we're trying to reduce the spread but we're going to change back just as quickly it's the desire and the will to be able to do that second change I think it's going to lead to my kids being able to pay for college I think my mortgage is gonna be okay so I think there's going to be a lot of concern and discussion and training that needs to happen around this and not only I think the only real true benefit here is to those people who spend our time already doing those kinds of trainings which you know is laughable but we are going to have to get back and train again so that we're doing the right thing by employees and just just in general what are some of the things your clients are asking you as employers what are the whether it's with respect to the FF CRA or any thing related to the well the families first coronavirus response Act has been the bane of my clients existence for the past four weeks so ever since we've got notification of it that could be coming that it really has been an area where requiring paid sick leave requiring expanded FMLA that has been something that we've been talking about constantly and but that's only for employers under five hundred the other piece of it is this Disability Discrimination the you know I've got an employee who is at significantly asked at risk is very afraid we're seeing big changes in the economy so can we furlough people should we be for allowing people do they get unemployment should we keep them on benefits all of those kinds of questions are kind of calm at this point I'm slowing down a little bit because I think we have a better sense and we've got this new paycheck protection loans that are helping keep people on the rolls for a bit but there is just a lot of uncertainty out there and that just means that there are a lot of questions I'm trying to be as helpful as I can at this point in time so you have any clients who actually are in a place where they're hiring right now and trying to figure out how did you do that like what are you seeing and hearing we have a few in that place and we're kind of seeing the logistical kind of i/o process side of that but I think you're probably getting a different question yeah I'm getting you know cuz I has a law degree I'm getting a lot of compliance questions so like if we're hiring and we're gonna have a remote workforce what does that look like for just doing an i-9 right like I have to physically look at the document but now I'm not physically with them do I do a zoom call and they show me their Passport like what does that look like there's a lot of questions around if the manager has never seen this person in real life and trying to get around those trust issues about well I think they're a good fit but I've never met them so are they gonna do a good job for me so a lot of those that kind of trust issues are coming up because we're so virtual I think some of that will change as we get more used to it I think organizations that we're already doing a lot of remote work we're much better positioned to be in this kind of situation but like for example I mean Mark and I do a podcast the hostile work environments market I've never met in person and so you know we're able to do it so maybe other people can do it yes I guess organizations probably is making shifts not only for now but potentially for the for the long term to the nature of work we've been speculating obviously we don't know but does this fundamentally change the way the organizations even consider jobs and locations that may open up jobs that were previously unavailable for virtual work - there's probably whole set of considerations around compliance and enforcement there - right and data security is gonna be a big because if I'm doing phone calls / zoom that are not encrypted you know or I'm sharing things over unsecured lines or she's running through her neighbors you know Wi-Fi in order to do their work like all of those things are gonna be concerns as well and does that mean then that companies are paying their employees Wi-Fi bills is it mean that we have VPNs for everybody and sometimes those are tricky and they're not always gonna work or are we even gonna have conferences anymore there are folks ever gonna meet in real life all of those kinds of things are up in the air and they're gonna change how we do work which you know not a super hot take but I I'm kind of excited to see where it goes yeah we're all kind of eagerly awaiting for you know when we can actually start when it when will than normal when what is it new normal and when can that happen but it is I personally have a certain say like so for the people who are working at home are there anything with respect to accommodation so like not only are people working from home there's this whole other thing of daycares aren't open schools are closed and having to accommodate for either the educational needs or taking care of sick family members are you hear anything do you have any thoughts on what organizations can or should do or what not to do with respect to how allowing employees to work those other things into their into their work life well I think organizations need to think like they are Simone biles I think they need to think that they are SuperDuper flexible and then be SuperDuper flexible I mean even one of the stodgy Asst institutions that I regularly deal with the Department of Labor bent itself over backwards to say we are changing our rules around workplace flexibility so that people can take care of their kids during the day that they can do some home schooling so if your employee works from 4:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. and then works again from 10:00 to noon and then works again from 4:00 to 8:00 you count the working hours you don't count from when they started to when they finished and so changing these age-old rules around flexibility and trying to entice organizations to get there I think it's really both cool and also why did it take so long to get here so yeah whether they I just wondered about in the past couple days as we're hearing about potentially like regional groups of states coming together to coordinate what it looks like to I don't know open up with the economy return to work whatever phrase people are using and it got me wondering you know right now it feels like even if I suppose technically legally every States not doing the same thing by and large nationally we're kind of in the same spot at the same time with what what we're doing when it comes to the world of work as different chunks of states start to be in different places what what kind of pay off their conundrums does that particular potentially open up for employers who ban region yeah I I'm fascinated by this too so if I have a office in San Francisco and then I have an office in South Dakota those two things look very different right now right because San Francisco everybody's working from home South Dakota does not have a shelter-in-place they are moving around quite a bit and so if we did reopen the economy you know that's gonna be different for each different location and that's going to take some finesse on the part of both management and leadership as well as Human Resources to get those folks back up and running and so I see organizations having to do some sort of it sounds like consent succession planning but kind of rolling of how they're going to build up and thinking about well if this region is gonna open there that what does that mean for this region and first especially for organizations that have you know that make stuff right like I mean widget a here we make widget B here and then we put them together here in this location can we open them all up at the same time or do or is one opening up here like that's fun mental gymnastics to think about but for those organizations that really are now I think that's those are hard decisions to make especially since you know you can't just turn it back on because you have to have cash to pay payroll you have to have orders to you know subsidize all that so that kind of thought process is going to be very fascinating and seeing how we do it I think there's gonna be some that do it really well and some who start and stop because they haven't figured it out yet and as you were saying that I was just thinking like the layer on top of that is it it sounds like reading a lot of public health things that's the expectation potentially for read more regional actions that follow on where we'll all kind of come out of this and then I've seen a lot of public health people talk about the need to be ready if cases flare back up a particular area region of some size will will probably shelter back down in place and so what if what does it mean for organizations to have different places popping up and moving back down and probably what is a lawn in between limbo period between now and well I think for my HR compatriots I think that means they're drinking more wine zooom happy hour soon yes there's a there's a lot of empathy for folks who are struggling through these decisions right now we get it it's SuperDuper hard you know you're doing a great job you're going to make mistakes and we understand that and so we're just trying for those of us who are consultants to them we're like ask me if you don't remember what the minimum wage is I'm happy to remind you of what that is like don't bend yourself over backwards beating yourself up about the silly stuff that you don't remember I'd rather you come ask me then go oh my god I have to look that up right like it's it's those easy things that I'd rather help you with to make to lessen your burden overall you also trigger something too when you mention the state of South Dakota kind of got me thinking in states that are 't don't have shelter in place and then maybe if we get away from that and there flare ups if there's not a government mandated order what is a the organization's obligation for protecting workers especially essential workers where they find an outbreak or there anything any obligations they have there's not a shelter in place so I get this question a lot so I'm glad you asked it yeah employers have an obligation to provide a healthy and safe workplace period kovat 19 has added this whole new layer of what does that mean does that mean that we have masks on now at the office does that mean we shut down because we had an outbreak does that mean that we all work from home just to be safe even if we don't have a shelter in place all those are questions that my clients are asking the other thing that they're asking is what do we have to tell OSHA and my response in general and I and I think OSHA kind of came out and said the same thing is don't worry about us because you're not gonna be able to know if James gave it to Susie on the manufacturing floor because it's out in the community so we can't tie it directly to this particular workplace and so I think even OSHA is recognizing that we can't take all of your reports of Copan 19 outbreaks for all of your employees because we just won they don't have the capacity to do the investigations and - are they gonna find everybody I don't think that makes any practical sense so we have this obligation we should be doing more cleaning we should be thinking about PPE in general but I don't think it's something where we're we have to be entirely sanitized and wearing our you know our Mets baseball team Poncho's for a desk job it have to be reasonable right I guess maybe I'm the employee side what are the maybe flipping it a little bit from the one of the employers obligations how about the employee rights with requesting accommodations or requesting you know say more sanitary conditions or yeah you don't pay leave well there's definitely if you if I was an employee and I had asthma okay having asthma me and said I have a huge pre-existing condition that could really get me super sick if I was exposed to cocoa 19 I can go say I need the reasonable accommodation of working from home or I need you to make sure everybody's wearing masks because I could get really sick here those could be considered reasonable accommodations in the workplace and I as an employee am able to ask for those I'm able to ask for those and any employer over the size of 15 employees okay in other states like Minnesota we get to ask employee number one but it is you get to make those requests and you should be making those requests because they're for your safety the employer has the responsibility done to say is this a reasonable accommodation something that we can do or if we're not able to do it what are the possible alternatives to try to make this place more safe so I encourage employees to make requests for reasonable accommodations because if we can make things easier and safer for you we definitely want to do that we just can't do it without knowledge we need to know that this is what you need or we have to have a hunch at least that this is what you need what if at all does that impact applicants request for accommodations and just the processes - you think they get they get the same ah but they get the same ability to ask for the request they don't necessarily get the request that they're requesting just like an employee but they get to make those requests - so if they want to do an interview over zoom as opposed to being in person they can make that request for sure do you think there's anything that starts to come into play that would impact what's reasonable to ask someone to do as part of an assessment and or selection process and in terms of assessment the thing that I'm thinking that we're talking to clients about right now is we have some clients who say use something like a simulation type assessment that needs to be done on a desktop and you know it's a lot some people don't have desktops and you can't use your smartphone to do it because really work that way but under normal circumstances you can go to the library you can you know borrow a computer you can a lot of companies even say you can come to work off you know our particular locations and you can take the assessment there with all of those things off the table now does does it shift about what is either reasonable / legally appropriate for someone to be putting in their selection process for people who are hiring well I think the question if it is going to be is whether or not that's reasonable oh and then on the opposite ends of that is is that absolutely a business necessity is this tool the absolute necessity for us to determine who the best candidate is going to be and arguably when we can't do the assessment then it's not a business necessity right because right if you still want to hire then you're gonna not be able to use this yep yep and where we looked yeah whoever that developer is mobile-first yeah yeah yeah the things that tend to still be a sticking point are things like typing and you know how do you I've actually always had that question if somebody can like you know interesting research study is ability to type on a smartphone correlated with typing ability on a keyboard answer the question could they be substituted for each other oh that is fascinating kidney I don't know I you know I want to know that because that's me well and see both of my sons are dyslexic and dysgraphic so for them you know they use voice to text for nearly everything and so if your assessment tool doesn't have that capability they're gonna really not do well on the typing part of it because they've grown up voice to text everything is done that way so you know brings up a whole host of accommodation and 88 issues if that's gonna be your only method of determining the best candidate yeah total like rabbit hole but you think that my others actually dyslexic this graphic and has ADHD and it's actually that's one of the crazy benefits that have come out of this homeschooling situation is that we actually activated the Texas beat or the speech to text in Google classroom and like her teacher was noticing the credible like increase in the quality of like her written responses and we haven't had our 504 meeting during this time pair and they're like okay going into fourth grade it's going to be an iPad with speech to text in in the classroom and it yeah it's funny where these things like where they go and where they come from and yes it I it has really opened my eyes because I am a verbal and a typing person right like I write for a living in part and so the I went to understood that org to see what what being dysgraphic look like I'm like oh my god that is so hard and but now I understand how great this could possibly be because they're so far ahead on technology than I am because they use it all the time so well yeah okay I think we could probably talk to you for hours I definitely wouldn't I mean I was thinking having you back to talk about general and employment a lot especially related to selection OFCCP issues so probably topics for another day but thank you for all you've provided now yeah I know you have a lot more that you could provide to our viewers and listeners where can they get in touch with you and what what do you have going on that you could you can promote yourself here well they could listen to the hostile work environment podcast it's very funny and what people do in the office is hilarious and horrific and they can go to my website thrive law consulting comm all one word and find out more about me there we'll put the link to that information in your in the video notes and you can contact Kate there sounds good thank you so much for having me yeah thanks for joining yeah it's great nice meeting you yeah okay see ya