While restrictive covenants abound in the employment landscape, the Illinois legislature is shoring up efforts to rein in the use of such agreements. The latest push? A bill to amend the Illinois Freedom to Work Act to expand the ban on noncompetes to a larger population of workers and provide certain rights to employees who are asked to sign noncompete and nonsolicitation agreements as a condition of employment. With Gov. J.B. Pritzker poised to sign that bill, employers should begin evaluating how those amendments will impact their use of noncompete and nonsolicitation agreements and what changes will be necessary to comply with the new law.
Author: Kelly Ann Petrocelli
Coronavirus: An Employer’s Action Guide – Part III
As the coronavirus continues to spread, employers should continually evaluate whether their prevention and response efforts are sufficient and appropriately tailored based on the latest information on the virus and their own business considerations. Here is our latest guidance, which may further inform your own response plan.
This is a follow up to our posts on March 4, 2020 and February 14, 2020. Our full Employer’s Action Guide can be found here.
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Coronavirus: An Employer’s Action Guide – Part II
Daily headlines about the growing coronavirus threat have many employers concerned that they are not doing all they should to protect employees without undue disruption to operations. Here are some answers that may inform your own response plan.
Continue reading “Coronavirus: An Employer’s Action Guide – Part II”
Coronavirus: An Employer’s Action Guide
Daily headlines about the growing coronavirus threat have many employers concerned that they are not doing all they should to protect employees without undue disruption to operations. Here are some answers that may inform your own response plan.
Employee Handbooks – Part 1: Anti-Harassment Policies and Training in the #MeToo Era
Late last month, we previewed our upcoming series of blog posts discussing Employee Handbooks – What’s New and Why Does it Matter? If you happened to read that post, then you know we introduced the topics for parts one through six of our handbook series. We will now embark on part one of our journey to the land of employee handbooks. This journey will have several other stops along the way, but for now our topic is anti-harassment policies and training in the #MeToo era.
Employee Handbooks: What’s New and Why Does It Matter?
Employee handbooks. Say those words around any seasoned HR professional and watch them cringe. Yes, handbooks are often relegated to the “I’ll get to that when I have time” list, which is understandable in today’s busy corporate environment where tasks critical to the business receive priority status. But handbooks are important and deserve inclusion on the list of asset protection initiatives for the new year. Why, you ask? Because a poorly drafted handbook exposes a business to unnecessary risk of liability. Liability can range from the more obvious—failure to make appropriate at-will employment and no contract disclaimers may bind the company to statements in the handbook where flexibility is needed—to the less obvious—failure to address relevant state and local laws and the affirmative obligations placed on employers in those laws can foster a culture of noncompliance and possible class actions. And putting aside the liability issues for a moment, a properly drafted employee handbook can be used as a guidebook for managers, a go-to resource for a company’s workforce, and an effective tool for communicating performance and conduct expectations.
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