Event Details

At our upcoming meeting on April 13, 2022, our Chapter President, Julie Moore, Esq., Partner at Bowles Rice LLP, will present on the topic of: The New Normal: Recognizing and Managing Employment Law Risks in the New, Pandemic Shaped Workplace.

Program description:

Without question, the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the American workplace.  Shortly after the World Health Organization declared on March 11, 2020 that COVID-19 had reached pandemic status, many workplaces across the country closed, and millions of employees shifted from the traditional, 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday workweek at a physical worksite to working from home at irregular hours and interfacing with colleagues via Zoom, Teams, and other virtual platforms from the comfort of their couch wearing lounge attire.  Despite the prior availability of sufficient technology, the vast majority of the workforce infrequently or never engaged in remote work before the pandemic.  Now, nearly 50% of workers are doing their job from home all or, at least, half of the time.  Had the pandemic lasted for a short duration, this change may very well have been only temporary.  However, since the pandemic has continued to exist for multiple years, many experts are predicting that the shift to remote work is a permanent and irreversible one as numerous employee surveys are revealing that increased flexibility – particularly, the ability to telework – is an essential, non-monetary benefit that workers are demanding and for which they are willing to leave their current job and search for alternative employment, even if it means taking a sizeable pay cut.  Thus, employers have come to embrace or, at least, accept, the notion that permitting some degree of remote work is critical to recruitment and retention initiatives.

This presentation will discuss the various employment law issues that are implicated by the “new normal” of engaging in telework or hybrid arrangements, ranging the spectrum from the FLSA to ADA and everything in between.  Additionally, this presentation will cover employment litigation trends arising from workplaces that have returned to requiring in-person, on-site attendance at the workplace while the pandemic is still ongoing.

Please RSVP to Kristin Postlethwait at kristin.postlethwait@tmctechnologies.com no later than April 11th 2022 at 5pm.