As chief talent officer for Netflix, Patty McCord co-authored the Netflix Culture Deck. Since its creation, the deck has been viewed more than 15 million times, and Sheryl Sandberg calling it perhaps “the most important document ever to come out of Silicon Valley.” Ms. McCord may have moved on from Netflix, but she continues to leave a strong and thought-provoking mark as she coaches and advises companies around the world on culture and leadership. Her new book Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility, which the Washington Post named one of the top 11 leadership books to read in 2018, reveals why most companies fail at hiring, motivating, and creating exceptional teams. Her kickoff keynote includes revealing insights that just might change the way you think about how your business should be run. She’ll give you actionable input into how to make the necessary cultural shifts to keep up with changing business needs and to continually motivate and inspire the workforce. And, in today’s #MeToo and #TimesUp era, she’ll touch on ways to identify and work toward fixing a broken culture that could be contributing to negative stereotypes or inequitable practices that can damage a company’s reputation and its people if not put in check.

Wage & Hour Litigation Under the Trump Administration
9:10 -9:30 a.m.
Presented by Ruben Garcia, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

The election of Donald Trump and his appointment of Alexander Acosta as the new Secretary of Labor has had distinct consequences for the future enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which governs the payment of minimum wages and overtime compensation under federal law. This Hot Topic Power Talk will brief you on what’s on the horizon in terms of Department of Labor regulation/enforcement and wage and hour litigation concerning hot-button issues like:

• Tip-sharing pools
• What to expect from the DOL on overtime exemptions, including a new proposed annual salary threshold
• Whether ride-sharing workers are likely be deemed exempt from overtime pay
• What the DOL’s new Payroll Audit Independent Determination Program (PAID) could mean for wage and hour audits

Arbitration Agreements: What to Use Them for and When to Steer Clear
9:35 – 9:55 a.m.
Presented by Mark Schickman, Esq., Freeland, Cooper & Foreman LLP

Employers have a strong interest in getting their employees to sign arbitration agreements as condition of hiring.  After all, getting them to agree to your terms could mean the difference between years of defending costly legal claims in court and a “one-and-done” hearing before an arbitrator to determine whether their legal claims have any merit and whether they are entitled to any damages as a result. But, a new bill that’s been introduced in Congress seeks to bar arbitration of sex discrimination or harassment claims. The bipartisan legislation—“Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Harassment Act” (S. 2203; HR 4570)—includes a downright scary provision for employers: If this act becomes law, courts would have the authority to invalidate an entire arbitration agreement if it includes terms requiring an employee to arbitrate sex discrimination disputes. This timely Hot Topic Power Talk will provide valuable insight into the types of issues to steer clear from including in your arbitration agreements given the current status of court rulings and legislation that has already been enacted or is likely to take effect.

HR’s Data Security and Notification Game Plan in the Event of a Breach
10:00 – 10:20 a.m.
Presented by Daniel Nelson, C EH, Armstrong Teasdale

S.B. 2179 has been introduced in Congress. Known as the Data Security and Breach Notification Act of 2017, this law would have a sweeping impact on how businesses manage their data security and breach notification practices. That’s because it would standardize how data breaches must be reported and replace close to 50 state-based laws addressing the issue.  What personally identifiable information (PPI) is most vulnerable to hacking, and what are some of the best practices cybersecurity experts recommend for ensuring that confidential and sensitive data your workplace stores as a matter of doing business is well protected to guard against damaging and potentially financially devastating data security breaches? This Hot Topic Power Talk will brief you on where new state and federal data security and notification legislation stands and provide best practices for protecting PPI.

• Do’s and don’ts for conducting background checks, including the latest on “ban-the-box” laws now in effect
• How to use social media for sourcing and recruiting—and what never to use it for
• What you legally can and can’t ask during the interview
• How to evaluate the wording of your employment applications to identify areas that could leave your company vulnerable to legal liabilities, including the latest on laws taking shape nationwide that ban inquiries into salary history
• Best practices for managing the pre- and post-offer phases of the hiring process, so you don’t spark liability under the Americans with Disabilities Act or other federal laws

• What an effective, legal PTO policy generally looks like
• Where paid sick leave laws have passed or are being considered
• Requirements employers may be subjected to concerning carryover and notice/posting requirements
• PTO administration best practices, including:
  • How to correctly account for partial-day absences under your PTO policy
  • The kinds of notice you need to give exempt workers before forcing them to use accrued PTO during furloughs
  • What paid vacation vs. PTO can mean when it comes to overtime pay for nonexempt employees
  • The lowdown on “use it or lose it” policies
• Tactics for combining PTO leave with protected leave under FMLA
• Smart moves regarding cashing out unused time and examples of when PTO counts as a wage under state law
• What’s new from the Trump Administration regarding paid leave, and what might be coming
• PTO and the exempt employee: When you can dock pay
• Legal ways to institute caps on vacation banks
• How PTO works when an employee is eligible for pregnancy disability leave or paid family leave
• And much more!

• Why some organizations are starting to pull back on letting employees telecommute
• Answers to questions such as:
  • Is there a link between retention and the flexibility of telecommuting?
  • Which types of workers should generally be considered as candidates for working remotely and which shouldn’t?
  • How do you know if your telecommuters are actually working effectively?

• The case for “agile teams” and collaboration when rolling back telecommuting—and whether telecommuting rollbacks may lead to massive employee unhappiness and/or departures
• How to attract and retain talent if you’re in a second-tier city and want employees to work on-site
• How to tell if telecommuters are less engaged than on-site workers
• Examples of organizations where telecommuting is going strong
• What constitutes a disability that may merit a flexible work arrangement as an ADA accommodation
• How to properly record hours worked for nonexempt telecommuters, job sharers, and those working compressed workweeks
• Whether you may pay employees afforded fexible work arrangements less than other employees
• Key issues concerning workers’ compensation
• Telecommuting and other flexible work arrangement agreement essentials
• When it may make more sense to consider job sharing vs. full-time employment
• How to effectively address flexible work arrangements in your company’s employee handbook
• How to evaluate job duties to determine whether on-site attendance or a specific schedule is an essential function of the job
• The potential hidden costs of flexible work arrangements
• How to get the best performance out of employees working through flexible arrangements
• How to equitably evaluate work performance and work quality regardless of whether an employee works a traditional, in-house schedule or works different hours remotely

• Employee time cards and working “off the clock”
• Documenting performance issues
• Managing interpersonal conflicts among team members and tips for dealing with difficult employees
• How they should respond to requests for references
• Social media monitoring
• And much more!

• OFCCP’s aggressive approach to investigating employers’ pay systems and demands for equal pay for broad groups of employees who often are doing very different jobs
• Effective ways to assess your diversity outreach and recruitment efforts to pass OFCCP scrutiny
• Defining “applicant” in a strategic way to manage and minimize recordkeeping requirements
• Creative and efficient methods for monitoring your hires, promotions and terminations trends to ensure you uncover “hidden barriers” to equal employment opportunity and OFCCP compliance

• How to ensure that your pre-employment testing procedures are legally defensible in the event the organization is legally challenged about the basis for its decision
• Risk avoidance strategies concerning the use of big data in hiring decisions
• Examples of how an algorithm could have a disproportionate impact on a segment of your applicant pool
• And more

• Signs of a “dangerous” workplace culture that might leave your company particularly vulnerable to harassment claims
• Why the involvement of senior management is critical to the success of an anti-harassment program
• The role of civility in preventing bullying and harassment
• What supervisors need to know and understand about their obligations
• How to ensure that employees feel free to complain about inappropriate conduct in the workplace
• How to encourage bystander intervention and the role that can play in addressing problematic conduct
• Why a respectful workplace is the foundation for a harassment-free environment
• The key differences between supervisor, coworker, or client/vendor harassment and how to handle each
• Employers’ obligations when a complaint of harassment is brought forward – what to do and what not to do
• The significance of a complete anti- discrimination/harassment policy

• The growing patchwork of new state and big-city equal pay laws, what they mean practically, and how to respond
• How to take advantage of the “safe harbors” under many new state equal pay laws to protect your organization from claims and liability
• How to conduct a proactive self-audit of your pay system to find and fix unexplained pay disparities
• And much more!

• The keys to severance agreement compliance—what you can say, what you should never say, and everything in between
• Whether it’s a good idea to allow someone to resign (rather than being terminated) to avoid having to explain a firing to future employers
• Writing you should draft in support of any severance or separation agreement
• The types of claims you’re permitted to release with proper monetary consideration—and the ones you simply can’t
• Pointers on how to best communicate with your employees about their severance agreements, what they can and can’t do, and ways to answer common questions
• Tips for handling employees who may become combative or litigious when faced with termination
• Language that should be included in every severance agreement
• Special rules that apply to older workers—who’s protected by the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act, and the practical impact these rules have on your severance agreements
• How to avoid any hint of coercion in your conversations with departing workers
• What to do when an employee refuses to sign—or threatens to sue
• Practical strategies on how to review your company’s severance agreements before you need them
• How ERISA may apply to severance
• Severance health benefits, which raise COBRA interaction issues
• And more

Employee engagement is integral to your business. A highly engaged workforce can mean the difference between just getting by and “crushing” your organization’s respective corner of the market. Day 2 of HR Comply kicks off with an in-depth look at how Ally Financial has developed a multi-pronged, winning employee engagement strategy that celebrates individual employees’ differences to demonstrate its commitment to diversity and inclusion, uses corporate giving as an altruistic motivator, and empowers employees through its internal social media channel.

Ally Financial’s CHRO Kathie Patterson will reveal:

• The success of Ally Financial’s new employee resource groups (ERGs) and how this framework can be used as a guide for developing your own efforts to embrace diversity and inclusion in a new way
• How to effectively cultivate a culture of volunteerism—and how those efforts can translate into better employee engagement
• How the company’s two employee social media channels—Pulse and SociALLY—foster communication and camaraderie and support Ally’s underlying mission to create a 360-approach to employee engagement

• Key recordkeeping changes and additions you’ll need to make for the coming year based on recently enacted and pending legislation
• Best practices for digital recordkeeping and what you must still keep in paper format—and how long you need to maintain records under federal law
• Mandatory notices you must post for your workforce, including recommendations on where to display them
• Mandatory written notices and forms that must be distributed to new hires and additional notices that must be provided in writing when certain events occur such as upon termination or changes in rate of pay
• Examples of state wage and hour recordkeeping requirements you also need to consider

• The ins and outs of developing a comprehensive drug-testing program designed to give you the information you need to make informed and legal hiring and other employment decisions of California-based employees
• When an employer may conduct drug testing on prospective and current employees
• Drug-testing testing policy essentials, and instances when enforcement of zero-tolerance policy language may spark legal issues under federal law
• How to train supervisors and managers on warning signs that someone might be under the influence
• The action plan for addressing a situation when you suspect an employee is drunk or high at work
• What to do if an applicant or a current employee demands to be retested because the test revealed a false positive result
• How to address the off-duty use of marijuana
• How medical marijuana laws interact with unemployment and workers’ compensation-related benefits
• Whether medical marijuana usage may qualify as a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
• How to develop and manage drug-testing policies and practices in light of the current legal landscape
• How to decide if your organization should test for marijuana
• What to do if an employee tests positive for marijuana usage
• The role of fitness for duty evaluations, and best practices for workplace safety

• Whether there’s a divide in how today’s multi-generational workforce expects to receive coaching and mentoring opportunities as part of your performance management strategy—and how to ensure that you’re meeting the needs of the varied segments of your particular workforce
• How to strike a balance—so you keep proper documentation of employment-based decisions in place even if you opt to increase the frequency of performance discussions and eliminate ratings altogether
• Strategies for training supervisors and managers to continue to document performance-based issues as necessary even if they aren’t completing annual reviews anymore
• And more

• How to ensure that you’ve got the proper written documentation to back up the adverse employment action
• How an employee’s protected class status could be used to fuel a claim for unlawful termination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and other federal laws
• What questions to ask  and ow to discipline or terminate an employee on protected leave under FMLA, the ADA, or workers’ compensation law without sparking legal liability
• How to evaluate whether a similarly situated employee outside the employee’s protected class could be used as a “comparator” in legal proceedings to show that you treated them more favorably than the worker you just fired
• When it’s worth contesting a departed worker’s claim for unemployment compensation—and when it’s not
• Post-termination notice requirements
• How to handle a prospective employer asking you to give a reference for the terminated worker

• The latest on your legal obligations concerning stressed out, anxious workers who may be suffering due to ancillary mental conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder or depression
• How to master the practical challenges that arise in workplaces every day concerning time off, requests for accommodation, and other issues when employees are stressed out or in a panicked state
• The limits on what you can ask for in terms of documentation when an employee claims he or she is entitled to disability protection under federal law
• The game plan for addressing a claim that workplace stress is behind an employee’s performance, conduct, or attendance issues
• What to do if an employee has a panic attack while at work or claims the reason s/he can’t report to work is because of panic attacks
• How to deal with performance issues and safety concerns when an employee is on treatment medication
• How to handle claims that non-industrial PTSD—from military service or other life experiences—is interfering with his/her ability to perform essential job functions
• How to properly address accommodation requests unique to anxiety disorder and PTSD, including the “need” for the employee to bring therapy or companion animals, or psychiatric service dogs to work
• How FMLA impacts employees with anxiety disorder or PTSD and those caring for family members with this or a similar diagnosis
• Tips for helping employees perform when fatigue, concentration, short-term memory, or cognitive functioning is impacted

Our skilled panel of employment attorneys is ready to address your specific concerns before you head home to implement the compliance best practices and strategic insights you’ve learned at HR Comply 2018!