This week, Facebook announced that it has more than a billion mobile users per month. From The Verge:
The company reported 1.28 billion monthly active users and over 1 billion monthly active mobile users. This time last year Facebook had 1.1 billion active monthly users and 751 million monthly mobile users, an increase of 34 percent. It was the first time it had over 1 billion mobile users in a single month.
This number should be a wake-up call for any business that is ignoring the impact of mobile technologies on your workplace. Do you ban Facebook and other personal Internet use at work? You better believe employees are taking out their iPhones and doing it anyway. Do you support BYOD? You better, because your employees will clamor for it. We live in a mobile world. Your business’s workforce relations needs to adjust.
Here’s the rest of what I read this week:
Discrimination
- Sixth Circuit redefines the “workplace” when considering attendance as an ADA essential job function — from Eric Meyer’s The Employer Handbook Blog
- Road Rules: Ruling Now Guides Telecommuting As Reasonable Accommodation Discussion — from Dan Schwartz’s Connecticut Employment Law Blog
- Employee representing himself? Take it just as seriously as any other lawsuit — from Business Management Daily
- Keeping Background Checks Legal Under EEOC Guidance — from ERC Insights Blog
- All That for a Bag of Chips: Walgreens going to trial in disability discrimination case — from Robin Shea’s Employment & Labor Insider
- EEOC: Employer Violated ADA by Withdrawing Job Offer Because of Applicant’s Old Back Injury — from EmployerBrief
- Is attendance always an essential function of the job? — from Understanding the ADA
Social Media & Workplace Technology
- What’s all this fuss about BYOD? — from Mike Haberman’s Omega HR Solutions
- Hurt Feelings Do Not a Lawsuit Make … Even on Twitter — from Delaware Employment Law Blog
- Lawyers can look up jurors on social media but can’t connect with them, ABA ethics opinion says — from ABA Journal Daily News
HR & Employee Relations
- How To Leave Work At 5 P.M. And Still Get Everything Done — from Kathryn Dill at Forbes
- Why I Tell My Employees to Bring Their Kids to Work — from Harvard Business Review
- Can You “Negligently” Fire Someone? — from Suits by Suits
- Defamation and Invasion of Privacy: What These Terms Mean for Employers — from All in a Day’s Work
- Is It HR’s Role to Support the Company, or Its Employees? — from TLNT
Wage & Hour
- “Perhaps it is time for defendants to start settling less often” — from Walter Olson’s Overlawyered
- The High Cost of Noncompliance — from Ohio HR Law
- Overtime, an Introduction — from Michigan Employment Law
- FLSA Class Actions – A $6 Million Reminder to Re-visit Hours Worked Policies — from Wage & Hour - Development & Highlights
- Eighth Circuit Unpacks Hire/Fire Prong of the FLSA's Executive Exemption — from Minnesota Employment Law Report
- Playing with Employees’ Hours Could Get You in Hot Water under the ACA and FLSA — from Health Employment and Labor
- New Fitness-for-Duty Exam Consistent With Returning Employee’s FMLA Rights, Court Says — from Joe’s HR and Benefits Blog
Labor Relations
- Four Union Guys Walk Into a Bar… — from Rick Bell at Workforce
- NLRB Orders Employer to Repay Union’s Bargaining Costs — from Labor Relations Today
- Unions’ $735,000 Question: Why “No Reply”? — from LaborPains.org
- Who Needs Miss Manners? Apparently Not Employees, NLRB Says — from Labor & Employment Law Perspectives
- Employee Handbook Policies: The NLRB Giveth, and Taketh Away — from The Blue Ink
- It’s No Secret…The NLRB On Confidentiality Requirements at Work — from The Emplawyerologist