In-house ACCess : In-house ACCess: Association of Corporate Counsel : ACC : The In-house Counsel Bar Association

(April — 2011)

Several years ago, I did a consulting gig at a large DC nonprofit. I was hired to replace the director of publications who had been fired for his inability to get anything produced on time, within budget and without major mistakes.

When I walked into my predecessor’s office, I almost turned around and walked right back out: There was enough paper lying around to start my own office supply company. Much to chagrin of my business-owning husband, I spent the first two days cleaning up and purging. I literally could not work at my desk. There were boxes of mugs from the recent annual meeting, old galleys from now-published books, printed emails with comments, sign offs, etc. I literally shredded 10 trash bags full of paperwork that was no longer needed. Our office had packing material for months. Coworkers who walked by to check out the new girl remarked that they did not even realize his office had an inside window ledge.

Now, the employment lawyers in the crowd are shaking their heads because I was a 1099 working onsite, on the company’s equipment, taking direction from the COO, which could have gotten the nonprofit in serious legal trouble. Well, anyone who really knows me knows that I don’t need a lot of direction anyway, but the IRS and DOL don’t care about that, do they?

Because managing the difference between a 1099 and a W2 is always an issue for in-house counsel and HR, perhaps one of this month’s stories can help: Preserving Independent Contractor Status in an Increasingly Hostile Environment.

The April issue of the ACC Docket focuses on more HR & employment issues too. Articles such as Medical Marijuana and the Workplace; Liability for Acceding to a Customer’s Race-Based Demands; andManaging Employee Medical Data —The Bucket List, discuss just a few of the timely issues that you and your legal staff need to know about.

If that is not enough for you, we have more: Non-Compete Agreements in the United States, Europe and Australia; Are International Secondments Foreign to You? and Watching the Clock: Wage and Hour Class Actions. These articles are sure to help keep you abreast of new situations and how to better manage them.

ACC: It’s right here.

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(ACC Docket — April)

Employees: You never really know what it’s like to have them until you manage them. Oh sure, when you don’t manage any employees, you think you know it all. You find out how much you don’t know when you get promoted.

I worked in my husband’s company — a bootstrapped telecommunication firm — for three years. Our staff’s experiences and perspectives were varied. To say that I finally learned complete ownership — literally and figuratively — of managing employees and money is a gross understatement. When it’s your own checkbook, you look at nothing the same ever again. And when it’s your name and reputation on the line, your focus becomes even more so acute.  

The April ACC Docket is loaded with articles about traditional employment law issues and covers two fairly new employee management issues: social media and workplace bullying. In most companies, employee overhead is generally one of the top three cost centers. And that does include employee litigation, which is something we all want to avoid. ACC’s Employment and Labor Committee is one of the most active we have and they always deliver content, perspective and rock solid experience to lean on to help you manage this area well.  

Products break. Cash ebbs and flows. Vendors come and go. How employees handle it impacts your business. How they treat each other and your customers impacts the bottom line. How employees present themselves on social media platforms impacts your image and your brand. How well prepared your company is impacts you.

According to Mashable, about six million of us have registered Twitter accounts. Fifty million are on LinkedIn and Facebook says it has more than 400 million active account users. LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell’s 2009 global survey show that more than 70 percent of lawyers were members of an online social network — up nearly 25 percent the previous year. That’s a lot of opportunity for your employees to represent your company. This is new territory for most companies. If your company does not already have a social media policy, what are you waiting for?

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On this month's NTI Committee call, Mark Sampson, Womble Carlyle Labor & Employment attorney presented the Legal Quickie on the new FMLA regulations.  The overview on how the regulations impact all employers with at least 50 or more employees covered:

• New categories of leave for military caregivers and certain qualified exigencies
• Clarifications of what constitutes a serious health condition
• Substantial modifications to employee and employer notice obligations
• Major adjustments to the medical certification process

With these new regulations also comes an entirely new and/or revised set of notices and forms that employers will be required to use. The regulations contain significant revisions which address numerous issues that have plagued employers and employees alike since the initial regulations were published nearly fifteen years ago.

Share your insights and or questions about the new FMLA regulations here and Mark and others will participate in the dialogue.

To contact Mark Sampson directly email him at msampson@wcsr.com or call him at (336) 574-8095.

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