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That may be sugar coating it a bit.

A county employee, who applied for a lateral transfer, and ultimately received that transfer, was able to convince two judges on a federal appellate court that the transfer was discriminatory.

That’s right. An employee may have a discrimination claim for receiving the specific transfer he requested.

Today we have a guest blogger at The Employer Handbook. It’s Holly DePalma. Holly is Director, HR Services at MidAtlantic Employers’ Association, a single source for HR services, delivering responsive, practical solutions to its members.

(Want to guest blog on an employment-law topic at The Employer Handbook? Email me).

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Joely Caroline Meyer
Born January 10, 2014 (7 lbs., 3 oz.)
Joely.jpg“Dad, give me at least 24 hours out here before asking me to guest blog, would ya? Yeesh…”


MeyerFamily.jpg“Last time, we gave you 200 words on Sesame Street, and you paid us in Cap’n Crunch. We’re calling the DOL. And organizing!”

According to a recent study soon to appear in the Journal of Management, not only is Facebook a horrible predictor of how younger recruits will perform for your business — there is absolutely zero correlation between Facebook activity and job performance — but those who rely upon Facebook to help judge potential younger recruits, are more likely to disqualify African-American and Hispanic candidates, in favor of Caucasian Facebook users.

Kashmir Hill details the study here in a recent article on Forbes.

So, if failing to meaningfully distinguish between younger job candidates, while increasing your odds of being sued for disparate-impact discrimination appeals to you, well then, have at it hoss!

Sorry, Aquaman. You’re SOL, son.

But Aquaman does love to get down to MGMT, I’m told. So here you go…

Same goes for the plaintiff in this case — the telepathy part, not MGMT — in which the employer had a leave policy which dictated that employees may take up to six months of leave if unable to perform his/her job with or without reasonable accommodation. After that, it’s sayonara, unless prohibited by law, or if the employee requests a leave extension.

Today, we have a guest blogger at The Employer Handbook. It’s Johanna Harris. Johanna has been a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Labor and in-house labor counsel for two multinational corporations. She is currently the CEO of Hire Fire and Retire LLC. Her new book, USE PROTECTION: An Employee’s Guide to Advancement in the Workplace, is a basic primer on HR law and personnel policies.

Flexible work arrangements take many forms. Arranging flexible hours and schedules can be fairly straightforward and is often dictated by business needs. Flexibility of work location, however, is more difficult to manage. After the jump, this guest post addresses the issues raised by allowing employees to work at locations other than their assigned offices.

(Want to guest blog on an employment-law topic at The Employer Handbook? Email me).

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200px-One-half.pngBack in September, 2013, I blogged here about a NY jury finding that a black plaintiff called the n-word — by her black boss — had been subjected to race discrimination.

Actually, her boss called her the n-word eight times!

Well, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that’s 103 fewer times than the ‘N’-word was used in Django Unchained,” is what the defense’s closing argument sounded like, I imagine.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know much about Scientology.

Why, my Scientology acumen could fill a thimble. Basically, I know that Tom Cruise is a Scientologist and Katie Holmes was a Scientologist; but, not anymore. Anything else comes from my favorite gossip blog, The Superficial, which is barely, if at all, safe for work.

(Although, I can guarantee you that if you search that blog for the word “Scientology,” the results will be anything but).

And I say this with the fervor of 100 General Zods, such that Zod himself (especially, the crappy one from Man Of Steel, I’m a Terence Stamp man) would have no choice but to rise and kneel.

But I put down the moonshine funnel digress.

Today, The Employer Handbook celebrates its 3rd birthday. And what did The Employer Handbook get for its 3rd birthday? I mean, in addition to the strawberry edible underwear that one of my readers sent me anonymously. (Next year, go large. Medium, is a bit snug). Well, you guys voted The Employer Handbook ABA Journal’s 2013 Top Labor & Employment Law Blog!

The king is dead. Long live the king!

Teens are beginning to drop Facebook like a bad habit; instead, taking advantage of messaging apps like What’sApp, Snapchat, and Instagram to social network.

According to a GlobalWebIndex study highlighted in this Forbes article from Haydn Shaughnessy, “from Q2 2012 to Q3 2013 the percentage of active users among 16 – 19 year olds fell from 62% to 52% (these are active users in the sense of having contributed content), and among 20 – 24 year olds fell from 63% to 52%.”

“Doing What’s Right – Not Just What’s Legal”
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