An indispensable element to a strong & stable work force Performance reviews are the employment equivalent of annual physical exams. Many dread them. While some schedule one each year, others avoid them until and unless problems arise that cannot go ignored. When used properly, performance reviews are excellent investments in staff and an organization. From a legal perspective, you are in a much stronger place to make decisions about promotion, compensation, and continuation of employment when you have provided and received input throughout the employment period. Performance reviews should be an ongoing process. Feedback—positive and negative—should be a continuous, [...]

There was a huge employment news day this week. You may say it was Epic. The Supreme Court issued its decision on Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis allowing for employers to hold employees to binding individual arbitration agreements even in class action situations. There are many excellent articles that explain the importance of this decision such as these in the New York Law Journal and the Washington Post. What does this mean to the small employer? In short, this ruling favors large employers and disadvantages the employees that work for them. Generally, we at Scholz Nonprofit Law find that [...]

Summer Help: Temporary Employee, Independent Contractor, or Volunteer? Despite the incredible blast of winter we are experiencing this April, summer is coming. [Just an expression of faith!] With summer comes summer help. Whether it's a stand-alone project or coverage for vacationing staff, it's a rite of passage for many--we were once the young, bright intern and now take the role of the wise, experienced employer. While this type of relationship can be a win-win for your organization and a student looking for a real-world experience, bringing on summer help can be a risk to your organization if classification of [...]

The new FLSA rules that were scheduled to take effect on December 1, 2016 were suspended by a federal judge last week. This means employers are not required to implement the new rules regarding treating employees who make less than $47,476 as “non-exempt” under the FLSA. Of course, if you've made promises for raises, those may be hard to reverse.  However, the ruling does mean that employees earning $23,660 or more per year (the current salary level) may be spared from adding overtime recordkeeping obligations and may continue to take advantage of flex-time arrangements if they meet the other [...]