There is a growing trend of employers allowing their employees to work from home. In our law practice, it is possible for one of us to work from home and a client wouldn’t even know we are away from the office. It makes for a much more family friendly work environment. If you plan on allowing your employees to work from home you should consider implanting a written policy that covers the following:
- The job positions or types of position for which telecommuting is available.
- Any conditions the employees must meet to telecommute (i.e. length of service and past work performance).
- Minimum requirements for a home office (i.e. fax machine and high speed internet access).
- Types of equipment employer will provide and types of equipment employees are expected to provide.
Similar to any other employment policy, it’s not enough to have a telecommuting policy. You must apply the policy fairly. Otherwise, you could potentially be subjecting yourself to charges of discrimination.
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As an employer, can you have an “English-only” policy? Under limited circumstances you can. A federal district court in New York granted partial summary judgment in favor of an employer on the narrow issue of whether the employer’s policy requiring sales personnel to speak “English-only” in certain limited circumstances constituted an unlawful English-only rule in violation of Title VII. EEOC v. Sephora USA, LLC, 2005 WL 2234024. The employer’s policy required sales personnel to speak English only on the sales floor whenever customers were present or in times of business need (i.e. when safety concerns were at issue). The Court concluded that the limited circumstances in which the employer used its English-only policy were consistent with the suggestions provided by the EEOC in its Compliance Manual.
The EEOC’s Compliance Manual provides that an English-only rule would be justified in situations where: (1) there are “communications with customers, coworkers, or supervisors who only speak English”; and (2) where “workers must speak a common language to promote safety”. These were the same circumstances provided in the employer’s policy in the Sephora case. If you have an English-only policy in place, or plan on implementing one, you need to make sure your policy satisfies the justifications set forth by the EEOC.
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