A tangle of new laws and regulations related to the evolving novel coronavirus pandemic continues to hurl a steady stream of compliance curveballs at employers large and small, according to data released Wednesday.
More than half the 1,100 human resources personnel, in-house counsel and executives who responded to the Employer Pulse Survey conducted in October by
Littler Mendelson PC said their companies faced challenges in complying with leave laws, scheduling regulations and requests from employees for special accommodations related to the pandemic.
Alka Ramchandani-Raj, one of the leaders of Littler's COVID-19 task force and a contributor to the report, told Law360 that employers are trying their best to stay on the right side of the law.
"What they're trying to do is manage as well as they can," Ramchandani-Raj said. "These are really hard things to do when you're learning how to do everything from scratch in a new atmosphere."
More than 80% of respondents from nonessential businesses said they don't plan on requiring remote employees to come back to the office any time soon. But remote work, along with other aspects of the pandemic response, has put pitfalls in the path of employers.
Respondents from companies with more than 10,000 employees were more apt to express concern about employment law compliance.
About a quarter of respondents from large employers strongly agreed that their companies had struggled to stay on top of the changing situation, compared with 15% of overall respondents. The report ties this dynamic to the greater likelihood that larger businesses have employees spread across various jurisdictions with dissimilar legal regimes.
Respondents also showed an interest in worker well-being, with four out of five saying they worry about how the pandemic is affecting workers mentally. Three out of four respondents said their company offered flexibility to workers with caregiving responsibilities.
About two-thirds surveyed said that they had made mental health resources available, and smaller percentages pointed to other steps taken to safeguard employees' welfare.
Given the challenges associated with the pandemic, many employers are casting a wary eye toward end-of-the-year performance evaluations, Ramchandani-Raj said.
The Littler attorney emphasized the importance of approaching the process in a fair and consistent manner that accounts for the impacts of this year's radical changes to life both inside and outside the workplace.
"There's a lot to evaluate, and that's a stressful time," she said.
At the same time as employers are trying to keep up with changing legal and regulatory landscapes, they are also looking ahead to a change in presidential administration in the new year.
Littler's survey, conducted in October before the election, found "expectations of a fairly high degree of change in workplace policy under a [Joe] Biden administration."
Most of those surveyed expected the new administration to put greater emphasis on virus safety compliance enforcement from the U.S.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. A majority also said they expected action on paid sick and family leave, health care, immigration, pay equity and minimum wage issues.
Ramchandani-Raj said her advice to employers in these uncertain times is to have patience.
"There's a lot to handle, and we're really still in a very new world," she said. "The truth is that we still may be here for another six months [or] another year."
Although employers may pursue policies that don't ultimately work out, and they will almost certainly continue to encounter new issues, Ramchandani-Raj said they shouldn't be afraid of using a rigorous trial-and-error process to address existing and newly arising challenges.
"Until you try it out and test it out, and you double-check it and review it to see if it's effective, you really won't know if it's working," she said.
Moreover, both business and government are gaining new experience that they will be able to apply going forward, Ramchandani-Raj said, pointing to the normalization of concepts such as remote work and an increased awareness around how to limit disease spread.
"I think we will have an easier time adapting if another pandemic were to hit," she said.
--Editing by Neil Cohen.
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