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North American Edition
23rd September 2021
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THE HOT STORY
United Airlines employee lawsuit challenge over vaccine mandate
Six United Airlines employees have sued the carrier over its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all U.S. staff. The suit, filed in federal court in the Northern District of Texas, claims that reasonable accommodations have not been made for those seeking religious and medical exemptions. The employee group alleges that United has made it difficult for employees to seek such accommodations and effectively terminates those who secure them. The Wall Street Journal observes that the legal challenge is indicative of the difficult decisions organizations face as they develop and enforce new policies around COVID-19 vaccinations. “Plaintiffs do not dispute the important goal of stopping COVID-19’s spread, but it does not override United’s obligations under federal law. And it certainly does not allow United to effectively terminate all employees who requested an accommodation,” they wrote. “We’re reviewing this complaint in greater detail but at this point, we think it’s without merit,” an airline spokeswoman said.
OVERCOME OPEN ENROLLMENT CHALLENGES

Open enrollment season has become more challenging for HR professionals

Open enrollment has been made even more challenging by recent struggles to work remotely and reopen safely. Employees will invariably turn to their HR team for guidance and support while companies continue to rely on HR teams to help employees understand and get value from their healthcare benefits. Making employees comfortable with their care provider is an essential duty — helping employees become more satisfied with their health insurance can increase their satisfaction with the company. We’ve outlined the four main challenges HR faces when it comes to managing employee healthcare benefits and how to solve them.
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HEALTH & SAFETY
U.S. retail industry requests 90-day lead time on COVID-19 rules
Two major U.S. retail industry groups have asked the Biden administration for at least 90 days' lead-time before imposing new rules that will require employees at larger firms to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or submit to regular testing. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is developing an emergency temporary standard that will require all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workforce is fully vaccinated, or require any workers who remain unvaccinated to produce a negative COVID-19 test once a week. The Retail Industry Leaders Association and the National Retail Federation strongly encouraged OSHA “to provide a 90-day implementation timeline to allow retailers and other employers to create the systems necessary." The groups, which represent companies including Walmart, CVS, Best Buy, Target, Kroger and Home Depot, also asked how the administration will ensure adequate COVID-19 testing capacity to satisfy the “significant increase in demand.”
LEGAL
California becomes first state to limit warehouse productivity quotas
California has become the first state to curtail the use of productivity quotas in warehouses by companies such as Amazon, over concerns that they drive up workplace injuries and indignities. The new law, which takes effect at the beginning of next year, will make it illegal for companies to punish warehouse workers for failing to meet quotas because they were taking lunch or restroom breaks. It would also make clear to those workers what their quotas are. “The hardworking warehouse employees who have helped sustain us during these unprecedented times should not have to risk injury or face punishment as a result of exploitative quotas that violate basic health and safety,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement. Democratic Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, who authored the bill, cited reports from several labor advocacy groups including the Warehouse Worker Resource Center and the Strategic Organizing Center to assert that Amazon employees are far more likely to suffer serious injuries than those working in other warehouses.
Texas challenges EEOC guidance on transgender worker protections
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking to block Biden administration guidance requiring that employers allow transgender workers to use bathrooms and dress in a manner aligned with their gender identity. Paxton said states should be able to place the rights of employers over "subjective views of gender," and that the EEOC guidance puts many women and children at risk. His complaint follows a separate challenge by 20 other Republican-led states.
HIRING
Job seekers need more information about the hiring process and decisions
Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Julia Stoyanovich, institute associate professor of computer science and engineering at the Tandon School of Engineering and associate professor of data science at the Center for Data Science and director of New York University’s Center for Responsible AI, says job seekers need more information about the hiring process as artificial intelligence tools become more broadly used. She notes that “we rarely understand how these tools select candidates, and whether the candidates they select are, in fact, better qualified than those who are rejected," and proposes a standardized method akin to nutritional labels that employers could use to inform job candidates when artificial intelligence programs will play a role in their evaluations.
TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT
Canada's fossil fuel workers want Trudeau to keep retraining pledge
Workers in Canada’s fossil fuel sector say they expect re-elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau  to keep his promises to retrain them for roles in a clean-energy economy as the country restates its commitment to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Canada will need around C$10bn ($7.8bn) over 10 years to retrain fossil fuel workers, according to oil worker advocacy group Iron & Earth. Luisa Da Silva, executive director of Iron & Earth, said Canada could lose the skilled talent that will be critical to a clean energy economy if the government does not prioritize transition funding, which the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement identified as important to ensure no workers are left behind as the world decarbonizes. He is skeptical about government action after past pledges failed to materialize. "At what point do these stop being promises and start being actions? These are people's livelihoods on the line," said Da Silva.
REMUNERATION
Apple Store workers to receive bonuses of up to $1,000
Apple will give store employees hired before March 31st a $1,000 one-time bonus next month, and $500 to anyone who joined after that date. New workers for the holiday shopping season will get $200; AppleCare and online sales workers will also receive payments. The bonuses, presented in recognition of the difficulty of working through the pandemic, are a rarity for Apple; the last major award it gave was $2,500 worth of restricted stock units in 2018. Separately, Apple chief executive Tim Cook has criticized the leaking of key details of its recent product launch event ahead of time, along with information from a companywide meeting held last week. In a memo obtained by Bloomberg, Mr Cook said he'd heard from many employees who were “incredibly frustrated to see the contents of the meeting leak to reporters."
TECHNOLOGY
Robots replace humans as labor shortages bite
Logistics and delivery companies are automating their businesses to tackle labor shortages as the monotony of some jobs makes recruiting and retaining workers harder, and customer orders become increasingly complex.
DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION
Grant Thornton names CEO-elect and culture & inclusion leader
Grant Thornton U.S. has named Seth Siegel as CEO-elect and Rashada Whitehead as national managing director of culture, immersion & inclusion. Mr. Siegel, who has been at Grant Thornton for more than 25 years and currently serves as managing partner for South Florida, succeeds Brad Preber, who will complete his term and retire on July 31st 2022. Ms. Whitehead joined the firm in 2019, and spearheaded its inaugural diversity and inclusion report last year. Responsible for the firm’s diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) task force, she will also continue to lead the colleague experience function, where she oversees candidate care and onboarding, DEI initiatives, mobility and immigration, and alumni relations.
STRATEGY
PwC Chair: Climate change is biggest global problem in 80 years
Climate change is the most formidable challenge humanity has had to face since World War II and will require a similar level of individual mobilization and collective cooperation, according to PwC chairman Robert Moritz. Speaking at Climate Week NYC, he added: "We need 8bn people to make this a personal cause...The reality is, when you look at the numbers, when you look at the academic studies, at least our research would say we don’t necessarily need to double the efforts, triple the efforts, we actually have to fivefold the increase of the change we need to do to decarbonize the world that is going on right now."
INTERNATIONAL
Many professionals say hybrid working model needs improvement
A poll of 2,000 professionals by recruitment firm Robert Walters indicates that more than half (55%) of respondents think that their current hybrid working arrangements don’t go far enough to help engender an effective work-life balance. Some said under-tested hybrid working models had precipitated more intense working days, for example with attendance required at both face-to-face and virtual meetings, leaving them feeling overworked and exhausted. Meanwhile, a great majority of respondents (85%) said they now expect more flexibility to work from home as a standard offer from employers, and 78% said they will not take on a new job until such flexibility is agreed with a prospective employer. Jason Grundy, MD, Robert Walters Middle East & Africa, observes: “Whilst the switch to remote working was almost instant, we need to appreciate that was out of necessity. The return to work should be gradual employers and employees alike should use this year to test a variety of working styles from hybrid working to potentially removing the 9-5 in favour of hours based on project load.”
U.K. employees will be able to request to work from home from first day
U.K. government ministers have confirmed new laws to protect flexible working. Employees in the U.K. will be able to request the right to work at home from their first day on the job under the reforms. Under current rules, employees cannot request a hybrid working arrangement until six months into a job. A government source said: “The business case is compelling. If you’re happy at work you’re less likely to leave, and companies benefit from motivated employees.”
Artificial intelligence is a key challenge for Germany
Deutsche Welle reports on what Germany’s next government must do to ensure the successful integration of AI technologies in fields including mobility, health care, Industry 4.0, and environmental sustainability, noting that the country will need to become more attractive to international AI talent. In 2019, more than half of AI job vacancies in Germany could not be filled or were filled late or with less desirable candidates. Deutsche Welle says Germany is already contending with a shortage of skilled labour, and AI expertise is particularly hard to come by.  "Talent is very important both for industry and academia, for both of us," says Antonio Krüger, CEO and director of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), adding "And we need to provide environments that are very attractive to these kinds of people."
OTHER
Global billionaire ranks soared 13.4% last year
The pandemic proved to be a boon for billionaires, who grew their collective wealth and saw more people join their ranks. For the first time, the world has more than 3,000 billionaires, according to a new report from research firm Wealth-X - a 13.4% increase since 2019. Their total wealth swelled to $10tn, a 5.7% increase in net worth. North America cemented its status as "the world's leading billionaire region in 2020," with the three-comma club there growing by 17.5% from the year prior, and its 980 billionaires accounting for 30.6% of the world's total. 

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