Is it legal for the employer to ask employees to use their personal cell phones for work?
Rita Risser Chai replies: In California, the employer can ask employees to use their cell phones for work, but the employer has to reimburse [...]
About Rita M. Risser Chai
Rita M. Risser Chai was an attorney in California for 20 years and now is an attorney in Hawaii. She authored the Prentice Hall book, Stay Out of Court! The Manager’s Guide to Preventing Employee Lawsuits, and she developed most of the curriculum used by Fair Measures including the firm’s first website which was praised in HR Magazine. She also wrote numerous articles on employment law including one on best practice harassment prevention training published in the magazine of the American Society for Training and Development (now ATD). She taught Law and Human Resources at the University of California, Santa Cruz, for eight years, and has presented four times at the annual conventions of the Hawaii Society of Human Resource Management.Am I required by law to tell my boss if I’m dating my coworker?
Am I required by law to tell my boss if I'm dating my coworker? We're both assistant managers so our relationship is not breaking any rules [...]
Legal Training in the Trump Era
Since the 2016 election, you might be wondering: what’s the point of training managers to create respectful workplaces, when the tone at the top [...]
Email = Evidence That Proves Race Discrimination
Managers’ emails to each other about an African-American employee were used to prove race discrimination in a recent case. According to the emails, the [...]
Can they make me pay back the cost of certifications and drug testing?
I had started my employment in August and was given documentation to sign but it did not include a paper saying that if I [...]
Can they ask me why I can’t go to training on my day off?
Can an employer ask an employee why they cannot attend a training course that is outside of the employee's working schedule? (Days off) If [...]
Manager told the whole company the age of an employee – now what do we do?
I am an HR manager. An employee recently had a birthday and a manager wanted to do something special for them by having every [...]
How can I stop my employer from putting my name and picture online?
I have guarded my privacy zealously since before the internet age. Our company has employee pictures and bio info on the company website. I am [...]
Does a salary of $35,000 a year meet the new overtime exemption rules?
I was offered a managerial job with a contract to work 50 hours per week for an annual salary of $35,000. Would this make me [...]
Can a manager show performance reviews to a prospective employer calling for a reference?
Legally can I reveal a former employee's attendance record to a prospective employer, ie: absent 25/180 days, 15 no call/ no show. Second, are performance [...]