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How to Build a Compassionate Workplace
If your diverse workforce does not understand or care for one another, you do not have inclusion. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) in the workforce are a practice. You can have a very diverse workforce, but if your workforce does not underst …
Ask Rita: What Is a Hostile Work Environment?
How to handle use of the label when a protected class isn’t involved Dear Rita: I’m uncertain how to handle a growing trend among my employees. Whenever some of our employees are unhappy about the way things are going at work, they say they are working …
Ask Rita: How Can We Help Our Employee Care for Family During Covid-19?
Dear Rita: Our nonprofit has an employee who has been with us five years. She is a good worker who has always been able to balance work and personal needs well. Until the Covid-19 pandemic hit. This employee has three school-age children whose school c …
Ask Rita: I’m Confused Over EXEMPT vs. NONEXEMPT and SALARIED vs. HOURLY Employees
Dear Rita: I’ve recently started a new position in my nonprofit’s HR department. I’ve been instructed that my duties will involve classifying employees as exempt or nonexempt. In my experience in other HR departments, I always classified employees as e …
Ask Rita: How Does the Americans with Disabilities Act Impact Our Efforts to Keep Employees Safe During the Covid-19 Pandemic?
Dear Rita: We operate a nonprofit social services agency. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, we have taken what we believe to be very aggressive steps to protect our nonprofit’s clients and employees. These efforts include taking the body temperatur …
Hiring People with Disabilities Is Not a Charity: Here’s Why and How to Stop Paying Subminimum Wage
In the age of Covid-19, the workplace is more flexible than employers thought possible. It’s time to apply the same innovations to employees with disabilities. Minimum wage exemptions date from 1938, a time when people with disabilities did not have a …
Ask Rita: US Supreme Court Granted New Protection for LGBTQ+ Employees—What Do We Need to Know?
Dear Rita: Our nonprofit is in a state that does not recognize protections for gay, lesbian, or transgender workers. What do we need to do now that the Supreme Court has decided this is a new protected class of workers? Signed, Trying to Do the Right T …
Ask Rita: How Can I Deal with an Employee’s Offensive Social Media Post?
Dear Rita: The recent demonstrations around the country have been of considerable interest to our nonprofit’s staff. We encourage open discussions of the issues, and most of the discussions have been courteous and respectful of everyone’s views. One of …
Ask Rita: For What Work-Related Expenses Must I Reimburse Remote Employees?
Dear Rita: In light of the Covid-19 pandemic orders in our state to stay at home, we have made the transition to our employees working remotely from their homes. This effort has been fairly successful despite the fact that we did not have a formal poli …
The Truth, Even When Unpleasant, Can Always Be Explained: Nonprofit Pointers for Conduct in Court
In art, fiction may be the lie that reveals the truth, but in the courtroom, all that fiction ever reveals is culpability. And it never ends well. More than once in the past months, I’ve faced fiction in the courtroom. An employee of a nonprofit client …
