PPB February 2016

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these new rules, which are expected to
increase the minimum weekly pay from $455
to $970. The Administration is also expected
to expand “ban the box” policies which
require that public sector employers and fed-
eral contractors delay inquiring about the
criminal background of job seekers until they
are well along in the hiring process. All of
these initiatives are within the administrative
authority of the presidency and are not sub-
ject to congressional approval. You can expect
that they will be implemented in 2016.
Our recommendation: Regardless of who
wins the presidential election this year, many of
the regulatory provisions promoted on the fed-
eral level do not require congressional approval
and are likely to be implemented in 2016.
Therefore, it is best to make sure your policies
and practices are up to date and compliant.
Claudia St. John is president of
Affinity HR Group, LLC, PPAI’s
human resources affiliate.
Affinity HR Group specializes in
providing human resources
assistance to associations and
their member companies.
many employers opt to not allow
their non-exempt employees to
work from home.
Q. We have an employee who
was terminated for poor perform-
ance. Now she is applying for
another job and they are calling
and asking for a reference.
Honestly, she was terrible and I
would never hire her again. Can I
tell the new employer that?
The current “best practice” is
to provide only verification of
employment dates and salary
when providing a reference. In
most cases, this is a good prac-
tice, but if your ex-employee was
fired for a serious incident—vio-
lence, theft and discrimination,
for example—it’s better to be
honest about your reasons for
termination. This is because if an
employer hires the ex-employee
based in part on your reference
and the employee goes on to do
harm, you could bear some
responsibility in that negligent
hire.
Q. We want to require our
employees to read, speak and
write English at work. Is such a
policy legal?
A policy like this would need
to be strictly scrutinized. For
example, let’s say you are hiring
a cleaning crew for your building.
Given the chemicals that they
use and the interactions that
they may have with the tenants,
it may be appropriate that they
be sufficiently fluent to speak,
read and write in English to per-
form the duties of the job.
However, it is hard to imagine
what the business case would
be to require that they speak
English with one another instead
of their native language while
performing the duties of their
job.
Continued From Previous Page
FEBRUARY 2016 • PPB • 65
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