Sandy Seay, Owner, Seay Management Consultants
Unemployment Compensation can be a large expense for employers in terms of taxes and time spent responding to unemployment claims. For the most part, Unemployment Compensation matters are administered by the individual states, not the federal
government, although the federal government has its toe in the water to some degree. In most states, if an employee is laid off or loses his or her job as a result of COVID, that employee is eligible for unemployment compensation. This includes regular state unemployment, which varies from state to state.
However, the danger of identity theft has now moved into the Unemployment Compensation arena where unknown individuals are stealing the identities of employees and then fraudulently filing for and receiving Unemployment Benefits. Reports tell us that this is a scam of up to a billion dollars, perhaps more. As an employer, you find out about it when an employee gets a notice from the state unemployment office indicating that he or she is receiving benefits the employee never applied for or when you receive a notice of benefits paid from your account, sent to you by your state unemployment office.
If this happens to one of your employees, it’s critically important for you to notify your unemployment office immediately. Otherwise, this could be charged to your company’s unemployment compensation account and could dramatically increase your unemployment taxes that you pay to the state and federal government.
As the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and various state and local enforcement agencies continue to expand the definition of unlawful discrimination and add additional areas of prohibited employment discrimination, we are now seeing the
emergence of CROWN, which is discrimination against race-based hairstyle. CROWN is an acronym which stands for “Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair” and prohibits employers from making an employment decision based on a person’s hairstyle.
As of this writing, eight states have passed a CROWN law and 25 other states have it under consideration. The eight states that have already passed a CROWN law are California, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Colorado, Maryland, Connecticut and
Washington. A number of individual municipalities have also passed a CROWN law.
The CROWN Act was created in 2019 by Dove and the CROWN coalition to ensure protection against discrimination based “on race-based hairstyles by extending statutory protection to hair texture and protective styles such as braids, locs, twists and knots in the workplace and in public schools.”
If you have employees in states or municipalities that have passed the CROWN Act, we recommend that you add a provision to your employee handbook in your Equal Employment Opportunity policy. For example, “In addition, we do not discriminate on the basis of race-based hairstyles.”
This new requirement raises several questions which will need to be worked out over time; one possible question being to what extent will this requirement affect dress codes and interaction with customers? For many years, EEOC gave employers wide latitude in establishing dress codes. In the last several years, EEOC has added language protecting employees who have dress or grooming practices based on a religious belief. We recommend that you include this language in your employee handbook as well.
Seay Management offers a variety of Human Resources topics that are available on FRSA’s website, www.floridaroof.com, under the “Members Only” section and include DOL updates, advice on dismissing an employee, travel time, paid breaks, vaccine mandates, FMLA and more.
Seay Management Consultants is a nationally known Human Resources Management Consulting firm that has been in operation since 1966 and has more than 400 clients throughout the country. As an FRSA member, Seay Management Employment services
are available to you to answer your questions about employment and Human Resources issues such as compensation, wage and hour, hiring, dismissal, personnel policies and more. FRSA members are entitled to call Seay Management for free and talk with a
consultant whenever you have a Human Resources question or issue. FRSA provides this service to members at no cost as a value added member benefit.
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