Editor’s Note

Workplaces are changing rapidly in response to Covid-19. In order to ensure the health and safety of everyone involved, organizations are promoting telework and remote work culture. However, remote work comes with its own set of legal risks and challenges to which companies need to be alert.

The October edition of HR Legal & Compliance Excellence is Themed on ‘Remote Work Laws’. We bring you a few hand-picked articles and hope these will help you understand the risks and challenges involved when employees work from home.
 

The general trend towards working from home has been accelerated by world events and it’s causing major headaches for cybersecurity professionals. Many organizations were simply unprepared to transition their workforce to a distributed model so rapidly, and many employees lack the education and knowledge they need to avoid cyberattacks and phishing scams.

Catch up with this month’s cover article Remote Working: Is Lack Of Proper Training Causing Security Breaches? by Stu Sjouwerman to address the knowledge gap to arrest the rising danger of security risks.
 
As the office environment changes, so too must the measures employers take to protect their business interests. One such measure — restrictive covenants — is often analyzed in terms of the reasonableness of duration and geographic scope. However but what happens when remote working renders the geographic scope meaningless? Read Jonathan D. Ash’s article Remote Working: It’s Time To Revisit Your Restrictive Covenants to know the answer and more.

Since the 1st August, employers have had more discretion to ask employees to return to the workplace, if it is safe to do so. The change comes as the government alters its ‘work from home if you can’ message and drops its advice against using public transport. “Do I have to return to work if I am concerned for my health and safety?” Pam Dosanjh, in her article, Returning To Work During The Coronavirus Crisis, will help you understand the rights of employees.
 
DOL's Revised Temporary Rule was issued in response to the recent decision by U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken of the Southern District of New York which had vacated portions of the DOL Temporary Regulations under the FFCRA (The Original Temporary Rule). Andrew L. Levy and Austin Wolfe, in their article Revised FFCRA’s Paid Sick Leave: What You Need To Know, shed light on the summary of the new law. 
 
This is not all. This month’s issue of HR Legal & Compliance Excellence brings to you the best practices and tools to keep yourself protected and compliant.

Stay Safe!
 

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