Chicago Paid Leave Ordinance Employers physically located within the City of Chicago need to be ready as of July 1 to implement the new Chicago Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave Ordinance, which stipulates that covered employees can earn up to 40 hours of paid sick leave and…
AI & Content Creation Businesses using generative AI programs like ChatGPT to create any content—whether for blogs, websites or other marketing materials, and whether text, visuals, sound or video—need to ensure that they’re not inadvertently using copyrighted materials in the process. Clearly, the times they are a changing….and businesses need…
How Can Generative AI Assist Your Business? What is generative artificial intelligence, embedded in applications such as ChatGPT? How could it help your business? What pitfalls should you avoid. What policies should you craft around it? This is no longer science fiction. AI has become a reality and every business…
Transit Benefits Required for Illinois Employers Another wrinkle for employers in the Chicago area. Businesses located in the six-county Chicago area near public transit routes operated by the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) that have at least 50 employees will be required as of Jan. 1, 2024, to provide their full-time…
Supreme Court Ruling on Religious Reasons Small businesses and other employers are likely to find it more difficult to refuse requests for religious accommodations after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in a recent case, Groff v. DeJoy, which concerned a postal worker who unsuccessfully requested to be off-the-clock every Sunday—when…
You Can, But Should You? To begin with, employers thinking about using AI such as ChatGPT during hiring and selection need to familiarize themselves with the technology at a conceptual level, and then look closely at—and understand well enough so they can explain to others—how AI integrates with their recruiting…
Are Non-Competes Really Enforceable? Most non-compete agreements between employers and employees violate the National Labor Relations Act, according to a May 30 memo from Jennifer A. Abruzzo, general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board. Such agreements, which bar employees from taking certain types of positions or running certain types…
The pros and cons of accepting Bitcoin and other online payments for small businesses What are the risks of small businesses taking payments in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies? What are the rewards? But first, for the uninitiated, what are cryptocurrencies in the first place? They are decentralized digital exchange media…
Self-certification for veteran-owned and service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses is being eliminated, and a number of other changes went into effect on January 1 as a result of an updated Final Rule from the Small Business Administration (SBA) about these types of awards, details of which will be posted in a…
Can You Keep a Secret? At the federal level, the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 created a pathway for civil action due to misappropriation of trade secrets; federal courts also can rule on criminal trade secret actions based on the Economic Espionage Act of 1996. The UTSA defines a…