Did you know that your spouse needs to sign off if you designate anyone else as your life insurance beneficiary? Because if you croak, life insurance doesn’t want to get in the middle of your family drama. 

West Hollywood has two types of protected leave, each of which follows its own accrual schedule: Uncompensated Leave (what’s the point?) where you can take unpaid time off without getting fired; Compensated Leave that you can take for whatever reason you damned well please. Compensated Leave (CL) can fall under your combined/vacation policy, but it accrues much faster and has a higher limit than state sick time.  Which means that people can accrue up to 4.8 weeks of time off

To state the obvious: When you mess with people’s rights, sh*t gets real. And there are IRL consequences when you get the balance wrong.

Most states have regulations that fall into a few easy categories: Do you protect 12 weeks of leave, even if the company isn’t covered by FMLA? Do you have a state-paid program?

Every law tells a story. Something happened to make the legislature need to put a law in writing. This labor poster from Georgia is no exception. And the story it tells is pretty grim.

Every decision looks different in the abstract vs. when you have a real person sitting in front of you. If fairness requires that someone makes a decision that feels shitty, give your decision-makers the context that they need to follow the policy (and still sleep at night).

I’m launching a Substack where I’ll anthologize my more informational content into practical, educational posts that tell you how I actually GSD.  You can expect thrilling topics like state labor regulations, insurance regulations, payroll tax insights, deep dives into obscure payroll settings, workflow design, free practical resources, calls to action, and buttons to click.

The worst states to have a baby in are the ones with no state-paid programs at all. You'd be better off if you were laid off. At least then you’d be eligible for unemployment. But it would be illegal to lay you off for having a baby, of course. So I guess the people in these states are screwed.

Managing all of this takes time and brain power. You’re contacting the employee, looking up policy details, doing unconfident math, and trying to figure out payroll work-arounds. The lost productivity cancels out the amount you’re saving by relying on these outside subsidies. Meanwhile, the new parent thinks it’s all your fault and blames you for the terrible experience you’re putting them through.

I get that it’s expensive to pay someone not to work for several months, but there are strong business reasons why you should do it anyway. 

If you’ve been trapped in your workplace unable to leave, eating Doritos from the vending machine for dinner and sleeping under your desk, should you be paid for that time?

These days, it seems obvious that workers should be able to demand an accurate accounting for their time. But it wasn’t always that way. 

But hang on, what’s the point of making someone find a printer, and a scanner, and a pen, and those little “sign here” stickies anyway? Why, crime, of course!

Open-floor-plan offices may not compare to the shipyards, manufacturing plants, and airports that first brought over-ear headphones to the workplace. But noise pollution is still a serious issue in knowledge work. 

When someone is paid for a day they didn't work, it MUST be entered into payroll as some kind of Paid Time Off type. Otherwise, there's no way to pay it. Most of the uncommon leave types don't allow negative balances in payroll systems. So if your time off isn't allocated to another bucket, it can't get paid. The discrepancy could even block payroll and prevent everyone from getting paid.

Your handbook should help people make decisions. Not just disciplinary decisions. The handbook should draw bright lines where possible, and give guidance for situations that are unclear. Your handbook should give guidance on the unspoken habits your organization runs on.

Hiring the right people is only one ingredient to elite operations. Excellence is also about preventing the circumstances that leave room for mistakes. The procedures for putting down the CAUTION WET FLOOR signs that prevent the slip-and-falls of history. 

Worst of all, striking fear into every HR leader and PeopleOps specialist is the Parental Leave Policy 😱. Parental leave isn’t just about giving people 12 weeks off. 

Hourly workers often accrue time off based on the time actually worked, which may or may not be under their control.

Rudeness bothers me. It occurred to me that I could refuse in protest. Make everyone wait until the woman came out of the handicapped stall so we could all stare her down as she washed her hands.