Podcasts and Resources in this Roundup:
One of my employees has requested to come in an hour late and leave an hour early so they can drop off and pick up their child from school. I want to help my staff out when it comes to child care, but that’s two hours of work they will miss each day and I don’t think we can handle that. How far am I required to go to accommodate them?
The legal side of things: School schedule accommodations are a topic we get asked about regularly, especially at the beginning and end of the school year. The legal aspect is pretty straightforward - employers aren’t required to adjust employee work schedules or business hours to account for individual school or childcare schedules. This kind of request is personal and whether you approve or deny the request is entirely up to you.
Note that there can be legal protections for some other types of childcare or school needs. Some states have laws in place allowing parents to take time off from work for school meetings and attending their child’s school activities. States, cities, and counties with mandatory paid time off laws typically protect taking time off to care for a sick child, and to take care of their child if there’s an emergency school or daycare shut down.
Now for the human approach: You may not be legally required to grant their request, but of course that doesn’t mean you can’t. School and daycare schedules conflicting with work schedules is not uncommon so this is something many employers end up trying to help with.
Realistically this is going to come down to the needs of the employee’s position, and your overall staffing needs. Is their request even feasible for your business? If their requested schedule is going to have a negative impact on your business’ day to day, it’s okay to deny it. The risk, there, of course is that you lose the employee only to hire a replacement who comes with their own unique needs that present similar challenges.
It can be helpful to start with a collaborative approach and sit down with the employee for a brainstorm session. Does it have to be two hours each day? Is there a way for them to make up the hours so you can keep up with productivity? Sometimes going over options together can reveal unexpected solutions that give the employees flexibility while balancing business needs.
Extra Credit Reading: Supporting Employees in Balancing Childcare and Work Schedules
The legal side of things: Let’s do a high level view of this before getting to the fact of it being an OnlyFans – an applicant didn’t disclose having some other work on the side.
Finding out an employee failed to disclose a current or recent employer on their resume or in the interview can be a red flag. Hiding a past employer could mean that they engaged in misconduct working there and they don’t want you to find out about it. Hiding that they are currently working somewhere else is a concern because you need to be sure they are going to be available for the hours you schedule them, that they aren’t simultaneously working for a competitor, and that they aren’t going to be overly fatigued from the burnout of multiple jobs.
If you are a CEDR member, you have an Employee Handbook policy that says employees may be terminated if it’s discovered that anything was falsified in the application process. You also have a policy stating that employees need to inform you of any outside employment. This gives you immediate avenues to address finding out about information not being disclosed.
If you aren’t comfortable with the information not being disclosed, or with their ability to meet your job expectations due to a second job, in many situations you are able to end their employment or ask them to stop working elsewhere. Always run this scenario through an HR expert, however, to verify no state laws require additional steps or provide an extra layer of protection for employees in these areas.
Now for the human approach: Back to the specifics of this being an OnlyFans - do those same concerns and policies apply here? To be frank, we would be more surprised if someone did disclose having an OnlyFans on their resume or in the interview. This isn’t just because of the type of activity that is generally associated with OnlyFans.
There are many ways people are monetizing their online presence these days (think Instagram influencers, selling crafts on Etsy, etc.). This isn’t the type of work that most people would think of including when it comes to describing their work history. It probably isn’t related to the job they are applying for, and if it’s something they do working for themselves, it doesn’t usually pose a conflict with their ability to work a set schedule for an employer. So we wouldn’t really be concerned about those types of side gigs the same way we would if the person was going to work at a restaurant in the evening or doing temp work for a competing office on the weekends.
As far as it being outside employment they haven’t disclosed, since you are aware of it now you can certainly let the employee know you heard about it and ask them to provide you information about any outside work - the same way you would any other employee. Keep in mind the purpose here is that you are fully aware of their outside obligations so you can be sure it isn’t interfering with their work duties with you. Having a monetized online presence in their personal time is unlikely to cause those types of problems, as much as you may not personally like it.
Unless you can show that the employee’s account has a direct impact on your business, their work performance, or their ability to comply with your policies, you’re pretty limited in what you can do. While there may be a certain perception tied to having an OnlyFans account, it’s still (presumably) lawful off-duty conduct, which means it would be risky to try to regulate it.
If you were to learn that the employee has been making content on company property, or has otherwise shared in their content that they’re affiliated with your business, that’s a different story. In a case like that, it would be pretty easy to show that the employee’s account may impact your business and you would be able to take action.
Believe it or not, this question comes up pretty regularly. We highly recommend listening to this episode of What the Hell Just Happened?! for a deep dive into this topic.
One of my employees has been pretty actively sharing political posts on social media lately. A couple of my other employees have mentioned that their posts make them uncomfortable and they’re concerned about patients seeing them. I know everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, but is there anything I can do to make sure their posts aren’t tied back to the practice? What do I do if a patient sees them and complains?
The legal side of things: Employee social media use is a complicated topic, even more so when politics is involved. Whether there’s an issue for you to address at all comes down to what the employee’s posts say.At the forefront of this issue is that there are several state and federal laws that may protect your employee’s personal social media activity. Those rights have to be weighed against any impact someone’s speech has on your business and on your team. Just because something happens outside of the office doesn’t mean it won’t have ramifications inside the office.
If an employee is made to feel unsafe, or feel that a coworker is treating them differently due to some protected reason (race, gender, etc.) based on things they’re seeing online, this can become a serious HR matter to resolve.
Keep in mind that you can’t outright prohibit the employee from naming your business as their place of employment on their social media platforms (it violates the NLRA), but you can reiterate that if their activities or posts impact the business by upsetting fellow employees or patients, you will not stand by and will take action.
Having a strong and legally written social media employee handbook policy can really help. It should make it clear that harassing, discriminatory, or violent comments are a violation of your policy and remind employees that their online behavior can potentially be seen as a representation of the business. Having this policy in place will be your biggest help should you find yourself needing to take any action with an employee based on a social media post.
Now for the human approach: Because other employees have reported their posts and have expressed concern, it would be appropriate to address the posts during a private conversation with the employee.
Because other employees have reported the posts and have expressed concern, it would be appropriate to have a private conversation with them about it.
Most of the time, we recommend that you have the employees fill out an Employee Concern Form. At the very least, please take notes of their concerns and place them in writing in a file.
Let the employees know that in most cases, unless there is something discriminatory, unlawful, or a threat to the practice or them personally, the practice can not play a role in regulating someone’s off duty statements on social media. You can assure them that if blowback occurs and it starts to impact the practice, you will take additional steps.
If the social media posts are something that causes you concern, reach out to an HR expert to discuss a plan of action. Speech that is unlawful or threatening may be something you want to deal with, but in order to do so, you really have to understand the laws and the limitations before you act. You must come up with a plan with a professional who understands the issues.
Because social media use can have a lot of gray areas, we strongly suggest speaking to an HR expert before taking any action against an employee based on their personal social media use. Unfortunately, there’s a good chance this issue is going to come up a lot more due to this year’s election. Our Politics in the Workplace blog has some more guidance to help you navigate this issue.
