Event Details

Speaker:  Jason Reisman, Labor and Employment Law Attorney, Partner at Blank Rome LLP

Presentation Overview:  As an HR leader, driving compliance with the highly technical and often tedious wage and hour laws requires a balanced understanding of the issues along with a keen ability to communicate and to engage in strategic policy-making.  With the explosion of overtime lawsuits under the Fair Labor Standards Act over the last 15 years, and now the new “white collar exemption” regulations, every workplace in America must be paying attention to wage and hour compliance.  It can be overwhelming and intimidating (not to mention downright scary) facing a Department of Labor investigation, evaluating exempt status, and even the everyday workplace issues involving tracking of “hours worked,” avoiding potential “off-the-clock” work, and calculating proper overtime.  This presentation is designed to provide insights about the new proposed regulations, interacting with the Department of Labor, and some of the most commonly encountered wage and hour problems.  I will offer advice about addressing such issues to minimize legal risk. 

• Participants will walk away armed with the confidence to communicate with management and the workforce about the goals and efforts of the current U.S. Department of Labor, including the new “white collar exemption regulations” and overtime compliance endeavors, and also with practical guidance to recognize and strategically address some of the everyday wage and hour workplace pitfalls.
•  One of my critical goals is to raise the participants’ sensitivity to, or create a heightened awareness of, the issues discussed.  The participants will then return to the workplace to encourage an evaluation of internal policies and controls to better ensure preparedness for the final regulations, proactive prevention, and reduction of risk (i.e., lessen the chance of a lawsuit or Department of Labor audit).
• All of the information shared will have an immediate impact.   Every HR leader must be continually alert for the potential legal risks that lurk in the workplace, especially when: (1) it is entirely too easy to find a lawyer to sue the company these days, and (2) wage and hour lawsuits (and Department of Labor investigations) remain the hottest employment issues on the planet, not to mention that the lawsuits tend to be “collective (and class) actions” seeking to organize a class of plaintiffs.