HR Works: The Podcast for Human Resource‪s‬ James Davis

As many of you may know, there are basically two exemptions when employers mandate COVID-19 vaccinations: medical and religious. Most of us can wrap our heads around a medical exemption because such exemptions are a little more concrete than their religious counterparts. In this episode, we are going to discuss religious exemptions for the COVID-19 vaccine in some detail. We are going to learn how it applies, what the limitations are, and how HR can interact with employees that claim such an exemption.

I am pleased to be joined today by Morgan E. Geffre (https://www.foulston.com/who-we-are/morgan-e-geffre), an Associate at Foulston’s Employment & Labor Law Practice Group (https://www.foulston.com) in Wichita, Kansas. She assists employers with the review and development of comprehensive employment policies and procedures and proactively researches rapidly evolving issues to help clients stay ahead of developing legal trends. Morgan writes in-depth about relevant legal matters for the Midwest Employment Law Letter and Kansas Employment Law Blog.

For more details on this topic, check out Morgan's recently published article (https://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2021/02/08/tips-for-judging-sincerity-of-employees-religious-beliefs).

The pandemic ensured that so much of our communication takes place remotely through chats, phone calls, video conferences, and e-mails. While these methods of communication keep organizations alive, they also leave a lot behind. How do we recover the value of in-person communication? The answer might be AI that offers real-time analysis to stakeholders during meetings.

This episode is part of the HR Daily Advisor’s HR Technology Week 2021 (https://interactive.blr.com/HR-Tech-Week-2021). Our goal is to discuss HR technology in general, and AI technology specifically with our guest, Neil Sahota (https://www.neilsahota.com/), an IBM Master Inventor, United Nations A.I. Advisor, professor at UC Irvine, and globally-recognized speaker and author.

Neil is a founding member of the UN’s Artificial Intelligence for Social Good Committee. He is the author of Own the A.I.Revolution, providing a future-forward look at A.I., focusing on how businesses can use it to commercialize while doing good in the world.

In this episode we are going to look at the relief package that is being kicked around between the House and the Senate, and what some of the provisions might mean for employers and employment law. President Joe Biden’s goals are clear and well outlined (https://joebiden.com/covid-plan/). They indicate a number of desired changes that would influence employment law.

We are pleased to have back with us today the illustrious Maggie Spell (https://www.joneswalker.com/professionals/mary-margaret-spell.html), partner at the New Orleans location of Jones Walker (https://www.joneswalker.com).


Maggie focuses her practice on cases brought under federal, state, and local employment laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. She regularly offers wage and hour compliance advice and has represented employers in numerous Fair Labor Standards Act collective actions and state-law wage and hour class actions.

In this episode, we examine the nature of employer lawsuits that are COVID-related. We’ll find out what lawsuits are on the rise and how employers can avoid them.

Here to talk about these and other legal issues is employment lawyer and member of Clark Hill (https://www.clarkhill.com) in Collin County Texas, Kim Moore (https://www.clarkhill.com/people/kimberly-s-moore).

Kim Moore has been pragmatically solving employer's problems for almost twenty-five years. A board-certified employment lawyer with an MBA and extensive experience in and out of the courtroom. Kim is passionate about achieving the client's goals in non-compete, theft of trade secrets, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and wage and hour matters.

Kim genuinely enjoys her work, particularly understanding each client's business and its people. Kim serves as the Member in Charge of the firm's Collin County office. Kim is also a AAA trained mediator. She uses her knowledge to help parties resolve all types of conflicts.

Last year saw so many additional deaths due to COVID-19 and related causes that the life expectancy in the United States has dropped by 1.13 years. That means employers will be encountering unexpected employee deaths more frequently.

How do leaders and HR handle this? How do they share the information with your employees? How can they find a balance of grieving and support?
In this episode, we have with us Kari Niblack, the CEO of ACS Benefit Services (https://www.acsbenefitservices.com/) in North Carolina. She had to personally face this situation and is here to discuss her experiences and what she learned.

In this episode, we will be taking a hard look at how mothers in particular fared over the last year, the impact that the pandemic had on them, and how employers better position themselves to support mothers and create a place for them in the next normal. The issue will be discussed from an HR perspective as well as an employment law perspective.

Our first guest is Kara Shea (https://www.butlersnow.com/attorney/kara-shea/), an attorney with Butler Snow (https://www.butlersnow.com/) in Nashville, TN. Kara is a member and Practice Group Leader for Labor and Employment. She regularly counsels clients in financial services, healthcare, and home health industries on employment law compliance. She has extensive trial and appellate experience in Tennessee and around the country.

Our other guest is Michelle Keefe, CEO of Momup (https://www.momup.com/). As a stay at home mom, Michelle discovered like many of her friends she wanted to continue her career path with businesses that value work/life balance. She found herself surrounded by highly educated, skilled, energetic multitasking mega stars that were unemployed and looking for new exciting challenges. She realized by forging partnerships with progressive companies and connecting them with skilled talent Mom Up could make a huge impact. She holds a graduate degree from Harvard University and an ungraduated degree from the University of Notre Dame.