🚨 Vote for the Worst Employer of 2025 🚨

It's the most wonderful time of the year! I've made my list, checked it twice, and now it's time to determine who's been the naughtiest and not very nice. That's right—it's time to vote for The Worst Employer of 2025.

I've narrowed down my list of 12 nominees to the worst seven finalists.

Jury tags SHRM for $11.5 million in discrimination lawsuit

$11.5 million!

That's the number a jury needed to send a very loud, very clear message to the Society for Human Resource Management — the self-proclaimed standard-bearer of HR "best practices."

Last week's verdict against SHRM — $1.5 million in compensatory damages and a staggering $10 million in punitive damages — is not just a legal loss. It's an institutional indictment. When the organization that tells the rest of us how to run fair, lawful, ethical workplaces gets hit for racial discrimination and retaliation, the problem is bigger than one terminated instructional designer.

WIRTW #782: the 'lights' edition

I've always loved Christmas lights.

Maybe it’s because, growing up Jewish, we never decked out our house each December with strings of twinkling bulbs. So as an adult, one of my favorite nights of the entire year is the evening my family piles into the car and cruises around to take in the neighborhood displays. It's simple, it's cozy, and it never fails to make me smile.

Two houses just up the street from me perfectly capture the annual holiday condundrm:

🎄 Do you prefer "A" — the full Clark Griswold experience, with tens of thousands of lights, glowing inflatables, and enough wattage to be seen from the ISS?

🎄 Or "B" — the Hallmark Movie/Norman Rockwell classic, with warm white lights, clean lines, and understated charm?

While I absolutely appreciate the effort and awe of the Griswold approach (seriously, that's dedication!), my heart leans toward the quieter, timeless elegance of the Hallmark version.

So, I'm curious: which christmas-lights team are you on—A or B? And more importantly … why?

'Tis the season for strong opinions on holiday lighting. 

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Here's what I read this week that you should read, too.

Independent contractors and noncompete agreements do not mix

I've always believed that noncompetes and "independent contractor" status don't mix. Now I have an appellate opinion to back me up.

In Reliant Services v. Brown, a construction-staffing company tried to enforce a noncompete against a punch-list worker it had consistently called an independent contractor. Reliant wanted to stop him from doing the exact same punch-list work directly for Ryan Homes — the same work he'd been doing for decades before ever meeting Reliant.

Here's the problem: you can't call someone "independent," claim they run their own business, and then turn around and try to control where they work, who they can work for, and what they can do once they stop working for you. That's the very definition of control. And control is the dividing line between an employee and an independent contractor.

The most puzzling HR litigation strategy you’ll read this week

Every so often a litigation strategy comes along that just makes you stare at the screen, shake your head, and think, "Did a lawyer really decide this was the best idea, and how much did they bill for it?"

SHRM — the world's largest human resources trade group and an organization that literally brands itself as THE authority on HR — asked a federal court to prohibit a plaintiff from referring to it as an expert in human resources.

Yes, you read that right. SHRM didn't want a jury to hear that … SHRM is an expert in human resources.

The 12th nominee for The Worst Employer of 2025 is … The Corpse Killer

Some stories hit you like a punch to the gut. This one is a full-on knockout.

The House Ways and Means Committee just dropped a bombshell on the New Jersey Organ and Tissue Sharing Network—one of the nation's 55 federally designated organ procurement organizations. The details are disturbing.

According to a letter the Committee released, investigators have uncovered what they call "extreme abuse of public trust" and potentially illegal conduct.

If you aim to hit the legal floor, your workplace will always miss the mark

If your defense to a harassment complaint starts with "well, technically…" you've already lost — even if you win the lawsuit.

A recent Sixth Circuit decision, Wargo v. MJR Partridge Creek Digital Cinema, is the latest reminder that "not illegal" is a terrible benchmark for acceptable workplace behavior.

The court held that the manager's conduct toward a female subordinate — repeated dinner invitations, personal texts, following her in his car, blocking a door during an argument, even grabbing her arm for several seconds — didn't meet the very high bar for unlawful sexual harassment. The standard is "severe or pervasive."