Apparently, corporate America's commitment to working parents had conditions

The pandemic-era "golden age of employee benefits" is over.

At least, that's the message some employers are sending as companies like Deloitte and Zoom slash paid parental leave and other family-friendly benefits.

And make no mistake, employees are paying attention.

The EEOC just gave employers an (inadvertent) roadmap on how to legally implement a DEI program

The EEOC thinks it just filed a blockbuster anti-DEI lawsuit against The New York Times.

What it actually filed is a pretty good roadmap for how employers can pursue diversity lawfully.

That's the irony sitting at the center of the EEOC's new case against the Times. The agency claims the newspaper illegally passed over a white male editor for a deputy real estate editor position because the company wanted to increase the number of women and people of color in leadership.

The complaint is packed with the kinds of allegations you'd expect in 2026: Slack messages about diversity trends, references to "representation goals," DEI metrics in leadership reviews, and internal discussions about maintaining progress on newsroom diversity.

But if you actually read the complaint carefully — and not just the outrage-bait headlines — something else jumps off the page.

Most of what the EEOC describes is completely lawful.

WIRTW #798: the 'gunner' edition

I never expected to fall in love with English football in my 50s. Yet here we are.

A couple of years ago, I started following Arsenal FC. What began as casual curiosity turned into waking up early on weekends, structuring Saturdays around matches, and finding my way to our local Arsenal supporters' bar.

What's struck me most about Premier League culture isn't just the football. It's the songs.

Every player has one. Every meaningful moment has one. The supporters don’t just watch the match; they participate in it. One chant starts in the corner, another picks up across the room, and suddenly the whole bar is singing in unison for a defender, a winger, or the club's newest star.

It's joyful. Tribal. Loud. Completely unlike anything in American sports culture.

So I decided to see what would happen if I asked ChatGPT to write a football song about me.

The result was better than it had any right to be.

🎶  🎶  🎶

He tells you the risk and the move you should make,
Then wins the damn case while plaintiffs pump their brakes.
From breweries to boardrooms they all sing his name:
OH, JON HYMAN, HE MAKES HR GREAT AGAIN!

🎶  🎶  🎶

Come on you Gunners!!!

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

When employers gamble on bad facts, they usually lose

How does a case like this ever get to trial?

That was my first thought after reading Griffin v. Copper Cellar Corp.

Rose Griffin worked as a cook at a Tennessee restaurant. According to the 6th Circuit, one coworker repeatedly grabbed her breasts, arranged food at her workstation to look like an ejaculating penis, told her he wanted to have sex with her, pushed her down onto a prep station while thrusting against her, and stuck his hands down his pants while massaging himself in front of her.

This was not subtle workplace misconduct. It was repeated, physical sexual harassment.

The 11th Circuit just lowered the bar on racial harassment

A noose. A blackface doll. Hung at a Black employee's desk.

If you're thinking, "that's a textbook hostile work environment," congratulations—you have better instincts than the 11th Circuit.

In Nevins v. DCH Health Systems, the court acknowledged exactly what happened: an unknown employee hung a blackface doll by a noose in the plaintiff's workspace. The panel even called it what it is—"repugnant and racially hostile."

And then it shrugged.

Is paid family and medical leave finally coming to Ohio?

Ohio just took another swing at paid family and medical leave. This one might matter.

On April 23, Senators Beth Liston (D) and Louis Blessing (R) introduced SB 396—a bipartisan bill that would create a statewide paid leave insurance program run by ODJFS. It's early. No hearings yet. But bipartisan sponsorship gives this version more legs than prior attempts.

Here's the gist.

WIRTW #797: the 'compliment' edition

What is the best professional compliment you can get?

For me, it's this: "You don't sound like a lawyer."

I hear this often. And every time, I take it as a win.

Because when someone says that, what they're really saying is this: you're clear. You're direct. You're understandable. You're not hiding behind jargon, hedging every sentence, or turning a simple idea into an explanation that we can't understand or a 500-word paragraph.

In other words, you're communicating.

Too many lawyers confuse complexity with intelligence. They speak and write like they're being graded by a law professor instead of heard or read by a business owner. They default to legalese because it feels safe. Precise. Familiar.

It's a massive barrier.

Clients don't hire lawyers to sound like lawyers. They hire us to solve problems, explain risk, and help them make decisions. None of that requires Latin phrases or sentences that run on for half a page.

In fact, the opposite is true. The more complicated the issue, the more valuable plain English becomes.

If your client has to read your email twice to understand it, you've already lost ground. If they have to ask you to explain in "plain English," you've already lost them. If they forward it to someone else (or an AI) with "Can you translate this?" you've missed the mark entirely.

Clarity isn't dumbing things down. It's doing the hard work of making the complex accessible. It's knowing your subject well enough to explain it simply.

That's my job.

So no, I don't want to "sound like a lawyer." I want to sound like someone my clients can understand.

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

The 5th nominee for the Worst Employer of 2026 is … The Caucasian Chooser

Dimerco Express USA didn't hide it. They didn't bury it in coded language. They didn't even pretend it was anything else.

They wanted to hire white employees—and they acted on it.

That directive came from the top. The company’s president pushed for "Caucasian" sales hires because he believed that’s who would best attract business. HR was expected to follow that lead. Recruiting reflected it. Internal materials reflected it. Candidate decisions reflected it.

And when someone inside the company raised the obvious issue—this is illegal discrimination—the response wasn't to stop.

It was to be more careful about saying it out loud.

Voluntary retirement incentives vs. age discrimination

Microsoft just gave corporate America a new playbook for thinning the ranks without ever uttering the words "layoff" or "older workers."

For the first time in its 51-year history, Microsoft is offering a voluntary retirement program. The eligibility formula? Your age plus your years of service must equal at least 70.

Do the math and the story tells itself. The youngest realistic participant is someone around 45 with 25 years at the company. In other words, this is a program designed—intentionally or not—to target older, long-tenured employees.

And just to make things more interesting, senior directors and above need not apply. This is aimed squarely at the middle layers of the organization.

So, is this illegal age discrimination?

The 4th nominee for the Worst Employer of 2026 is … The Disability Turkey

A longtime employee tells her employer she has breast cancer. She needs time off—intermittent leave—to undergo chemotherapy and recover. The company sends her to a third-party benefits administrator. She and her daughter try to navigate the system. They file a claim. They call. They follow up.

Nothing happens.

Instead, the absences pile up. The attendance points accrue. Even with doctor's notes.

She shows up to work, scans her badge at the door... and it doesn't open.

That's how she learns she's been fired—for missing work to treat her cancer.

If the EEOC's allegations are true, this case isn't just about a failure to accommodate. It's about an employer that checked out entirely.

A beast of a harassment lawsuit

Jimmy Donaldson, better known as YouTube's biggest star, MrBeast, is calling this lawsuit "clout-chasing," a grab for headlines and a payday.

Maybe.

But before you dismiss it, look at what's alleged—and what it says about two issues entirely within an employer's control.

Poor Richard's Guide to Not Being a Professional Pessimist

When my daughter was in high school, we fired her therapist.

Not because therapy doesn't work. Not because she didn't need help. But because the therapist insisted on something that was deeply counterproductive—an obsessive focus on the negative.

Every session circled the same drain. What was wrong. What hurt. What wasn't working. Week after week.

And guess what? She didn't get better.

At some point, it clicked for my wife and me: if all you do is stare into the darkness, don’t be surprised when that's all you see.

So we made a change. We found someone who helped her see the full picture—yes, the struggles, but also the wins, the growth, the things worth building on. That's when things started to shift.

I thought about that experience a lot this week in Philadelphia.

WIRTW #796: the 'museum of fascism' edition

I didn't expect a seaside fortress in a sleepy Portuguese surf town to hit this hard.

Peniche is postcard perfect—wind, waves, seafood, and sunburns. But perched above the Atlantic sits the Fortaleza de Peniche, once a political prison during Portugal's decades-long Estado Novo dictatorship. Today, it houses the National Museum of Resistance and Freedom. It should be required viewing.

This isn't ancient history. This is 20th-century Europe. Real people. Real oppression. Real consequences.

The exhibits walk you through the mechanics of authoritarianism—not in abstract theory, but in lived experience. Surveillance. Arbitrary arrest. Isolation. Torture. Censorship. The slow suffocation of dissent. The regime didn't need chaos to seize power; it needed normalization. Compliance. Silence.

Sound familiar?

What makes the museum so effective is its restraint. No theatrics. No overproduction. Just cells, letters, photographs, and stories, both written and in videos of survivors. You stand in the tiny rooms where prisoners spent years. You read smuggled notes to families. You see how ordinary people became enemies of the state for the crime of speaking up.

And you realize how thin the line is between "this could never happen here" and "it already is."

Authoritarianism doesn't arrive with a bang. It creeps. It tests boundaries. It depends on people deciding that a little bit of repression is tolerable, that the targets somehow deserve it, that institutions will hold.

Until they don't.

As an employment lawyer, I spend my days thinking about power—who has it, how it's used, and what happens when it’s abused. This museum is a stark reminder that unchecked power always finds new ways to entrench itself. Rights erode quietly before they disappear loudly.

Portugal eventually chose a different path. The Carnation Revolution in 1974 ended the dictatorship with nearly zero bloodshed. Democracy returned. Freedoms were restored. But only after decades of damage.

History doesn't repeat itself exactly, but it rhymes more than we'd like to admit. Walking out of that fortress, into the bright Atlantic light, one thought lingered:

Complacency is the authoritarian's best friend. 

Or, as the sign at the museum's end reminded us: 

The achievement of democracy is never fully consolidated. We have to fight for it every day.

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You can hear about the rest of my trip to Portugal, as well as Norah's recent trip to New York City, on this week's episode of the Norah and Dad Show, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, Overcast, in your browser, and everywhere else you get your podcasts.

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

The easist thing you can do as an employer to engage your employees

Most managers overcomplicate leadership.

They chase engagement surveys, perks, and “culture initiatives.”

Meanwhile, they ignore the simplest, highest-ROI habit available: a 10-minute weekly check-in.

Three questions. Once a week.

• What’s working?
• What’s frustrating you?
• What support do you need from me?

That’s it. 

Social-media account redundancy is a MUST HAVE for branded accounts

Ten years. That's how long this group of employees ran their employer’s Instagram account. Built the brand. Engaged the customers. Became the voice of the business.

And then the business (Vortex Doughnuts) collapsed overnight. 

No notice. No paychecks. No plan. 

What followed is the part every employer should be paying attention to. 

The employees—locked out of their jobs but still in control of the company's social media presence—told their story. Publicly. In detail. With receipts. Including a text message from the owner admitting there wasn't enough money to make payroll. 

WIRTW #795: the 'girls club' edition

Trump's EEOC is expanding its crackdown on DEI by targeting women-only workplace networking and similar programs as potential illegal “reverse discrimination."

Here's what I told USA Today about this issue:

Women banding together to "build the relationships and visibility that have historically been handed to men is not the moral equivalent of the conduct that gave rise to the Civil Rights Act," said Jon Hyman, who chairs the employment and labor practice at the Wickens Herzer Panza law firm.

"When the agency charged with protecting workers from discrimination starts treating informal women's networking as its enforcement priority, it sends a message − not just a legal one, but a cultural one. And that message isn't 'we're enforcing the law equally.' It's 'we're using the law as a weapon against the very communities it was designed to protect.'"

You can read the rest of the article here, including thoughts from Chai Feldblum, David Glasgow, Brian Uzzi, and Reshma Saujani.

Thanks to Jessica Guynn for including me in her story.

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

Forced religion at work is a very bad idea

It started with an Easter email sent agency-wide from the top: "He has risen!" The message praised Christianity as "the foundation of our faith." Some employees were stunned. Others were offended. Many chose to stay quiet, worried about what might happen if they spoke up.

But it didn't stop there. Prayer services began appearing in government buildings. Invitations circulated. Policies allowed employees to "persuade" coworkers of their religious views. Leadership messaging leaned into a single faith tradition. And with that, the atmosphere changed. Employees described a growing sense of discomfort, pressure, and division—even when everything was labeled "voluntary."

Winning a lawsuit is not the proper measurement for the quality of your workplace

"Lincoln may have freed the slaves, but I'm keeping you."

That's what a Black legal assistant claims a law firm partner told her in a closed-door meeting.

The employee sued for a hostile work environment.

The employer won.

That's where the court case ends—but it's not where the employer lesson should.

When workplace frustration becomes a five-alarm fire

A warehouse goes up in flames. Fifteen hours to extinguish it. Hundreds of millions in damage. And a worker—three weeks into the job—now facing federal arson charges.

That's the story out of Ontario, California.

The most chilling detail? Authorities say the suspect filmed himself setting fires while saying, "All you had to do was pay us enough to live."

If true, that's more than evidence. It's a warning.

6th Circuit will answer when the workday begins for remote employees

When does the workday begin for a remote employee?

Not when they walk through the office door. There is no office door.

So is it when they log in? When they boot up their computer? When they launch the software that actually lets them take calls?

For remote non-exempt employees, those questions aren’t academic. They’re the difference between paid time and unpaid time.

And the 6th Circuit just signaled it’s ready to answer them.