5 tips to help support our trans employees in the workplace

Transgender people are under attack. They often experience discrimination, harassment, and a lack of understanding, including from their work colleagues and bosses. As an employer, it is important to create a safe and inclusive environment for all employees, including those who identify as transgender or gender nonconforming.

Here are five steps you can take in your business to support transgender and gender nonconforming employees at work:

We are failing our trans employees

"You're not a real man."
"Do you have female parts?"

Those are just two of the allegations the EEOC has raised in a lawsuit it just filed on behalf of Quinn Gambino, a transgender male, against his former employer, T.C. Wheelers Bar & Pizzeria.

The agency further alleges that management and co-workers made numerous other anti-transgender comments, including intentionally misgendering Gambino by using female pronouns and equating being transgender with pedophilia. 

WIRTW #666: the “exchange” edition

Nine years ago my family and I embarked on an adventure. We hosted an exchange student from Germany for a school year. My own kids were in 2nd grade and kindergarten at the time and they loved having a big sister in the house. My wife and I loved everything about the experience, and we still think of Zarah as our third daughter, with whom we still communicate regularly. In fact, the experience was so positive that we promised ourselves that we'd never do it again for fear of being let down.

Well, we're doing it again. Each Spring our school (which enrolls between 30 and 40 exchange students per school year) emails parents looking for host families for the next school year. Something about one girl's bio caught the eye of both my wife and me. We independently reached the same conclusion — let's do this again. In August, we'll have a 9th grader (Donovan), a 12th grader (Norah), and a 10th grader (our exchange student). The kids are excited to have a new sibling with whom to share their high school experiences, and my wife and I are excited to have yet another German daughter. Life is all about experiences, so why not jump in with both feet?

You can hear all about our perspective on being a host family on this week's episode of The Norah and Dad Show. It's available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, our website, and everywhere else you get your podcasts.

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

Think twice before implenting that “English only” rule in your workplace

White Americans, what?
Nothing better to do?
Why don't you kick yourself out?
You’re an immigrant too!

– Jack White, Icky Thump (2007)

Total Employment and Management has agreed to pay $276,000 to settle a national origin discrimination and retaliation charge filed with the EEOC challenging the employer's "no Spanish" rule in its workplace.

The EEOC alleged that TEAM not only imposed its no-Spanish rule without an adequate business justification to support it, but it also fired five employees for defying the rule and continuing to speak Spanish.

Wal-Mart (allegedly) did a 💩 job of accommodating this employee

Why can't some employers understand the interactive process and make accommodations that are simple and easy to make? I wish I knew the answer. After reading the facts of a lawsuit the EEOC just filed against Walmart, I know that Wal-Mart doesn't know the answer.

The EEOC claims that Walmart violated the ADA by refusing to provide a reasonable accommodation to a deli associate suffering from Crohn's disease.

A tip on tipped workers: pay them correctly or else

The Department of Labor has sued the owner of two restaurants claiming that servers were not properly paid overtime. 

El Toro Loco Legends LLC in Kansas City and El Toro Loco Lenexa LLC in Lenexa, Kansas, paid their tipped wait staff a minimum wage of $2.30 per hour, but did not properly calculate the overtime premium owed to those employees.

They calculated the overtime premium based off of the $2.30 tipped minimum wage instead of the greater of the full minimum wage of $7.25 per hour or the employee's effective weekly hourly rate including all tips received by the employee, less the employer's statutory tip credit against wages paid directly to the employee.

What does an AI-written employee handbook look like?

Last week, I spoke at our sold out Wickens Workshop. The topic — employee handbooks.

As is the case whenever I speak on that topic, I was sure to make a point about the risks and dangers of relying on internet forms to craft your company's handbook … or as I put it, "Google, J.D."

Which led me to this thought — what happens when people start asking AI bots to write their handbooks?

So, I asked Bard, Google's new AI, to write me an employee handbook. Here's the very underwhelming result.