Employers are experiencing “an unprecedented level of uncertainty” due to a wide variety of factors, according to The Littler® Annual Employer Survey, 2017.

“Employers aren’t yet counting on a near-term impact from the promise of deregulation at the federal level, confounding the difficulties they face in complying with the constantly evolving -- and often conflicting -- patchwork of state and local employment laws and regulations,” the report’s authors say.

“They also continue to encounter new challenges in managing their workforces brought on by technological advances, globalization and changes in how work is performed.”

Littler, a global employment and labor law firm representing management, conducted a survey of 1,229 in-house counsel, human resources professionals and C-suite executives to gauge how a broad range of trends both inside and outside of government are affecting their organizations.

The survey shows respondents do not expect a near-term impact on their workplace from any federal government actions on the Affordable Care Act -- both legislatively and administratively.

Even if they are eventually relieved of the ACA’s employer mandate, only 4 percent of employers anticipate dropping coverage for some full-time employees, though 18 percent say they would allow more employees to work more than 30 hours a week.

Employers also do not expect any material changes this year in enforcement policies by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the National Labor Relations Board and the Department of Labor.

However, about half expect that EEOC’s enforcement priorities will continue to be around LGBTQ rights and equal pay, as well as hiring practices, including the consideration of criminal or credit histories in the hiring process and pre-employment testing or screening practices.

The one area of probable change: More employers (63 percent) this year expect immigration reform to have an impact on their workplaces over the next 12 months, up from 40 percent in the 2016 survey.

“While employers are eyeing several labor and employment changes from the Obama administration to be rolled back under the Trump administration, they do not expect to see much regulatory relief in the coming year,” the authors write. “And as states and municipalities continue to enact employment regulations to fill a perceived void at the federal level, employers expect ongoing challenges in complying with varying rules across the country.”

The majority (79 percent) of employers say the “shifting, fragmented patchwork” of state and local labor and employment requirements has created compliance challenges for them. To keep up, 85 percent of employers are updating policies, handbooks and HR procedures, while 54 percent are providing additional employee training and 50 percent are conducting internal audits.

Among the changes at the state and local levels, respondents have been most impacted by paid leave mandates (59 percent), background check restrictions (48 percent) and minimum wage increases (47 percent).

“Even outside of politics, the uncertainty of today’s world is vexing employers on multiple levels,” the authors say. “Accommodating unpredictable, intermittent leave is increasingly a major challenge for employers. And shifting requirements overseas for handling workers’ personal data, as well as managing data breaches originating with employees, are creating additional difficulties.”

Managing leaves of absences under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was identified as the greatest challenge in providing reasonable accommodation to employees. The majority of respondents indicated difficulty with managing intermittent FMLA leave (65 percent) and leaves that extend beyond FMLA requirements (55 percent).

Employers appear to be increasing their use of contingent workers, with nearly half of respondents using independent contractors, freelancers or temporary workers to staff up for short-term needs like contracts or seasonal demand (35 percent) or as part of their business model (10 percent).

Forty-three percent of respondents say lack of sufficient resources for collecting, managing and analyzing data was a concern in using big data to improve workplace management. Another 31 percent are concerned about the risk of violating discrimination laws and 23 percent about legal risk associated with data privacy.

A majority of respondents (63 percent) say their HR and IT departments are collaborating on information security policies to reduce data breaches that originate with employees. However, there still appears to be work to be done in guarding against and preparing for employee-initiated data breaches, as only 29 percent had updated cyber-incident response plans, and just over half (51 percent) are providing additional training on cybersecurity risks and information security policies.

Global data privacy issues are a significant concern for 56 percent of employers doing business outside of the U.S. respondents also express concern with varying standards for hiring and firing (39 percent), conducting multi-country investigations (25 percent) and uncertainty stemming from Brexit and the U.S. elections (25 percent).

Instant Insights /

Employers dealing with great uncertainty, thanks to patchwork of regulations

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