The "Wait and See" Era is Over For years, federal contractors have operated under a veil of relative confidentiality regarding their specific workforce demographics. As of February 25, 2026 , that veil has been lifted. Following a protracted legal battle between the Department of Labor (DOL) and the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), the Office of Federal Contract ...

URGENT: The March 2 OSHA 300A Deadline is Tomorrow—Are Your Electronic Records Audit-Ready? By Ellis J. Sterling If you are reading this on Sunday, March 1, you have less than 24 hours to ensure your organization remains compliant with federal workplace safety reporting standards. The deadline to submit electronic injury and illness data to the Occupational Safety and ...

The Regulatory Pendulum Swings Again Just as HR departments stabilized their compliance frameworks around the 2024 independent contractor standards, the regulatory landscape is shifting once more. On February 26, 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced a proposal to rescind the Biden-era 2024 final rule, marking a significant pivot in how the Fair Labor Standards ...

The "Silent" Mandate That Just Hit Your Payroll While many HR leaders were bracing for the 2026 AI transparency laws, a significant amendment to New York City’s employment landscape went into effect this past weekend. As of February 22, 2026 , the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act (ESSTA) has been amended to require a completely new bank of leave: 32 hours of unpaid ...

URGENT: The "Zombie" Minimum Wage—Why Revocation Didn't End Your Federal Contractor Obligations By Ellis J. Sterling Content Strategist & HR Subject Matter Expert If you breathed a sigh of relief when President Trump revoked the Biden-era $15 federal contractor minimum wage (Executive Order 14026) in March 2025, you may be celebrating too soon. For many HR ...

The Deadline Has Passed. Are You Exposed? If you are a benefits manager or HR leader, Monday, February 16, 2026, was not just another start to the workweek—it was a critical compliance threshold. As of this date, the grace period for aligning your health plan’s HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices (NPP) with the new Substance Use Disorder (SUD) confidentiality rules has ...

2026 AI Transparency Mandates: Navigating the New Compliance Map By HR Compliance Strategy Team The era of the "black box" hiring algorithm is officially over. For years, Human Resources leaders have leveraged artificial intelligence to streamline recruitment, assuming that vendor assurances were sufficient protection against liability. As of 2026, that assumption is ...

Future-Proof Your HRCI Credential with Purposeful Professional Development In today’s HR landscape, staying credentialed is more than a formality—it’s a strategic advantage. With the rapid evolution of workplace technology, increased regulatory scrutiny, and rising expectations around ethics, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), and data use, certified HR professionals ...

Classifying Workers Correctly in 2025 Navigating employee vs contractor classification rules has become increasingly complex for HR professionals in 2025, especially with recent regulatory changes and ongoing enforcement uncertainty.  This article provides HR professionals with current guidance on worker classification standards, addresses common misclassification ...

Best Practices for Conflict Resolution Workplace conflicts are inevitable, but how HR professionals handle them determines whether they become destructive forces or opportunities for growth. According to The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) Workplace Conflict Report, 66% of employees report a lack of respect as the primary trigger of conflict. In ...

The short answer is YES. Whether your contract is local, interprovincial, or international, it should contain a governing law clause.  If you don’t include it, a court will choose a governing law for you.  The court will do that by applying its jurisdiction’s conflict of laws rules to find the proper law of the contract.  In Canada, the well-established rule is to apply the ...

There are many ways to draft a governing law clause. For our purposes, and to keep things manageable, we will focus on three types of governing law clauses, which will be referred to as: 1) simplified, 2) excluding, and 3) combined clauses.  A simplified governing law clause names a governing law jurisdiction, such as Ontario or New York state. It is “simple” in that it is ...