Categories for Employee Relations

Own a Business? Five Things You Should Know About Employees and Election Day

November 2, 2018 3:14 pm Published by Paul C. Foley

It’s almost Election Day, and you own a business in Massachusetts. You know you’ll have time to cast your vote before the polls close at 8:00 p.m. But what about your employees? If an employee wants or needs to vote during the work day, what are his or her rights?

Here are five things that you, as the employer, should know:

  1. There is no federal law that requires you to give your employees time off to vote. Massachusetts law, on the other hand, does give employees certain rights regarding voting during the work day, but only if you are in the manufacturing, mechanical or mercantile industry.
  2. Massachusetts law requires an employer to allow an
    3. ...

Protect Your Business from a Data Breach

October 8, 2015 11:45 am Published by Paul C. Foley

Businesses of all sizes wrestle with the complex interplay of privacy rights and data security in the workplace. If you aren’t wrestling with it, then you may have already been pinned. Let’s get you up off the mat.

To illustrate the issue, let’s take an everyday situation. Suppose that a local landscaping company (“the Company”) has recently experienced a welcomed growth spurt. In response, the Company has increased its field staff and its office staff. The office staff, a total of four employees, are assigned workplaces with computers connected to a local server, with a central database of customers, scheduling, payment information, and other sensitive data.

As in many workplaces, the office is adjacent to the crew areas, and ...