Roundup: Employee monitoring and payroll; Workplace pregnancy protections; Transgender harassment; Employment law and remote workers; Privacy and biometrics at work

In the techification of everything, reasonable ideas don't always work. For example, having computer programs monitor humans at work, then having the computers figure out when employees worked and didn't work. Wage hour law is just a bunch of rules. Computers are great at rules! What could possibly go wrong?

A lot?

Robin Shea has another one of her tricky, funny, and informative quizzes. This time it's on pregnancy protections in the workplace. I especially loved her discussion of what form to use when someone requests leave.

If people being nonbinary or transgender seems difficult to understand, you're not alone. I've had a hard time too. And I'm still learning. But harassing someone at work because they are transgender is discrimination and not okay.

Once you figure out which place's law apply to each of your employees, then you have to make sure you know which of those laws to apply. In addition to wage hour issues, state and local laws may affect benefits, leave, payroll record and withholdings and retirement plans.

Both human rights and a whole lot of money are at stake here. They will often be in conflict. So, it's important to ask the right questions about which matters more and who and what we want to protect.

This is a great analysis of Colorado's new biometrics law and how it may affect employees' privacy and employers' technology