RGL Consultants

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided that the massive healthcare reform law (also known as the Affordable Care Act, or ACA) enacted in March 2010 is constitutional. So what happened, and what does this mean for employers?

The most publicized challenge to the ACA concerned the individual mandate, which starting in 2014 will require most individuals to obtain health insurance or pay a fine. The Court upheld this provision, asserting that the mandate is constitutional as a tax. read more »

A new law titled “An Act Relative to Gender Identity,”commonly referred to as the Transgender Equal Rights Bill, goes into effect in Massachusetts on July 1, 2012. It adds gender identity as a new protected category under the Massachusetts non-discrimination statute.

Massachusetts will now join California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, and the District of Columbia in treating transgender citizens as an EEO protected class. read more »

Vacation benefits are provided by most employers; yet, employers often cringe at the thought of “lost productivity” and scheduling difficulties when the employee actually takes advantage of these benefits.

Consider the fact that in many (if not most) cases, the employee puts in extra effort in advance of a scheduled vacation to clean up the desk, may well take work along on vacation, with today’s technology, even when an employee is on vacation quite often they stay “connected” and “engaged” through cell phones and email, and then upon return from vacation, puts in extra effort to catch up. An argument could be made that productivity actually increases around vacation time. read more »