Brand(is) Awareness: Ethena’s General Counsel is here to help you get your affairs in order

That title is a pun on Brandis's reality TV hot take, I just need everyone to know...

If there’s one thing we’re familiar with here at Ethena, it’s gray areas. (Have you seen our flagship Harassment Prevention course? Tricky, hard-to-categorize situations are pretty much our bread and butter.) But one gray area we haven’t historically talked much about is the gap between when a new law is announced and when it kicks in. 

Once the proposed legislation takes effect, of course, we aim to make sure it’s front and center: you’ll see it in our content (when relevant), you’ll hear about it in emails from Ethena, and we’ll highlight some key information to help you determine exactly how it impacts your organization — and how we can help.

But going forward, we’ll also give you some insight into what’s on the horizon, courtesy of our very own General Counsel, Brandis Anderson. 

Come for (thrilling! compelling!) sneak peek into what’s on the compliance horizon, and stay for Brandis’s occasional reality TV hot takes. And as a reminder, none of this is or should be taken as legal advice. It is for general informational purposes, and is simply…Brand(is) Awareness. 

Federal

• For the first time in 30 years (almost as long as it’s been since the last Rihanna album), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has proposed updated harassment prevention guidance. The purpose of the update is to clarify existing requirements to bring them in line with the types of sexual and racial harassment cases facing modern workplaces.

• Babe, wake up: a new type of discrimination lawsuit just dropped. The EEOC has settled its first-ever AI discrimination lawsuit after charges that a tutoring company’s AI-powered hiring tool automatically rejected applicants over a certain age — something that any robot that had taken Ethena’s Hiring and Interviewing course should immediately be able to identify as a classic case of bias. 

• The Federal Trade Commission is upping the ante on what’s expected of companies in handling sensitive health data. Organizations that collect such information have an increased burden not only to protect it, but also to communicate data practices to customers.

HOW ETHENA CAN HELP: both our HIPAA course and our Data Privacy course are designed for modern tech employees, helping them get on the same page as employers and regulators on the appropriate handling of user data.

States

• If you have employees in California or we have your email address, you’ve probably heard about Senate Bill 553, which requires nearly all Golden State employers to create and implement workplace violence prevention programs for their offices that include workplace violence prevention training and violent incident logs. We’re currently hard at work on a course designed to help you toward compliance with this new law, and when it’s ready — well in advance of the July 1, 2024 enforcement date — you’ll be the first to know.

• Speaking of California: Governor Newsom recently signed an array of new employment bills into law, which California employers will need to comply with beginning in 2024. Topics include non-compete agreements, paid sick leave, defamation privilege related to incidents of sexual harassment, industry-specific requirements, and cannabis discrimination. (We’ve highlighted some of the new laws, but if you ever need help falling asleep at night, you’re welcome to take a look at the full list and all the specifics.) 

Global

• Brandis sent over a helpful resource from Ius Laboris — an interactive map that displays those areas across the globe where teleworkers have the legal right to disconnect from work outside regular business hours. It has lots of interesting information and, if you're taking recommendations, is a great place to click around and learn a thing or two while your brain is buffering itself awake in the morning.

Elsewhere

• Brandis is really and truly opening a can of worms for me with this newsletter, because I want to talk about this endlessly: "My biggest hot take is that I fear that other Bravo franchises saw how an affair was a “success” for Vanderpump Rules," — she's talking #Scandoval, for those less Chronically Online than I am — "and I worry that every recent show is following that same approach (from Southern Charm to Real Housewives of Beverly Hills). Are people cheating just for ratings?" 😬