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We do not complete a final test or paper and say, “I’m done, I’m not going to learn or grow any more! But, mistaking them for the same thing severely limits your opportunities to create a culture of development and to recruit and retain high performing, engaged employees. When you say that training is development you miss other developmental opportunities like coaching, mentoring, stretch-assignments, learning circles, resource libraries, special projects, professional organizations, peer sharing, cross-departmental collaboration and feedback. When you talk in terms of developing your employees and providing developmental opportunities, an array of possibilities open up to you and the idea of creating a culture of development seems much more doable.

Our experts at Black Cipher Security discussed how to protect yourself and your computer during COVID-19 when the majority of your employees are working from home. During today’s webinar, we watched a virtual demonstration of a simulated hacker accessing a company’s email list and employee computers. For this reason, it’s important to have as many failsafes as possible to protect yourself and your computer. Tip #1: Avoid storing your passwords in Chrome and Internet Explorer as they can be accessed easily through the browser by an attacker.

Signed into law in March 2020, FFCRA required employers with fewer than 500 employees to provide paid leave to employees for certain COVID-19-related reasons. While the mandatory aspect of FFCRA expired under its own terms on December 31, 2020, legislation passed in December 2020 permitted employers to voluntarily extend FFCRA’s paid leave benefits, and obtain tax credits for that leave, through March 31, 2021. In addition to the standard reasons for EPSL (see additional information on those reasons in this MEA FFCRA alert from last March), the ARPA allows for paid time off for employees to obtain a COVID-19 vaccine or to recover from an illness related to vaccination. ARPA offers a one hundred percent subsidy to qualifying employees and their family members who experience a loss of group health coverage due to reduced hours of employment or involuntary termination of employment from April 1, 2021 through September 30, 2021.

On March 8, 2021, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued Interim Public Health Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People for individuals who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The CDC recommendations apply only to “fully vaccinated” persons, defined by the CDC as those who are more than two weeks from having received the second dose of a two dose vaccine (Pfizer or Moderna) or a single dose vaccine (Johnson & Johnson/Janssen).While the CDC continues to recommend that all persons wear face coverings and observe social distancing when around unvaccinated individuals outside of a single household, in certain circumstances, the recommendations ease face covering requirements for people who have been fully vaccinated. In the case of employees of “non-healthcare congregate settings and other high-density workplaces,” such as manufacturing environments and meat and poultry processing plants, the CDC advises that vaccinated people who are exposed to an infected person need not quarantine, but the CDC recommends such persons get tested after the exposure and that they follow routine workplace screening programs.