Greetings, GMA SHRM Members!

As always, your GMA SHRM Board of Directors is hard at work planning a great year ahead for all our members, volunteers, guests, and corporate sponsors. The trying times we have all navigated this past year have undoubtedly changed our workplaces forever, but we are finding silver linings and new beginnings as we evolve to meet this new environment. GMA SHRM is committed to being the valuable professional resource you can count on to help you adapt and stay ahead of the curve. Through our networking functions and roundtables,  and our professional development events and resources, GMA SHRM is here to support the HR leaders and professionals of Wisconsin!

Thinking about joining GMA SHRM and want more information about how to get involved? Join us virtually on October 14th from 4:00-5:30pm for GMA SHRM Revealed event and learn more about how to connect with the chapter, maximize the programming and networking benefits, and learn about volunteering opportunities to help grow your leadership and HR career skills. Or check out our “Get Involved” page! Thank you so much to all our volunteers and volunteer board leaders for all you do on behalf of GMA SHRM and our members!

Other great networking opportunities include our Meet, Greet, and Eat events and the ever-popular HR Roundtables. 

One of our most popular educational programs of the year is coming up on November 16th! Save the date for our Professional Development Summit Government Affairs and Legal Update to stay well informed on the policies and legal updates every HR professional needs to know! Watch our events page!  The Professional Development Summits have become a GMA SHRM “fan favorite” as the move to virtual programming has created convenience allowing even more members and guests to take advantage of the educational sessions offered. Check it out!

As a reminder, we announced a new resource last month available to you on our website! As a result of member surveys asking for resources on Diversity, Equality and Inclusion, our Diversity Committee has created a DEI Resource Page to provide learning materials, recommendations, resources, and tools. Please feel free to reach out to our Diversity Director, Mary Vesely at mary.vesely@fairwaymc.com if you have any contributions or suggestions.

See our Madison HR COVID Resource page to see curated resources and links to sources of valuable information to keep you connected and informed. Insert link: COVID-19 Madison HR Resource Page (gmashrm.org)

Lastly, the WI SHRM State Conference is back this year October 13th -15th and will be a hybrid event with both in-person and virtual options. Whether you attend virtually or in-person, there will be a variety of sessions to increase your HR knowledge, provide credits toward recertification, and create opportunities for networking with other HR professionals. 

Thank you to our members, guests, and many volunteers who continue to engage in the chapter and see the value  GMA SHRM brings to our local community of HR leaders and professionals!

All the best,

Tracy Nelson, SPHR, CPTD
President-GMA SHRM
Tracy.nelson@aspiretalentgroup.com
 

Click here to view the full GMA SHRM Board of Directors


 

COVID-19 Resources

Take Caution when Evaluating an Employee’s Religious Beliefs
 

Submitted from Brian P. Goodman, GMA SHRM Programming Member, Sarah J. Horner, and Storm B Larson, all Attorneys at Boardman & Clark LLP, a Platinum Sponsor

Brian P. Goodman

Sarah J. Horner Storm Larson

Religious accommodation requests are arising with increased frequency, particularly with respect to employer policies around COVID-19 vaccinations and face coverings in the workplace. However, such accommodation requests continue to arise in other contexts as well. Therefore, a review of the legal principles involved in religious accommodation is timely. Recently, the EEOC settled a lawsuit involving an employee who refused to be fingerprinted for a background check.

AscensionPoint Recovery Services, LLC (“APRS”) fired an employee when he refused to provide fingerprints in accordance with the company’s background check procedures. The employee claimed that submitting to
fingerprinting conflicted with his sincerely held religious beliefs. APRS nonetheless terminated him without first determining whether the employee could still be employed without being fingerprinted.

The EEOC filed a lawsuit after mediation failed. APRS later agreed to settle the suit for $65,000, revise its policies governing religious accommodation requests, provide Title VII training to its employees, and provide regular compliance reports to the EEOC.

This settlement shows that religious accommodation requests remain an important part of human resources compliance and that employers have a duty to evaluate a reasonable accommodation for an employee’s bona fide religious beliefs, unless the accommodation poses an undue hardship on the employer. In the context of religious accommodations, the undue hardship standard is met if the requested accommodation imposes more than a de minimis burden on the employer. While employers generally are entitled to ask employees what the basis for their requested accommodation is, if the employee provides a plausible explanation for their religious accommodation request, employers should focus on the potential accommodation process. If an employer has reason to doubt the basis for the claimed accommodation, or believes the requested accommodation poses an
undue hardship, the employer should consult with legal counsel before denying the accommodation.

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Professional Development

Save the Date!  One of our most popular educational programs of the year!

Virtual Event

Or program will feature Brian Goodman and Sarah Horner from Boardman Clark LLP presenting their HR Legal Update: Recent Developments and Hot Topics.

 Watch our events page!  The Professional Development Summits have become a GMA SHRM “fan favorite” as the move to virtual programming has created convenience allowing even more members and guests to take advantage of the educational sessions offered. Check it out!  

GMA SHRM welcomes the following members who joined our chapter in August 2021!

Staci	Andersen		Chr. Hansen
Angela	Galle Sylvester	PHR	Career Momentum & The H.S. Group
Steph	Giese	PHR	GHC-SCW
Michele	Hobbs	SPHR	Luminex - a DiaSorin Company
Courtney	Koehler		ACD Distribution, LLC
Lindsey	Mahoney		UW Health
Abigail	Murdaugh		ARMR
Michelle	Scheffler	SHRM-CP
Leah	Zine		DeliverHealth

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Member Awards and Recognition

Have you recently earned a professional achievement award? If so, we want to hear about it. 
If so, we want to hear about it. Send us an e-mail, and we’ll publish your good news in the next HR InTouch!  

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In Transition

If you are a member who is in between jobs, or who is currently employed but seeking new positions or career paths, write us a brief description of your skill set, areas of expertise, what you’re looking for, etc. Send us an e-mail. We’ll publish your information in the next HR InTouch.

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HR InTouch Guidelines

Article Writing:

Do you have an interest in writing for the HR InTouch? We have an interest in learning more about your area of expertise!

Why should you volunteer? Top three reasons: 1) to share your knowledge and experiences to educate others; 2) to become more connected in the HR and Dane County communities; and 3) to contribute towards the advancement of GMA SHRM and the HR profession.

The first step is for you to choose a submission option: you can pre-submit an article to GMA SHRM at any time for us to use in any of the upcoming newsletters, you can sign up to write for a particular month, or we can put you on a list of people to contact in future months whenever we need articles.

Article length:

Because the HR InTouch is now in an online format, the size is flexible. The article should be engaging and hold readers’ attention. Include the core information in your article, and we will advise if it is too lengthy.

Solicitation:

GMA SHRM is conscious not to allow solicitation through the articles, in an effort to protect the interests of our partners and members. The nature of the article should be educational (i.e., what are the business advantages of having a product like yours) or informational. Otherwise, if you truly are interested in advertising through the HR InTouch, you can work with our Marketing Committee. As a rule of thumb for article writing, if the submission relates to a for-profit event, or specifically markets your company (vs. your industry), it is an advertisement, and should be purchased. If it is a not-for-profit event that your company is hosting, or an announcement (i.e., a SHRM member recently joined your company), it is an acceptable addition to the HR InTouch content. If you have any questions related to the appropriateness of your submission, please contact us.

If you have questions, or to submit an article, contact GMA SHRM at chapteradmin@gmashrm.org .