Navigating Privacy Issues in the Workplace

OVERVIEW

Although privacy is a dynamic issue of growing concern in essentially every modern workplace, there is still no single comprehensive law governing workplace privacy. Instead, privacy in the workplace is more of a patchwork quilt coming under a variety of laws covering recruitment; medical inquiries; background and misconduct investigations; monitoring and surveillance; honesty; psychological, drug, and alcohol testing; medical and personnel records; off-duty conduct; employer information; etc. So, it’s all the more reason to attend this webinar to learn about where the boundary lines are in this rapidly growing area of concern and what is and is not permissible.

Most employees insist they have privacy rights, especially at the workplace. But few know what those rights are. Likewise, not every employer or manager know what the employer's privacy rights are or what their obligations are when it comes to respecting an employee’s privacy rights and what the penalties are for not doing so and that was in a pre-Covid-19 world!

WHY SHOULD YOU ATTEND?

If you, do not know what an employee and employer’s rights privacy are and do it wrong, are you prepared to face the consequences of actual, compensatory, or punitive damages and damage to your own professional reputation and standing within your work community? And what about COVID-19 or the next pandemic? For the foreseeable future the workplace will be raising issues about an employee’s privacy rights to refuse to wear PPE, be tested, vaccinated or contact traced both at work or in their personal life. Such privacy issues are inevitable since COVID-19 and the very nature of any pandemic is its highly communicable nature and effects not just the employee but others as well. 

So, if fortune favors the prepared than this webinar will help you be ready to help guide you through this maze of privacy rights by exploring the foundations, current state, and possible future changes of privacy in the workplace.

AREAS COVERED

• What the U.S. Constitution (1st, 4th ,5th and 14th Amendments) says about privacy, how the courts interpreted it and how it affects the workplace?
• What is meant by “Invasion of privacy “and what are the balancing tests and exceptions courts use to determine if the following concepts were violated?
  o "Reasonable expectation of privacy."
  o "Intrusion into seclusion."
  o "Unreasonable publicity" of one’s private life.
  o False light/defamation
• Remedies and employer defenses for "invasion of Privacy" claims
• How and why employer obligations differ in the private and public sectors.
• Federal v State privacy law differences
• Different types of Invasions of Privacy claims
• Searches
• Political speech and privacy
• Monitoring and Surveillance
• "Employment at will" versus privacy
• Employer investigations and employee privacy rights
• Statutory privacy rights

WHO WILL BENEFIT?

• General Managers, HR Professionals
• All Level Managers, Supervisors, and Executives
• All Levels of both in-house and outside counsel
• All Levels of Human Resources and specifically Labor Relations
• All Levels of Security personnel/staff. 
• All Levels of Union Representation and Officers (Stewards, Business Representatives, Business Managers, Presidents, and all officers/ board members)
• Anyone who wants to truly understand the complexities of dealing with privacy issues in the workplace.