Kyte Baby, a Texas-based baby clothing company, is at the center of a PR debacle stemming from the company’s decision to deny a remote work request to an employee and new parent. Its CEO’s handling of the incident offers lessons not only for crisis comms folks, but also HR pros.

How Kyte Baby ended up here. The employee, identified as Marissa, told Today she was fired by Kyte Baby after requesting to work remotely while her adopted newborn son was in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The outlet withheld Marissa’s last name to protect her privacy.

What US law says about remote work requests for new parents. The situation highlights how support for new parents often falls short in the workplace. While adoptive parents like Marissa may take 12 weeks of unpaid leave to bond with a new child under the Family Medical Leave Act, they must have worked for their employer for at least a year in order to do so. Efforts to pass paid family leave at the federal level have so far been unsuccessful, and just a patchwork of about a dozen states currently require employers to offer it.

Company policies should align with vision. Kyte Baby’s CEO, Ying Liu, has posted two separate apologies on TikTok since the story started circulating on the social media platform, and has promised to review her company’s HR policies and practices. Tens of thousands of users left comments on her videos, with some users vowing to stop buying clothing from the brand. The backlash provides a snapshot of where public expectations surrounding benefits for working parents currently stand, at least on TikTok.

Keep reading here.—CV

The two-week or monthly pay cycle is still the norm for most employers, but the 12% that offer employees earned wage access (EWA), according to the 2023–2024 HR Systems Survey by

Sapient Insights Group can expect to see some positive results. And some 3% of respondents have forecast that they’ll use EWA in the next 24 to 36 months.

A nontraditional approach to pay using EWA can positively impact employees’ overall well-being, which can translate to greater productivity and retention rates for employers.

Indeed, 93% of employers that offer an EWA benefit believe it’s helping improve retention, ADP research shows. Some have even said it has improved retention by 63%, according to a survey by EWA provider DailyPay.

Zoom out. Valor Hospitality, an Atlanta-based hotel company, started offering employees an EWA benefit in 2023 in response to employees’ requests for advances on their pay.

Keep reading here.—AS

On Jan. 12, the House of Representatives voted to overturn the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) joint-employer rule.

The final rule, which would make it easier for two businesses to qualify as joint employers of a group of employees, is currently set to take effect Feb. 26. It’s been the target of lawsuits from pro-business groups and opposition by mostly Republican lawmakers, some of whom argue the policy would threaten the way some employers—particularly franchise owners—conduct business.

If two businesses qualify as a joint employer, “they are then legally liable for one another’s actions—including unfair labor practices—and must bargain with unions representing workers they oversee,” HR Brew previously reported. “The rule could open up a pathway for more workers to unionize at big companies like McDonald’s or Amazon….given these firms might be required to negotiate with workers employed by independent contractors or franchisees,” HR Brew reported in another story.

Though most House Democrats expressed support for the joint-employer rule, it has a key opponent in the Senate: Joe Manchin of West Virginia. President Joe Biden has said he will veto the resolution to overturn the rule if it gets to his desk.

Keep reading here.—CV

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed 144 lawsuits in FY 2023, the highest level since 2019. Most lawsuits were filed under Title VII, which bans employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. (Duane Morris)

Quote: “I don’t regret sharing that…I have received so many messages of people telling me, ‘I wish I would have stood up for myself the way you did.’”—Brittany Pietsch, a former Cloudfare employee, on the viral video of her layoff (the Wall Street Journal)

Read: The Supreme Court agreed to hear a case on whether seven unionized Starbucks employees should be reinstated after the chain fired them. (NPR)

Everyone agrees quality of hire is important, but where do you even begin? How do you define it? When Ashby spoke to teams, they heard the same story over and over: Teams understand intuitively why quality of hire is important, but there are too many hurdles to setting up and maintaining a system to measure it.

Join Ashby’s launch event, where they’ll discuss their latest thinking and unveil their brand-new “Quality of Hire Surveys” feature. In this event, you’ll see a deep dive into quality of hire in Ashby, including:

• when and how to get started (and the best time to)
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Register for the launch event.