The Texas Senate this month approved a measure that would prohibit private businesses from adopting Covid-19 vaccine mandates or penalizing employees for forgoing the jab.

The ban would fine employers up to $10,000 per violation for enforcing a mandate or terminating an employee, contractor, or applicant who refuses the vaccine. The fine could be waived if the employer hired the applicant or reinstated the terminated employee, according to the bill.

What’s HR to do? If passed, employers in Texas would be barred from vaccine mandates outright, meaning if a mandate existed with exceptions—such as for medical or religious reasons—the company would still be in violation. HR pros with Texas employees may need to update vaccine policies.

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Your business needs Gen Z talent. And your employer brand is key to attracting next-gen job seekers who are looking at your mission, values, diversity, compensation, benefits, career pathways, and other indicators of being a place where they want to kick-start their careers.

So how can you showcase your brand to attract early-career talent? Take Handshake’s brand quiz to discover your brand persona and uncover your strengths and opportunities for attracting Gen Z talent.

But that’s not all. Explore Handshake’s guide to tapping into your brand persona, including tactics like:

• scaling brand awareness through virtual and in-person events
• balancing your school partnership strategy
• identifying blockers in your recruiting process

What does Gen Z think of your brand? Find out.

On Wednesdays, we schedule our weekly 1:1 with HR Brew’s readers. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.

Esther Contreras’ “nerdy” interests and background in industrial organizational psychology make engagement survey season her favorite time of year on the HR calendar. She stays connected to employee sentiment in the day-to-day, so the surveying and subsequent analysis of employee feedback is an opportunity each year for her to dig into the numbers and see what stories the data reveal.

Contreras is the US people director at the US-German Cleverbridge, a support service for software and digital companies. She and her one direct report oversee all HR duties for the company’s roughly 100 US employees. Working closely with her counterpart in Germany, Contreras keeps a finger on the pulse of the US workforce and tries to deliver policies and programs that meet the spirit of what’s offered across the pond.

“We have to be considerate of everything that we do on both sides [of the Atlantic],” she said, especially regarding language and messaging, noting that during her favorite time of year, survey questions have to be compliant with German employment law. She “can’t collect data on certain things,” and that incongruity impacts the data set, which, Contreras said, “bums me out.” 

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Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: 68% of middle-wage job loss in the next 10 years will be in roles held by women, according to BLS research. (Third Way)

Quote: “AI is in a great spot…It prioritizes in-person work, and we want the people leasing our offices to be using them.”—Sarah Dennis Phillips, executive director of San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, on AI startups reinvigorating the city’s commercial real estate (the Washington Post)

Read: This SF-based company wanted employees in the office, but bucked the RTO mandate trend for a flexible approach to in-person work. (CNN)

Vibe check: How does Gen Z view your business? Take Handshake’s brand quiz to discover your employer brand persona and learn the secrets to winning over top talent from the next gen. Get started.*

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