Brandon Feltz is finishing his third month at Keap, a software company that works with clients to grow their businesses through marketing automation.

The front-end developer landed the job just one month after finishing a three-month software engineering bootcamp with General Assembly, a for-profit coding academy.

“A lot of bootcamps and other programs really teach you how things are used day-to-day in a work environment,” Feltz said. “They kind of prepare you for technology that tech companies are using right now.”

Feltz is part of a large segment of the American workforce that some hiring teams and recruiters might be overlooking: STARs.

The acronym refers to employees and applicants who are “skilled through alternative routes.” These workers have earned credits from community college or completed a career-specific training program like General Assembly. Others have military experience or have learned valuable skills on the job.

“STARs are half the labor market,” said Audrey Mickahail, VP of advisory services at Opportunity@Work. “They are the majority of Black workers and Hispanic workers and rural workers and veterans.”

Opportunity@Work, a nonprofit social enterprise, is helping employers, government agencies, and career-services companies understand applicants like Feltz and reimagine job descriptions to make sure candidates aren’t discouraged from applying or rejected because of degree requirements.

“Managers who themselves possess bachelor’s degrees tend to overestimate the proportion of the population that holds a bachelor’s degree,” Mickahail said. “They may not recognize that when you require a bachelor’s degree, you are automatically screening out the vast majority of Black workers, Hispanic workers, rural workers, and veterans, but that is the implication.”

Shifting away from degree-requirements for positions for which they’re not necessary could help to recruit and hire in a tight labor market by dramatically opening the pool of qualified individuals. Keep reading here.—AD

Do you work in HR or have information about your HR department we should know? Email [email protected] or DM @adamderose on Twitter. For completely confidential conversations, ask Adam for his number on Signal.

In October, the Northern District of Texas told the EEOC to slow down. Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk determined the agency had “misinterpreted” Supreme Court guidance when issuing its 2021 technical assistance document, which guaranteed workers the right to use bathrooms and dress in accordance with their gender identity, and be recognized by their “preferred name and pronouns.”

Though this new ruling is limited to Texas employers, and is likely to be appealed, it creates inconsistent guidance for HR professionals—particularly those whose companies operate in multiple states—now that a federal court has held one opinion about Title VII and the EEOC has espoused another.

HR Brew talked with employment attorneys about how to understand and navigate what Mark Kluger, founder of Kluger Healey, called a “confusing” situation.

What’s up for debate? HR professionals might recall that in 2020, the Supreme Court issued Bostock v. Clayton County, which said that making “employment-related decisions” based on an employee’s “sexual orientation or transgender status” violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The question at the heart of State of Texas v. EEOC is whether the agency acted within its mandate or moved beyond it when it protected “correlated conduct,” including sex-specific dress, bathroom access, pronouns, and healthcare practices.

That’s not what he said. Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, ruled that the EEOC overreached, noting that the Bostock ruling refused to weigh in on the accommodations included in the EEOC’s technical assistance document. The Bostock majority opinion, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, states, “We do not purport to address bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind,” calling these “questions for future cases.”

What about current HR policies? Phillips and Kluger said they advise their clients to continue protecting LGBTQ workplace rights. Keep reading here.—SV

Do you work in HR or have information about your HR department we should know? Email [email protected] or DM @SusannaVogel1 on Twitter. For completely confidential conversations, ask Susanna for her number on Signal.

Employers across a range of industries including retail, manufacturing, and healthcare might still be feeling the sting of the Great Resignation, as they are increasingly demanding reimbursement from their former employees for the cost of training them, according to a recent Reuters report.

This may seem like a punitive response, similar to a spurned lover changing a once-shared Netflix password. But it’s a fairly common practice called a training agreement, known by critics as a training repayment agreement provision (TRAP). They’re often included within the pages of employment contracts, according to the Student Borrower Protection Center.

“TRAPs function in the real world as a penalty for leaving a job. And, even if this TRAP is not enforced, its presence has the power to accomplish the intended consequence of pressuring workers into staying,” the organization wrote in a July press release.

An August class action lawsuit accused national pet goods chain PetSmart of using a TRAP that “requires PetSmart groomers to take on $5,000 of debt to PetSmart in exchange for Grooming Academy training. PetSmart forgives that debt only if the worker stays at their job for two years after they begin training, no matter how little they are paid or how poorly they are treated,” the complaint said. Saddling employees with debt upon leaving a job is illegal under California law, the suit alleged.

These clauses have caught the attention of lawmakers, including Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, who Reuters reported is considering measures to rein in the practice.

We recently asked HR Brew readers whether or not they’d consider charging soon-to-be former employees for training. While 67% of readers answered “no,” 23% answered “yes.” A further 10% said they already do charge some former employees for training.

If you’ve had experience enforcing TRAPs, or dealing with any blowback from implementing them, be sure to be in touch.—SB

Do you work in HR or have information about your HR department we should know? Email [email protected] or DM @SammBlum on Twitter. For completely confidential conversations, ask Sam for his number on Signal.

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: More than 44,000 US tech workers have been laid off so far this year. (Crunchbase News)

Quote: “Over the coming months, having access to a heated office with amenities will be prized by many feeling the cost-of-living sting.”—Molly Johnson-Jones, co-founder and CEO of Flexa Careers, on the potential demand for in-office work during the winter months (WorkLife)

Read: Office attendance in the US is still nowhere near pre-pandemic attendance levels, leading some to question how to best use these once-essential spaces. One solution: Turn them into laboratories. (Vox)

Invest in them: Engaged, connected employees do good work—and stick around longer. And Leapsome’s all-in-one people enablement platform makes work more fulfilling by facilitating everything from performance feedback to employee engagement. See how here.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}