The presidential inauguration will be here before we know it, and HR leaders have much to prepare for, including potential immigration changes.

Immigration will likely be one of the Trump administration’s first targets. As such, HR teams should expect increased scrutiny on work authorization requests of foreign-born employees and an increase in immigration enforcement that could lead to deportations, experts told HR Brew.

“[Trump’s team], right now, they’re planning furiously to start taking action immediately in January,” Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, an Austin, Texas-based attorney who represents immigrants, told HR Brew. “Similarly, everyone else needs to be planning and preparing and not just waiting to see what they do. We know what they’re going to do. We’ve been through this before.”

What to expect. Experts HR spoke with said HR teams can expect an increase in immigration enforcement, including audits of employment documentation or raids.

Keep reading here.—PM

Lift Our Voices (LOV), a workers’ rights advocacy group founded by former Fox News hosts Gretchen Carlson and Julie Roginsky, has announced a new index to hold employers accountable for how they handle discrimination and harassment.

The LOV Where You Work Index will grade Russell 3000 equity index employers based on how they use non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and forced arbitration, according to the organization. HR leaders at Russell index companies (aka, all of the US’s largest public companies) will receive a survey from LOV asking if forced arbitration is used in employee disputes, how NDAs are used, and if their company understands the current legislation on forced arbitration. The responses will inform the index, which will be available in 2025, and will be a resource that job seekers and workers can use to understand how employers deploy NDAs.

It’s the organization’s latest attempt to make the workplace safer for anyone experiencing workplace harassment. LOV was responsible for pushing the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act and the Speak Out Act, which bar companies from using NDAs to silence workers who report sexual harassment and were signed into law by President Biden in late 2022.

Although companies are not compelled to complete the survey, Carlson believes that employers will want to use it to tout their worker-friendly practices, she told Axios. She also said that employers can use the index to improve their internal processes.

Keep reading here.—KP

Irmgard Naudin ten Cate believed she was destined to be a lawyer—until, in her last year of law school, she realized she wasn’t passionate about the hours of research the law career required.

After graduating, she instead pursued a headhunting career, eventually landing at professional services giant EY, where she’s been for more than 20 years. She took on her current role, global talent attraction and acquisition leader, in June.

Naudin ten Cate, who is based in the Netherlands, oversees a leadership team of 10, and 1,000 recruiters and sourcers. This acquisition team keeps busy: In the last fiscal year, the firm received 5.1 million applications and made 100,000 new hires globally. She also oversees specialized functions, like a global talent attraction team, focusing on understanding the global talent pool and diversifying recruiting sources, externally and internally.

Some of the biggest challenges facing her team include tasking her recruiters with acting as career coaches rather than focusing on administrative responsibilities, understanding the current labor market and EY’s workforce strategy, and understanding labor shortages as an immediate issue despite current growing retention.

Keep reading here.—PM

Identifying and addressing pay equity problems within a company can be challenging. An employment lawyer explains why companies must act now to ensure fairness and compliance—and how HR can help.