Following the Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn the constitutional protection guaranteeing abortion access, many companies have grappled with how to respond, and some have reevaluated internal policies to respect the law while addressing employees’ needs.

While navigating this hot-button issue can be tricky, one thing is clear: Employees want to hear from HR teams and company leadership about their plans. According to an October survey by Catalyst, a nonprofit organization focused on advancing women in the workplace, 59% of US workers want more transparency from their employers about their reproductive benefits.

“This is no longer hypothetical. Employees are concerned about their futures,” Julie Nugent, SVP for strategic solutions and products at Catalyst, told HR Brew. “They’re making decisions based on how their own company—or perhaps a prospective employer—and leaders are addressing both abortion access as well as reproductive care.”

Employees and job-seekers are looking for concrete policies related to reproductive care, and as employers compete for workers in what’s still a tight labor market, HR pros need to be sure their policies and plans don’t run afoul of state and federal laws.

Say more, do more. Employees don’t just want to hear more—they want to see more being done. Some 44% of employees told Catalyst that their organizations and leaders weren’t doing enough to ensure abortion access for employees.

Following the decision, companies including Levi Strauss, Disney, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs released statements committing to support employees’ reproductive health or offering reimbursements for travel costs to receive care.

Following those statements of support, employees are now looking to see if their companies are following through on June pledges.

Complicated compliance. Reproductive healthcare is an ever-changing issue, and HR pros are having to scrutinize the policies they have in place, all while monitoring the political landscape at the national and state level. Keep reading here.—AD

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Michael Willis is Goodwill Southeast Georgia’s senior manager of corporate HR. The 15-year HR vet, who joined the company just over a year ago, is excited about HR’s continued transformation into a critical business unit and sees people teams as a “conduit” for top leadership to understand the employee experience. Willis recently spoke to HR Brew about how he puts his HR skills to work for Goodwill and the greater Savannah, Georgia, community.

How would you describe your specific job to someone who doesn’t work in HR?

I act as a business partner to influence our organization’s culture through people practices. My team leads all the traditional HR department functions and people operations. In addition, because my company is a social enterprise, my team collaborates with workforce development teams to support initiatives with external community partners [from] the standpoint of fostering career development and associate advocacy for the purpose of barrier removal, so our associates can reach their version of success here at Goodwill Southeast Georgia.

How does your organizational HR function overlap with Goodwill’s social enterprise and workforce development programs?

Our Opportunity Center networks…help to actually work with other employers within the area, as well as individuals. We collaborate to really provide cohesion between individuals that may go through soft-skills trainings, or they may take advantage of grants that we’re able to offer…and then once we know that that individual has the skill set, we can either employ them within one of our business units or provide employment within our community partnerships.

What’s the best change you’ve made at a place you've worked? Keep reading here.

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New York City’s highly anticipated pay transparency law went into effect earlier this month, and its adoption has been anything but smooth. Marketing Brew’s Katie Hicks recently reported on how the legislation has been received by the marketing industry—a sector that, in recent years, has made headlines for pay disparities.

In addition to pay-range discrepancies, [Lola Han, CEO and founder of compensation management program Kamsa, which works with marketing agencies to help determine employee salaries] also noted that some companies seem to be making salaries hard to find in job postings. “Make it clear [and] easily accessible,” she said. “Don’t hide it in a paragraph or way at the bottom. Just have it in its own paragraph.”

Despite the fact that the law’s effective date was pushed from May 15 to November 1, Han said “there is some panic” among employers. She added that “people are resource-constrained” and “don’t know where to start.”

Beyond that, she said there’s still a lack of clarity around how serious the crackdown will be for any companies that are found to be noncompliant. According to the NYC Commission on Human Rights, employers will not receive a fine on their first violation if fixed within 30 days of it being flagged. After that, they could be subject to up to $250k in civil penalties for each violation.

Keep reading on Marketing Brew.—KH

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: 67% of global workers feel they were paid fairly for their work in 2022. (Qualtrics)

Quote: “We have sick kids at the same time we have a childcare crisis—you put the two together and there just isn’t any wiggle room...People are falling through the cracks. It means missed paychecks, disruptions at home, and staffing shortages that erode productivity growth and increase costs at a time when we’re already worried about those things.”—Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG, on the RSV surge’s impact on working parents (the Washington Post)

Read: Republican EEOC commissioner Andrea Lucas is investigating and pursuing charges against at least three companies that provide abortion travel benefits, alleging that the policy discriminates against pregnant and disabled workers. (Bloomberg Law)

Santa or Scrooge: Forget branded socks. Tremendous surveyed 1,500 employees to understand which holiday gifts do (and don’t) make employees feel appreciated. See the results in this white paper.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}