The Outliers of Fair Housing

Fair Housing is pretty clear cut for the most part.  Federal and state laws clearly list the protected classes and outline the ways in which they are to be protected.  There are however, outliers: situations in which doing the right thing isn’t always clear and when it is easy to make a mistake and violate Fair Housing laws.  Most often it is just not realizing someone is a member of a protected class or fully understanding the situation.  Let’s take a tour of some of the less common, but altogether more difficult situations in Fair Housing.

How great leasing turned into a charge of discrimination

Don't panic. The title of this post is indeed scary, but the lesson is simple and quite valuable. Let's dive into this cautionary tale of how zealous leasing without the minutiae of procedural details landed a community in a conciliation agreement with HUD.

Fair Housing & the Leaning Tower of Service Requests

Picture the scene. It’s a Monday morning during the first week of the month at Acme Apartments. The maintenance team arrives to find close to two dozen non-emergency service requests have been submitted over the weekend.

Fair Housing Phobia

We once had a conversation with a president of a property management company who told us that he didn’t believe in offering Fair Housing training to his employees.

New ADA Regulations DO Affect You!

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has revised regulations for the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) and these changes recently went into effect.

Social Media for Recruiting?

Many companies have jumped into social media on many levels, embracing the ease of communication for contact with customers, employees and employment candidates.

Grace Hill Launches Safety Series - 47 courses!

Big news from Grace Hill today, we've just added 47 courses on safety! 25 of the courses are in English and 22 are in Spanish.  

Jana Muma, Grace Hill's Director of Learning and Development had this to say about the importance of safety training, "Safety experts stress that accidents are not random occurrences. They happen for a reason.  They are unplanned and unwanted, but nearly always preventable. When companies have an effective safety program in place, employees feel more comfortable and confident in their environment. And when employees feel safe in the workplace, absenteeism goes down and productivity goes up.  That is a win win! Safety training is an essential element of an effective Safety Program."  

Here is a preview that gives you a peak inside this important series - 

Federally Protected Classes May Grow!

For months now HUD has been hinting about changing Fair Housing rules to include Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans-gendered as a protected class and yesterday they made their first official move.

Monitoring Employee Internet Activities

An interesting white paper written by Jonathan Naylor for Symantec Hosted Services about why employers should be monitoring employees' use of the Internet and email came across our desk today. Surprisingly, the points made were not only valid, they were eye opening.

The True Cost of Absenteeism

Earlier in the year Mercer (www.mercer.com) released a study on employee absences and how much it really costs employers.