During the course of providing HR consulting services to clients, my colleagues and I have received a number of questions about the newest version of the Form I-9. In case you weren’t aware, the Form I-9 has received yet another set of updates, with the newly issued form required to be used by employers no later than September 18th, 2017.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that 3.2 million of the roughly 153 million workers in the United States voluntarily left their jobs in July 2017. What isn’t reported by the BLS is the number of employees who had expressed the potential desire to leave their company, only to be persuaded by their management team to remain with the organization.

I'm certain that, in your business, you have probably given a fair amount of thought to what percentage of salary increase to give employees. You've probably also had conversations with managers on how much to offer a candidate they want to hire, or what a new salary should be for someone who moved to a new role internally. These are all common compensation conversations that happen throughout the year in business.

You would be hard pressed to find a C-level executive who does not think that successfully staffing their organization can either make or break their organization in the long run. Aside from some roles directly impacting company revenue, losing out on top talent to competitors typically signals the slow and inexorable decline of a business. Luckily, there are a number of ways organizations can improve their recruiting effectiveness to avoid this undesirable outcome.

What Organizations Can Do to Reduce the Gender Pay Gap During a recent interview about gender pay equity on Freakonomics with Harvard economics professor Claudia Goldin, she noted that the reasons for the existence of the gender pay gap in the United States are varied and complex. For organizations that are interested in promoting pay equity, it’s important to understand what these varied and complex drivers of pay equity are. My colleague authored a great article that provides additional information about proposed legislation and notes steps organizations can take to create consistent pay practices.

On February 14, 2017, the Mayor of The District of Columbia, Muriel Bowser, did not veto The DC Universal Paid Leave Amendment Act of 2016 and allowed the bill to pass without her signature. The Washington Business Journal reports, "in a letter to Council Chairman Phil Mendelson on Wednesday, Bowser wrote that she supports paid family leave but still holds concerns the bill approved by the D.C. Council is too expensive and would burden local businesses." So, what does this mean for employers in the District?