Four HR Landmines Hiding in November's Policy Changes
What the new EEOC leadership means for compliance, culture, and bringing people back to the office
What happens to your compliance strategy when federal employment rules shift overnight?
How do you respond when an employee shows up with completely crossed wires about workplace boundaries?
What's actually driving the resistance to return-to-office mandates?
This week on Bringing the Human Back to Human Resources, we sit down with co-host Bryan Driscoll, HR & Small Business Consultant, to break down the major HR issues shifting right now.
A new EEOC chair, growing confusion about workplace boundaries, questions about bringing people back to physical offices, and the constant challenge of building culture when leadership doesn't back you up.
Let’s talk about what's actually changing, why it matters, and what you need to do about it.
(00:00) The EEOC Just Changed How It Enforces Employment Law
New EEOC chair Andrea Lucas switched the agency from primarily investigatory to policy-making. That means fewer broad investigations, but way more targeted ones in specific areas. Gender identity, religious accommodation, and reverse discrimination claims are about to get serious attention.
What's shifting operationally:
DEI programs need immediate audits. Strip out quota systems and preference mechanisms. You can still have diversity work, just make sure it's defensible.
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act protections, especially abortion-related leave, are rolling back. Accommodation policies need rewriting, and employees will be losing something they had. Some states are compensating with their own protections, but federal rollback still stings.
Religious and gender identity accommodations are getting reinterpreted. Expect narrower definitions, possible restrictions around pronoun use and bathroom access, and stronger protections for religious objections.
The action: Audit now. Document your reasoning. Understand your state's protections because they're increasingly your floor, not the federal baseline.
(09:30) Your Culture Gets Defined in One Moment
A person in Texas showed up to a company Halloween party dressed as a suicide bomber and was shocked when he got fired.
That reaction tells a specific story about how that company functioned before.
For this employee to think it was acceptable, something had already broken in accountability. Maybe leadership let other things slide. Maybe no one clearly drew boundaries. Maybe the person's manager never called out behavior that should have been called out.
Here's the hard truth: Your response when someone crosses a line is your culture. Not your values statement. Not your wellness initiatives. Your actual response in the moment.
The thing about anti-harassment training (those corny videos everyone mocks)? They exist because managers are supposed to do something when misconduct happens. Training only works if leadership follows through. If executives or owners model the behavior HR is supposed to prevent, the entire system falls apart.
What's needed isn't more training. It's dual training structures. One for the whole company about what crosses the line. Another specifically for managers about how to respond.
(17:50) Why "You Must Come Back" Loses Every Time
Bryan gets this question constantly from HR leaders: "How do we convince our employees to come back to the office?"
The problem with that question is that if conviction is needed, something's already broken.
Here's the real issue with mandates:
Employees see mandates as control, not business strategy. Once that narrative takes hold, people show up physically but check out mentally. They do the minimum and count hours until they can leave. The office becomes a punishment, not a benefit.
Employees know the company was more profitable during remote work. They've successfully executed jobs from home for years. They can see the numbers.
So when leadership suddenly mandates a return without a legitimate business reason, the message is unmistakable: this is about oversight, not optimization.
What actually works instead:
Give a real reason. An actual business problem worth solving. "Collaboration has dropped and we need to rebuild team connection" is legitimate. "I like seeing people work" is not.
Even better, give employees agency. "We're opening office space and we'd love to see you use it on collaboration days" creates buy-in. That's fundamentally different from "Everyone must be here three days a week."
Flexibility is a right employees have come to expect. When leadership takes it back with a mandate, the signal travels fast: the organization never actually trusted them. It just couldn't force them before. That's a trust rupture that takes years to repair, and it absolutely tanks retention.
(31:30) The Whiplash Is Real and HR Absorbs It
The political cycle keeps changing the rules.
Every four years, employment law shifts and HR has to rebuild compliance infrastructure around opposite rules. But here's what makes it harder: when protections get rolled back, it's not just policy changing. Employees are losing something they had. That's emotionally different from a new benefit arriving.
State laws are increasingly the real floor.
California, New York, Illinois, Washington: they're building their own protections that often exceed federal minimums. Organizations operating across multiple states are managing different rule sets now. That's the new normal, and compliance infrastructure needs to account for it.
HR leaders are caught in the middle.
The real pressure lands on those managing chaos while leadership may or may not back enforcement. Many have to walk into the room with their CEO and say, "We're creating legal risk. We need to change this." That's uncomfortable if leadership doesn't value that feedback.
Not everyone should be in an HR business partner role.
If direct conversations with authority make someone uncomfortable, there are other paths. But if someone takes the seat, they need to be willing to tell hard truths. Because when HR is siloed and unsupported, it doesn't just hurt compliance. It breaks the entire culture being built.
What's Actually Worth Taking Away
November is shifting a lot in the HR landscape. The EEOC under new leadership will operate differently. Protections that seemed solid are likely shifting. Some will narrow. Others might disappear entirely.
But here's what matters most: organizations that audit their policies now, document their reasoning, and stay ahead of changes will navigate this transition successfully. Those that wait and react will be scrambling.
The organizations keeping their employees are the ones where leadership actually backs what HR is trying to build. Where accountability is consistent. Where trust exists, even when things get messy. Because employees can tell the difference between a company that's trying to do right by them and one that's just managing risk.
The real challenge isn't the compliance headache. It's building a workplace where people actually want to show up.
Want to connect?
Contact Bryan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanjohndriscoll/
Contact Traci: https://linktr.ee/HRTraci
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Disclaimer: Thoughts, opinions, and statements made on this podcast are not a reflection of the thoughts, opinions, and statements of the Company by whom Traci Chernoff is actively employed.
Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products or services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.