Jonathan.Segal

You walk into your building and you see that holiday decorations are everywhere. You pass by a beautiful pine Christmas tree eloquently decorated. A co-worker responds: "The tree is inappropriate to the workplace."

Segal: WRONG. It is beautiful and Christmas can and should be acknowledged (says the Jewish guy who wears his grandmother’s Chai). Don’t remove Christmas from the holiday season. But recognize other holidays, too. A Hanukkah menorah and a Kwanzaa harvest basket would be nice additions.

As we all know, the glass ceiling is the invisible and sometimes impenetrable barrier that prevents women of talent from rising as high as men of equal talent.  While we undeniably have made progress as a society, men still have disproportionate power at the top in most organizations.

Maryland was the first state to enact a statute in the employment context  prohibiting employers from requiring or requesting that applicants or employees provide their employer with their passwords to their private social media sites.  Illinois has become the second.

From Shakespeare's Hamlet 1602:

Heaven and earth,
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on, and yet, within a month—
Let me not think on't—Frailty, thy name is woman!—

Hamlet is angry at his mother for marrying shortly after his father's death.  He sees her as weak.  He generalizes the weakness he sees in his mother to women generally.

No progressive manager would say a sexist comment like that today. Actually, they might, just when they think they are being progressive!

Social media is no longer new. It is mainstream. To avoid social media today is like avoiding e-mail 15 years ago.

For employers, social media creates risks and rewards. This article discusses how to maximize the rewards and minimize the risks.

Recruiting

Despite the substantial benefits to having a diverse workforce, employers need to be careful about how they increase diversity or they may back into a reverse discrimination claim.

We all know that powerful women face Catch-22s.  When Donald Trump exercises control, he is in control. When Martha Stewart exercises control, she is controlling.  Same behaviors; different labels.

A lot has been written about these Catch-22s.  Less has been written on how women with power can handle them.

Here are three of the many Catch-22s women with power face and my suggestions for how to navigate them.

1. Ice Queen

Sexism is more than illegal. It is immoral and bad business.

There is more than a little bit of sexism in the roles portrayed in Mad Men.  So why are so many of us crazy about the show, even though we deplore the sexism that is part of it?

Of course, it is a TV show and not real life. And, the characters are not only psychologically interesting but also physically attractive.

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down.  No matter what he did, Sisyphus could not get to the top of the hill.

We can all feel Sisyphus’ pain as HR and other executives.  We are constantly rolling up against regulatory boulders, plaintiffs’ lawyers and labor unions marketed by the NLRB.

But Sisyphus had it easy in one respect.  He did not have to worry about the FLSA.

We are in the middle of a wage and hour revolution.  More specifically: