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Employer Changes in Illinois: 300 Days Plus New POSTER

The following are a couple employment related changes all business owners and human resources professionals in Illinois should be aware of.

DOCUMENTATION RECOMMENDED
Employees of any Illinois employer now have a much longer time frame to bring a complaint or case against their employer.  This is due to a change to the Illinois Human Rights Act the Governor signed on August 24, 2018.  Specifically it was Senate Bill 20 Public Act 100-1066. 

So basically, if an employee feels they have been unfairly treated by their employer or any representative o their employer, such as their supervisor, they now have 300 days to bring that complaint to the EEOC or an attorney.  This just reinforces age old HR related advice to: DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT.  It's hard to remember what we had for lunch yesterday, let alone the who, what, when, where, how , and why of an employee situation that happened well over a year ago by the time you are notified that an employee took their full 300 days to report a problem with the employer.

NEW POSTER REQUIREMENT
Due to all the focus on sexual harassment in the media over the past year, Illinois issued a new required poster last month covering employee rights related to workplaces being free of harassment and discrimination. The direct link to the poster can be found here: https://www2.illinois.gov/dhr/Publications/Documents/SH%20and%20DISCRIMINATION%20EMPLOYEE%20POSTER.pdf#search=POSTER

Remember, all employer posters required for federal and state must be posted in each building in the most conspicuous location that all employees in the building frequent.  Doing so will minimize your changes of fines from $210 to $10,000 per poster per building, if audited by authorities of compliance organizations such as the DOL, OSHA, etc.

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