The What It Takes Podcast Ep 7: Legal Realities Every Employee/and Employee Must Know ft. Chaim Book

Welcome back to another episode of the What It Takes podcast. My name is Tilly Krauss, your host. And today we're sitting down with a expert in the world of employment or employee law. Employment law. Employment law. Kayen Book, a employment attorney for how many years? More than 30. Canara. Wow. I'm such a young guy, it's hard to believe. I'm excited for today's we're going to talk about um what should employees do? What should they prepare for? Things they should know. Employers of they have a small business. even if they do not need to use an employment attorney. This is definitely an episode you want to listen to. Um, we're gonna talk about scenarios, best practices. I'm excited. Welcome K, to the podcast. Thanks a lot, Ty. I appreciate it. It's great to be here. [Music] How did you get into employment law? Why employment law? What was what was it like the process? If someone wants to get into that world today, why did you pick that path? So, I actually actually went in kicking and screaming. I I wasn't interested in really really. Okay. I started working for a larger law firm. I I I wanted to be a trial lawyer. I wanted to be involved in litigation and and uh and and that's what that's the job that I had applied for and they didn't have an opening in in particular. Why litigation? I I thought it was suitable to to uh my personality. I think I was wrong about that because I'm actually I think more suitable to trying to give advice and help people, you know, work through problems that rather than fighting, but that's what I thought at the time. I was a youngster. Um, and um, as I said, I really went in kicking and screaming. I really did not want to do it. And that was the only position that was available at that firm. And they said, "Try it out for a few months and see if you like it." Okay, so I did. Now you think the next thing I'm going to say and I loved it right away. Wrong. That's not what happened. I was, as I said, young and stubborn. I thought like this is ridiculous. This is not what I want to do. So, I didn't really um didn't really focus on on learning the basics of employment law. Instead, I focused on trying to find another job in litigation with another law firm. Okay. Which I did and I went to a different law firm and uh I worked in litigation for a couple of years. Um realizing that I I actually missed employment law because I had spent a few months doing it when I first started and um I sort of gravitated back to it. um but not fully in. Um and then when I started my own law firm with a partner um how long after after let's see it was about five or six years after from when I started at a law school. Yeah. This is a question I like to ask people who started their own business. It's very nerve-wracking starting your own business. Like you're giving up a steady paycheck. Yes. You got to start from scratch. Being a business owner means you need to learn how to do sales. Yes. What was that like? What pushed you over the age of Were you married with a family like higher level of responsibilities? What was that? I mean, it's a lot starting a business. It is a lot. I mean, my own personal story, I mean, you know, because I I never like to do anything the easy way. So, I literally um got married six months later started this law firm from scratch, not knowing anything about how to run a law firm or how to run a business. What happened that made you decide like I'm out of here, time to open my own shop? You know, some people I think I think one of them, you know, h have want to do things their own way and want to sort of figure things out and and and want to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes and and have something that they can own and point to and say this is this is what I created. And uh so I always had um you know a pull towards that. Um the law firm that I had been working with before I started my own was having some financial trouble. Um and I I I I realized that uh it was going to be rocky. Um and I didn't want to deal with trying to solve someone else's problems. I I felt uh I was more comfortable trying to start something new myself. Wow. Can I ask you what were you making when you left that law firm? And how long did it take for you to get back to that compensation having your own business? Um I don't remember exact numbers but I mean but but you know I was making a comfortable salary. Um definitely the easier way to go would have been like okay I'm making a comfortable salary. Let me look for another job with another law firm. I just just got married just starting a family. You know that would have been the easy route to take. Um and as I said I don't always like to do things the easy way. Um and so um you know I thought long term and long plan I I I talked to my late father who was a really terrific um influence and adviser to me and I talked to other lawyers who had started their own practices about you know what the challenges were and I spoke to my wife who was very supportive and is still very supportive to this day uh thank god and um you know we decided you know what it's worth taking a little bit of risk um maybe this is the time before you have you lots of kids running around and before you have the real financial challenges um of of having a family and this is maybe this is the best time to give it a try. So I'm I'm grateful that uh things worked out in a positive way. Gosh, that's incredible. How long do you think it took you to reach the same compensation you were making having a W2 salary? A year, six months. No, I think it took longer than that. I mean, I I'd have to go back and take a, you know, an actual look at the financial records, but it definitely took, you know, a good three, four years before I was can say that, you know, okay, now I'm I'm I'm I'm where I was before and now I can grow from here. So, yeah, it took time. Definitely took time. It was challenging. It was definitely What advice would you give somebody who's looking to start their own law firm and they do have a family with kids? Would you recommend that they keep the W2, maybe start on the side, jump into its full force, so they can focus, they have that drive, that fire? That's a It's a great question. I mean, I don't think there's one answer that fits everybody. Um, I think you have to sort of figure out your personal situation. I do think you do have to have a certain amount of savings because it's, you know, it's not going to be easy at the beginning. I mean, you know, there obviously there are exceptions where you you had a big success for the first moment, but I think you need to be realistic and I think you need to have a certain amount of savings, certain amount of faith. Uh, not in that order. Not in that order, of course. Faith first, savings. Um, and support from family, you know, was obviously very very important. Moral support, financial support sometimes too, right? Moral support for sure. Um, but I think you do need a focus. I think you do need to have things in place to to to help your success. So that would mean a clear idea of what it is that you want to accomplish. Um I think a narrow focus in my view certainly in the practice of law I think is is the way to go. Um you can always broaden that focus as you go along but I think a narrow focus um you know is a good recipe. I love that. Wow. Pretty cool stuff. Um before we go into it for people who are not familiar what does the world of employment law really cover on both ends employee and employer? Sure. So what we do is uh you know we're a resource for for for business owners and for for for the for the for the business operators so to speak. Um sometimes it's the CFO, sometimes it's the you know the the head of of human resources, sometimes it's the owner of the company. Um, and so, you know, we give very practical day-to-day advice. You have, you want, you're starting a business, you want to hire employees. What does that mean? What is that about? Who's going to do the payroll? Do you understand what's involved in running a payroll? What do you have to do for your employees in terms of um terms of payment, in terms of benefits, in terms of time off, right, etc. Um, and then we sort of go through, you know, I I actually when I meet with a new client, one of the things that we do is we spend a good 45 minutes to an hour just this is what it takes in the life of the employment, you know, span. This is what you need to believe it or not advertising for employees is regulated but really um interview process um onboarding um employee training employee discipline employee management all the way through unfortunately sometimes it's employee termination or employee resignation dealing with that. So, you know, we really like to walk through the lifespan of the employment relationship so that someone really gets an overview. Can't cover all the specifics in an hour, but we try to give an overview so that they really understand, you know, what what's involved, understand the challenges. So, that's what we try to do. Wow. 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Top top three mistakes that you've gotten. Top five. I'll give you the top three or four. I'll see how many I can cover, you know, super quickly. But, um, look, I think the most important thing for, um, a someone who's starting out, starting a business, and is hiring somebody, we'll start off with a W2 employee. So, you need to know, probably the most important thing to know is you need to track their time. Um, so many instances in which I find people have regulation problem problems with the Department of Labor lawsuits and things like that are where they, oh, I hired somebody, they work for me. I don't didn't really keep track of their hours. There was no time clock. There was no app for them to record their time. There was no computer program to record their time. And so we just sort of I paid them I paid this person a weekly salary and that was all I did. And then all of a sudden we have an enormous problem because the person is saying they worked 50 60 70 hours a week. Um they were not paid overtime and there's no record in terms of how many hours they worked. So that's probably one of the biggest challenges I see. Frankly, and I'll say this uh hopefully it'll only come up this once, but it might come up uh future. Every person who listens to this podcast and beyond is probably an employer of some sort. Meaning if you have somebody comes into your house once a week to clean up that per you are an employer of that person. If you have somebody who's looking after your kids to hire a babysitter, you are an employer. All of those rules apply to you as an individual. So the fact that you have to keep track of the hours and that you may have to pay overtime if they work more than 40 hours. Yeah. Even if you have a housekeeper that's working in your home, that rule applies to you. So it's a really important thing to know about. Oh wow. Really? Okay. Yeah. So that's one common mistake. Um the other one that I'm sure will come up later on in our conversation is mclassifying. And that is um you know anyone who's getting into the business particularly in the air if you're getting into the area of anything related to construction you've heard that um oh I'll just hire 1099s. I'll hire independent contractors and then I don't have to worry about all these things that is talking to me about because they're just my independent contractor. They're not their employee. You have to be really careful in this area because it is very very um gray in terms of what is an actual um independent contractor. Different rules, different places, etc. Um so we can talk about that in more detail. Um so that's an area where I find people make a lot of mistakes. Um another area that people make mistakes is um not documenting problems. when you're having a problem in the relationship and you don't write it up for your own records. I'm not talking about giving the person a write up. I'm just talking about for your own records. Keeping a record of this person comes late all this time all the time. This person is on their phone about paying attention to their work. This person is, you know, getting into arguments with co-workers. Those are things that you need to keep a record of. And we'll come back to why that's important. Um, and then the last area that I think that people make mistakes is, you know, just, you know, reacting out of emotion and firing somebody without understanding the repercussions for what that might mean. Can you get a give an example? Yeah, sure. um you um have uh a worker who's uh you told three times already, you know, not not not to not to vape, you know, when they're at a client's uh you know, residence and the person keeps doing it and you just really get angry and blow up and just say that's it. You're done. You're out of here. But that person also last week told you that um he's going in for surgery um next week. So, you know, now all of a sudden you have a situation where clearly the person did something wrong. You have no record that they did anything wrong because you never wrote it up and but you do have but that you do have a text or an email from the person saying they need to take time off next week to have surgery. So now you have the person claiming that you fired him because he was going out to take s to have surgery instead of the real reason which is because they vaped on the job for the fourth time. So that's that would just be you know a real life story that we had recently you know where you know something that should never have been a threatened lawsuit turned out to be a threatened lawsuit because there was no documentation of the real problem. There was documentation of what I'll call the fake problem and the fake problem became the real problem really quickly. Wow. I want to go back to you said a few challenges. Yeah. So I want to ask you a couple questions on that when it comes to tracking time. Um, there are times where you have roles where they are W2 employees, salespeople that are getting a base salary, but they're on the road a lot. How are you tracking their time? If they're working hybrid schedule, how are you tracking their time? And I, my job is I talk to employees all the time helping them get jobs. Sure. There are times where employees can get turned off by the clocking in when you come to the office. They feel like, oh, they're trying to micromanage me. So, what is something that you could tell business owners from advice? either for sales people when they're on the road traveling and it's a little hard to track their time and uh people who feel like you're sort of impeding on their I don't know privacy but they feel micromanaged. Sure. That's my first question. Then we'll go to the next question. Absolutely. Well, you know, if if I ever decide to uh give up my job as a lawyer, I can get a job for one of these payroll companies uh and and try to sell the the software for for tracking time because it's so important and there's so many great software options out there. And if you have a payroll uh company that you work with, you should talk to your payroll company about what systems they have because there are great apps, there are great computer programs, there are all kinds of great things. The apps are the best because you know the employee has it on their phone, there's no excuse for them not using it. So in terms of ease to use, it's easier today than ever to to to to do it. Even if the person's on the road, even if the person is um you know checking in with clients, going you know going out to visit clients, etc. um in the car, whatever it is. Um really, really easy to use programs today. Um in terms of the intrusiveness, I think I hope that in 2025 most people realize that, you know, you're being monitored whether by your employer, whether by the government, whether by Instagram or whatever your social app, uh social media app you like to use, you're being monitored all the time. So, um I think I would speak to employees about being a measure of productivity more than anything. Okay. Um it's not that we're you know keeping you know we're micromanaging you but rather we're measuring productivity. So if we know that you're you know off today and so we're not tracking the productivity it doesn't count so to speak in terms of how productive or not productive you are. Um if you're you know taking your lunch break obviously you know we're not looking at what the productivity during your lunch break is but we need that we need this information to measure productivity. And then the last thing I would say is, you know, you can say very honestly it's required by law because that's really best answer to give anybody. It is required by law. It's required by law to track everybody's hours. Well, a longer discussion is about who who falls under this, but most employees do fall under this. You have to pay them by the hour. Um, and so if you don't have records, and this is where unfortunately people, you know, call us in an emergency situation, you know, they they didn't track the hours and then they're being accused of not having paid people properly and they don't have records and then they are really really in a bad spot because it's hard to say, oh well, I can, you know, bring five people forward who'll tell you that they didn't work more than 40 hours. If you don't have the records, you're at a very, very distinct disadvantage. And what about people who are getting an annual salary who are not getting paid hourly? That's a great question. So this goes to the answer to the answer the question as to who has to track their hours and who doesn't have to track the hours. So let's start with the premise is the opposite of what people think. People think okay everyone's salaried unless I think otherwise. And it's really the opposite of that. It's everyone should be on an hourly basis unless they are what we call exempt. Exempt in in vernacular means putter. So when is a person exempt? Very very narrow categories. A person is exempt if they are a professional employee. That means that they have to have an advanced degree. Most people don't fall into that. People are exempt if they are a supervisor. But a supervisor is a very narrow category. A supervisor is someone who their main responsibility, not their aside responsibility, their main responsibility is to supervise two or more other employees. But that's only part of the test. The other part of the test is they have to be making more than a certain salary. And that will depend on where they are. So that could be different in New Jersey. It could be different in New York, very different in New York City. But the salary level is somewhere between 36 $37,000 on the low. That would be in New Jersey, which follows the federal law. But on the high, New York City, so Brooklyn, Manhattan, Staten Island, Bronx, Queens, five burrows, that's a really high number. That number can be as high as, you know, 60 or or so thousand dollars that the person has to be making. So, if they're making less than that, then for sure, even if they're supervising other people, they have to be paid by the hour. If they're making more than that, they have to be supervising other people. It's not enough for them to be called a manager. They actually have to be supervising people. Wow. Yeah. Very cool. What about when it comes to miscl misclassifying? Um, I know that most employees are W2 employees, but there are many times salespeople that get hired as 1099. Uh, they get straight commission or in the world of real estate brokers, right? I'm assuming real estate brokers are all 1099. Um, how are they able to do that where the owner of the real estate agency is helping them? They're giving them support. They are tracking their KPIs. They want them to be successful. They are doing daily meetings. How does that work? Are they really supposed to be 1099 or it's a legal loophole? It's a, as I said, it's it's it's a very complicated area. Um, so I'm I'm going to try to simplify it for the purposes of the podcast. So, and real estate brokers is a very different category. So, I'm going to put that aside for a second. I'm sorry. Mortgage brokers, mortgage brokers again, mortgage mortgage broker mortgage brokerage is regulated in a different way. Real estate brokerage regulated different way. I can come back to that in a moment. But talk about your typ your your basic situation. Your basic situation is you want to hire someone to work with you to help you in some situation. So the way you should think about it is someone is a 1099 if they are an independent contractor. What that means is take the word independent. That means they have to be on their own. They have to set their own schedule. You cannot be telling them when to do something. how to do something, where to do something. They have to be independent. They have to have the ability to work for other people, doing other jobs, earning other money on their own because they're independent. So, the example I like to give is when the air conditioning is not working in my office and I call an air conditioner repair person, that person's an independent contractor coming in to fix my air conditioner. And he decides when he's going to come in. He decides how he's going to fix it. He decides what he's going to charge me. He sends me a bill for services. That's an independent contractor. Someone who comes into my office every single day to do the bookkeeping in my office is supposed to come in and be there at 9:30 to 5:30. I tell them what the salary is. I tell them when they can take a day off, that person's not independent, right? Even if they're doing a little bit of work on the side, even if they're working for me part-time, they're not independent. And so that person is clearly not an independent contractor. That person is employee, right? Everything else in the middle is gray, right? So, we get these questions all the time. Okay, I have somebody, you know, I told that person that they can they can make their own hours. Is it is that person an independent contractor? Again, depends how closely you're watching over the job and how closely you're telling the person what to do. And you have to be careful in this area because there are a number of um entities that are interested in what you're doing. IRS is interested, the Department of Labor is interested. um and the employee or worker themselves has a stake in it. Also, a lot of times people say, "Well, the person came to me and said, "I want to be a 1099. What am I supposed to do?" That doesn't get you off the hook. That that that doesn't address the situation. So, you definitely have to be careful in this area. Now, you asked about real estate and mortgage brokers. So, those are a little bit different. Real estate bro real estate brokerage has its own rules and does allow people to be independent agents and does allow for independent contract relationships. Mortgage brokerage has similar types of rules. So there you do have to look at every situation what they're doing. But what I find and this happens very often is someone comes to me and says, "Yeah, so I have a real estate management firm and I have someone who works in my office who they're in charge of certain buildings. I call them a broker even though they're not really a broker. Um, and they do sort of get some income from each of the buildings and so can I call this person a 1099? I can pay them a 1099. So, as I said, you have to sort of look at every situation um on its own merit and try to figure it out. Okay. Um, so we spoke about what what are some of the challenges that you see employers making. On the flip side, what do you think are some of the challenges that you see employees making? So, I think employees um I think you know one of the things that um is really important for um an employee is to understand what the terms are in terms of when they come in and start a job like you know what's really expected and honestly often it's difficult to get a written contract with an employer. So why is it difficult? Um many times an employer doesn't want to commit to certain things and you know to be very um open I mean if an employer asks me do I need to have an employment contract for all of my employees? My answer is no. You know your lower level employees you don't need to have an employment contract but I do think it's important to have something in writing what I'll call an offer letter which will spell out what the expectations are. It'll have sort of a short list of what the job duties are. It'll have what the start starting salary is. Um it'll have maybe a summary of what the benefits and days off are. So I think that's an important thing to do. But I think that where there's a dispute sometimes with an employee is where there's commission involved. U there's a bonus involved and there's nothing spelled out in terms of you know how that works. What's the percentage? When is it earned? When is it paid? So I think on both sides I think that's a really important thing to get in writing. I think it's really important for both sides for that to be in writing so there's no confusion, no dispute about it afterwards. What would you say is the difference between an offer letter and a contract, an employment contract? Um, well, an employee offer letter, you know, does say very clearly clearly that the employee is is an atill employee. That means they can leave when they want, they can be fired when they want. So that's what an offer letter would say. Um, an employment contract typically is for a specific term. could be for a year, could be for two years, could be something that is for a year and then gets renewed. So that's one major difference. Um the other ma major difference in terms of an employment contract versus an offer letter is a contract generally speaking um employment contract generally speaking would have some something to say in terms of what happens if it doesn't work out, right? So it might say something about severance or it might say something about a certain amount of notice that has to be given before the person has to be let go. And that's why very often, you know, you you would not have that type of contract, you know, with a lower level employee. You would generally have that for an executive. Understood. Um for 1099 contractors, but salespeople who are hired as a 1099, they're commission only or real estate brokers. Um should they be getting an offer letter? So that that's a that's an excellent question. Excellent point. So, one thing that one should know since we're we're sitting in New York now and a lot of the people who are listening, you may have New York businesses or may be working in New York. New York law requires you to have something in writing. When it comes to independent contractors, you must have something in writing. Um, and there are certain exceptions, but for the most part, it applies. And so, what that contract has to say, how much is the person getting paid, how often are they getting paid? If it's commission, it has to say how you earn the commission, when when is the commission paid, etc. So, that has to be right. Clarify, this is also for $1099. Yeah, but you're not doing that if you're hiring an air conditioning guy. Um, you should Does an invoice count? an invoice could count, but you know, typically speaking, if you have somebody who comes to work for you to and, you know, do regular repair um on your air conditioning unit, you should have something in writing that says that the person's going to come in certain amount of times, they get paid, you know, $100 an hour or whatever it is, and they're going to get paid upon completion of the job or every 30 days or whatever it is. Yeah, usually that has to be in writing. Got it. Very interesting. Um, co has passed. I want to move on to my Do you want to add anything before we move on to the next question? No, I was going to say even, you know, even though that the rule that I said applies in New York, I would say no matter where you are, it's it's just good practical advice. When you are agreeing to pay somebody a commission, a bonus, whatever it is, to have something in writing so that there honestly, when is there litigation? When people can't agree in terms of what was supposed to happen, that's when you have people fighting because uh you know Joe says I was promised 5% commission and the company owner you know says no there was we never agreed on 5%. Or you know Joe says I was supposed to get it quarterly and I you know and we're now in the third quarter and I never got anything. So disputes happen when there's nothing in writing. Um to add some Jewism here, the toa says every transaction in business or in personal should be in writing. You look in the garamar, you look in go to best and write up aar. Every transaction needs to be in writing. It should be. I it still amazes me that people get hired without offer letters giving a clear description. When are they getting paid? What are the off days? Are there any benefits? What are the expectations? You need it in writing. People forget things all the time and verbal doesn't count, right? Since we're talking to the community, the most uh most common thing I get is, well, what about WhatsApp, right? Does that count? And the answer is, well, it it could. I mean, look, my preference would be if if we could get and again, I'm not pitching this as you need to hire me to to draft a formal contract. You should you should I appreciate that. He's good. But I'm saying even if you have, you know, a piece of paper that says, you know, we agreed it's a 5% commission. It's going to be paid quarterly. you know it only happens when we get paid you know by the customer even that would be enough okay you don't have that but we do have WhatsApp messages going back and forth that could work um talk about so you know can it work yes so if I don't have anything else I can go back and take a look at what the WhatsApp message exchange was okay but I preferably like to see you know a written document that has it if I don't even have anything on WhatsApp and it just well we talked about it and we discussed it and we agreed and we shook hands on it. As much as I know that works in the diamond district and it's been working for the longest time in the diamond district in everywhere else in the world a handshake deal is just not going to cut it really. Okay, thank you for sharing that. Next question is co is gone. Um unfortunately I still see people wearing masks when they're working the street or driving by themselves in the car. I don't get it. But how has the landscape the remote landscape changed when it comes to um employers and employees rights at work? Yeah, that's a great question because we do um you know the the the the remote workplace is a little um challenging um more than a little it's very challenging. So for both the employee and the employer um for the employee the challenge is when does the workday end? Okay. So that that that's a big challenge, but that's a challenge on the employer side also because we talked about tracking time. So if you don't have um any time tracking, then you're sort of at the mercy with the employee says, "I work 10 hours a day and I work 60 hours this week and whatever it is." And you know, so not having a time tracking device, whether it's an app on the phone, whether it's a program on the computer, you know, is a big challenge. Um, and we find that I'm sure this comes up a lot for you, you know, from measuring productivity that is an issue also. Like I know myself when I work at home, you know, there are times that I'm very focused, there are times that there's noise in the background, there are distractions, whatever it is. So that is a very big challenge. Absolutely. So what advice would you give somebody who does have remote employees? What are things they should look out for? Um, I think that they should have some type of productivity software. Um, I think that that's really important. I think regular check-ins um are important. Um maybe a daily call, a daily Zoom, a daily team's call, whatever it is, just to check in and find out, you know, what the person's up to, what the what's the what's on tap for today, what are you busy with, um any any resources we can help you with from the home office. Um you know, that that's, you know, that's an important thing as well. Um, where I sit, the most challenging thing for for remote is where you do different things for different people. Okay. Um, and that can lead to, you know, accusations of favoritism, discrimination, etc. That is my biggest challenge with really workplace. Yeah. Um, very interesting. Thank you for sharing. Um, discrimination and harassment are major topics. Mhm. So what do you think are some of the most understood parts of this world, the laws by either employees and employers? So this goes back to something we talked about earlier, which is documenting things. Um because I think that I get a number of um a number of clients who know a little bit. They've either done their homework or they've dealt with things in the past and they say, "Well, my business is in New York. My business is in New Jersey. We're an at in an atill state." These are atwill employees, which is a term that you can find if you do your internet search, if you've been in business, etc. So, in an atill state, what does that mean? That means I can hire, I can decide I don't like this person. I can decide this person is a fit and and this person is not hired for a particular term, so I could just let them go. So why should this be such an issue? Um and the answer is that and I I sort of you know I'm always in in learning mode. So I' I've sort of you know paid attention to this very recently. How as much as we like to think that that's the rule when you are sued and there's a claim of discrimination, unfair treatment, whatever it is, you have to understand this case might actually go all the way through and go to a jury trial. And when you talk about those ordinary people sitting on a jury, the most important thing in their mind is did you act fairly, not did you discriminate, not was this an outwill employee. They want to know did you act fairly and so you really need to be very focused on fairness. You talked earlier about personal ethics, about Torah values, etc. I think it all fits very nicely together in that treat your worker fairly, right? Treat your worker honestly and if you do that'll get you very very far. That'll take you very very far. And so fairness means sometimes giving a person a warning. Fairness means giving a person clear instructions about what the expectations are. And that's where you talked about you know job descriptions. Fairness means sometimes means a second chance sometimes it doesn't. And you you know you that is you know a lot of that is left to your discretion. But where we're finding discrimination, you know, comes up is, as I said, where you sort of act one way for one person, act a different way for a different person, giving one person a fair chance, and not giving a fair chance to another person. Um, you know, acting in a way or reacting in a way in which you're not being consistent and not being fair will come back to hurt you. Now, on the other hand, I get from employers like, I was so nice to this person. I lent them money. I gave them time off when they had a problem with a family member, etc. And now they're threatening to sue me and I feel betrayed and I hear that also. So that also, you know, resonates with me. Um, which is why I really think that you, you know, having job descriptions, having an employee handbook with policies and being consistent in how you um enforce those policies will get you a long way. So that those are really key things to worry about. Can I go to sort of a side point which also relating to discrimination? I think the other thing that people don't understand when people think discrimination, they automatically think, oh, that means race discrimination. You know, if I'm not treating my African-American employees in the same way that I'm treating my white employees, I'm not treating my Hispanic employees in the same way that I'm treating my Jewish employees. discrimination really has a different layer that I think that people or should not layer a different focus that I think people are not as um aware of which is it also deals with things like disability. It deals with things like pregnancy and that is a whole other area that I think people have to pay a little bit more attention to or a lot more attention to depending on what your business is. So let's just talk about an example. Um, someone comes in and says, um, I can't, you know, work in this particular environment because I have asthma. Okay, what do you do with that? Someone comes in and says, um, I'm having, we talked about this earlier, I'm having surgery next week, you know, um, I can't work for the next two weeks after that. These are areas that you need to be very careful and very knowledgeable in because this might this is not what you do for your your your day job, so to speak. you know, you're running a cleaning business, you're running a dry cleaner, you're running a um an IT um advisory firm, whatever it is, like this is not what you deal with on a daily on a daily basis. So, you need to really know a lot in order to know how to deal with these areas and not trip and fall and and and end up in a in a in a difficult situation. Thank you so much. So, I want to go back. I have two questions. One on the first point, one on the second point. The first point is does religion and Torah values play a role if something goes to jury? And to elaborate on that, can someone who has a company in aides community? And to elaborate on that, they might even have a female team and these people are they, you know, because of or modesty, they'll have the women working in one area, the men working in a in another side of the room. They don't want them intermingling, sch smoozing. They want to be very professional. Um, and they want to keep their female employees comfortable. If the men would be working in intermingle together with the men, they wouldn't feel very comfortable. Is that allowed? That's my first question. My second question is um talking about pregnancy and discrimination. I've had people call me while they're taking PFL or maternity and said, "My PFL is ending in two weeks. I want to start looking now for a new job." Many business owners might feel betrayed like why didn't you tell us before you have the baby like you plan on getting a new job you're just trying to suck the PFL out of us you know and then take a new job they won't have enough time to find a replacement sure two separate questions I'm going to take the second one first okay u even though it it you know I I could you know give a 45 minute or longer class on that subject alone which is um pregnancy um you know medical leaves are related to that to a certain extent. Um and and and you know what that involves. Again, this could differ from city to city, state to state, federal, it's all different. So that's why this does get kind of complicated. But let's talk just very basics. First of all, a person um if they are either um going to have a baby, adopt a baby um or it's similar um they need to leave because they have a family member who's sick or they themselves have some illness that they have to deal with. So, every situation is going to be different. um you have to look at the specific circumstances. But what you need to know is as a business owner is one if the person is working for you for a spec for for a period of time in some places it could be as little as six months in some places it might be a year they will be eligible to take a certain amount of time off. Okay. Um, and that means that if the person is eligible to take that t amount of time off, then they have to be able to take that time off and come back to a job. Okay, that's that's the key responsibility of the business owner. If the person is entitled to take that time off, then you have to bring them back to a job. So, the most common thing that I'm finding these days is that, you know, someone says, "Okay, I know that I had to give someone off because they were having a baby, but now they're they want to come back and I don't want to take them back. What do I do?" My question is a little different. Okay, before someone has a baby, they plan on not coming back to work, right? But they're going to use the PFL from their current employer and you know, the last two weeks of PFL or paid, you know, maternity leave, they're gonna start looking for a new job. Should they have told their employer or not? Okay. So, many business owners feel sketchy like you should have told me. I understand that that that that that's a related topic that I'll go into a little bit of detail now on. So, what you refer to as PFL, it's paid family leave. Eligibility for paid family leave does differ from from person from sorry from state to state. So, for example, there's you know some states don't even have PFL. I I know you have a very big audience. I'm not assuming that everyone in your audience is in New York and New Jersey. New York and New Jersey happen to have PFL, paid family leave. That's the same thing as maternity leave. It's not the same as maternity. That's why I wanted to to elaborate on that a little bit further. So, um there's a difference between amount of time off and what the benefits that they will be allowed while they are off. Okay. So someone might be entitled to take off up to 12 weeks for either having a baby, adopting a baby, having someone in their family who's having um a baby, usually a spouse who's having a baby. Dads are going to be very happy to hear this. Yeah, exactly. Um and similarly um if they there might be other things going on in their life that would entitle them to take time off to deal with. So, for example, shalom, someone's parent is sick. That could be um a reason to take up to 12 weeks of time off that might that may or may not be paid under under PFL under paid family leave, but that might be another instance in which someone is entitled to take the time off. There the there is in either way, whether they're entitled to those benefits or not, they're still entitled to come back to a job. So, you may feel I feel betrayed. They didn't tell me about this when they interviewed that they had that they were pregnant, that their spouse was pregnant, that someone in their family was ill, and that they plan to take this time off, and now it's being sprung upon me. Uh, you know, as much as I understand as a business owner, that creates practical complications for you, but if the person is entitled to the time off, then they have to get the time off. If the person is coming in and we see this and honestly you know we do a lot of work for yeshivas and for for um charitable institutions not for profofits etc. So we do have this issue come up very often. Person takes a job, they work at it for a year or so and then they have a baby or their spouse has a baby and they now want to take the 12 weeks um and they're entitled to benefits and in New York for example the benefits are rather generous um and so um they want to use it as long as possible and then they don't want to go back. um that does happen and the employer feels betrayed so to speak but that's the person's right to do that. So, you know, every situation is going to be different, have different nuances, but they they're not because we have at will employment. We talked about that person, right? Not obligated to come back to you. So, they could take their full 12 weeks time off, then go somewhere else, call you on on week 11 and a half and say, "I'm not coming back. You know, I got another job offer. You know, really sorry, nice to know you, etc." Not not great for that for your your relationship, but burning bridges for sure how to do that. And my first question, uh, all female teams because sneas is, uh, is the Hebrew Yiddish word for modesty. Um, we grow up in a very, you know, I don't know if the words conservative with a modest upbringing. And you'll find that, um, many women don't want to be smoozing with men. So, you'll have the women's team over here, men's team over, and they try to, they're very professional, but they don't want intermingling. So, that's why they don't mix them up together. Is that allowed? So, I'm I'm going to be a little controversial here. So, um I I I struggle with this because I I' I've been noticing the trend um more than noticing. I' I've been very aware of the trend for a couple of years now. It's been going on. It's not recent. Um of of situations in which um they have separate, as you said, areas, separate floors for men and women. I I I think it's very pro problematic from a legal perspective. Look, um, you know, I'm aware of the reality, which is that many, um, business owners, many businesses certainly, you know, in in in the Jewish community, um, you know, are, um, you know, run by religious people and want to have religious values, and that's wonderful in a lot of ways. Um, you still have to comply with employees don't mind. I'm going to get to that in a second, okay? But um you know it it's beautiful and wonderful to have religious values and incorporate those religious values at the same time. You have to be very careful with respect to the discrimination laws. So for example um when you talk about dress codes I get this question often. Can I have a dress code? I don't want people working for me coming in in clothing that's not modest. Um etc. And my response is yes. But you have to have it for men and for women. So if you're saying you can't wear shorts, men can't wear shorts, women can't wear shorts. If you're saying you need to wear a long sleeve, then the men have to wear a long sleeve, too. You're saying that everybody has to have their hair covered, fine, then it means everybody has to have their hair covered. Am I going to start wearing a shade? Probably not. But um a wig for those who don't. A wig. Exactly. So um that that that's probably not in the cards, but although I don't know. I'm starting to lose my hair a little bit, so maybe. Um but so I think you have to be conscientious about that. What that means is that your dress code is going to say in a generic way that we are you know we have religious values and we expect people to to dress modestly and we expect people to you know be you know be conscientious about that etc. And you as I said you can have you know something that says that you can't have exposed skin that's fine um etc. So, I would say that that's fine. When you have segregated areas, I think you're talking about you're now dealing with a very dangerous um situation. Dangerous in this way from a discrimination perspective. I can't have a um a a a a less prominent um role for um one gender or the other. I can have a less visible and I don't visible I don't mean in what the in in the vernacular of see them. I mean visible in terms of what the person can do in the company and what levels they can reach. So, one of the, you know, areas that I think about when it comes to this is, is someone going to say, well, as a woman, I was only allowed to be on the 11th floor and not on the 10th floor, and all the major discussions regarding the business were hap happen on the 10th floor. And all of the opportunities for promotion um and for training only happen on the 10th floor and not on the 11th floor. So, I do think about things like that. And I know someone could tell say well you know we we try to do things so that you know everyone on the 10th floor and everyone on the 11th floor everyone's involved in the business and all the training opportunities on the 10th 11th floor are the same and great if you're conscientious about it and you're you make sure that things are you know done in an even-handed way. I can see a way in which it's possible to do things um having those segregated areas. On the other hand, I do see a lot of potential for discrimination claims as well. And that's why I do think that if you have a business and you are are are segregating men and women, I think that you need to be very thoughtful and very careful in terms of how you do this. I don't think it's simply a matter of okay, all the men on 10th floor and all the women on the 11th floor. I think you need to, as I said, training opportunities, opportunities for people to be heard. Um, even something as simple, even something as simple as, and I'm saying this with a with a smile because, uh, one of my children actually works for a company in which they have separate women area and he tells me that the women have the better coffee machine than the men. So, I'm I'm saying it sort of jokingly, but it's but but even that is a factor. You can't you can't do that. that does um open up uh the possibility of of of a of a discrimination claim. Wow. Um, but it wouldn't be such a big issue if they all have equal rights for promotion and growth and training. That wouldn't I mean if all that is there just separate areas because of modesty, you know, we're all humans and it helps make doesn't chances I I I understand. And and by the way, I love this conversation because I've been dying to have this conversation for a while. Let's get it out there with somebody. So I'm I'm I'm I'm really happy to have this opportunity. I because I I I've given this a lot of thought um because I've seen I know of a particular Jewish organization that has a code of conduct that has very thought out careful processes for you know how men and women should interact with each other in modesty because of modesty and that they can't have um you know text messages after certain hours and they can't have one-on-one meetings and things like that and I understand why those rules were put in place and I understand the thought that went into it and and I certainly, you know, I'm not questioning any great rebbitic leaders that may have been consulted about it and they these are all understandable rules. At the same time, they give me a lot of pause because um I know how workplaces work and I understand what's involved um in in in the workplace and I know what happens. And so, you know, the notion that I if I'm the business owner as a man and I am not socializing with the women and so when I have an op an opening in my the head of my sales team, I'm thinking about the people that I'm interacting with all the time and that's going to be the men in the business. And I'm not thinking about who on the women's side would be a good candidate for this. So, I didn't intend to discriminate. I intended to go with who I have most familiarity with, who I think is the best person for the job, who's the first person to come to mind. And so I never considered any of the female um managers um to be in that promotion. So I think that that really does open up, you know, a real pro real potential for for an issue. That's why I'm saying I'm not I I'm I'm not sitting here and saying you as a business owner can't have a segregated floor and you as a business owner can't have these rules in place in terms of interactions between men and women. What I'm saying is that these types of rules and these types of segregations open up very um you know complicated situations that can lead to um discrimination accusations, discrimination lawsuits, etc. I think it's a real possibility. on the other side. Uh, a few weeks ago, I'm in the lobby of a big media company in the city, and the elevator is right there, and a few employees walk up to the elevator. They're going to go grab lunch. Three guys and a girl, and this girl is wearing like a jeans material jumpsuit. They make like a strange com, oh, nice outfit. She looked uncomfortable standing there in front of three guys and they're just trying to make small talk. So, I understand where these companies might come from from the modesty perspective, but be careful and talk to Kayen first. Yeah. I mean, look, as I said, we could definitely have a whole podcast just just discussing the, you know, these situations and these rules. What what what I would say is in my view, I'm not a rabbi. I'm not somebody who uh who who who sets religious policy. In my view, this is more this should be more about communication. How do men and women communicate with each other? How do supervisors communicate with the people that work for them? Um and um training with respect to respect, right? How do you how do you respect other people? How do you you know you know work with people in a way in which you're showing that respect? To me, that is much much more crucial and much much more important than coming up with what I think is an overly simplified solution of we'll just segregate everybody. Great. Thank you for sharing. Can business owners have their employees put away their phones when they come in and take collect it when they leave based on giving them a phone at their desk? So, if there's an emergency, a spouse can reach them. Hey, I'm going into labor. Um, but we all know when employees do not have their cell phones, they are way more focused. They might be upset in the beginning, but they realize they're going to be a lot more productive. They're going to get a lot more work done. So, if you give an employee a desk on their phone, a phone on their desk, are you allowed to tell them, "We don't use our cell phones at work. here's your box, here's your locker, leave it there. There's nothing in the law that I know of that prevents you from doing that. So, I think that that's that's a pretty, you know, e question for me. Um, and I think from a productivity standpoint, I completely get it. Uh, you might want to think about, you know, adding maybe adding extra an extra break in the day or an extra, you know, opportunity in the day for people to check their personal cell phones in case, you know, someone doesn't know how to reach them on their office number. um in case you know there is an important text from a family member or a friend that they need to get to. So I think that just from a practical perspective that would be wise. Um but you know there there's nothing preventing the more common question I get is you know with respect to privacy. So, if that was going to be your next question, which is, you know, we see this a lot, and I'm sure this happens to a lot of your um your your your subscribers, you know, where someone's using their own personal phone for business or they have their personal email on their office computer or vice versa. Um, correct. So, you know, that that's a question that we get often. Um, we very highly recommend having a, you know, a a written policy in place that makes it very clear to the employees that they have no expectations of privacy. Um, if they're going to be, you know, using uh any anything personal on on an office computer, if they are opening up their personal phone, I'll say this is a caution for employees. You should know employees out there um that if you are using your personal phone for business that means you are opening up the possibility that your employer is going to is going to either require access to your phone or demand access to your phone. In some cases may be entitled to access to your phone. So that's something you should be aware of. Oh wow. Yeah. Thank you for sharing. Um if an employee feels like something's not right at the office at work, should they go to HR or should they call you? I'm smiling when you ask that question because I can't tell you how many times I've heard from on the employee side from people who say, "Well, you just can't trust HR or yeah, anything I tell them is just going to management anyway or they don't do anything." So, uh, that's that's something I hear often, which my my HR friends in the audience, you know, will be dismayed to hear that that's a that's a a common thing. So um you know one one of the things that you know I advise both employees employers as you heard I I I talked about a little bit earlier about having things in writing. So that applies to employees as well as to employers. If you have an issue with something you know you need to document it and documenting it. So let's just take an example you know you need to have um time we used this example earlier we use it again. you need to take time off for surgery, your own surgery, a family member surgery, whatever it is, you know, you need to, you know, to put that in writing to somebody that you asked for it. That needs to be in writing. Um, and you know, and the dates, etc. Um, and if you're denied the ability to do that, then again, that that should be in writing. You know, you should not in the first instance of any problem that you're having at work immediately complain to HR. It's just not good on a practical level. This is not that you're not legally allowed to do that. Legally, you can do whatever you want. We're talking practically here, right? So, practically speaking, you know, in terms of communication, your your your best um approach, you know, should be communicating to your supervisor in terms of what's on your mind and what's bothering you and what you think needs to be addressed. And you should put that in writing um just to confirm it. If it's not being addressed, you know, you may want to escalate it to human resources. And here's where this comes into play. If you don't communicate to human resources, very often the company will take the position of if human resources didn't hear about it, we didn't know about it and we couldn't address it, so why are you bothering me? Right? So, you need to be aware of that. And certainly when it comes in the area of you know accommodations for a disability meaning um talk about the surgery example before someone says I'm going in for surgery when I come I'm I'll return to work in two weeks but I'm going to need a special chair. I'm going to need to take breaks every 3 hours. Whatever it is that's something that you must go through HR in order for for you to get that that process. If you need to take time off to have a baby, spouse having a baby, whatever it is, you must go through HR for that. So there are areas where you must go to HR. There areas where it's a good idea to keep them in the loop in the loop. And there may be times that it just yeah, you should go to HR, but not in your first resort. What about HR versus manager for things like having a baby? Both. One of them is good HR instead of manager. It may differ from company to company. Some companies might tell you in the, you know, to approach your manager, but I think it's I think you should still have HR in the loop. I think it's an important part, uh, you know, of of that process. Yeah. I hope you're enjoying today's podcast. Today's episode is sponsored by Blackbird Recruiting. Chad GBT, what do you think about Blackbird Recruiting? Blackbird Recruiting, the team that finds you the right people so you can stop wasting time on resumes that look like they were written by someone's dog. If you're a business owner struggling to find top talent, let Blackbird do the heavy lifting. They'll help you find candidates who actually get it. Visit blackbirdrecruiting.com and let them take your hiring game to new heights. You heard it here first. Enjoy the rest of the episode. Welcome back. Okay, I want to talk about the world of law cases, lawsuits. What would you say is the hardest part of handling employment law cases? Is there a specific challenge that you see between employees and employers face when dealing with legal issues at work? That's a really broad question. It is. I want you to open it up. I appreciate that. Um, you know, as I sort of uh hinted to earlier, I mean, there was a part of my career where all I was doing was, you know, litigating and and uh, you know, handling lawsuits. You know, thank God I've graduated to a point where I where I give more advice than I do anything else, which is what I really love doing. Uh those 45 to minute minute to an hour conversations I I love to have with employee, you know, with business owners, employers, you know, talk to them about what things they need to know. I love to do those. Um but the reality is that many times people come to us because they got a notice from the Department of Labor. they had a a threatening letter from uh a lawyer from for a for who's representing a former employee. Um they get served with a lawsuit. So we have to deal with that. And the challenging thing that um that I find is when they don't have records. We talked about that already. Um the challenging thing is that people don't understand the process and that the process takes time. And I get this because I'm a business owner. So I know when you have a problem, you want the problem to go away. Just solve it. Get rid of it. Right? Um so I get it. I totally get it. Um but that will not off will not always and will not often lead to the best result. You have to be patient. You have to trust that whoever you have handling the problem, if it's me, my firm, or some other firm, who what whoever it is, you know that you've told us the issue, you've given us the information that we need to do it. It's going to take time and you need to be patient because if you're patient, hopefully it gets resolved in a way that's if not positive for you, at least, you know, the least amount of negativity. But if you try to, you know, express impatience and try to, you know, push things along, then it's It's not going to go as well. Wow. You've been doing this for 30 years. Um I'm assuming you've had scenarios where things went to court. Mhm. Um what would you say is the most memorable, either in a good way or a bad way lawsuit or case that you've dealt with in your 30 years doing this? Well, from a negative perspective, I can tell you they can know that really easily, which is, you know, there was one situation in which, you know, despite the fact that the our our star witness, you know, in this case, it took six years before it went to trial, but so for six years, he was telling us a story in a certain way and everything was there to support the case. and when he got on the witness stand at trial completely changed his story and was very very arrogant toward the jury and we you know we lost the case for because of that. I mean wow we were telling a story and he just got up and just completely told a different story. We this is we prepared him. We had him write everything out. We spent hours preparing for what it would be like, you know, testifying at trial and he got up there and I don't know, I think it was really an arrogance thing more than anything. And he just told a completely different story in a very condescending way to the jury. The jury hated him. We spoke to jurors afterwards. You know, what was it that really, you know, made you decide the case in this way? And they said, you know, we just we really didn't like this guy. He was really just condescending and arrogant. So, yeah, that was the most memorable experience for me. That must have been very six years. Yeah, I learned a lot from that. Well, do you have a scenario where somebody employer or an employee was suing each other that stands out the reasons behind it or the biggest number that they were suing for? Yeah. I mean, look, the most difficult um cases and you know, the ones where we've had success um you know were um in the areas of of of harassment. I mean, in those situations, you know, it really there there are, as in many situations, the three three stories, right? The, you know, the the the plaintiff story, our our client story, and the truth. Um, those are challenging, but those really give us an area where if we tell a story in a compelling way, um, you know, things, you know, come out where they should. Um, so that's a really big challenge. You know, I love a challenge like that because it allows us to really, you know, develop. We're storytellers. That's what we do and in those situations. And so to really develop a story and tell it well and figure out how to do it in an organized way, in a way in which, you know, that, you know, people can really understand what the story is, that's that's really that's really, you know, very satisfying. Um, most of the things that we deal with on a on a regular basis though, you know, are things that in my view need to be resolved. And, you know, that that's what probably what I've learned most from, you know, these uh litigation experiences and lawsuit and trial experiences. That's taught me more than anything that, you know, yeah, you can spend, and a lot of these cases do take years. You could spend years fighting for the truth and trying to tell your story. It's going to cost you a lot of money. It's going to burn up a lot of your time. It's going to give you a lot of aggravation and stress. And so when someone comes to me and says, "Okay, we had a former employee coming now. They have a lawyer. They're threatening to sue us. Help me." You know, first thing I need to figure out after I, you know, look at the documents and hear the story and and I need to think about, okay, how do we how do we get out of this mess? because, you know, if we're going to spend the next five or six years litigating this, that's not going to end well for anybody. Um, what is your take on non-competes? New York versus New Jersey, both either. Yeah, non-competes is really another one of those really complicated um, you know, areas of law because it's we're we're in a state right now where we can't we can't predict what's going to happen. So, for those who may not know, a non-compete is that you you you take a job with a a company and they say they want you to sign this document. It says that after you leave this company, you're not going to join a competitor for six months, a year, two years, whatever it says. And it but it says other things, too. It says you can't after you leave, you can't solicit our customers. You can't take our employees away. You can't share our confidential information. So the first thing to remember is no matter what I tell you now about non-competes, the second part of what I just said is still going to be around it. non-solicitation, non-solicitation, protecting confidential information, that's going to stick around because look, if you go to work for um someone who has um a particular uh you know, way of doing things or particular um uh technology that you can't just walk up, you know, pick up and walk off and give it to somebody else or use it yourself. So, that that's not going to change. If you sign something that says that when you leave here, you're not going to call the the, you know, the 10 customers that you work with on a daily basis and you're not going to go sell the same product for someone else to those 10 customers, that's still not going to be allowed. So, it's the non-compete that's really what's been in the news and what's been sort of in a state of of uh limbo, excuse me, limbo. Of limbo. Thank you. um because we had the federal government said we're going to stop these things, not going to allow non-competes anymore. And then it was litigated and that rule went away. And then we had New York State say, "We're not going to allow these anymore. We're going to ban them. We're going to get rid of them." And the state senate passed it. Sorry, the assembly passed it. The state senate agreed with it. And then it went to Governor Hokll for a signature. She never signed it. never became law. And so now we have a new president, we have a new administration, and we figure, okay, it's a Republican administration. There's no way that they're going to come back and ban non-competes. And yet, the first thing that we hear out of the Federal Trade Commission, which is the FTC, which is where this rule came from a year and a half ago, oh yeah, we're going to talk about putting those that non-compete ban back in in effect again. So they're talking about it again and then we're hearing out of Albany, yeah, you know, Governor Hokll is reconsidering and she might sign that again. We haven't seen anything yet. So we've been hearing about that. And then we hear in New Jersey that, you know, depending what happens in the election that's happening there in November, you know, we might have something happen there, too. So we just don't know what's going to happen there. And if your um audience has, you know, any type of business which operates in other states, there are other rules there, too. Illinois, California, Massachusetts, they have rules that kind of limit what you can do with non-competes. So, it's a complicated area. Um, but it's one that you should definitely think about if you have, if you're a business owner, you definitely need to think about this because you what one thing you don't want is you don't want to hire um a star salesperson and spend a lot of money on giving them, you know, a nice guaranteed bonus and a and a nice commission and they stay with you six months or a year and then they take the next best offer and, you know, go somewhere else. So, you definitely need to think about this and figure out how to do this in a smart way. How can employers make sure that employees feel comfortable opening up to them about issues and problems without being nervous about retribution or being let go or other issues? That's a great question. Um, and uh, you know, it's a one that I think about a lot too. So, this goes to what we talked about earlier about values, right? Religious values, moral values. So let's start with and this translate no translates no matter what religion you are be a mench right be a decent person. So if you're an employer or business owner like realize that the people who work for you are people too right and they want to be treated like regular people. They want to be treated fairly. They want to be treated in a certain way. Um they want to learn. They want to grow. Yeah. They want to make money because they want to support their families for sure. But they want to learn. They want to grow. They want to understand what that what they're doing in their professional life, in their working life is valuable. Why is valuable? Um, communication is really important. Patience is really important. Um, and take your ego out of it. Yeah. Um, I find as I get older sometimes, and I've been admonished not to do this, but unfortunately, well, fortunately, maybe I do this anyway. You know, I look at some of my employees like, okay, like how would if if my child asks me for some for something like this, you know, if they're asking me for a day off to do this, you know, how would I react? That helps me sometimes center me. Um, but I'm told, don't do that by the business experts because you want to, you know, treat your employees differently than you would treat your family members is not uh always the best approach. But I do sometimes think in in that way because I want to be fair because I want to be more than fair. I want to be generous. I do want and I want to be perceived as generous and fair. So it should be a reciprocal Yeah. Um sit um relationship. Yeah. Talking about family. I know you work with your brother Morty. I do. Um I've had so many conversations with people who bring family into the business. I've spoken to business owners who want to bring their kids into the business, but first they say two, three years, go work somewhere else, then come back. What's it like working with family? What are things people can prevent? And what are some of the serious situations you've been through um that could have been also prevented? And what are the hardest things dealing with family? Working with family, not dealing. Yeah, that's a tough one. Um well, it's not a tough one for me. I mean, I I have a very good relation with my brother. Um I enjoy working with him. You know, do we always agree on everything? No. But we're able to communicate. So, this goes we're on the same theme now, communication. What do you do when you don't agree? That's a good that's that's an excellent question. I think we try to reach a consensus. I mean sometimes we turn to someone else. Um you know we have not done this recently but I mean but we you know there there's a a rabbi who we both respect who if we had any you know really major dispute I think we would go and I think we would go to that person um to help us. Um but we also have a business adviser who um a consultant who we talk to about different issues and sometimes we get that person's perspective that help you know that person sometimes helps us you know reach a compromise. Um and honestly sometimes we turn to our own spouses um we turn to our wives you know to to get involved. Not always a good idea to get your spouse involved in a business u because that does lead to sometimes that does lead to friction but sometimes to get another view I think it is appropriate. Um the challenges I've seen for other people is where it's not clear in terms of what each person's role is. I think that that does pose a problem. Um and where there are not where expectations are not met, you know, does become a problem where one person runs off and does something without talking to the other person. That definitely does lead to a problem, right? Um, I know husbands and wives who work together very successfully where, you know, they trust each other and they um but they but they also communicate really well. You know, this is my area. I got this. You don't have to be concerned about this or can I run this by you before I make a decision about it. That's a great approach. Um, and I've seen some that are less successful where or not at all successful where they're not on the same page and where they do have expect different expectations and where they're not communicating. So, I think that those are all good lessons to learn. I think one word can encompass all of this is respect. Yeah, absolutely. Um, great insight. Yeah. For small business owners watching this, what are some of the common mistakes you see them making? Um, and what are some things they can do to prevent those mistakes? Well, this might be controversial, but don't rely on AI for everything. Can people use um AI for certain things to help? Yeah, absolutely. Like I have a a a cousin who's who's very involved in in in AI and what he he told me a couple months ago when we were chatting about this is AI is a tool like any great tools. it could be used for really helpful and useful and um valuable um resources etc. And but but if you think that it's going to substitute for other things, it's not. So you need to use it as a tool. What I find um what I'm finding now is that people are coming to me and telling me that I'm wrong about something because they went to chat GPT and they found out X Y and Z. Um I'm not the biggest uh ego around I could be wrong on something. I'm not saying I can never be wrong, but most most of the time, okay, all of the time that this has happened to me, um, they either asked the wrong question, the chat GPT, in a couple of instances, chat GPT made up the information or took it from a source that was not reliable, etc. So, I don't think that that's an approach that you can take to rely on. Certainly don't think you can just go to chat GPT and say, you know, give me an employee handbook. um you know, search the internet for the for the three best ones and then you know and and then you know apply it to my electronics business. I don't think that that's a success a recipe for success. So definitely be careful about that. But look, I mean it all comes down to like you need to know what you're doing and you need to not make assumptions about what's right and what's wrong. You should talk to people. You could do your research attach EPD. That's okay. But talk to people. Talk to other business owners in terms of what they've experienced. Talk to lawyers, talk to accountants, talk to financial adviserss, talk to people and get information. And an educated person is really the best uh person to make these decisions. Wow, this has been an incredible conversation. Um, I'm sure everyone listening to this is really going to appreciate this podcast. I think before we finish, I have one last question. If there is either for employers or employees, if there's one key takeaway you would want them to hear, what would you say is one important thing that they should know? Um, definitely what we talked about earlier about about putting things in writing is probably the most the most important thing I would say. Um, I find that uh that's where disputes happen, where things, you know, there's a misunderstanding. They talked about it. They never put it in writing. They never Yeah. Wow. Okay. Thank you. Before we finish, I want to give the opportunity if somebody does need to reach you. This camera, where can they find you? Um, really, you can go to our website, bookl.com. You know, every every way to reach us is there. Um, it's it's also a great resource actually. Uh, if you give me an opportunity to plug, we have a lot of really great articles there. We have we've been doing blog posts um for a while on on different topics and different developments. We do a monthly newsletter and it's all on there. So you can learn about a lot of what we talked about today and some other topics there. So that it's a great resource for that, but that's also probably where you can find the information to reach me and to contact me. It's booklawp.com. Ken, thank you so much. Absolutely, Tilly. I enjoyed this. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this with me. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of the What It Takes podcast. Please make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel or if you're listening on any other platforms, subscribe so you can be notified when we launch every episode. Till next time. [Music]