EEOC's New COVID-19 Guidance

General Counsel News has a link to an article in the HR Daily Advisor that gives a a helpful summary of newly updated guidance from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission addressing common questions about federal employment laws and COVID-19. The article points out that the new EEOC guidance, available here, pulls together information from other agency resources, modified two existing questions and answers, and added 18 new ones. It addresses question about COVID-19 testing and inquiries in the workplace; confidentiality of medical information and reasonable accommodations for COVID-19. From the article:

"The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted employers’ normal operations in virtually every way, but it’s important for you to stay abreast of the EEOC’s guidance on employment laws during this challenging time. The agency’s recent update clarified:
You may conduct coronavirus screening tests and inquiries to all employees returning to the workplace, but you must have a reasonable belief that an individual has COVID-19 or its symptoms if you wish to conduct a test or make inquiries to the person.
To the extent possible, you must keep confidential all medical information about employees, including COVID-19 details.
Finally, if employees request a reasonable accommodation, you must engage in the interactive process by discussing what they need and the reasons why."

New Westlaw news: Today

Westlaw has launched a new "news" product called "Westlaw Today." This news is different from the news you get if you click on "News" on your Westlaw home page, which provides the latest news from Reuters and links out to various news outlets.
Westlaw Today is available to our users from the Westlaw Edge main page by going to the dropdown menu in the upper lefthand corner of the page where is says Thomson Reuters Westlaw Edge. The Today homepage provides the latest legal news, attorney analysis, and most viewed articles. According to the website, Westlaw Today provides a matter of fact approach to news with content from a variety of sources, including articles from CQ Roll Call, The Hill and more. There is also a tab that allows you to focus your news by thirty different defined practice areas.

LLoC to preserve govdocs for GPO

The Federal Depository Library Program reports that the Law Library of Congress has signed a Preservation Steward agreement with the U.S. Government Publishing Office. The agreement states that the LLoC will preserve its collection of the daily Congressional Record and Federal Register, published by GPO.

To help libraries meet the needs of efficient Government document stewardship in the digital era, GPO has established Preservation Stewards to support continued public access to historic U.S. Government documents in print format. Preservation Stewards contribute significantly to the effort to preserve printed documents, and GPO welcomes all libraries that wish to participate as Preservation Stewards... This agreement comes in addition to the Library of Congress’ 2017 Preservation Steward agreement with GPO to preserve Congressional Hearings. The Library of Congress and GPO also have a digital access partnership to provide permanent public access to digital publications within the scope of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) available through the Library of Congress website.

Yay Teams

Pitt IT has reaffirmed that Pitt is migrating all Skype users to Microsoft Teams this Saturday.  And according to various online news sources, Microsoft has been working hard to make Teams the best WFH app for all sorts of situations.  Examples of new features on Teams:  

Endgadget reports on the upcoming “virtual commute” feature, whose goal is “to create a boundary between work and life.” It is designed to help people mark the start and end of the workday (Half of the chat volume on Teams occurred between 5 p.m. and midnight in the past six months, up 48% from the months before the pandemic). According to Endgadget, “Microsoft says this is an attempt to promote employee wellness.” 

“Teams Together” mode looks custom made for university teaching. According to Computerworld,   Instead of the BradyBunch-like gallery view that we’ve gotten used to, Together makes the group in the meeting look like they’re sitting together in a room or an auditorium.  

And Crayon has the information on how to add virtual and custom backgrounds in MS Teams. You can also blur your background on Teams (to protect your privacy or hide a mess 😊).  

Finally, there are lots of keyboard shortcuts on Teams; just open your Teams app and hit the “Control” key and the “.” key on your keyboard at the same time to pull up the list.