Has it really been a dozen years? Yes, it was 12 years ago today that I clicked “Publish” and put up my Welcome message to the Connecticut Employment Law Blog.
At the time, I was the first platform to discuss employment law issues with a focus on Connecticut. Now, it seems like every lawfirm has taken its newsletters and slapped a “blog” label on it and voila! Lots of employment law blogs.
What’s interesting about having a blog for so long though is that you really do start to build up a perspective that’s hard to see on the day-to-day frontlines. My earlier posts had no mention of the impact that social media was having in the workplace because, well, it wasn’t having any. Twitter had just launched the year before and no one was using smartphones to access the internet either.
And data privacy? Fight for $15? Paid FMLA? All concepts really in the 2010s.
It is pretty remarkable how much has shifted over time. Heck, we’ve even had the ADA Amendments Act – which closed a big battle as to whether an individual had a disability or not.
Employment law blogs have also shifted over time. With so many outlets for distributing employment law information, most blogs now repeat the same information — creating more noise for clients to sort through. I’d argue that “old-school” blogs like this still have their relevance in breaking through that monotony.
So what’s next? It seems that data analytics and artificial intelligence are a new horizon in employment law. Algorithms will be written suggesting which job candidates might be the best “fit” for your workplace. (Incidentally, I have a presentation on artificial intelligence in the workplace coming up in the next few weeks — details soon!).
Or employers will be able to continue to track the productivity of their employees at such a granular detail, that employers will have to decide how much “Big Brother” they really want to push. Already, you have employers implanting microchips in employees. What’s next?
The other big battle that seems to be brewing is over the “Gig” economy. Just this week, California is trying to convert independent contractors to employees by new legislation (and you have Uber pushing back). This battle will come to the Connecticut statehouse at some point.
What’s that Ferris Bueller quote?
Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
In any event, this is my yearly post to just say “thanks”. It’s been a long journey and we’re not quite done just yet….
The post 12 Years Later … Employment Law and Employment Law Blogs Continue to Grow Up appeared first on Connecticut Employment Law Blog.
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