Businesses face heightened lawsuit risk

Employment attorneys are getting COVID-19 whiplash, spinning around to stay on top of federal, state and local regulations regarding come-back-to-work procedures.

Not only are there myriad regulations, but also, Sarasota labor and employment lawyer Jennifer Fowler-Hermes says, the green light to return to a workplace is flipping around office norms. Take something as simple as lunch. Workplace kitchens and snack rooms are anathema to clean work environment in the age of the coronavirus. So offices will need to adjust. “One of the things employers are doing now,” she says, “is ‘I know we always tell you, don’t eat at your desk. Well, eat at your desk.’”