Happy spring – the flowers are growing and so is HR Solutions At Work!! Please help us welcome the following team members to our outsourced HR and Investigations teams:

Debra Bernardi most recently worked as global HR leader for the International Data Corporation (IDC), and brings a wealth of experience in HR and employee relations. She will be working as a Workplace Investigator and HR Business Partner.

Brenda Valdes-Robles is an experienced trainer who has worked in the leadership teams of several international aid organizations. She is fluent in several languages, including Spanish and Portuguese, and will be an HR and Investigations Specialist.

Anne Thompson’s expertise in corporate governance and board relations will complement our outsourced HR services, including workplace assessments. Anne has worked for both global corporations and not-for-profit organizations.

Alexia Whitaker, who worked at HRSAW from 2024-2025, has returned to her prior role of Workplace Investigator. Alexia most recently worked as EEO Specialist for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

HRSAW also has a new affiliation with Julie Bryan of Waypoint Workplace Investigations, who will be an Investigator on our team. Julie is the Founder and Principal of Waypoint, and also worked for several years at Amazon, where she most recently was Senior HR Investigator for Specialized Investigations.

We are excited to meet the evolving and growing needs of our clients with this incredible group of talented individuals!

Resources at HR Solutions At Work

Send us a message or schedule a free consultation to discuss your organization’s needs. 

It can be challenging to understand all the nuances of MA PFML, particularly within the context of the myriad other laws and employer policies that provide paid and unpaid leaves of absence (see our recent blog post about MA PFML for a basic overview of the topic). Last week, HR Solutions At Work hosted a free webinar that provided business leaders and leave administrators with the knowledge and tools necessary to manage MA PFML requests.

Judy Kalisker, Esq., and Kristen Shames led the webinar, which provided an overview of MA PFML eligibility requirements, employer responsibilities, current regulations, how to effectively manage this benefit for your employees, and more. 

It can be hard to “read the room” in a non-interactive webinar, so we were thrilled when one attendee posted on LinkedIn about her experience, saying:

What an amazing webinar on Massachusetts Paid Family Medical Leave (PFML)! I’ve gained valuable insights on how to better manage leave for our employees in Massachusetts[…] I’m excited to share these key takeaways with my leadership team so we can better support our employees while staying compliant. Feeling informed and empowered—thank you!

Our team members at HR Solutions At Work have years of experience hosting webinars, leading interactive trainings, presenting at conferences, and teaching at universities. We love what we do, and we had so much fun hosting this webinar! Follow us on LinkedIn to be the first to know about upcoming webinars and appearances.

If you missed the webinar and are interested in learning more about MA PFML, or having one of our HR or legal professionals speak with your team about MA PFML, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. We can host a training session for your organization or industry group, provide legal advice on specific situations, or even serve as your fully outsourced PFML administrator so you can focus on other business priorities.

Because every situation presents unique facts, the information provided in this article is for general information and is not intended to be legal advice regarding any specific situation. This information may be considered advertising in some states. Any links to third-party sites are for your convenience. HR Solutions At Work does not endorse specific sites or guarantee the accuracy of the information on those sites. Please contact us if you have any questions about this information or our services.

For the second year in a row, HR Solutions At Work recently participated in the Multi-Chamber Expo run by the Waltham Chamber of Commerce. Over 75 vendors exhibited, representing a variety of local businesses that included local universities, radio stations, non-profit organizations, and more. The live DJ, free food, and prize raffles added to the lively and fun atmosphere of the expo. 

Representing HR Solutions At Work were (pictured above, left to right) Office Administrator Alisa Lackey, Program and Communications Manager Jennifer London, and Director of HR Services Natalie Costello. We did manage to sample a few of the goodies on offer (shoutout to Lizzy’s Ice Cream in particular, based right in Waltham, for loading us up with more free ice cream than we probably should have consumed in one sitting!), but most of our time was spent networking, explaining how our company differs from other fractional HR companies, and — always a crowd favorite — running our HR trivia game. (It’s hard to resist a giant “FREE CHOCOLATE” sign, but it turns out it’s equally hard to resist a colorful spinning prize wheel.) 

This was our second time running our trivia game, and by far our favorite part was when people came over thinking this would be an easy “win” and then realized there’s so much more to learn about HR rules and regulations — especially as the employment laws keep changing, workplaces keep adapting, and so on. (Our second-favorite part was watching people’s faces light up when they won a full-size chocolate bar!)

In fact, our trivia game has been so popular, it’s got us thinking: Maybe, in 2025, we should bring some of this trivia fun to our social media. Good idea? Bad idea? Be honest: are you only in it for the chocolate? Let us know what you think over on our LinkedIn page!

A huge thank you to Waltham Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Molyna Richards for organizing the event and including us once more.

Because every situation presents unique facts, the information provided in this article is for general information and is not intended to be legal advice regarding any specific situation. This information may be considered advertising in some states. Any links to third-party sites are for your convenience. HR Solutions At Work does not endorse specific sites or guarantee the accuracy of the information on those sites. Please contact us if you have any questions about this information or our services.

It feels like it’s only been a blink since we celebrated our tenth anniversary, but somehow an entire year has passed. The past year has seen our company nearly double in size, and it doesn’t look like we’ll be slowing down anytime soon.  

We held our second all-hands offsite this year at the beautiful MIT Endicott House in Dedham, MA. As a fully remote company, having our employees together in one place (in person!) is a pretty exciting occasion, and we had so much fun getting to know each other better and learning from each other over the course of the two-day meeting. 

Highlights included trainings on writing investigation reports and taking notes for investigations; having one of our clients meet the entire team over Zoom; presentations about employment law updates relating to pay transparency, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, marijuana in the workplace, non-competition agreements, and the Fair Labor Standards Act; and learning about the HR services we offer, including workplace assessments.

We can’t wait to see what the next year will bring. Thank you to all of our clients, referral partners, and, most importantly, our amazing team, many of whom are in the photo above! 

Because every situation presents unique facts, the information provided in this article is for general information and is not intended to be legal advice regarding any specific situation. This information may be considered advertising in some states. Any links to third-party sites are for your convenience. HR Solutions At Work does not endorse specific sites or guarantee the accuracy of the information on those sites. Please contact us if you have any questions about this information or our services.

HR Solutions At Work recently participated in the May 8, 2024, Business Expo run by the Corridor 9/495 Regional Chamber of Commerce. With nearly 100 exhibitors and an attendance of roughly 1,000 business professionals, the event was a flurry of activity and networking.

Representing HR Solutions At Work were (pictured above, left to right) Director of HR Services Natalie Costello and Program and Communications Manager Jennifer London. The big draw at our exhibitor booth was our “FREE CHOCOLATE” sign, which proved impossible to resist. Participants answered HR trivia questions for a shot at winning the prize, which was a full-size chocolate bar. (That’s right, full size: we don’t mess around over here when it comes to chocolate!) Some attendees even came over just to test their HR knowledge, not for the chocolate. It was a lot of fun! We also answered questions about our services, met some amazing people, and learned a lot about our fellow organizations in MetroWest Boston. 

A huge thank you to Director of Programs and Events Carlene Covino, as well as the whole Corridor 9/495 Regional Chamber of Commerce, for putting on such a wonderful event and including us!

Because every situation presents unique facts, the information provided in this article is for general information and is not intended to be legal advice regarding any specific situation. This information may be considered advertising in some states. Any links to third-party sites are for your convenience. HR Solutions At Work does not endorse specific sites or guarantee the accuracy of the information on those sites. Please contact us if you have any questions about this information or our services.

That’s a wrap! The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) Trainings for EEO Professionals, both Train-the-Trainer and Investigation Skills training, have wrapped up for 2024. HR Solutions At Work founder Judy Kalisker has served on the faculty for the annual program as a volunteer since its inception in 2000.

This series of training programs helps EEO professionals identify and develop the skills needed to conduct effective internal discrimination complaint investigations and provide critical discrimination and harassment prevention training. There is one more session for 2024: “Responding to Accommodation Requests.” More information on this course, and the link to sign up when new courses are added to the schedule, can be found here on the MCAD website.

HR Solutions At Work can also offer customized training for internal HR and management teams. If you’d like to learn more about this or any of our outsourced HR services, please contact us here.

Because every situation presents unique facts, the information provided in this article is for general information and is not intended to be legal advice regarding any specific situation. This information may be considered advertising in some states. Any links to third-party sites are for your convenience. HR Solutions At Work does not endorse specific sites or guarantee the accuracy of the information on those sites. Please contact us if you have any questions about this information or our services.