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On January 1, 2020, Illinois will become the 11th state to legalize the recreational sale and use of marijuana. As a result, any Illinois resident 21 years of age or older will be able to legally purchase and possess up to 30 grams of marijuana or the equivalent amount in edibles with up to 500 mg of THC (the intoxicating agent in marijuana).

While the new law poses challenges to Illinois employers, the good news is it provides leeway to ensure your employees’ recreational usage in no way effects workplace productivity and safety. In fact, the legislation, billed The Illinois Cannabis Act, provides some of the most extensive employer protections compared with the legislation in the other 10 states* that have legalized marijuana.

Here are the top five most common myths and misconceptions tied to the legalization of marijuana, and some tips for how to best prepare your business for the impending changes.

The Alper AdvisorINSIDE THIS ISSUE

Clearing The Air—Myths And Realities Of The New Illinois Cannabis Act And Its Impact On Employers

AROUND ALPER

� Myths + Realities of the new IL Cannabis Act

� Client Spotlight

� Employee Handbook Best Practices

� 3 New IL Laws Requiring HR Policy Change

� OSHA's Final SIP Rule Update

� Inside Alper

Fourth Quarter 2019 Newsletter | ISSUE 11

A Quarterly Publication

Employees may bring marijuana to work, particularly if they don’t consume it.

REALITY: While the law will allow anyone over the age of 21 to possess up to 30 grams, the law also affords employers the ability to continue enforcing, or to implement, Zero Tolerance policies that would prohibit not only the consumption, but also the possession of marijuana in the workplace and at company-sponsored, off-site events.

TIP: Use this change in legislation to take an introspective look at your philosophy toward risk and safety and re-examine your current drug policies to determine if they are in line with that philosophy. Will you adopt a hard-core, or laissez-faire tone? Or somewhere in the middle? Whatever you decide, be sure your policy reflects it and that you’re ready to enforce your policy consistently, as the law requires consistency in application.

The Act allows employees to be under the influence of marijuana in the workplace.

REALITY: The Cannabis Act does NOT require employers to permit an employee to be under the influence of or use cannabis in the workplace, while performing the employee’s job duties, or while on call.

TIP: As you roll out your drug policy, be sure to clarify that while the law allows for recreational use in the State, it also affords employers some recourse over employees’ recreational use outside the workplace. Also, be sure to clearly define what constitutes your “workplace,” and what constitutes “on call.” For example, does the policy apply to travel, and to those in home offices?

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impairment can be based on visual assessment of behavior only), and lay out the steps an employee would need to follow to contest any allegations of impairment in the workplace.

As you can see, the application of this new law is multi-faceted and requires both a solid understanding of the intricacies of the Act, along with a thorough review of both your corporate philosophy and drug-use policy. At Alper Services, our Director of HR is available to help ensure you’re prepared. Contact Cynthia Elstien to conduct a thorough review and update of your human resources policies as well as create an employee rollout plan, CElstien@AlperServices.com.

Zero tolerance policies have no bearing on employees’ recreational use outside the workplace on their own personal time.

REALITY: Actually, this is false. While the Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act precludes employers from pursuing recourse for employees’ legal activities on their personal time, the IL Cannabis Act removes that provision. In fact, the Act makes provisions for employers to enforce drug-free workplace policies and take corrective action—up to, and including termination—even if that use was at home. More specifically, if an employer believes an employee to be impaired on the job from marijuana use at home (either through a visual assessment or drug test), the employer has the grounds to terminate that employee—provided the employer has a Zero-Tolerance policy in place. The bottom line is if you believe an employee to be impaired, you have the legal right to 1) test them and 2) pursue corrective measures—up to and including termination—should your visual assessment of their behavior and performance, along with a drug test, give you reasonable suspicion that they were impaired on the job.

TIP: Communicate. Communicate. Comm-unicate. Over the next few months, finalize your drug policies and begin holding meetings with employees to explain the law and roll out your policy. Use plain language to explain the implications of employee use—even if on their own time.

Blood tests are a definitive means to gauge level of impairment.

REALITY: While blood tests can detect the presence of THC in the body for up to 30

If an employee is found impaired, I have to fire them.

REALITY: Depends on your HR policy. The most important consideration is that you enforce your policy consistently; you can’t give one employee an “out” and terminate another for the same infractions. While the IL law does allow for termination, it also suggests the employer provide corrective action measures for employees who are believed to be impaired in the workplace. What the law does require is that employers give employees a clear path for contesting alleged impairment that resulted in disciplinary action.

TIP: As part of your policy rollout, be sure to clearly state how you will go about determining impairment (for example,

*States with legalized recreational marijuana laws: Alaska, California, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia.

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days after consumption, they are not at all effective at determining impairment at the time of the test. So, if a person smoked 4 hours, or 14 days, prior to a drug test, they’ll likely test positive in both instances. There are several early-trial breathalyzer-type devices, however, that test for the presence of THC on the breath. While these devices can more clearly pinpoint how recently marijuana was consumed, they do not test for concentration, and therefore level of impairment.

TIP: Blood tests can only show if marijuana was consumed, but not a person’s level of impairment. Therefore you should train your managers to look for visual signs of impairment amongst their team members. And when a manager believes someone is impaired, they need to understand the procedure for documenting these visual cues, and for sharing that information with the employee in the presence of a witness as part of a clearly defined corrective action process.

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CLIENT SPOTLIGHT

BASIC CRATING & PACKAGING With the rise of online shopping, we consumers are all too familiar with the packaging required to ship products without damage from coast to coast. Imagine the protection and complexity required to safely ship multi-ton semi-conductor factory components 10,000 miles around the world.

Alper Services’ client Basic Crating & Packaging (“Basic Crating”) is a leader in packing, protecting and delivering goods throughout their customers’ value chains — from inbound raw material shipments to outbound delivery

of finished goods to their final destination. Whether their customers are sending potentially hazardous mat-

erials across the Midwest, or industrial machinery to China, Basic Crating’s team ensures the goods are protected and delivered to their ultimate destination in pristine condition.

Alper’s Gregg Elstien has provided risk management and brokerage services to businesses with which Basic Crating’s CFO Jack Beaumont has been affiliated for more than 20 years, but Alper’s relationship with Basic Crating began when the firm was founded in 2011. Gregg describes, “At the onset of our relationship, Alper provided Basic Crating with workers’ compensation and property/casualty coverage, as well as guidance on facility safety improvements. In 2019, we were honored to take on their

employee benefits programs.” Significant improvements in its claims experience and a desire for greater control of its insurance program led Basic Crating to join the Summit Captive in 2019.

“The Summit Captive is a tremendous resource for continuing to improve our culture, processes and training programs by exposing us to best-in-class practices from like-minded businesses across a wide range of industries,” explained Beaumont.

As the firm expanded beyond their headquarters in Elk Grove Village to a new facility in Milwaukee, the Alper Team of Experts conducted an audit of the new facility’s risk exposures and guided them to additional coverages. “With Alper guiding us, I’m very certain that we aren’t leaving anything unaddressed,” said Tracy Arnold, CEO and managing partner. “Gregg and the entire team continuously review our coverages and risk states and proactively explain what is covered and what we need.”

As Basic Crating continues to innovate its product line and grow its facilities Alper will be there to ensure they’re prepared for the realities of today and the inevitabilities of tomorrow. “Above all else, Gregg and the entire team are as focused on protecting our business from risks—both seen and unforeseen—as we are on protecting our customers’ goods,” said Beaumont. “That sort of philosophical alignment and genuine partnership is what truly sets Alper apart from the crowd.”

HUMAN RESOURCES

Top 6 Employee Handbook Best Practices Cynthia Elstien, SVP, Director of HRWith Illinois poised to legalize recreational marijuana on January 1, 2020, now is a great time to conduct a thorough review of your employee handbook. You should take the opportunity to ensure it clearly summarizes your corporate values and expectations of each employee. When conducting your review, make sure the handbook achieves each for the following best-practice objectives:

• Familiarize employees with your culture, mission and values

• Sets clear guidelines regarding what you expect from employees

• Educate employees about what they can expect from management

• Ensure key policies are clearly and consistently communicated

• Highlight employee benefits that your organization offers

• Inform employees where they can go for help or support

Our HR Director can work with you to ensure your handbook is in compliance for 2020 and beyond. For an initial consultation, contact Cindi Elstien at CElstien@AlperServices.com or 312-867-7352.

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LEGAL UPDATE

Three New Illinois Laws Require Important HR Policy Changes

Leslie Morse, ESQ., COOIf you are an Illinois employer, do not delay implementing updates to your employee handbook to keep pace with the many new laws recently enacted by Governor Pritzker.

Significant amendments to the Illinois Equal Pay Act, which became effective September 29th, may require an immediate change in the way you screen candidates for employment. Employers are now prohibited from asking for the candidate’s salary or wage information from his/her current or former employers. The prohibition extends to oral interview questions and written applications. However, a candidate may volunteer prior salary info provided it’s not used by the employer as a basis for hiring.

The changes to the Equal Pay Act are an attempt by the State of Illinois to promote equal pay and reduce the gender pay gap. Employers who are found in violation of the new amendments may be subject to fines of $5,000 per violation and special damages up to $10,000. Read more here.

Two other laws which go into effect on January 1, 2020 aim to enlarge the protections afforded to employees from unlawful discrimination and harassment in the workplace.

The Illinois Workplace Transparency Act (WTA) makes it illegal for employment agreements to “restrict an employee from reporting allegations of unlawful conduct to federal, state or local officials for investigation.” Employers who previously used employment agreements which required mandatory arbitration of any claims of discrimination or wrongful employment practices, must now re-write those clauses or run afoul of the new law.

The WTA does allow an employer to negotiate with an employee on an individual basis to arbitrate claims in exchange for separate consideration, but such an agreement cannot require the employee to relinquish his/her right to report discrimination or harassment to the appropriate local, state and federal authorities. Similarly, an employer may seek confidentiality in a severance agreement, but the WTA imposes strict timeframes around the offer to the separated employee for consideration, acceptance and revocation. Bottom-line is that employers must review both their current employment agreements and severance agreements to ensure compliance with the new WTA. Read more here.

Also starting January 1st, the same bill which created the WTA will require an employer with any employees working in Illinois to provide annual interactive sexual harassment prevention training. Employers may use a training module to be provided by the Illinois Department of Human Rights (not yet released), or a program selected by the employer provided it meets certain designated criteria. For full details on this new law, click here.

If you are interested in updating your HR policies to comply with the new laws, or scheduling harassment training in 2020, please contact Cindi Elstien, Director of HR, or your Alper representative.

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We’re thrilled to be named a Top Insurance Workplace by Business Insurance Magazine for the second year in a row!

A rule making changes in several regulations was issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) as part of its ongoing Standards Improvement Project (SIP). The purpose of the update, which took effect on July 15, 2019, is to simplify employer efforts to comply with OSHA regulations and make it easier for employers to determine just how they should achieve compliance. Several updates to key compliance regulations stand out as notable:

HEARING LOSS REPORTINGThis final rule mandates that physicians must now use OSHA’s general standards rules for determining the work-relatedness of a hearing loss injury. Previously, medical professionals were allowed to follow their own protocol determining whether hearing loss is work-related.

911 EMERGENCY SERVICESWith advances in communication technology, OSHA has identified a necessary SIP update to 911 posting

requirements. Previously, a call to a 911 dispatcher from a landline would provide them with a caller’s location to then relate to emergency services. Such technology is not always available from a mobile phone, which proves problematic when the caller is in a remote location and neither they nor their wireless device can be located by a dispatcher.

OSHA’s update requires that employers located where landlines are not available must post in a conspicuous location either the worksite’s latitude and longitude, or alternatively, other location-identification info that com-municates to employees the worksite’s location.

PROTECTING YOUR IDENTITYFinally, as part of the federal government’s ongoing effort to reduce unnecessary use of Social Security numbers in agency systems and programs, OSHA also has chosen to delete SSN-inclusion requirements from 19 different standards.

OSHA ISSUES FINAL UPDATE TO STANDARDS IMPROVEMENT RULE (SIP)

SAFETY

Regina Ruffin, Director of Claims Management Services

The full publication containing the SIP final rule can be found here.

Is your company OSHA compli-ant? Contact Alper’s Director of Claims Management Services to set up a consultation. Regina Ruffin can be reached at 312-654-4254 or RRuffin@AlperServices.com.

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This newsletter is published by:Alper Services, LLC 410 N. Michigan Ave, 12th Floor Chicago, IL 60611

P: 312-642-1000 www.AlperServices.com©2019 – All rights reserved

Inside Alper

We're excited to introduce our newest Team Members:

• Dan Trolley – Director of Commercial Lines Client Services

• Anthony Pronoitis – Account Assistant, Commercial Lines

• Marlo Reyes – Account Assistant, Commercial Lines

• Krinal Patel – Accounting Associate

This Fall, the Alper Team has been busy with volunteer work for our outreach program Alper Serves. We kicked things off with a Tootsie Roll drive for Austin Special Chicago and the Knights of Columbus. The weather was perfect on September 23rd when we helped at the New Star Golf Outing at Idlewild Country Club in Flossmoor. The Team also went the extra mile at the Bank of America Chicago Marathon Expo where they passed out Lemonheads and promoted the work of Immerman's Angels.

Don't forget to send us your volunteer opportunities for future Alper Serves events. Email Cindi Elstien at CElstien@AlperServices.com.

We're proud to be recognized as a Best Practices Agency for the fourth year in a row by the Independent

Insurance Agents & Brokers of America (IIABA or the Big “I”) “Best Practices” Study Group. In total, more than 1,300 U.S. agencies were nominated this year and 267 independent insurance agencies made the elite group of winners. Alper qualified based on our outstanding customer retention, growth, stability and financial management.

New Team Members (l. to r.): Marlo Reyes, Dan Trolley, Krinal Patel and Anthony Pronoitis.

Howard Alper was honored with his likeness immortalized as a bronze bust by artist John Coleman as a gift from the artist for his 90th birthday. Coleman's work can be seen on exhibit at the Scottsdale's Museum of the West.

Interested in receiving our monthly Benefits Focus newsletter featuring trending benefits-related stories? Contact Will Pinn to be added to the list, WPinn@AlperServices.com.