HOME Employee Handbooks: With all the recent changes, do you need to change or update your employee handbook? by Lisa J. Bauer With recent elections came new laws and/or proposed changes to existing laws that affect human resources practices. The following describes some recent proposed and enacted legislation and case law of which you should be aware in terms of keeping your employee handbook up to date both now and in upcoming months. • Family and Medical Leave Act: In November 2008, the U.S. Department of Labor finalized its rules implementing amendments to the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”). These rules became effective in January 2009 and change the landscape of the FMLA quite significantly. While every employer should familiarize itself with all recent changes to the act, several of the changes might necessitate changes to employers’ existing employee handbooks. Specifically, the FMLA now provides the following two new leave entitlements that may need to be mentioned as part of employers’ employee handbook FMLA policy: (1) up to 26 workweeks of leave for military servicemember caregivers caring for a covered servicemember with a serious illness or injury incurred in the line of duty on active duty; and (2) qualifying exigency leave for families of members of the National Guard and Reserves to enable them to manage their affairs while the servicemember is on active duty in support of a contingency operation.   • Restrictive Covenants: Those employers who require all or certain employees to enter into restrictive covenants, whether as part of an employee handbook or manual or by separate agreement, are well aware that Georgia is one of the most difficult states in which to enforce a traditional non-compete agreement. Accordingly, many employers have sought to protect themselves through non-solicitation and/or non-compete agreements that specifically restrain competition for the business of certain customers, rather than broadly restraining competition throughout a particular industry. This approach may now be problematic in light of recent rulings by the Georgia Court of Appeals. In 2008, for example, the Court held that an employee’s non-solicitation agreement was unenforceable as a matter of law because it extended beyond those customers whom the employee had personally contacted and included customers about whom the employee “had confidential or proprietary information” as a result of her employment. Despite recognizing the employer’s legitimate business interest in protecting confidential information, the Court found that this restriction was overbroad and, in so doing, reaffirmed that a non-solicitation agreement must either contain a reasonable territorial restriction or be limited to customers with whom an employee had actual contact during her employment—nothing more, nothing less. While it is too premature to opine on the precedential value of recent case law, employers should be aware that the Georgia House of Representatives has convened a Study Committee on Restrictive Covenants in the Commercial Arena. The bill that created this Study Committee, HR 1879, states that the purpose of the committee is to formulate legislative policy on restrictive covenants, as “contracts that restrict or prohibit competition during or after the term of employment, so long as such contracts are reasonable in time, area, and line of business, should not be automatically struck down as unconstitutional in the rapidly changing marketplace in Georgia.” Thus, it is likely that any legislation resulting from the findings of the Study Committee will transform Georgia’s long-standing judicial hostility to restrictive covenants to an even greater degree. Accordingly, employers may want to reassess the feasibility of requiring certain employees to execute restrictive covenants in connection with their employment, or at least be sure to amend any restrictive covenants contained in handbooks or elsewhere to comply with recent court holdings. [PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION]