When executive coach at TLS Leaders and leadership faculty at Stony Brook University, Loren Margolis, invited a client to a Zoom meeting in 2018, they asked why she wanted to go to a Zumba class.

Nowadays, it may be hard to imagine anyone mistaking “Zoom” for “Zumba”—almost as hard as it may be to fathom any workplace operating without help from one of the most widely-used video conferencing platforms in the world.

Zoom (then called Saasbee) was founded in 2011 by Eric Yuan, a former engineer at Cisco’s Webex, with the mission to bring “human connection” to the virtual workspace, all while helping companies cut the time and cost associated with having employees travel to meet with clients and coworkers in other cities, Aparna Bawa, Zoom’s COO, told HR Brew.

For more on the ways virtual meetings have transformed the workplace, keep reading here.—MC

A federal judge has issued a permanent injunction blocking enforcement of certain provisions of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) against an estimated 9,000 Catholic employers.

The Catholic Benefits Association (CBA) had sued the EEOC on behalf of its members, along with the Diocese of Bismarck, alleging that an EEOC rule requiring employers to consider worker accommodations for abortion and infertility treatments, violated CBA members’ religious and free speech rights.

In granting the Catholic organization a permanent injunction, US District Judge Daniel Traynor barred the EEOC from enforcing the PWFA in a manner that would require its members or the Diocese of Bismarck “to accommodate abortion or infertility treatments that are contrary to the Catholic faith.”

For more on this ruling and why the EEOC may revisit its enforcement goals, keep reading here.—CV

Pay transparency laws have prompted more employers to show their workers the money. But what happens when employees know exactly how they stack up against their peers?

New research suggests knowing what your colleagues earn isn’t motivating for all employees. Armed with salary information, high-performing employees will be more likely to push for a significant raise than their lower-performing colleagues, according to a study led by University of California, Riverside associate professor of management Boris Maciejovsky.

Maciejovsky and his colleagues ran four experiments in which participants were given information not only about compensation, but also their performance rank within an organization. It’s not uncommon for employers in some industries—investment banking, for example—to share employees’ rank relative to others, Maciejovsky said. But, sharing this kind of information has implications for motivation and productivity, he noted.

For more on these latest pay transparency findings and their implications, keep reading here.—CV