On Overtime & Innovation; Mall & Anti-Mall

You can hardly get through any conversation about business these days without getting an earful on the importance of the Millennial generation in the workforce and the need to develop leaders. Reason enough to break bread with Jim McDonald, regional managing partner and labor law specialist for Fisher & Phillips … McDonald came to Irvine by way of Atlanta back in 1990, when he took on the challenge of establishing the “Los Angeles” office of Fisher & Phillips by setting up shop in OC, making it the center for what became a regional operation that’s grown to include offices in L.A., San Diego, the Inland Empire, Nevada and Arizona … McDonald’s entrepreneurial record adds weight to his lawyer’s view of a pending federal proposal to change rules on which workers will be exempt from the requirement for overtime pay. That’s typically been off the radar of California employers, since state regs have more than met the federal standard in recent years. The feds propose to change that by requiring overtime for any employees, including managers and professionals, making less than $50,440 a year—the state’s top dollar is $41,600 or so … McDonald notes that the change will give employers less room to offer the flexibility on work hours that Millennials famously prize. It also will knock some folks off the development track for leadership positions—the craft of command often starts in the $40,000-to-$50,000 range and requires more than a 40-hour work week, after all …. This seems to be a matter of particular concern in OC, where Millennials and leadership development are often key ingredients in the innovation that drives a good chunk of the economy … Any employer or employee interested in commenting on the proposed change to the federal rules can find a link at dol.gov/whd … Innovation comes from all corners of OC’s economy, indeed, and the latest addition to the restaurant lineup at the Irvine Spectrum Center will show how far retail innovator Shaheen Sadeghi has come. Or perhaps it’s a matter of how far the trade has moved toward Sadeghi’s way of thinking. Either view has Restaurant Habana due to bring its menu of Cuban favorites to the Spectrum, where it will seek to replicate the success it’s had for the past 20 years at The LAB in Costa Mesa, a Sadeghi project also known as the Anti-Mall … The Irvine Company has joined with another OC innovator on a project at another one of its properties—the headquarters of apparel retailer Tilly’s, where a 15,000-square-foot wall facing the 405 Freeway has become a canvas for an abstract mural by Zio Ziegler, who has moved on to a series of works at the United Nations building in New York …Tilly’s hooked up with Cypress-based Vans and Torrey Cook of the Artists Republic gallery in Laguna Beach to back the mural project … Some will no doubt say the mural—which will be up until sometime this autumn—is out of character for Irvine Co. Others might note that the developer has leaned toward avant-garde before, commissioning California artist Tom Van Sant back in the 1960s for the outsized intaglio sculptures of native animals and people seen at the company’s HQ on Newport Center Drive. Then there’s the Market Place, with its inky color scheme and blocky buildings on both the Tustin and Irvine sides of Jamboree Boulevard. The place was designed by the late Ricardo Legorreta, an acclaimed architect from Mexico who gained a rep for geometric designs and bold colors.