Month: September 2011

ADA Ruling: Employer Not Required to Create New Positions to Accommodate Employee with Broken Leg

Job creation is the economy’s number one problem, but it’s reasonable to predict that not one job will be created because an employee broke his or her leg. That won’t stop some workers from trying, though, as shown in this Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) case   In White v. Interstate Distributor, Co., a fired […]

Untethered Workforce Makes Communicating Comp a Challenge

The important lesson from yesterday’s Advisor was to view incentive compensation as a way to drive business results. Determine what is important to your customers, and then create incentive goals to support that. Divide your employees into business groups, advises Mark Mitchell, managing director of American’s Customer Experience area. Let the employees have a voice […]

Be Clear About Your Paid-Time-Off Buckets

Yesterday, guest columnist Cathleen Yonahara of Freelance Cooper & Foreman, LLP, discussed a recent case in which a departing employee claimed that his employer’s sabbatical program was actually vacation that had to be paid out upon termination. Today: The court’s ruling in the case.

The Single Most Common Mistake in Writing Job Descriptions

In yesterday’s Advisor, attorney Olivia Goodkin revealed the top four reasons you need job descriptions. Today, her take on how to craft the job description, plus an introduction to BLR’s popular encyclopedia of pre-written job descriptions. Goodkin who is a partner in the Los Angeles office of law firm Rutter Hobbs & Davidoff, gave her […]

NYPD’s Blue: 4,000 Police Sergeants Are Owed Back Pay to 2001

Four thousand New York City Police Department (NYPD) sergeants are not exempt executives under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) because their primary duty is law enforcement, not management, a federal court has found. As a result, the court found the city liable to the sergeants for back overtime pay going back to 2001. The […]

Rafting the Ocoee

Running the Rapids: Workplace Lessons from the Ocoee

Dan is busy working on his presentation for the Advanced Issues Employment Symposium so he decided to share this column written by business communications consultant Chip Cruze. by Chip Cruze Over the Labor Day weekend, my family and I went whitewater rafting on the Ocoee River. What a rush! Diving into those rapids in that […]

Hot List: Wall Street Journal’s Bestselling Hardcover Business Books

The following is a list of the bestselling hardcover business books as ranked by the Wall Street Journal with data from Nielsen BookScan. 1. StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths by Tom Rath. Are you unsure where your true talents lie? Do you feel […]

Targeted Incentive Comp Works For Airline, Employees

Mark Mitchell, managing director of American’s Customer Experience area, tells the story: “In the middle 2000s, maybe 2003 to 2006, as American worked very diligently to take the right path financially and not go through the bankruptcy courts, we preserved cash and ceased investing in some of our core products. Our customers, our employees— maybe […]

Is All Paid Time Off Considered “Vacation”?

California employers are familiar with the state law making “use it or lose it” vacation policies unlawful, so you must pay employees any unused, accrued vacation upon termination of employment. But what is a vacation policy? Is all paid time off considered “vacation”?

Adding Insult to Injury: Canada’s ‘Vexatious’ Harassment Laws

By Julia Kennedy and Sean McGurran Bullying isn’t just a problem on the playground anymore. Eventually the bullies grow up and get jobs. Now Canadian employers are seeing more laws dealing with harassment in the workplace. As an example in June 2010, Ontario’s Violence and Harassment in the Workplace law came into effect. It requires […]