Month: August 2012

Never trust a skinny chef

by Kylie Crawford TenBrook I am sorry to inform you that Paula “butter-your-bacon” Deen has become a health fanatic. A recent article in People magazine featured her weight loss transformation–and a recipe for marinated vegetable salad. (BOR-ING!) Of course, she looks great and will probably live a lot longer. And she’s a good role model […]

Hiring foreign professionals

by A. Neal Barkus Suppose your company has a computer engineering position that it has been trying to fill for several months with no success. Suddenly, you’re contacted by a dream applicant ― someone with an excellent educational record from the local university, relevant job experience, and attractive personal qualities. Let’s call this applicant Manesh. […]

Ontario court considers limitation periods in occupational health and safety legislation

by Rosalind H. Cooper Employers and others are generally protected by actions against them that occur outside of limitation periods. That applies to charges under Canadian occupational health and safety legislation, too. But when do those limitation periods begin to run? A recent decision of the Ontario Court of Justice in R. v. Corporation (City […]

“There is no sin except stupidity”

by Donna Brooks We confess: In these days of dry Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) lawsuits, newspaper battles over immigration laws and school calendars, and court opinions focusing on sufficiency of evidence or burdens of proof, any day that we get to write an article about “sin” is a good day. While actual “sinning” […]

The Six Training Topics that Will Keep You Out of Court

There are lots of topics for manager and supervisor training, but these six are the keys for keeping your company out of court. Train on them first. 1. Wage/Hour/FLSA Why it’s a challenge: Supervisors and managers think they know the rules, but the rules are more complex than they think they are. Typical manager/supervisor blunders: […]

Contraceptive Mandate Enforcement Stay Revised to Admit More Employers

Compliance with the contraceptive coverage mandate under health reform is stayed until Aug. 1, 2013 for employers that fit into a slightly expanded enforcement safe harbor described by the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) in an Aug. 15 memo. Reform’s preventive care mandate requires plans and insurers to cover a host of […]

IRS Proposes Rule on Reimbursed Entertainment Expenses

Employers that pay advances, allowances or reimbursements to employees for work-related entertainment expenses — including taxpayers who, in turn, get reimbursed by their clients for such expenses — have until Oct. 30 to comment on a proposed regulation IRS published Aug. 1. The proposed rule clarifies who — among the employer, its client and an […]

Deferral Rates Beat Asset Allocation, Fund Choice for Retirement Goals

Plan sponsors and participants both want to ensure better retirement savings but they often wonder which factor in the process matters most. A study from Putnam Institute suggests sticking with the obvious: The higher the deferral rate during an employee’s working life, the greater the long-term returns. Despite intense focus on fund performance in the […]

‘Honest Suspicion’ of FMLA Abuse Justifies Firing, Courts Rule

A multibillion-dollar corporation that hired a private investigator to combat excessive employee absenteeism and suspected FMLA abuse withstood an interference and retaliation claim by a fired factory worker in a case brought before the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The case is Scruggs v. Carrier Corp., No. 11-3420 (Aug. 3, 2012). Daryl Scruggs, who […]

Hiring from Outside? Think Again

Here’s the bottom line. Management professor Matthew Bidwell, of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, has researched the question for several years—from 2003 to 2009. The basics of his findings are these: External hires get significantly lower performance evaluations for their first 2 years on the job than do internal workers who are […]