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hiring

Looking for solutions to the talent gap? Don’t forget legal concerns

Employers in an array of fields lament a shortage of talent. Sometimes employers are able to attract a flood of eager applicants, but few possess the skills and qualities needed. Other times, employers need people for special, short-term projects, and they don’t want to take on full-time, permanent employees to get the job done. No […]

motivation

Increase Employee Motivation with Autonomy, Growth, and Purpose

We are in an age when employers are waking up to the fact that pay and bonuses, while necessary, are only the basics that are needed to retain your workforce. To really inspire motivation, it is widely agreed by psychologists and experts (not to mention popularized in numerous TEDTalks) that the best way is to […]

How Apprenticeships Close Skills Gaps and Expand Opportunity

Organizations are always on the lookout for innovative training opportunities that can help close the skills gap. One such company is the Dow Chemical Company (Dow), which has successfully run apprenticeship programs across Europe for 40 years and has recently reached an important milestone with its U.S. program.

bully

Tips for Avoiding Retaliation Claims

What if an employee complains about harassment, but you investigate and find no evidence of harassment? Or, what if an employee files a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging discrimination, but the EEOC also does not find any wrongdoing? Can you fire either of these employees for making false claims?

Iowa workers’ comp changes coming July 1

by Tara Hall and Rebecca Duffy Changes to Iowa’s workers’ compensation law—changes seen as mostly beneficial to employers—are set to take effect July 1. The employer-friendly changes to the state’s workers’ comp law include a new provision classifying shoulder injuries as scheduled-member injuries rather than body-as-a-whole injuries, which force an industrial disability analysis. Another change […]

ACA

CMS Seeks Input on Easing ACA Burdens

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is seeking input on how it can reduce the economic and regulatory burdens of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The request for information (RFI), published June 12 in the Federal Register (82 Fed. Reg. 26885), calls for recommendations on streamlining the ACA’s regulation of the individual and small-group […]

Pension

LIMRA Data: Pension Buyouts at Highest Q1 Level in 15 Years

Single-premium pension buyout sales as part of the “derisking” of defined benefit (DB) retirement plans for the first quarter rose 31% from the same period in 2016, totaling $1.4 billion—the highest first-quarter results in 15 years, according to the LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute.

ADA

Do You Play Favorites at Work? You Should.

I was thinking the other day about Mrs. Lacroix, my third-grade teacher. One of my classmates was complaining about a perceived slight of some kind—I imagine it had something to do with recess—and her calm response, one eyebrow raised, was, “Well, who ever said life was fair”?