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Best Practices for Leave, Vacation, Sick, and PTO? Let’s Find Out

Employee leave—whether it’s vacation, sick time, or PTO—is frustrating enough, without worrying about what your competitors are up to. You need facts about best practices, and our Employee Leave Survey will ferret them out. But only if you help. For years, BLR® has surveyed HR and compensation/benefits professionals to find trends in policy and practice. […]

EEOC plan reveals enforcement priorities

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has released a draft of its Strategic Enforcement Plan (SEP) that spells out priorities such as stepped-up efforts against hiring discrimination and harassment, new protections for various vulnerable workers, preserving access to the legal system, and dealing with emerging issues like changes brought by the ADA Amendments Act. Recruitment […]

New Study Shows that Project Management Training Yields Significant Results

Areas of Improvement Of participants in “The State of Project Management Training,” 29% credited project management training with improvement in stakeholder satisfaction, while 27% reported improvement in schedule performance, and nearly the percentage—26%—had fewer project failures. In the study of 247 large, mid-sized, and small companies in a variety of industries, project management firm PM […]

The Cursed Résumé

By Kyle Emshwiller Registered nurses are going to be a hot career choice over next few years according to O*NET, an online occupation database. With a faster than average projected national job growth (20% to 28%), as well as 1,207,400 projected openings nationwide over the decade, it’s a great sign for RNs. However, while the […]

Would You Rather…?

By Kyle Emshwiller A few weeks ago, we reported on a “would you rather” survey that highlighted some surprising preferences, including that 38 percent would rather go to work than landscape. If we were surprised then, we are shocked now. Mashable recently reported on a Harris Interactive poll that looked into the frustration behind changing […]

Looking for a Job? Hope You’re Not Camera Shy

By Kyle Emshwiller According to a recent survey, over 60 percent of HR managers interviewed said their company conducts employment interviews through video often, up from 14 percent last year. Could video one day replace face-to-face interviews? Probably not, at least not in the near future. While 13 percent of respondents think their organization will […]

Employees, applicants, and jail: What HR should do?

An employee is arrested and something must be done. Do you fire the employee because you don’t want to put up with someone who lands in jail? Or do you wait to get the facts, maybe even wait for the legal system to run its course before making an employment decision? A related quandary is […]

Employer May Have to Allow Employee with Chemical Sensitivity to Work From Home

Employees with chemical sensitivity may be entitled to workplace accommodations, including permission to work from home, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio ruled in Core v. Champaign County (July 30, 2012). Pamela Core, an employee at the Champaign County Department of Job and Family Services, had asthma and a severe chemical […]

FMLA/CFRA medical certifications in California: An overview

A medical certification is a written document from a health care provider verifying that an employee’s leave is for a serious health condition. It is an objective tool that HR managers should use to determine whether to grant or deny leave requests under FMLA, the California Pregnancy Disability Leave Law, and the California Family Rights […]

Who Are Your Hi-Pos? Ten Key Characteristics

Identifying Key Positions and Skills A critical step in the process is to specifically identify the key positions that will be targeted in the succession plan. This usually includes management-level positions. It may also include highly specialized jobs that are essential to the company’s ability to meet current or future goals. Once the positions are […]