Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
You should regularly revise and modify your employment policies and employee handbooks as the law changes and as your operational needs dictate. Once you make policy changes, however, should you communicate them to your employees? If so, how?
Yesterday’s Advisor featured attorney Susan Schoenfeld’s tips for reducing FMLA abuse and fraud; today, five strategies that work, plus an introduction to the guide we call The FMLA Bible.” Schoenfeld, a Senior Legal Editor for BLR’s human resources and employment law publications, offers five strategies for reducing FMLA abuse in your organization. 1. Make Training […]
Misclassification: DOL and IRS Declare War Misclassification—calling individuals “independent contractors” or “volunteers” who properly should be employees—is a burgeoning legal battleground for employers. A recent 30-million-dollar suit on behalf of newspaper carriers is a good example of the stakes involved, says attorney Christine V. Walters. Unauthorized Overtime–Must Be Paid Even if Forbidden Many employers have […]
Before they find themselves under a wage enforcement microscope, employers need to be aware of potential problems and misclassification errors when designating workers as independent contractors instead of standard employees. The U.S. Department of Labor has had the misclassification of workers squarely in its cross hairs for a while. In particular the designation of “independent […]
Often, the first document a new employee reads is the company handbook. A handbook serves many purposes, among them introducing the employer’s culture, communicating important policies, and setting employee expectations. If approached thoughtfully, a handbook is also a key tool for minimizing exposure to litigation.
First, employers must determine whether a nonexempt employee has accumulated enough hours worked to become entitled to overtime pay. Now, let’s assume that the employee has worked enough hours and the issue is how much overtime must be paid. Mastering HR Report: Overtime Count on me Normally, calculating overtime is a pretty simple mathematical exercise […]
FMLA with cooperative employees is hassle enough, but the challenges compound when employees abuse the system, says Susan Schoenfeld, a Senior Legal Editor for BLR’s human resources and employment law publications. One of the biggest frustrations for employers is trying to deal with an employee who appears to abusing FMLA leave, says Schoenfeld. Fortunately, there […]
Rest and meal breaks in California aren’t just a nice-to-have, they’re legally mandated, all the way down to how frequently rest breaks must be given over the course of a workday. In a CER webinar titled “Meal & Rest Breaks in California: Long-Awaited Brinker Decision Is Finally Here; What It Means for You,” Marc L. […]
Rejecting a plan participant’s claims that plan documents should specifically list in-network providers, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that a plan clearly providing information on how to check for provider status was sufficient to escape benefits-denial and fiduciary-breach claims. In affirming a lower court decision, the court also rejected an argument that […]
A car wash operator apparently had a clean record of complying with labor law, but because of a special California labor law, a California appellate court recently held that the car wash was liable for a previous owner’s Fair Labor Standards Act violations, resulting in a $120,000 judgment. The case, People ex rel. Harris v. […]