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Changes Loom for HR Structure, Pay Practices

Compensation laws are changing, and the changes will likely mean you’ll do things differently. The Ledbetter decision, covered here in recent issues, may have you scrambling to document pay decisions better and keep the records longer (or indefinitely). What you may not know is that these decisions could have an impact on your overall human […]

ADAAA Effective Today—Steps Employers Should Take

In yesterday’s Advisor, we presented the first 6 “Rules of Construction” for ADAAA compliance. Today, the rest of the rules, steps to take, and an introduction to BLR’s CD-based collection of job descriptions, SmartJobs. [Go here for Rules of Construction 1 to 6.] Rule 7. An impairment that is episodic or in remission is a […]

Let’s Get Our Story Straight—Then We’ll Fire Him

What’s one of the killer problems with defending wrongful termination lawsuits? When “the story” about why the person was fired is inconsistent. That is, when HR, the manager, and the documentation don’t agree. For example, here’s what happens: The employee’s performance is poor enough that he or she has to be fired. But the supervisor […]

How to Avoid Freezing Your Defined Benefit Pension Plan

by Richard Berger, Cammack LaRhette Consulting It seems as if everybody is freezing their pension plans. If your defined benefit (DB) plan is desirable, how can you make it manageable for the long haul and avoid a freeze? What Has Driven Employers to Freeze? Employers have been freezing their pension plans for two main reasons, […]

How to Avoid Freezing Your Defined Benefit Pension Plan

by Richard Berger, Cammack LaRhette Consulting It seems as if everybody is freezing their pension plans. If your defined benefit (DB) plan is desirable, how can you make it manageable for the long haul and avoid a freeze? What Has Driven Employers to Freeze? Employers have been freezing their pension plans for two main reasons, […]

Building a Peer Group for Your Compensation Comparisons

 You’re asked by your company’s board of directors to reexamine your executive compensation. How, they want to know, does the company’s executive pay stack up when compared against other organizations? The first thing to do is to decide which companies should make up your peer group. Should you compare to the companies against whom you […]

Are You Buying Too Much Insurance for Your Employees?

You know the drill: spend some extra time and effort to bring down costs for the tiny percentage of participants who spend most of the health claims dollars, and you’ll reduce your insurance expenses. The problem, says Michael McKenna, president of Partners Benefit Group (www.partnersbenefitgroup.com), is that small or mid-sized fully-insured companies may not be […]

All Aboard, HR Professionals

I am thrilled to announce the launch of the SmartHRManager blog, powered by Thompson Publishing Group. Welcome. We hope this blog can do a lot for you. We want to be the place HR and benefits professionals turn to for ideas, analysis and instructions. We have a dynamic publishing company behind us to delve into the questions […]

Hot List: New York Times Bestselling Hardcover Business Books

The following is a list of the bestselling hardcover business books as ranked by the New York Times with data from Nielsen BookScan on May 23. 1. Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz with Joanne Gordon. Schultz tells of his second stint as the C.E.O. of Starbucks […]

Don’t Terminate Without the Right Policies

Terminations — where the rubber meets the road in HR. The most angst, the most tears (or screams), and the most lawsuits. Your terminations policy is critical. Today, courtesy of BLR’s SmartPolicies® program, we’ll review the key elements your policy should cover.