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Bad Boss! Bad Boss! What’cha Gonna Do?

Bad or abusive bosses can demoralize and decimate a workforce. Here’s what to do if you (like nearly 45 percent of workers, according to a recent survey), find yourself facing one. Although adapting the theme from TV’s COPS may be a bit strong to describe having a bad or abusive boss (few have to be […]

An I-9 Checklist

When the government cracks down, as it has been doing over I-9 and immigration procedures, it’s vital to ensure that your processes are correct. This checklist can help. Yesterday’s Daily Advisor reported on government efforts to curtail illegal immigration by eliminating the principal lure that brings these immigrants here … jobs that, even for the […]

Your I-9 Program: How Not to Get "ICE’d"

If your I-9 program is not up to snuff, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency can freeze your operation and put you in cold storage. Here’s how to avoid slipping up. Anyone aware of the news these days knows there’s a massive debate under way in the United States about the issue of […]

Are You Flunking Performance Evaluations 101?

As HR professionals, you might sometimes find it’s easy to take parts of your job for granted — completing I-9 forms, signing employees up for health insurance, and overseeing annual performance evaluations. Unlike routine paperwork, however, performance evaluations are an important part of effective management and can be critical in defending against employment litigation. And […]

Conducting Exit Interviews

Terminations are an inevitable part of employment, but despite their seemingly routine nature, even voluntary terminations can present a host of potential problems for employers. When handled properly, however, they can provide you with a valuable opportunity to gain insight into your organization, correct previously undetected problems, and increase your retention rate. For those reasons, […]

The Initiation Reprised

When I first saw this episode, I thought, surely initiation pranks don’t really occur at work. After all, adults know that the workplace is not an extension of their fraternity houses. I did some research. I was wrong. In one case, Los Angeles firefighters mixed dog food into the spaghetti dinner of a co-worker who […]

Finally … A Reasonable Explanation of ADA Reasonable Accommodation …

… and the ADA’s other key term, “undue hardship,” made less unduly hard to understand. What foreign language did you take in school? French or Spanish, perhaps? Well, apparently, there are some pretty talented editors who took legalese … the ability to translate government regulatory jargon into understandable English … and they majored in it. […]

Train Supervisors and Managers in the 10 Areas Most Likely to Attract Lawsuits

A single BLR PowerPoint® program includes 10 separate presentations in the areas most likely to cause legal troubles. If yesterday’s article offering a “termination primer” said anything, it pointed out the importance of training managers and supervisors in how much classic principles like “employment at will” have been modified by a society in which “sue […]

A Termination Primer

Botched terminations can lead to both damage to a company’s reputation and potentially expensive lawsuits. Here’s how to do them right. “You’re fired!” Thanks to Donald Trump’s TV show, The Apprentice, that little phrase has led to quite a bit of entertainment these last few years. But unlike the world of TV, in the real-life […]

Short Takes: Reference Checks

We’re trying to set up our policy for doing reference checks on final applicants. Can you help us with some basic guidelines? What if the former employers won’t talk?  Job Descriptions in California: How To Tackle Tricky Drafting Hurdles Job descriptions can be your best friend or your worst enemy from both a practical and […]