Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
We sometimes have employees who appear to be sick. We say, hey, maybe you should go home for the rest of the day. They say, oh, no, I’m good, and they go back to work. We suspect they are hanging on because they don’t want to use their sick leave. But I don’t want them […]
Our accident rate is rising along with our workers’ comp costs, and management wants me to reverse the trend. What can I do to encourage employees to work safely?
We have an employee with what I think are mental health problems. The person has angry outbursts—not violent exactly, but pretty wild when they happen. My question is, how do we approach this person? I don’t think I should be saying, “Hey, I think you have manic depression,” but I don’t know what approach is […]
We’ve gotten word that a union is going to try to organize our manufacturing arm’s workers. I’m not sure what to tell the managers and supervisors about how far they can go to encourage their workers to reject the union. Can you give some general guidelines? — Thomas T., HR Manager in Berkeley
HR departments as small as one face big challenges. Here’s a program especially designed to help them. The recent brouhaha in Washington over whether a raise in the minimum wage should include special tax breaks for small business brought up again, in our minds, the issue of the smaller HR department. In countless businesses, usually […]
One of our current employees has referred a friend for employment under our employee referral program, which rewards employees who refer applicants if we end up hiring them. The employee mentioned that the friend uses marijuana for medical purposes. I don’t really want to consider this person because we are a drug-free workplace, but I’m […]
On Feb. 5, 2007, San Francisco’s controversial paid sick leave law went into effect. Under the new law, all employees working in the City and County of San Francisco accrue paid sick leave at the rate of one hour for every 30 hours worked, up to a maximum of 72 hours (or 40 hours for […]
E-Loan Inc. has agreed to pay out up to $13.6 million to settle a wage and hour class action charging overtime and meal period violations with respect to approximately 500 mortgage loan consultants in the company’s Pleasanton and Dublin offices. Employees who worked in those locations from December 2001 through June 2006 are eligible to […]
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has reported that in 2006, it recovered a record-breaking $51,525,235 million on behalf of a record 15,273 workers. The OFCCP enforces various federal employment discrimination laws with respect to government contractors. The 2006 figures represent a 14 percent increase over recoveries in 2005, and a 78 percent […]
An HR consultant who used to be a line manager describes the services he needed most … and least … from his HR partners. In preparing Daily Advisor, we read a lot of material by outside HR consultants. It’s good stuff, but because most have always been HR professionals, their view is largely from one […]