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Survey Identifies Four Factors that Control Healthcare Cost Increases

A recent survey of 585 businesses identified major growth in companies offering high deductible healthcare plans, and noted four ways to restrain cost increases. Once upon a time, if you worked for a good company and you got sick, you went to any doctor, hospital, or pharmacy and handed them your health plan card. That […]

Acccommodations: Merced Jury Awards $800K to Bank Teller Who Was Robbery Victim

A Merced County jury has returned an $800,000 verdict for a Washington Mutual bank teller who claimed that the bank failed to reasonably accommodate her and engage in an interactive process when she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from a bank robbery. How To Survive an Employee Lawsuit: 10 Tips for Success With lawsuits […]

California Supreme Court Clarifies Termination Pay Statutes

The California Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that for purposes of Labor Code provisions requiring payment of wages immediately upon “discharge”—and imposing waiting time penalties for delays—the term “discharge” doesn’t just mean getting fired or laid off; it also includes when an employer releases an employee after completion of the specific job assignment or time […]

ERI Wins Two More Editorial Awards

The Employer Resource Institute, publisher of the California Employer Advisor, has just won two more editorial awards, bringing the total to eight. The APEX “awards for publishing excellence” from Communication Concepts are in the categories of feature series writing (our two-part blogging series) and new web and intranet sites (California Employer Advisor Online). CEA Online […]

Improve Your Reference Checking and Break Through the “Stone Wall of Silence”

Reference checking an applicant’s past can make today’s hiring decision easier … but to get past a former employer’s rendition of “name, rank, and serial number,” you need some “breakthrough” strategies. Here they are: It’s been said that “the answers to all questions of today reside in the past.” While not true about everything, this […]

Employment Law Tip: Guidelines for Education Assistance Plans

According to a new survey on education assistance plans, 94 percent of employers offer some type of education assistance to their employees, with 88 percent of these employers having a formal policy in place. Interestingly, most employees don’t take advantage of this valuable employee benefit: the survey found that 74 percent of employers offering education […]

Leave: IRS Issues Guidance on Tax Treatment of Donated Leave

According to a new IRS notice, leave donated by an employee to a qualified employer-sponsored leave bank following a major disaster is not considered income to the donating employee, as long as the leave received by an affected employee is treated as wages for purposes of FICA, FUTA, and income tax withholding. Our HR Management […]