You’re the Expert: How do you recommend we handle alcohol at our holiday party?
How do you recommend that we handle alcohol at our holiday party? We do want to serve alcohol, but we want to limit consumption in some way.
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Hiring: Can We Use Credit Checks in Evaluating Candidates?
We routinely do background checks on our final candidates for employment. Now we’ve got a finalist that we all really like, but the background check revealed a problem credit history. The job doesn’t involve money, but we’re wondering what the credit history might reveal about this person’s character. I want to ask the candidate about […]
FMLA Leave: Can We Push Back the Annual Performance Review Date When Employees Take Leave?
When our employees go on leave, such as FMLA leave, we adjust their appraisal dates to reflect the leave time. For example, if they take 3 months of leave, they get their appraisal at the 15-month point rather than the usual 12 months. Now some of them are saying that the FMLA says that leave […]
Executive Exemption: How Can We Be Sure We Classify “Gray Area” Managers Correctly?
I have a question about determining the exempt or nonexempt status of our lowest-level managers. We think they are exempt, but we’ve read about some pretty expensive lawsuits and want to avoid that. We classify these employees as exempt, and they seem happy enough with that designation. Most of them are eager to move up […]
Family and Medical Leave: A Spotlight on Time Off for Adoption or Foster Care
A new department of Labor opinion letter sheds light on when an employee does—and doesn’t—have the right to FMLA leave when adopting a child or receiving a child for foster care. We’ll explain the rules and point out some key differences in this area between the FMLA and the California Family Rights Act (CFRA). FMLA […]
Employee Uniforms: Court Says Public Employees Must Pay for Their Own Uniforms; A Look at the Rules for All Employers
Several employee groups—firefighters, sheriffs, police officers, guards, and forest rangers—filed class action suits against their public-sector employers in California, charging that they weren’t fully compensated for the costs of purchasing, replacing, cleaning, and maintaining required work uniforms, in violation of Labor Code Section 2802. This provision requires an employer to reimburse employees for all necessary […]
DLSE Reports on Status of Meal Period Rule
It’s been almost a year since the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) proposed a new rule to add flexibility for employers and employees to California’s meal period requirements. The rule, which has gone through several versions, still isn’t final.
Senate Approves Pension Security Bill
It’s no secret that the private pension system in the United States is in crisis. Last week, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), which insures pensions for about 44 million Americans, announced that it has a startling deficit of $23 billion, fueled largely by having to take over pension plan liabilities of bankrupt airlines. But […]
Holiday Parties Are All the Rage in 2005
According to a new survey by HR consulting firm Hewitt Associates, almost three-quarters (74 percent) of employers are planning to host a party for employees this holiday season. Twenty-seven percent of these employers plan to spend $5,000 or less on their parties, 30 percent will pay between $5,000 and $20,000, and 15 percent will spend […]
Garamendi Recommends Further Pure Premium Rate Cut
Last week, California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi recommended a 15.3 percent drop in the pure premium rate for policies incepting Jan. 1, 2006. The commissioner’s recommendation was just shy of the 15.9 percent decrease that the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau (WCIRB) recently recommended to the commissioner.