Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
This topic provides guidance on how to handle compensation issues in a way that attracts and retains the best talent and advances the strategic goals of your business. You get news and tips on what’s going on nationally and in the states, and updates on changes in regulations, possible governmental action, and emerging compensation trends.
The health care reform process under which employers can contest adverse determinations (that can trigger pay-or-play penalties) due to an insurance exchange finding that their plans fail to provide minimum essential coverage was finalized in program integrity rules put on public display on Aug. 29 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The […]
Participate in our brief survey and see how what you are doing stacks up against what other successful companies are doing. We’ll get answers to these questions and more: What kind of paid leaves are offered? (Bereavement? Vacation? Holidays? Maternity/Paternity? Jury Duty?) Do you offer vacation and sick leave or paid time off (PTO)? How […]
In a recent BLR webinar, Austin E. Smith lent his expertise to tell us about some of the challenges employers face when dealing with exempt vs. non-exempt employee classifications. For example, to meet the requirements for an administrative exemption, an employee must pass the “primary duty” test, which says that their primary duties must include […]
Classifying some employees as exempt from overtime means employers have to be careful—they must meet all of the initial exemption requirements, and also not take any actions that could jeopardize that exempt status (such as making improper pay deductions for exempt employees). This challenge raises many questions for employers, such as how to handle situations […]
Congressional aides from both chambers of Congress and both parties said they do not expect immediate action on changing health care reform’s 30-hour a week definition of a full-time workers, or on banning “skinny” health plans that do not cover major categories of health benefits. The staffers predicted that even if enrollment is lower than […]
One of the most frequent and important questions in talent management is “build or buy,” says consultant Ron Katz. That is, should you build talent (develop an internal candidate) or buy (go outside the organization for the candidate). There will be a cost associated with either choice, says Katz, who made his comments at BLR’s […]
To do that, sometimes you have to use a hammer as a screwdriver, he says. Katz made his comments at BLR’s Strategic Leadership HR Summit, held recently in Scottsdale, Arizona. Katz is president of Penguin Human Resource Consulting LLC. When Is a Hammer a Screwdriver? Katz shows a picture of a hammer and asks, “What’s […]
COBRA’s premium payment rules took center stage Aug. 12, when the “Bamboozled” column in the New Jersey Star-Ledger reported that a qualified beneficiary with leukemia had his coverage terminated early because his premium payment was 26 cents short. The story had a happy ending, but employers and their service providers can avoid being the villains […]
Handling qualified domestic relations orders can be difficult in the best of times for retirement plan administrators. However, when a divorced participant or beneficiary seeks to change or maintain pension survivorship rights with a domestic relations order, determining the rightful beneficiary can become even more complex. Two recent federal court decisions indicate that case […]
BLR’s 2013-2014 Pay Budget Survey Data: How Do You Compare? The nearly 700 participants in this year’s edition of BLR’s 2013–2014 Pay Budget Survey show 19.2% of employers awarding merit increases of up to 2.5% in 2013 and 42.7% awarding increases of more than 2.5%, with 3.6% awarding increases above 5% of base pay. […]