Category: HR Management & Compliance

There are dozens of details to take care of in the day-to-day operation of your department and your company. We give you case studies, news updates, best practices and training tips that keep your organization fully in compliance with ever-changing employment law, and you fully aware of emerging HR trends.

Barbers Are Licensed, Why Not Leaders?

Just My E-pinionBy Steven M. Horner, SPHR Today’s guest columnist suggests that we’d have better business leaders if we made them get licenses to keep their jobs. Did you ever think about all of the service providers you come in contact with … barbers, accountants, lawyers, electricians, insurance agents, and so on? All of these […]

A Tool to Train in the Wider Aspects of Sexual Harassment

Most employees likely think of harassment in male vs. female terms. A new BLR interactive CD-ROM training course will make them conscious of a wider perspective. Ask your employees, or even your supervisors, for an example of “sexual harassment,” and you’ll likely hear the best-known version of it … a male showering a female with […]

Health Plans: HIPAA Nondiscrimination Rules to Take Effect

On July 1, 2007, new rules take effect regarding group health plan compliance with the nondiscrimination provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and wellness programs in particular. The rules are effective on the first day of the plan year beginning on or after July 1, 2007. For calendar year plans, the […]

Nontraditional Sex Harassment Cases on the Increase

While male-female sexual harassment cases still predominate, same-sex and other forms of harassment are a growing trend. And often, there’s no sex involved. When the term “sexual harassment” comes up, many people might think of scenes from the movie “9 to 5.” In that classic film, an overbearing, over-leering boss (played by Dabney Coleman) constantly […]

A New Twist on Job-Sharing

By BLR Founder and CEO Bob Brady Two computer programmers sharing a single keyboard? Hey, it works, says our CEO as he reports on a novel form of job sharing. Computer programmers have the reputation of being loners who sit in their cubicles, hunched over their keyboards, headphones on their ears, silent and oblivious to […]

A Way to Keep Up with Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) Changes

FMLA, already a complex law, may soon get more so. Here’s a program that explains the law now and is designed to keep you informed about how it may differ in the future. As yesterday’s Advisor story on the burgeoning “father-friendly workplace” movement illustrated, the pressure on business to allow employees greater work/life balance is […]

Religion Bias: Big Verdict for Worker Fired over Head Scarf

A jury in Phoenix has awarded $287,640—including $250,000 in punitive damages—in a religious discrimination suit against Alamo Car Rental brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The EEOC charged Alamo with post-9/11 backlash discrimination on the basis of religion when it fired a Somali customer sales representative in December 2001 for refusing to […]

Pay Discrimination: Congress Responds to Supreme Court’s Ruling

Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employees who complain of pay discrimination under Title VII, the federal antibias law, must file a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) within 180 days of the discriminatory pay-setting decision, rather than within 180 days of the employee’s last paycheck. This decision was good news for […]

A Father’s Day Question: Do Workplaces Need to Be More Father-Friendly?

Fatherhood advocates maintain that widening work/life balance programs to address more of fathers’ needs has payback for both families and employers. This Sunday is Father’s Day. It’s a time when the nation celebrates the contribution that fathers make to the future through the way they raise their children. That contribution is enormous, says the National […]

Employment Law Tip: Preventing Heat Illness

In many parts of California, the temperatures are heating up, which means it’s a good time to take a look at your workplace practices to make sure employees who work under the summer sun are safe—and that you’re complying with Cal/OSHA’s heat illness regulation.