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.

Want to Avoid Workplace Legal Troubles? Try ‘Preventive Law’

If you can avoid medical problems through preventive medicine, can you do the same for legal problems? There’s a whole community of lawyers who think so. These days, businesses are spending millions of dollars on wellness initiatives, in an effort to cut healthcare costs by stopping medical troubles before they happen. Another term for this […]

Feb. 27 Audio Conference to Detail Requirements – and Risks – of the New E-Storage Rules

Revised court procedures, now in effect, may forever change your way of storing e-mails and other e-messages. A special BLR audio-conference will tell you how you’re impacted. In January, BLR presented an audio conference on important changes in federal employment law for 2007. It was one of our best received events. As it turns out, […]

Now Hear This: ADA Covers “Invisible Disabilities,” Too

Even if you can’t see the results of a worker’s disability, you need to respect them, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Here are the rules to follow. Every time we look at the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), it seems there are additional disabilities being covered. That’s not really happening, of course. The […]

FEHC Back to Work on A.B. 1825 Regulation

For over a year now, the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission (FEHC) has been drafting regulations to implement California’s sexual harassment training law, A.B. 1825. In December, the FEHC finally submitted the draft regulations to the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) for approval, and it looked like the regulations might take effect this month.

New Avian Flu Planning Guidance from OSHA

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has released comprehensive new guidance for employers on how to prepare for an avian flu outbreak. The new guidance, which OSHA developed in conjunction with the Department of Health and Human Services, provides guidance for all types of workplaces, describes the differences between seasonal, avian, and pandemic […]

Wal-Mart Loses Class Action Certification Challenge in Huge Case

Last week, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s ruling that granted class-action status to a lawsuit—the largest civil rights suit in history—accusing Wal-Mart of sex discrimination in pay and promotions. The class is estimated to consist of up to 1.6 million current and former female employees of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart unsuccessfully […]

Congress Moving on Federal Minimum Wage Hike

We recently reported that the U.S. House of Representatives had approved a bill to increase the federal minimum wage to $7.25 over a period of 26 months. Now, the Senate has approved similar legislation, which, unlike the House measure, would provide tax breaks to small businesses to offset the economic impact of paying a higher […]

A Program to Help Smaller Businesses Have the HR Policies They Need

Smaller businesses often don’t have the resources to create their own workplace policies, and often do without. The good news is that they no longer have to. A recent Daily Advisor article talked about the problems businesses have faced from the new practice of employee blogging. This writing of personal diaries on the Internet, for […]

Blogged Out of a Job!

Can employees diss your company on the Internet and get away with it? In a growing number of cases, the answer is No. Last December, Time Magazine named as its Person of the Year—a title usually reserved for world leaders and Nobel Prize winners—“You.” They even attached a mirror to the magazine so that “You” […]