Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
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.
by Tammy Binford Most new state government workers in Arizona soon will be at-will employees thanks to a new law overhauling the state personnel system that goes into effect September 29. The new law consolidates nine different personnel systems in the executive branch and converts new hires, attorneys, supervisors, and several other high-level employees to […]
Eye on the Election Here’s the first in our series of “Eye on the Election” posts which are focused on helping employers prepare for post-election changes, no matter who is elected. For today’s topic of likely labor law and NLRB actions after the election we turned to Patricia M. Trainor, J.D., SPHR, BLR’s Senior Managing […]
Q. We have a safety meeting that all employees attend. Are the hours attending the safety meeting considered "hours worked" for overtime purposes? A. Training programs conducted during regular working hours constitute work time and must be compensated as such, according to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). After-hours training need not be compensated […]
How do you know whether to classify someone as an independent contractor or employee? Is it enough to have a contract in place that specifies that someone is not considered an employee? While most employees hope they have it right, misclassifying employees as independent contractors costs the federal government $2.72 billion every year, according to […]
Special from Atlanta—SHRM Annual Conference and Exhibition In yesterday’s Advisor, attorney James McDonald explained the legal pitfalls of one kind of lookism—“You’re too unattractive to work here.” Today, he tackles the opposite—“You’re too attractive to work here”—plus we introduce the HR policy guru, SmartPolicies. The Other Side of Lookism: I’m Too Sexy McDonald, who is […]
In worst-case scenarios, stumbling blocks become legal hurdles too great for your human resources department to overcome. What starts as an innocent mistake, lack of knowledge or sin of policy omission becomes a genuine issue of material fact and it lands your company in court. In the case of Lichtenstein v. University of Pittsburgh Medical […]
Q. Are there any regulations on how often you must have safety meetings? A. Federal OSHA has no regulation that states how often you must have safety meetings. There are regulations that mandate training on a schedule such as Bloodborne Pathogens (29 CFR 1910.1030) training, which is required annually. Other general industry standards that require […]
Special from Atlanta—SHRM Annual Conference and Exhibition People can’t admit to their own performance failures, says attorney James McDonald, so when they are fired, they wonder, What could it have been? And they come up with: “I must have been discriminated against based on my looks!” McDonald, who is a partner in the Irvine, California office […]
by Jonathan C. Sterling As of October 1, Connecticut employers need to make sure they’re in compliance with the state’s new medical marijuana law. Under the law, employers of one or more employees are prohibited from refusing to hire, discharging, penalizing, or threatening an employee solely on the basis of his status as a “qualifying […]
Without question, a job counter offer can be a useful tool if the situation fits. Under the right circumstances it might save a key employee from leaving—at least temporarily. However, in most cases they may create more problems than they solve, so employers should take care in assessing whether a job counter offer is truly […]