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.
Employers are still trying to understand how the U.S. Senate’s Christmas present to the nation — a 2,074 page health care reform bill topped with a 383-page manager’s amendment — will affect them and their employees. (During a highly unusual Christmas Eve session, the Senate passed the bill in a 60-39 party-line vote.) Before the […]
“Flexible work arrangements provide enhanced employee performance while offering an inexpensive and effective way to motivate and retain top talent,” says Rose Cook, president of FlexPro Staffing in Eagleville, Pennsylvania. What Is Meant by ‘Flexible Work’? Simply put, flexible work arrangements are alternate arrangements or schedules that differ from the traditional workday and workweek. Flexible […]
Companies that are characterized by a diverse, respectful, and dignified workplace invariably enjoy the benefits of improved employee morale, higher productivity, larger market share, and a strong bottom line. And that’s good news, because your organization IS going to be characterized by diversity–demographics alone guarantee it. But as we saw in yesterday’s Advisor, addressing diversity […]
Last week, President Barack Obama signed legislation into law that extends the original federal COBRA subsidy created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). The legislation extends: the total allowable time an individual could receive the COBRA subsidy by six months (from nine to 15 months); and the subsidy to individuals who […]
Most organizations these days believe that "diversity" produces better results. But things get tricky when it comes to diversity training. It’s easy to do significant legal damage, especially with "let-it-all-hang-out" sessions . One of the favorite moves of diversity training facilitators is to ask employees to drop all pretenses, and just go ahead and express […]
The new world of social networking and electronic communications opens all sorts of questions about etiquette, behavior, and life style. In "Available All the Time: Etiquette for the Social Networking Age," Wharton Professor Nancy Rothbard calls it a "double-edged sword." For example, she says, a Blackberry® can allow parents to attend their children’s soccer games […]
Social Media—The bane of management or the next best marketing tool? Should you control it or encourage it? Of course, the answers depend on your business and your culture, but here’s a sample policy to get you going. This policy is one of several sample social media policies we found at HR.BLR.com®. This policy is […]
President Barack Obama signed legislation into law today that would extend the original federal COBRA subsidy created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The legislation was part of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010 (H.R. 3326), a bill that appropriates funds for the Department of Defense. The bill passed the U.S. […]
Harassment training is always tricky—Discuss the behaviors of harassing managers, and you may be creating an uncomfortable environment just with your training. Here are a few scenarios that should get discussions going without offending. The scenarios below are from training programs in the BLR® Employee Training Center. Gayla’s Dress is “Provocative” Gayla G’s job took […]
Update Dec. 21, 2009: President signs bill including COBRA subsidy extension In an unusual Saturday morning session on Dec. 19, the U.S. Senate voted 88-10 to pass legislation that would extend the original federal COBRA subsidy created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which President Barack Obama signed into law in […]