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What Should We Do About Informal Business Emails?

Our employees are too informal in their work emails to clients, vendors, etc. They are saying things they shouldn’t—such as speaking negatively about company policies—and their tone is too informal for outside business contacts. What can we do?

Not Fair! California Fairground Employer Faces Overtime Claims

by Matthew A. Goodin, Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. Both federal and state law requires employers to pay employees overtime. However, the laws are very different, and each contains many exemptions. Some of the more common exemptions, such as those for professional, administrative, or executive employees, are similar under both laws. But even then, there […]

When Harry left Sally: employers’ obligation to offer insurance postdivorce

by Kathryn M. Grigg Although employers may want to avoid the uncomfortable topic with employees, you can’t avoid your legal obligations to an employee’s former spouse postdivorce. For a period of time after a divorce, you’re required to offer health insurance continuation and conversion benefits to an employee’s former spouse and dependents. Here’s a summary […]

Federal Court: Allow Clarification to Avoid FMLA Interference

By Jeffrey A. Gruen  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit— which covers Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania—recently found that an employer can be liable for interference with an employee’s Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) rights when it denies leave on the basis of a vague medical certification without first providing notice […]

Urban Institute Criticizes Use of Stop-Loss Insurance by Small Employers

If small companies self-insure their health plans and in doing so can get stop-loss coverage with very low attachment points, they could siphon healthy lives away from the new insurance market designed by health reform to insure millions of new lives, the Urban Institute warned in a April 2013 report. The Institute explained that low […]

HR and Legal: Can’t We All Just Get Along?

By BLR Founder and CEO Bob Brady You know you’ve been there: The legal department is advising you to do something that has no bearing on the real-life world of the workplace. “Just have managers stop inflating their performance ratings.” Sure, that will happen. “Keep employees from clocking in early.” Yeah, right. You know you’re […]

Employee Free Speech: Court Rules Employee Can’t Be Fired For Outburst About Affirmative Action; What Are Your Rights?

A white male employee has a confrontation with a Hispanic female co-worker in a deserted corridor. He grabs her by the lapel, shakes her, and tells her he is ‘tired of this Hispanic s—: us white guys are tired of being looked over.’ Clear grounds for termination? His employer thought so. But in a surprising […]

‘Love Contract’—What’s That?

There have been a slew of reports recently about executives carrying on affairs that end up coming back to bite them. The most notable headline: CIA Director David Petraeus’s affair with his biographer, a relationship that directly led to his resignation. In another report, an exec, the president of Lockheed Martin Corp., was forced to […]