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Vancouver 2010: Are You Prepared?

By Katie Clayton and Farrah Sunderani With the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games having just begun, there will be several implications on the workplace. Past Olympic cities have reported high levels of absenteeism – both approved and unapproved – for employees wishing to attend the events, partake in the activities, or volunteer. Employers […]

Amazon.com’s Editor’s Picks for Best Business and Investing Books of 2008

The editors at Amazon.com have put together a list of the best books of 2008 in the “Business and Investing” category. 1. The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder. The legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir, but now he has allowed one writer, Alice Schroeder, unprecedented access to […]

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Alternative Employee Assessment Methods

In a previous post, we discussed some of the challenges inherent in traditional methods of employee assessment, specifically the fact that review of résumés and in-person interviews tend to focus too much on the objective skills of the employee rather than the subjective needs of the organization.

Ford Revolutionizes the Workplace

On October 1, 1908, Ford Motor Company introduced the Model T, generally regarded as the first affordable automobile and the car that industry experts say “put America on wheels.” The first Model T, produced for the 1909 model year, was assembled by hand and sold for $850. The demand for the cars was so high […]

Focus on the Desired Outcome

You ever find yourself faced with situation that is so screwed up that no matter what solution you come up with, it’s guaranteed to be better than what’s currently being done? You think to yourself, “There’s no way I can’t make this better than it is today. It’s going to be really easy to look […]

Survey Says: Train Employees to Protect Company Data

  Almost one-third (31 percent) of U.S. employees are concerned about losing data at work, but many engage in activities that put company files at risk anyway. And more than one-third of those surveyed at companies with 101 to 500 employees admitted to engaging in risky behaviors when it comes to company data, according to […]

New Rules Proposed to Provide FLSA Protections to In-Home Care Workers

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is proposing a rule change that would expand minimum wage and overtime protections for many employees in the home-care industry. A statement from the White House on December 15 said that if implemented, the proposed rule would affect nearly two million workers who provide in-home care services for the […]

Can HR Help Cure ‘Fiscal Decadence Disorder’?

With layoffs and downsizings all around us, today’s guest columnist, Maurizio Morselli, wonders whether HR can help ensure that these “staff-ectomies” are carefully planned and cut no deeper than absolutely necessary. Organizations and individuals are faced with new challenges every day. The global “FDD” (fiscal decadence disorder) is the latest malady that has created enormous […]

Value-based Purchasing Spearheads Health and Wellness Management

When a self-insured health plan adopts value-based purchasing and insurance design, its goal is to persuade workers to adopt a healthy lifestyle and go to the best performing providers. That’s how plan savings occur, by catching cases before they become acute care cases that harm a self-insured health plan. Self-insured health plans that want to […]

Reformed Benefit Summary Will Make Comparison Shopping Easier, Regulators Claim

The summary of benefits and coverage (SBC), while still a work in process, will improve plan participants’ ability to comparison-shop for coverage. That fills a currently unmet need, federal regulators told a recent conference. They were responding to concerns that the SBC — mandated by the health reform law — is redundant, confusing or even […]