Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
by Dennis Merley In a unanimous vote, the Minneapolis City Council has passed a paid sick and safe leave ordinance that is scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2017. The ordinance covers all employers with one or more employees, but employers with fewer than six employees must provide only unpaid sick and safe leave. […]
McCarthy Tetrault Your employees in Canada have the right to refuse tasks that may endanger them or others. Health and safety laws spell out not only your obligations but also what your employees must do when refusing work, so it’s important for you to understand how to handle such situations. Here are some tips to […]
In a recent article we looked at the pros and cons of rehiring former employees. Today, we present a few more considerations.
Jeffery Akers was a patent examiner at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). He sought a promotion but didn’t get it. Instead, a younger woman was given the position. Akers believed that his age and gender prevented him from getting the promotion, so he filed a discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission […]
By Dave Clemens Of all the tasks that HR hopes line managers will carry out effectively, performance reviews stand at or near the top of the list. After all, proper evaluations form the core of so much of HR’s work. How can the organization properly promote, reward or – if need be – prune out the […]
One of the fastest-growing concerns for employers is toxic mold in the workplace. According to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), toxic mold can affect indoor air quality and cause serious health conditions. These problems are fueling an increase in litigation over the presence of mold, and big-money settlements and judgments in the […]
Wellness programs—win-win and no legal hassles, right? Actually, there are a number of legal pitfalls awaiting the unwary wellness manager. For example, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the Internal Revenue Code, and the Genetic Information Nondisclosure Act (GINA) all have requirements that bear on wellness programs. […]
New IRS guidance spells out more issues the agency plans to address in imposing the excise tax on high-cost employer-sponsored health coverage (commonly known as the Cadillac tax). These include: (1) identifying taxpayers who may be liable for the excise tax; (2) aggregating several employers under one plan sponsor’s payment; (3) allocating the tax among […]
The Supporting Military Families Act of 2009 was introduced in both houses of Congress in late July 2009. A mere three months later — on October 28 — it was signed into law as part of the defense funding bill for 2010. The legislation expands the circumstances in which employees may take both qualifying exigency […]
The issue of how employers should handle same-sex marriage got a bit murkier November 6 as a divided appeals court panel broke with rulings from four other U.S. circuit courts of appeals by upholding state bans on same-sex marriage. A three-judge panel from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the 2-1 decision, which […]