Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
By BLR Founder and CEO Bob Brady Last week BLR CEO and founder Bob Brady asked you to take a brief survey on HR’s role in executive compensation and the current economic crisis. Your responses, as usual, were thought provoking. Poll results HR managers responding to last week’s poll were nearly unanimous in condemning C-level […]
Concerns about the effect of lump-sum retiree distributions on the funded status of defined benefit pension plans with ongoing obligations to future beneficiaries were prominent as members of the ERISA Advisory Council tackled issues of “derisking” at a June 5 open meeting at the U.S. Department of Labor. There was high interest in the topic […]
We’re having trouble getting our holiday pay policy clarified. If our employees don’t work on a holiday, they get paid straight time for their normal hours for the holiday. If they do work on a holiday, do they get time and one-half for the hours worked on the holiday plus the straight time holiday pay? […]
Managers are often dynamic in their outlook and forward-thinking, but any new investment, in particular, with training systems that may cost much but do not bring in financial revenue, there is a need for proven practicality.
Preliminary workplace fatality statistics for 2014 were recently released by California’s Department of Industrial Relations (DIR)—and they reflect a 16% decrease in workplace fatalities from the previous year. This is encouraging when compared with the preliminary data for the whole United States, which shows an increase of 2%.
by Joanna Perini-Abbott With the Oregon Legislature’s passage of a minimum wage increase and the governor’s expected signature, employers need to be ready for a three-tiered minimum wage system. Under the terms of Senate Bill 1532, an employer’s location will affect the wages it must pay employees. Employers in the Portland metropolitan area urban growth […]
By Cathleen S. Yonahara, Freeland Cooper & Foreman LLP A California Court of Appeal has found that an employer may be liable under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) for failing to accommodate a nondisabled employee’s request to modify his work schedule to care for a disabled family member. The court’s interpretation of […]
by Lorene Novakowski In a recent Alberta arbitration award, the arbitrator awarded damages to employees for a breach of their privacy rights, in the amount of $1,250 each. The grievance arose after the province of Alberta conducted background credit checks without consent on 26 government employees. The employees worked in an area–maintenance enforcement–that gave them discretion in […]
In 1975, the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of National Labor Relations Review Board (NLRB) v. Weingarten gave workers the right to bring a union representative to an investigatory interview conducted by the employer. Following that decision, the NLRB flip-flopped on whether nonunion workers also had these so-called “Weingarten rights”—specifically, whether they could have […]
With the holidays about to be in full swing and the end of the year near, visions of time-off requests, bonuses, and parties are likely dancing in employers’ heads. Getting any of those things wrong is a sure way to spoil the holidays, but a little planning and care will keep the work on track […]