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COBRA Bills Face Uncertain Future as Federal Subsidy Begins to Expire

Update Dec. 21, 2009: President signs bill including COBRA subsidy extension By Ashley Gillihan and Carolyn Smith When Congress returned to session today, health care reform wasn’t the only piece of major legislation still left hanging as 2010 comes to a close. Also up in the air is whether the current COBRA health insurance subsidy […]

You Violated a Safety Rule—Comp or No Comp?

In yesterday’s Advisor, we looked at two informative comp cases. Today, another case, plus an introduction to the one-stop, online HR problem solver, HR.BLR.com. If you violated a safety rule and were injured, do you get workers’ compensation? When Peter Mars first joined Bowman Company as a machine operator, his supervisor, Jim Larson, gave him […]

How 2012 election results will affect HR in 2013, part 1

by David S. Fortney President Barack Obama will be sworn in for his second term Monday. The 113th Congress met for the first time on January 3 with its slightly revised composition. With those players in place, the main question for employers and HR professionals is, how will the 2012 election results affect the federal […]

Assessments can serve as compass for trek through HR wilderness

Busy human resources professionals can easily get caught up in the day-to-day and lose sight of the path they want to be on, but an assessment can guide the HR team out of the weeds and back on the road to reaching an organization’s goals. Lori Kleiman, a Chicago-based HR consultant, recently conducted a webinar […]

Dump Your Health Insurer for Good!

You may be able to do it by self-insuring. It’s not just for “big business” anymore, says BLR’s Best Practices in Compensation & Benefits newsletter. Self-Insurance Doesn’t this phrase have a siren song, especially when it comes to healthcare coverage? Just think about it. You take the premiums paid to your current health carrier and […]

New York law protecting SSNs takes effect

by Katherine Ritts Schafer An amendment to New York state’s Social Security Number Protection Law goes into effect today, and employers need to understand its implications. Although there are a number of exceptions, employers generally are prohibited from requiring an individual to disclose or furnish his Social Security number (SSN) “for any purpose in connection […]

Managers Think It’s All About the Money (Employees Disagree)

Special from the Advanced Employment Issues Symposium, Las Vegas When employees and their managers are asked about what they value at work, the answers are surprisingly different, says consultant Andrew Botwin SPHR. That disconnect will result in expensive turnover. Botwin, who is CEO of SPC (Strategy People Culture) Consulting, offered his engagement tips at BLR’s […]

Taming Intermittent Leave FMLA (Ha, Ha, Says Expert)

“Let’s talk about how to handle abuse of intermittent leave rules,” says attorney Jeffrey A. Wortman. Then he chuckles, underscoring the near impossibility of easily managing intermittent leave under the FMLA. Wortman, a partner in the Los Angeles office of Seyfarth Shaw LLP, and Nancy M. Cooper a partner in the Portland, Oregon, office of […]