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Wine Before 9 Sends Employee to the Unemployment Line

By Martin J. Regimbal, The Kullman Firm Be careful if you take an adverse action against an employee who is using or has recently used FMLA leave. Claims of retaliation based on an employee’s protected leave are common under the FMLA. You must use the same care when you terminate someone who has exercised his […]

The Three Flavors of Flex/Telework

In yesterday’s Advisor, consultant Dayna offered business drivers favoring flex and telework options. Today, the three most common flavors of flex, plus an introduction to BLR’s popular checklist-based HR audit system. Fellows, founder and president of WorkLife Performance, Inc. says that there are three common “flavors” of flex/telework. She offered her tips at a recent […]

Pulled in 2 Directions: The Cost of Uniform Coverage Summaries

Health reform’s uniform summary of benefits and coverage (SBC) will cost insurers and third party administrators (TPAs) about $160 million over the next three years to develop, update, and provide the SBC and glossary to applicants and enrollees, its agency drafters estimate. That includes $25 million in 2011 , $73 million in 2012 and $58 million in […]

The ‘D Word’

By Linda F. Willing Just My E-pinion Today’s guest columnist says that diversity training is not the same as harassment training, and it shouldn’t focus on the dire outcome of lawsuits. I recently did a presentation entitled “Leading Diverse Teams” as part of a large national conference. Following the session, one of the nearly 200 […]

Turnover Focus Brings Bottom Line improvement

To tame turnover, says consultant Karl Ahlrichs, SPHR. Focus on the employees you really want to keep. You’ll have a much better shot at improving the bottom line. And going one step further—if we can do a good job of managing turnover among top producers, we’ll improve other key metrics like retention of customers, says […]

‘Happiness Haters’ Unite Against Harvard Study

By BLR Founder and CEO Bob Brady Harvard says we need happiness at work. But BLR’s founder says something else is even more important. Once again Harvard University scholars have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to “discover” the obvious. After considerable research, the Harvardians concluded that workplaces are more productive when people are positive, […]

How to Offer Child Care as a Workplace Perk

According to research, 85% of parents say they wish their employer offered childcare benefits; almost two-thirds of parents—and 83% of Millennials—say they’d leave one job for another if it offered better family-care benefits; and two-thirds of parents said childcare costs have influenced their overall career decisions.

Finding a way to drive gender diversity in STEM fields

Most employers would agree that STEM careers—jobs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—are on the upswing in both numbers and importance. Most also would agree that there are far more men than women in STEM jobs. A 2011 report from the U.S. Department of Commerce, “Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation,” signals a […]

Health Benefits: New COBRA Rules Announced

After a 13-year wait, the Internal Revenue Service has just released its comprehensive regulations covering COBRA health benefits continuation coverage. The new regulations-which are a complex mix of final and so-called proposed rules-clarify several gray areas of the law but don’t change the basic COBRA mandates, including the detailed notice requirements. Even though the rules […]