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Women & Money

Web Editor Wendi Watts reviews the book Women & Money by Suze Orman. Review explains how book can aid HR with effective communication with employees about financial issues. With her usual down-to-earth style, Suze Orman tackles the subject of women’s complicated relationship with money in her book Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control […]

Breach Notice Brings $1.5M HIPAA Enforcement Action

A health insurer agreed to pay $1.5 million and adopt a detailed corrective action plan to resolve HIPAA security allegations stemming from a 2009 data breach. This is the first HIPAA enforcement action to result from the breach reports now required by the HITECH Act. Like many data breaches that have been making the news […]

Your Leaders: Forged in a Holiday Inn Express?

By BLR Founder and CEO Bob Brady BLR founder and CEO Bob Brady says the results of a recent study underscore the vital role of HR in selecting and nurturing your organization’s leaders. Once again well-credentialed academics from an esteemed university (this time the University of California at Berkeley) have spent time and money “discovering” […]

Traveling with coworkers

Hit the Road to a Better Understanding of Your Colleagues

Have you ever noticed how traveling with someone helps you really get to know them? In 1976, my mother, two siblings, and I embarked on a trip across the country with my grandparents. My father, what a wise man he was, somehow avoided this particular trip. The six of us spent two weeks together “on […]

The ‘Flip Side’ of Mr. Naysayer

After last week’s post I received an email from a reader who had a suggestion: You need to write about the “flip side” of Mr. Naysayer. Her rationale? I once had a job where I became the Mr. Naysayer. It was uncomfortable for me — uncomfortable for all around me — and it was a […]

Uncle Michael Wants YOU — To Be the New Boss

Another Thursday in August, another Office rerun. Rather than revisit “The Inner Circle” — ably covered by my Colorado colleague Matt Rita on May 6 — I thought I’d visit The Office website for some ideas. I came across a multiple-choice quiz designed to determine whether you have what it takes to be the boss […]

Experts Explain Top 5 COBRA Implications of Reform’s Summary of Benefits and Coverage

One simple line requiring that group health plans and insurers describe “continuation of coverage provisions” in summaries of benefits and coverage (SBCs) actually raises several complex issues for COBRA administrators. The health care reform law requires that group health plans and insurers accurately describe in SBCs the benefits and coverage under the applicable plan or […]

California minimum wage will hit $9 on July 1

by Michael Futterman and Jaime Touchstone As fast-food and other low-wage workers protest for pay raises and President Barack Obama pushes for a higher federal minimum wage, California employers need to prepare for a $1 increase in the state’s minimum wage. California’s minimum wage will rise to $9 an hour on July 1 before hitting […]

When HR Risks Multiply, Training Is Essential

By Patricia M. Trainor, J.D.BLR Legal Editor In yesterday’s Advisor, we began our look at the 12 biggest risks for HR in a down economy, as seen by attorney Allison West. Today, we’ll look at the final six of those risks and see how training is the key to avoiding them. West’s suggestions came during […]