Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
In a remarkable about-face from the past few years, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) announced today that after a week of receiving petitions for H-1B nonimmigrant visas, the 65,000 cap for the coming fiscal year hasn’t been reached. For the past several years, the USCIS has received far more petitions for H-1B […]
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling handing the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) a victory on how it can issue interpretations of its rules has major implications for employers, according to Judith E. Kramer, an attorney with Fortney & Scott, LLC, in Washington, D.C., and an editor of Federal Employment Law Insider. The Court’s March 9 […]
Make sure your employees know the “whys” behind your tech policies. Otherwise, they’ll find ways to work around them — and may even bring your system down in the process. According to Lisa Guerin, author of Smart Policies for Workplace Technologies, you must explain the policies you write about technology. If your employees don’t see […]
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) was enacted in February 2009. Among other things, the ARRA provides a COBRA premium subsidy for employees who are laid off or terminated. The subsidy requires employers to pay for 65 percent of a separated employee’s COBRA premium, which the federal government then reimburses to employers.
While HR professionals may sometimes struggle with the murky areas of employment law, in a leave of absence situation, there should be no mistaking some of the more immediate obligations under the Family and Medical Leave Act. Within five business days of receiving a request for leave, for example, you must provide three types of […]
In every issue, we take one reader’s question and ask our other readers to weigh in. Here’s what you had to say about a recent question:
Probationary periods allow employers to see whether a new hire is capable of successfully fulfilling the duties of the job he or she is being hired for, but they can also be used as tools to weaponize at-will employment—in which employees can be terminated or quit at any time—if they aren’t implemented correctly.
What are the legal and pay issues around unpaid time off, especially for exempt employees? Our internal surveys show that our employees want more time off, and we want to respond—we want to be a “great place to work.” But we just don’t see that we can afford to add paid vacation or personal days. […]
A California Court of Appeal is currently reviewing an important ruling by a lower court affecting eligibility of state contract workers to receive CalPERS benefits. Employees of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California brought a class action lawsuit contending that agencies bound by the Public Employees’ Retirement Law must enroll all employees for CalPERS […]
New data from a survey by PayScale, Inc., addresses male and female perspectives on gender equity and equal opportunity in the workplace and confirms that there is a “perception gap” between the sexes, especially in male-dominated fields such as the tech industry.