Most Popular

How Will Your Business Respond to Family Day?

by Brian Smeenk, formerly with McCarthy Tetrault A new statutory holiday, Family Day, has been declared in the province of Ontario. It will be celebrated on February 18. In subsequent years, it will fall on the third Monday of each February. Employers should begin considering how their organization will respond. In particular, employers should begin […]

IRS Proposes Rule on Reimbursed Entertainment Expenses

Employers that pay advances, allowances or reimbursements to employees for work-related entertainment expenses — including taxpayers who, in turn, get reimbursed by their clients for such expenses — have until Oct. 30 to comment on a proposed regulation IRS published Aug. 1. The proposed rule clarifies who — among the employer, its client and an […]

Employee or Independent Contractor?

Under the wage orders, “to employ” means to “engage, suffer, or permit” someone to work for you. Sound confusing? It can be. The simplest approach is to assume that any person who does work for you that is part of your company’s business (who does some part of the work necessary to make the goods […]

Staffing Companies See Profits Gain Despite High Unemployment 

U.S. staffing companies are seeing a gain in 2010 profits despite a 26-year high in the national unemployment rate, reports Bloomberg’s Steve Matthews and Anthony Feld. Private companies hired fewer new employees last month than they did in each of the previous 10, with hiring the weakest on record since January. However, this has created […]

News Notes: “Exempt” Drugstore Managers Sue For Millions In Unpaid Overtime

Rite Aid Corp. has been slapped with a class action lawsuit claiming that as many as 1,600 managers and assistant managers at approximately 800 drugstores in California were improperly classified as exempt from overtime. The employees charge that Rite Aid put pressure on managers to deny overtime to hourly clerks and, as a result, managers […]

Financially Stressed Employees–Neither Happy Nor Productive

Businesses aren’t the only ones stressed and anxious about these difficult economic times. Employees (and their families) are also feeling the effects—and many employees are facing very serious financial problems such as burdensome debt, lost income, bankruptcies, and foreclosures. Employees experiencing increased financial stress at home are likely to have a hard time keeping their […]

Wellness: What Can HR Do to Educate Employees (Read ‘Save Money’)

Health care reform passed, but that doesn’t mean your health care costs are going down anytime soon. Healthcare inflation is still forcing companies to find alternatives. Consumer-driven health care (CDH) seems to be the only option gaining real traction, says Andrew Ceccon. Ceccon, former chief marketing officer at A.D.A.M., a provider of healthcare content and […]

Up to $3,000 in Monthly Premiums! Why Long-Term-Care Insurance Plan Failed

The Obama administration’s health care reform legislation suffered an apparent casualty last week when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) indicated it wouldn’t pursue implementation of the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) program (also known as the CLASS Act). In a letter to the U.S. Congress about the CLASS Act, […]