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Employer groups are urging repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of the small group market to include groups up to 100, due to occur in January 2016, and are supporting legislation to keep the definition of small group at 50 and fewer employees. The problem, they say, is that businesses with 50 to 99 […]
One of my colleagues did an evil thing last month: He encouraged me to give NBC’s The Blacklist a try. Ever since, I’ve been hooked on James Spader’s character, Raymond “Red” Reddington. Without spoiling anything for the uninitiated, Red is a fixture on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List, a supremely enterprising international underworld mercenary, […]
Awards season is upon us and soon all of Hollywood will gather to celebrate its most talented actors and actresses, as determined by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Who will win the Oscar? While this question is being volleyed about and fiercely debated among Internet pundits and armchair critics, the nominees themselves […]
When football season kicked off earlier this year, I took the chance to glean some insights for HR professionals from the difficult job facing the new college football playoff selection committee. Now that we’re coming up on the end of the football season, I’m turning to the committee once more for inspiration. As I write, the […]
Inspired by The Hunger Games trilogy, some employers may feel the urge to pile the employees onto a bus, head off site, and pit coworker against coworker in some form of physical competition under the guise of “team building.” Savvy employers are always looking for new and better ways to motivate the troops, solidify relationships, and build […]
by Dan Oswald The other day, I was driving through a small town and saw a sign on the side of a building that read, “Nobody ever regrets buying quality.” That got me thinking about quality. Did the proprietor of this business have it right? Does no one ever regret paying for a quality product […]
A second employer has been sued by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over its employee wellness program. Once again, the EEOC alleges that the company’s penalties for nonparticipation rendered the program involuntary, making it a medical inquiry prohibited by the Americans with Disabilities Act. The latest case, announced Oct. 1, involved a plastics manufacturer […]
Although the actual games have been overshadowed lately by the off-the-field misbehavior of some of the players, the NFL season opened last week. And if you listened closely enough, you could almost hear HR managers and small business owners across the country yelling at their employees, “Get off your fantasy football website and get back […]
I live in the South. This time of year, that means college football; that also means otherwise healthy friendships will erupt with enough recrimination, envy, taunts, and ill will to put the Corleones and Tattaglias to shame. Everyone crows that this is their year , we’re going to come out on top, and what-do-you-mean-that-overtime-loss-last-month-means-we-can’t-play-for-the-championship? (Except […]
This past week, the entertainment world lost one of its best and brightest to an apparent suicide. Robin Williams, who brought laughter to so many for so long, took his own life at the age of 63. So much has been written about his talent over the past week that it’s difficult to understand or […]