Tag: HR

Head-in-the-Sand Management, Dead-in-the-Water Defense

A Cautionary Tale—How Many Zeros? One juror explained the simple system his jury had used to determine the amount of punitive damages they would award: they started with one dollar, and added a zero for each thing they thought the employer had done wrong. The total added up pretty fast. How do employers get into […]

Could Taking on Unpaid Summer Interns Lead to Trouble Under the FLSA?

However, warns Evelyn Gentry, Faegre Baker Daniels LLP, there are downsides for employers that use unpaid interns, the most notable being potential violations of the FLSA. Misclassifying employees as unpaid interns, and thereby denying them federal minimum wage and overtime wages can result in costly litigation, civil fines, or both. Furthermore, employers who willfully violate […]

Disasters: Payroll, Benefits, and Alternative Worksites

Exempt Employees and Disasters Exempt employees are generally paid their normal amount if the workday is shortened. Docking, or reducing pay of exempt employees who are scheduled to work, but who do not because of an emergency, may affect the employees’ status of being exempt from overtime, because, by docking, you are treating them like […]

Never Put These in a Job Description

Essential job elements … exposure to physical hazards … pay grade … the list of what should be in a job description is long. But what should you keep OUT of job descriptions? Here’s a checklist taken from BLR’s popular Job Descriptions Encyclopedia. How many of these “no-no’s” will you find in your job descriptions? […]

Goal Setting with the “SMART” Model

Dorf, who is managing director of Compensation Resources, Inc. in Upper Saddle River, NJ., recommends following the SMART approach in developing goals: Specificity Measurement Attainability Results-oriented Timing Remember, says Dorf, sometimes the pay-for-performance goal is a milestone, not the full completion of a project. For example, he says, he worked with a client that was […]

Can’t Pay for Performance if Can’t Measure Performance

Workplace compensation is essentially a supply and demand system, says Dorf, who is managing director of Compensation Resources, Inc. in Upper Saddle River, NJ. Supply has been strong, and that means small or no raises, but that is starting to change. A bunch of studies say maybe 60 percent or more of employees would look […]

Can You Scrap the Original Once It’s Scanned?

Yesterday’s Advisor focused on Jacuzzi’s rules for electronic recordkeeping. Today, we’ll get more of his tips and an introduction to BLR’s popular “find-it-before-the-feds-do” FLSA audit program. Jacuzzi is a shareholder in the South San Francisco law firm Simpson, Garrity, Innes & Jacuzzi, P.C. His comments came at a recent audio conference sponsored by BLR®. What […]

Sales Comp: All About How You Split the W-2 Pie

Schum, a Senior Consultant at Compensation Resources, Inc. in Upper Saddle River, NJ offered his tips for sales compensation design at a recent webinar sponsored by BLR/HRhero. For example, Schum says, here’s how one organization might split the sales compensation W-2 pie: Sample Sales Compensation Mix Tier     Scope of Accountability Base Salary (Fixed) Bonus (Variable)  […]

Retaliation by Compensation—Battleground for Comp Managers

“Retaliation lawsuits are among the easiest to prevent,” says attorney Jody Katz Pritikin, but retaliation is a common reaction by managers who are embarrassed or angered by an employee complaint, and that means managers have to be on the watch for it. Pritikin, who offered her tips at SHRM’s Employment Law and Legislative Conference, held […]