Archives

Pastafarian

Rastafarian, Pastafarian: No Matter What You Call It, It Could Be Religious Discrimination

Recently the southern grocery chain, Publix, came under fire for withdrawing a job offer after the worker refused to cut off his dreadlocks. The worker cited his Rastafarian religion as the reason why he refused to cut his hair. This isn’t the first—and most certainly won’t be the last—time employers are met with nontraditional forms […]

disability insurance

Update Your Disability Benefits Claims and Appeals Procedures Before 2018 Deadline

HR employees typically begin planning for next year before autumn of the current year because choices about the next year’s benefits are made months before it begins. Whether you’re making many or few changes to the benefits you offer, your preparations for open enrollment provide a good opportunity to confirm that your benefits plans are […]

performance review

Performance Management: Who’s in the Driver’s Seat at Your Organization?

Few institutional practices are as old, or have been hated as long, as the performance review. Job ratings were used (and criticized) in China as early as the third century; in the early 1800s, an owner of cotton mills in Scotland hung color-coded wooden blocks over employees’ workstations to indicate their merit. The bureaucratic corporate […]

How FLSA Public Employer and Employee Coverage Differs from Private

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) defines an employer to include “any person acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to an employee,” including a public agency. Unlike most other federal employment laws, employers do not need to employ a threshold number of employees to be covered. Instead, specific criteria […]

Farm Trips for Employees Are ‘Life-Changing’

Yesterday we looked at how Keurig Green Mountain strives to be one of the best places to work. One of the ways Keurig Green Mountain boosts engagement is sending employees on “source trips” to coffee-growing nations to see the company’s supply chain for themselves. Employees have described the experience as life-changing. Steve Bruce, host of […]

Do Your Holiday Decorations Suggest Religious Preference?

It’s nearing the time of year when workplaces become more festive. Perhaps your office plans to decorate a Christmas tree, as it does every year. Maybe all your employees celebrate Christmas, so it has never occurred to you that you may, inadvertently, be sending a message about your workplace to others, including job candidates.