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Where’s your next big idea going to come from?

by Dan Oswald Among my favorite movies is the 1991 film City Slickers. Billy Crystal plays radio ad salesman Mitch Robbins, who is having a bit of a midlife crisis. Mitch and his two best friends decide to leave New York City to spend two weeks on a cattle drive in the Southwest. It’s there […]

Do Your Workers Know How to Prevent Heat Illness?

In 2005, a dozen California workers died of heat illness—a toll that resulted in the promulgation of the nation’s first heat illness prevention regulation. In 2009, California/OSHA conducted more than 3,400 inspections at worksites considered “high risk” for heat illness. The agency shut down 16 worksites that posed an imminent heat hazard and issued nearly […]

IRS Issues Info on Exchange Eligibility, Penalties and Subsidies

The IRS has issued final/temporary and proposed rules, and a raft of guidance and draft forms related to reporting requirements for employers and individuals under health care reform. The rules and guidance are designed to help individuals and businesses calculate both their penalties if they don’t have health coverage, and subsidies, if they are eligible, […]

Looking for Great Talent? Look for Potential

The cover article in the June issue of Harvard Business Review is titled “The Big Idea: 21st-Century Talent Spotting.” Since all of us as managers are constantly on the lookout for talent, the title, of course, grabbed my attention. The author, Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, a senior adviser at a global executive firm, boldly claims that potential […]

When Internships Lead to Employment

With roughly one-in-four employers recruiting entry-level workers from the pool of current and former interns, it is more important than ever for college and university students and recent graduates to perform well in these employment proving grounds, says a press release from Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Inc. Unfortunately, many of those involved in summer internship […]

HR takes role of referee when employees ‘game’ the FMLA system

Put a dozen human resources professionals together and ask them about problems related to the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and you’re likely to hear many dozens of stories. The rules can be complicated and intricate, and unscrupulous employees manage to find creative ways to take more leave than they’re entitled to have.  Recently, […]

Lies and statistics

I keep coming back to books about baseball, but they’re just too valuable in terms of personnel management. A baseball manager (and his colleagues in the team office) function so much like an HR department. They have to pick the best roster and field the best lineup for the opponent each night. They have to […]