Archives

Expat Tips—Prepare for Dual-Career Couples and Trailing Spouses

By Anthony Di Bratto As companies continue to expand globally and as international trade and production become both easier and more cost-effective, more and more companies are sending their employees abroad. These employees, known as expatriates or “expats,” are employees from the home country who are transferred to work in a host (foreign) country. This […]

Need Videos for Your Chemical Safety Training?

If you’re looking for a new method of training your employees on chemical safety, you may want to tap into their fondness for YouTube videos and reality TV. A 3-DVD set of 31 safety videos produced by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is available free of charge at CSB’s website. CSB is charged with […]

How Do Job Descriptions Relate to the ADA?

Effective job descriptions are important. Compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is important. But how are the two tied together? Does the ADA place specific requirements on job description contents? The technical answer to that question is no, the ADA does not impose specific requirements on the job description. But the longer answer […]

Danger Zone—Deductions from Salaried Employees’ Pay

Generally, payment on a salaried basis means that employees receive a predetermined amount of pay that can’t be reduced due to variations in the quality or quantity of their work. Employees must be paid their full salary for any week in which they: bzc cb Perform any work, regardless of the number of hours or […]

Minimum wage debate alive in Canada, too

By Bonny Mak Waterfall Minimum wage increases may not be quite as controversial in Canada as they appear to be in the United States, but the issue is certainly alive. Four Canadian provinces and one territory have announced increases to their minimum wage rates for 2014:

Veronica Mars: Return to Neptune

Thanks in large part to a record-breaking Kickstarter campaign, legions of “Marshmallows” and I recently got to enjoy new adventures of Veronica Mars on the big screen. Although Veronica left the small screen back in 2007, that did not stop my favorite private detective from diving right back into action (and danger) in the film version. The premise of the film […]

Law Eliminates Reform Caps on Small-business Deductibles

Congress removed health care reform’s $2,000/$4,000 deductible limits as part of the annual Medicare physician payment bill that President Obama signed on April 1. Section 213 of the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 removes deductible limits for small-business health insurance policies from the reform law. Under the original law, small employer health plans […]

Training Programs—What’s Happening in the Real World?

Everyone knows how important training is, but finding the time and budget is another story. So what’s happening in the real world? What are your competitors up to? What are best practices? Help us find out! Please participate in our brief survey and see how what you are doing for training stacks up against what […]

Feds to employers: Do as I say, not as I do

by Kylie Crawford TenBrook I’m no longer allowed to cuss in my house. It was a tough habit to break ― as the only girl in a family of seven children, I grew up with a lot of profanity. But I realized that I had to change my family’s behavior after a recent trip during […]

Employee Challenges Wellness Incentive under State Wage-Hour Law

A pharmacy chain is being sued over its requirement that employees undergo a “wellness exam” or pay a $600 surcharge on their health plan contribution. The lawsuit, filed in California state court as a class action, characterizes the surcharge as an illegal “wage deduction,” and contends that employees who did take the exam should have […]