Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
by Bill Duvall At the best of times, employer-sponsored pension plans bring with them thorny administrative and legal problems. These issues multiply in an economic environment in which many such pension plans face funding problems while employers seek to reduce their costs. Many employers have attempted pension plan amendments to reduce funding pressures. One such […]
“Work/Life Balance is a terrible term,” says Jack Welch. The term should be “work/life choices.” Different choices are not bad choices, but we need to recognize that there are choices and that the choices have consequences. Welch, former head of GE and a staunch supporter of HR, made his remarks at the recent Society for […]
The following is a list of the bestselling paperback business books as ranked by the New York Times on August 24. 1. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell. How and why certain products and ideas become fads. 2. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen […]
"How many out there (of perhaps 6,000 HR managers in the audience) are perceived by your organizations as equal in importance to the CFO?" Jack Welch asked. About 10 percent believed they were. “That’s not enough,” he said. Welch, former head of GE and a great supporter of HR, offered his tips for HR managers […]
I’m going to admit it upfront — I’m a huge Green Bay Packers fan. I grew up in Wisconsin and followed the Pack since I was a boy. I was in diapers when they won the first two Super Bowls and then suffered through some pretty lean years in the ’70s and ’80s. But the […]
by Peter M. Panken An employee handbook tells workers what they’re getting, instills a team spirit, and lets people know what the rules are. It should emphasize the employer’s fair treatment and how it provides significant benefits like vacations, holidays, health insurance, and retirement benefits. It lets the workers know they can grieve to get […]
by David Kaufman In April, a Connecticut teenager downloaded the billionth application from Apple’s iTune App Store. An “app” is an application or program that allows a user to play a game, surf the Web better, keep track of caloric intake, or tens of thousands of other things. In just nine months, Apple has created […]
By BLR Founder and CEO Bob Brady Several years ago, the HR department of the city of New Haven, Connecticut, was presented with a very difficult choice: It could accept the results of a recent promotion exam and risk the ire of the majority of city residents, or ignore them and risk a lawsuit by […]
You may feel as if you can’t get away from discussions and debates on health care reform. When you turn on the TV, browse the Internet, or listen to the radio, you may be inundated with the latest challenges, fights, and screaming matches over the subject. Although health care reform has become one of the […]
Accommodation. “Sometimes it can be overwhelming,” concedes the Job Accommodation Network (JAN). But a good job description is a “constructive tool” for focusing on reasonable accommodations. JAN is a service of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy. JAN offers the following accommodation scenarios to show how to match job description requirements […]