Author: Stephen Bruce, PhD, PHR

‘Red Flags’ Rule—What Are Your Obligations?

Yesterday’s Advisor introduced the Red Flags Rules for preventing identity theft. Today, we learn more about red flags, and we introduce an up-coming webinar on how to protect your customers’ and employees’ identities. Here are more typical red flags for identity theft. (Go here for the first three types of flags) 4. Suspicious Account Activity […]

ID Theft—Keeping Your Workers’ and Customers’ Trust

As many as 9 million Americans have their identities stolen each year. Are some of those thefts going to happen because your company was lax at identifying red flags? The “Red Flags Rule,” which recently went into effect, requires many businesses and organizations to implement a written Identity Theft Prevention Program. Although the Federal Trade […]

Did the Recession Make Your Job Descriptions “Lawyer Bait”?

By BLR Founder and CEO Bob Brady During the recent recession, many employees saw their jobs change and grow. There may be fewer bodies, but the work still has to get done. In a lot of cases this, means that job descriptions are out of date and inaccurate. They may be fodder for significant lawsuits […]

Misclassified? Me? Where’s My Back Pay?

If you reclassify employees after a self-audit, you’ll likely face some tough questions, especially about back pay. Attorneys Allen Kato and Saundra Riley recently offered tips on how to respond. But first, here is Kato’s third option for dealing with reclassification (see yesterday’s issue of the Advisor for the first two). (The attorneys are associated […]

Exemption Audits: Should You Involve Employees?

If you are doing more with less (and who isn’t?), employees are putting in extra hours, and exempt workers are likely to question whether they’re really exempt from overtime. It’s probably wise to do a self-audit, but is it wise to include employees in the process? If you do include employees in the exemption audit, […]

H1N1 Vaccinations: May Not Be Available to Employees Until Spring 2010

H1N1 (“Swine”) flu vaccination trials are underway in the United States, and so far, it appears that there are no major side effects, according to the Centers for Disease Control. That’s the good news. The bad news for employers is that the vaccinations likely won’t be available for distribution to most adults through employee health […]

Welch: ‘Work/Life Balance Is a Terrible Term’

“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 […]

Jack Welch: ‘HR, Get Out of the Picnic Business’

"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 […]

New Haven Firefighters Supreme Court Decision: Perfect Storm?

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 […]

Accommodation: ‘Sometimes it Can Be Overwhelming’

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 […]