Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
There are dozens of details to take care of in the day-to-day operation of your department and your company. We give you case studies, news updates, best practices and training tips that keep your organization fully in compliance with ever-changing employment law, and you fully aware of emerging HR trends.
We’ve just had a reshuffling of responsibilities, and I ended up with safety. We’re a mid-sized manufacturer. Can you give me some guidelines to help me out as I take over this important new role? — Bill C., HR (and Safety) Manager in Palo Alto
If you have an employer-sponsored health plan, it is important to stay up-to-date on the latest information about the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act, or HIPAA—which imposes requirements regarding the security of medical information, nondiscrimination in health plans, and much more. We’ll take a look at HIPAA developments that are new for 2007.
By BLR Founder and CEO Bob Brady Want to improve communication at your workplace? BLR’s CEO tells you how we do it in just 3 minutes a week. As regular readers of this column know, internal communication–up, down, and across–is always at the top of the agenda at BLR (and, I suspect, in many of […]
Can California employers impose different dress and grooming requirements on male and female employees? The answer is, it depends.
In what is being hailed as one of the largest public entity individual employment settlements ever in California, the City of Emeryville (near Oakland) has agreed to pay $2.3 million, plus $1.3 million in attorney’s fees, to a city employee who claimed racial discrimination and retaliation.
On March 15, U.S. Senators Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) introduced the Healthy Families Act, legislation that would guarantee seven paid sick days per year to employees working at least 30 hours a week at companies with 15 or more workers. Under the bill, the sick days could be used for the […]
How do you train reluctant line managers in HR without their bolting from the room? Keep it short and need-to-know, using a training program built that way. Yesterday’s Daily Advisor went on at length on what your managers need to know to discipline problem employees in ways that keep your company out of legal trouble. […]
You might think the law’s behind you when you discipline workers, but human factors can change the equation. Employment-at will is a bedrock concept of American business, allowing employers, with few exceptions, to fire anyone, at any time, for any legal reason. No documentation is legally required. But take that concept too literally and you […]
BLR CEO and Founder Bob Brady returns from a work-life conference with work/life balance flexibility as an antidote to stress, and a reminder to not forget the person who must make that flexibility work. Are things “about to snap” in the American workplace? Are we reaching a “tipping point” at which stress-related trauma is going […]
With budgets shrinking, many HR managers are being asked to also handle workplace safety. Here are some tips (and a BLR book + CD program) to help you do it easier and better. Yesterday’s Daily Advisor reported that some employers are allowing, or even encouraging, employees to use iPod-like devices at work. A little music, […]