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COBRA Penalties and Legal Costs Due to Notice Failure, Evasive Answers Rise to $126K

An employer/plan administrator continues to get an expensive lesson on the risks of having both inadequate COBRA notice procedures and poor explanations of how those procedures work. An “inefficient, unwieldy” notice process — coupled with evasive and contradictory answers from employees on why a qualified beneficiary did not receive a COBRA election notice — led […]

Calculating Cost per Hire

According to a survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the average cost per hire is $4,169. The cost generally ranges anywhere from $500 to $4,500—but it may be even higher.

‘Could’ Versus ‘Would’ Is Important Difference in Fiduciary Acts, 4th Circuit Says in Tatum

An appeals court decision coming on the heels of a recent Supreme Court stripping the presumption of prudence for fiduciaries may raise the stakes even higher for plan sponsors. A panel of judges in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals required that fiduciaries make a decision about company stock in their retirement plan based […]

PTO

Take control of the way you spend your time

by Dan Oswald It seems as if we get busier every day. How often do you get to the end of the day and feel like you have more left to do than when the day began? No matter how much you’d like to change it, there are only 24 hours in a day. And […]

robot

The Rise—and Fall—of the Machines

Are you part of the 14% of workers who are worried they’ll lose their jobs to automation? As HR technology advances, it’s no surprise that HR professionals may fear losing their jobs to robots, but technology isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be!

The Nuances of Executive Coaching

It’s easy to look at executives within an organization and think that these leaders have it all figured out. If they only had the time, they’d be the perfect mentors and coaches for others further down the hierarchy of the organization. But this perspective overlooks the simple fact that we’re always learning and growing—regardless of […]

IRS Finds High Percentage of Errors on W-2 Reporting of 401(k) Elective Deferrals

Many employers that sponsor 401(k) retirement plans make mistakes in the way they report elective deferrals on Form W-2, the federal tax agency’s Wage and Tax Statement sent to employees. IRS on Feb. 13 said on its website that its Employee Plans Compliance Unit sampled filings from employers that provided Forms W-2 and found 75 […]

Employer Says Gross Misconduct Means No COBRA Coverage for Ex-employee

An employer provided enough evidence raising questions of a former employee’s possible gross misconduct to ward off her summary judgment motion regarding a COBRA notice claim. The employer noted the individual had committed gross misconduct by quitting the job without notice, refusing to follow supervisor instructions and initially lying about why she left work early […]

Facebook

How to Address Ongoing COVID-19 Issues When Employees Declare, ‘But, Facebook Said . . .’

We all know neither Google nor Facebook has a legal degree, but that doesn’t stop your employees from acting as if the social media platforms do. More than one employee has probably pushed back on a policy by saying, “I read on Facebook . . .” or “I Googled [such and such], and you are […]