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Screen Job Candidates with Text Messaging

Employees are the most significant investment an organization will make for its future. Recruiting the right people is an integral part of any business plan, but unfortunately, it is also a challenging and time-consuming task.

Mind over matter: lessons on mental toughness from the Olympics

by Dan Oswald When I flipped on the television yesterday to check out the Olympics, I found myself watching the men’s Super-G Alpine skiing. By the time I had tuned in, the celebrated American skier Bode Miller was safely at the bottom of the slope and sitting in first place. This is believed to be […]

DOL releases guide to FMLA

by James J. Rooney and Kerry Langan The U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division (WHD) has released a 16-page guide to the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) designed to make the law more accessible to employees. The publication, titled “Need Time? The Employee’s Guide to The Family and Medical Leave Act,” […]

gender gap

There’s A Gap for That … Job

The gender pay gap is alive and well, unfortunately, which is somewhat startling when you realize that half the workforce is made up of women. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), in 2015, female, full-time workers made only 79 cents for every dollar earned by men—resulting in a gender wage gap of […]

Wild Thing, I Think I Loathe You

Dan read the following timely column by California Employment Law Letter editor Mark Schickman and thought Oswald Letter readers would enjoy it. Dan will be taking off next week but will return to his weekly column the following week. by Mark Schickman You’ve got an employee, Charlie, who has always been a wild thing. Too […]

Training too weird even for Austin

by Mark R. Flora Perhaps you have already heard about the recent firestorm created during a diversity training session for city employees in, of all places, Austin, the capital of political correctness. The training was actually held in March, but the uproar followed an article in the Statesman in May. The hue and cry was […]

Employee Leave Survey Results In—How Do You Compare?

  Personal or “small necessities” leave is offered by 30% of respondents. 99.6% offer 6 or more paid holidays. 29.4% allow some form of leave donation or leave sharing. Scheduling workloads around leave is the biggest challenge.   Leave Types Leave offered Percent offering 6 or more paid holidays per year 99.6% Paid vacation time, […]

Suddenly Critical: Recruiting and Retaining Older Workers

With the unemployment rate sitting at 4.1 percent—the lowest seen since 2000, employers are struggling to attract and maintain the best talent. In an environment where competition for the best and the brightest is increasingly high, and valued workers are leaving companies in larger numbers, taking institutional knowledge with them, every employee counts. Older workers […]

Survey—Background Checks on Social Media? Policy Enforcement?

Policy Focus: Background Checks Multiple states and cities have enacted laws in recent months that govern the use of background checks, so this year’s survey takes a closer look at those policies. We kicked it off by asking how many survey participants have background check policies (74.4%) then moved on to ask how many apply […]