Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
The Bureau of Labor Statics has recently reported the lowest unemployment rate in years, but some industries are still facing labor shortages. The construction industry seems to be the hardest hit, as nine out of 10 contractors report that they haven’t been able to find skilled labor for the past year.
Nontraditional family units have created confusion for some employers when it comes to determining eligibility for family leave, particularly if there is no legal or biological parent-child relationship.
In light of a recent federal appeals court ruling, the short answer is, yes. On April 4, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, which covers Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, concluded that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sexual orientation.
The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits employers from discriminating against people with disabilities or even asking questions that could influence an employment decision. Employers can avoid legal problems by training managers on what they can and can’t ask during the hiring process. Before making a conditional offer of employment, an employer may not ask any […]
In part one of this article, we uncovered four “deadly sins” of recruiting and offered ways to fix these bad habits. Today, we’ll look at three more sins and how you can stop your recruiters from “committing” them.
A self-insured employer that explicitly excludes same-gender spouses from health plan coverage did not violate ERISA’s benefit interference or fiduciary breach provisions by having such exclusionary language, a federal district court in New York ruled. A same-gender couple had argued that, in light of U.S. v. Windsor, because the plan declined to cover the spouse, the employer interfered […]
A federal district court blocked an effort to force an ERISA health plan to pay secondary for an expensive specialty drug that was excluded from coverage because it wasn’t filled at an in-network provider as required by plan terms. The U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois rejected the plaintiff‘s argument that whenever Medicare covered a […]
by Lori T. Chesser Immigration law used to be something that few people thought about unless a friend or a relative was going through the system. Now, it’s a daily feature in our news and on social media. It’s likely that few of us have missed the news of President Donald Trump’s Executive Orders addressing […]
A decision from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa shows how far some former employees will reach to stretch their termination into some legal claim against their employer. More important, though, it underscores the importance that training and supervisor/manager competence can play in protecting employers from spurious legal claims. Background […]
Effective training enables your organization to comply with all legal requirements, thereby avoiding costly lawsuits, audits, and fines. Supervisors, who are the organization’s front line, play a particularly critical role in the training process. They must: Understand what training is required by law. Be familiar and comfortable with organizational policies and with employment-related laws. Adhere […]