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Baltimore council votes to ban the box

by Kevin C. McCormick Employers in Baltimore will face new restrictions in conducting criminal background checks now that the city council has passed a tough new “ban the box” law. Bill 13-0301, titled “Ban the Box—Fair Criminal Records Screening Practices,” passed the Baltimore City Council on April 28 and was expected to gain Mayor Stephanie […]

Where’s My Raise?—How to Handle Tough Pay Conversations

We’ve gone through two tough years for compensation, and 2011 isn’t shaping up to be much better. And that means another year of tough questions from employees. Teresa Murphy and David Wudyka have some ideas about how to make those conversations go a little better. Murphy is the principal consultant for HR Partner Advantage, an […]

Hostess’ Demise? Due to Sad Lack of Trust

By Stephen D. Bruce, PHR Editor, HR Daily Advisor It’s a sad day for me, says business and leadership blogger Dan Oswald. Hostess Brands, the maker of Twinkies®, Ho-Hos®, and Ding Dongs®, is going out of business. While my midsection may not look like it, I haven’t had a Twinkie—or any other Hostess product, for […]

To Create a More Civil Workplace

by Mark I. Schickman Robert Sutton is a professor at the Stanford School of Engineering and the founder and codirector of Stanford’s Center for Work, Technology and Organization. He wrote a Harvard Business School article, which was then transformed into the best-selling book The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That […]

What Makes an Effective Record Retention Policy?

A record retention policy is a formal protocol for the saving and destruction of company records. It should include documents required to be kept by law or kept for business reasons, and it should cover both paper and electronic records, according to attorney Ronald J. Cooke, a partner in the Los Angeles office of Nossaman […]

Equalizing Pay for Long Shifts and Short Shifts

Let’s say you have some employees who work long, 12-hour shifts and others who work traditional eight-hour shifts. The 12-hour employees work four shifts one week (48 hours), then three shifts the second week (36 hours) and another three shifts the third week (36 hours). This 4-3-3 schedule would be repeated every three weeks, resulting […]

Sign of the times: Jill Abramson, the New York Times, and pay equity

by Mark I. Schickman The New York Times is the second largest newspaper in America, with about two million papers sold each day. It’s also the liberal beacon of American journalism, with solid-gold progressive credentials. Still, it took the paper 160 years to hire Jill Abramson as its first female executive editor in 2011.  In […]

Being Replaced by Computer Program Isn’t Age Discrimination

Who knows? In 20 years, there might be a robot writing these articles; we’ve faced that reality. Eventually, we may all be phased out by machines, programs, and metallic entities, the likes of which we’ve yet to even imagine. As the world has become more automated and efficient, we have all witnessed downsizing and have […]

Pregnancy Complications: Disability, No; Sex Discrimination, Maybe

By John C. Pitblado By now, you know that the old “sticks and stones” schoolyard adage is way off: Words can hurt you. You may be surprised to find out how few words (in this case, a 12-word phrase in an e-mail) it takes to really hurt an employer that’s facing a discrimination claim. HR […]

Asking the Right Questions

Before I headed to the airport today, the president of our company, Bob Brady, handed me a book and said something like, “This is a quick read and I really think you’ll enjoy it.” The book he gave me was The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed, […]