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HEART Act Provides New Employment Benefits for Military Personnel

President George W. Bush recently signed into law the Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax (HEART) Act of 2008, which provides the following employee benefit-related advantages to eligible military personnel and their families. Keep up with the latest changes in federal employment laws and regulations with the Federal Employment Law Insider Retirement plan requirements The […]

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Predicting success is hard

by Dan Oswald How good are you at picking winners? If you’re one of the 70 million Americans who filled out a bracket for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, you probably have a sense of how hard it is to predict success. You think you’ve done your homework. You do your research, looking at win-loss […]

Drug and Alchohol: Can We Implement a Random Drug Testing Policy?

We think that drug use in our company might be growing, and management wants to institute a broad, random testing policy with a zero-tolerance standard. I believe that random testing might be a privacy violation in California. Is it advisable to have a random testing policy, and if not, what do you recommend for curbing […]

SHRM Examines Employee Benefit Trends Over the Past 2 Decades

Over the past 20 years, employers have increased and decreased benefits strategically in response to the needs of the workplace and employees as well as to economic and technological changes, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) 2016 Employee Benefits Survey report.

As Wellness Rule Deadline Approaches, Questions Remain

As the 2014 plan year nears, plan sponsors are still sifting through the recently finalized changes to HIPAA’s nondiscrimination rules on wellness programs. The rules, issued June 3 (78 Fed. Reg. 33158), legally took effect Aug. 2 and must be met for plan years beginning on or after Jan. 1, 2014. Along with raising the […]

Texting While Driving Now Illegal in West Virginia

West Virginia has become the 41st state to ban texting while driving. The law, which went into effect July 1, makes it a primary offense to text with a handheld cell phone while driving. Because it’s a primary offense, violators can be pulled over and cited. Texting already was a secondary offense, meaning someone violating […]

U.S. Supreme Court to consider transgender restroom lawsuit

by Ryan B. Frazier During the 1990s, Saturday Night Live, a popular TV sketch comedy show, featured a recurring gender-ambiguous character, Pat. The gag in Pat’s comedy sketches often involved others’ failed attempts to determine the seemingly androgynous character’s gender. The skits played off the then-prevailing view that a person’s gender falls into one of […]

Now Hear This: ADA Covers “Invisible Disabilities,” Too

Even if you can’t see the results of a worker’s disability, you need to respect them, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Here are the rules to follow. Every time we look at the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), it seems there are additional disabilities being covered. That’s not really happening, of course. The […]