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$86 Million? Your Settlement Probably Won’t Be That High. Probably.

Your settlement costs probably won’t be that high. But the bottom line? You ignore basic wage and hour issues at your peril. You are likely to get sued if you don’t pay careful attention. And these mistakes tend to affect not just one employee, but whole groups of them—which quickly multiplies your liability in the […]

Light Their Fire: Using Internal Marketing to Ignite Employee Performance and Wow Your Customers

Resources for Humans managing editor Celeste Blackburn reviews the book Light Their Fire: Using Internal Marketing to Ignite Employee Performance and Wow Your Customers by Susan Drake, Michelle Gullman, and Sara Roberts. In Light Their Fire: Using Internal Marketing to Ignite Employee Performance and Wow Your Customers, employee communications experts Susan Drake, Michelle Gullman, and […]

HR Timewasters—Let’s Find Out What’s Destroying HR Productivity!

Dear Readers, Please take a few minutes to complete this survey and help us (and you) find out what’s happening in the real world of HR management. The survey takes only a few minutes to complete. Complete the Survey Now Compensation.BLR.com, now thoroughly revved with easier navigation and more complete compensation information, will tell you […]

Hiring Athletes as Employees

Once a colleague told me that he thought hiring former athletes was a risky proposition. His take was that while they were often charismatic, on average they just weren’t as smart as most. I politely reminded him that I considered myself a former athlete (with the emphasis on “former”), to which he had to think […]

Retirement Plan Access More Widespread Than Many Believe

Concerns about whether enough Americans have access to retirement savings plans regularly drive alarmist headlines and heated Capitol Hill hearings, but two recent studies indicate that workers’ access to such plans is, in fact, widespread. For U.S. workers most likely to be able to save and to be focused on preparing financially for retirement, coverage […]

Handle with care: Even nonunion strikers can present risk

Low-wage workers in cities across the country carried signs and voiced demands for higher pay last week, but those strikes and similar work stoppages last May differ from traditional walkouts. Unlike in most strikes, the picketers aren’t part of a union although they are getting encouragement from organized labor, especially from the Service Employees International […]

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Tips on talking turkey about Thanksgiving time off

The debate over how employers should handle time off for the Thanksgiving holiday is taking a new twist this year. While the last few holiday seasons have seen more retailers expanding Black Friday to include all or part of Thanksgiving day, this year the backlash is heating up as a number of major players gamble […]

Terminating And Disciplining Employees: Employer To Pay Four Years’ Back Wages For Firing One-Man Striker; Important Tips For Avoiding Labor Law Problems

If an employee makes unjustified complaints about wages and hours, you may be tempted to brand the person as a troublemaker. You might even take disciplinary action if the griping continues. But a new National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling cautions that even a one-employee protest can be a protected activity under federal labor law-landing […]

Retailers and Hospitality Employers Face Steeper Reform Cost Increases

Health reform’s requirement that employers insure work forces will hit the retail and hospitality industries harder than others, because they are staffed with more low-wage and part-time workers, consulting firm Mercer LLC reported on Aug. 8. Forty-six percent of surveyed firms in the retail and hospitality sectors predicted health care cost increases of at least […]

Does the FLSA Apply to My Company?

I often read about the requirements of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.  How do I know if this law applies to our organization, particularly if we’re also covered by California wage and hour laws?  — Francesca in Merced