Most Popular

Employee Leaves: How Do We Get Control of Our PTO Program?

We’ve got a situation around our PTO (Paid Time Off) program. When we first initiated it, people liked it, and we thought that the very clear policy—exceed your accrued PTO days and you won’t get paid for any additional time off—would work well. We figured employees would hoard their days, and that we’d only have […]

Newark paid sick leave law to take effect May 29

by Joseph C. Nuzzo, Jr. Most employees in Newark, New Jersey, will begin earning paid sick leave time on May 29. The new ordinance, which was passed in January, allows employees in the city to earn up to 40 hours of paid sick leave each year. The ordinance doesn’t apply to public employees or employees […]

Utah: Compromise, Cooler Heads Will Prevail

by Darryl J. Lee, Wood Jenkins LLC Utah sends all of its incumbents back to the U.S. Congress, together with a new Tea Party constitutionalist, Republican Mike Lee, who easily won the open U.S. Senate seat vacated by Bob Bennett. (Bennett couldn’t make it out of Utah’s Republican caucus.) Jim Matheson, Utah’s one Democratic congressman, […]

Premium Subsidy Extension Becomes Law

Trade legislation that also extends premium subsidies for health coverage under the Health Care Tax Credit (HCTC) program was signed into law by President Obama Oct. 21. The HCTC was enacted as part of the Trade Act of 2002. As originally enacted, it provided a 65-percent tax credit for qualifying health coverage (including COBRA continuation […]

UPS to Drop Dual-covered Spouses in 2014

United Parcel Service plans to remove thousands of spouses from its health plan because they are eligible for coverage elsewhere. The health care reform law requires large employers to offer coverage to employees and their dependents, but it does not require companies to cover spouses. Some 15,000 working spouses eligible for coverage at their own […]

Jury Duty: Striking the Balance Between Civic and Company Responsibility

Jury duty leave seems like an easy one, but anything that involves questions about who gets paid and who doesn’t is not so easy. In yesterday’s Advisor  we talked about the legal issues surrounding jury duty and appearance as a witness; today, we’ll look at key policy considerations, and get an introduction to the “Employee […]

“Too Delicate” for the Workplace?

A recent article on the HR.BLR.com website prompted quite a response by Suzanne Lucas, who blogs as Evil HR Lady. “Oh, cry me a river” she said over suggestions that employers take steps to ameliorate off-site harassment of female employees.

Learning About the Job

On April 26, thousands of your future job candidates learned about career opportunities by participating in Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. While it is a once-a-year event, the program can serve as a model for encouraging young people to explore careers.

HR and Legal: Can’t We All Just Get Along?

By BLR Founder and CEO Bob Brady You know you’ve been there: The legal department is advising you to do something that has no bearing on the real-life world of the workplace. “Just have managers stop inflating their performance ratings.” Sure, that will happen. “Keep employees from clocking in early.” Yeah, right. You know you’re […]