Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
A California court recently ruled that an employer’s failure to accommodate an employee’s disability on one single day, even though the employee had been appropriately accommodated for months before that, can still result in employer liability. The employer dropped the ball, the court said, by failing to notify all managers of the employee’s accommodation needs. […]
Companies that move from pensions to a cash balance plan can benefit by avoiding the risk of market volatility, but they should explain all aspects of the switch to employees and be careful not to violate the prohibition against age discrimination. When cash balance accounts replace retirement pensions, employees can be highly sensitive to the […]
By Meghan Siket, JD Employers are prohibited from interfering with, restraining, or denying the exercise of, or the attempt to exercise, any right granted to employees under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). You are also prohibited from discriminating or retaliating against employees for exercising or attempting to exercise any FMLA right.
By Michelle Sullivan, Holland & Hart LLP Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, issued a statement on October 2 indicating that employers awaiting guidance before implementing changes to medical plans required by the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 should not expect […]
Achieving workplace diversity isn’t easy—even for global powerhouses like Google. “We’re not where we want to be when it comes to diversity,” Google observes in a January 2014 demographic report, which reveals that 70% of Google’s employees are male and 61% are white.
A number of cases in recent years have raised the thorny issue of whether the Americans With Disabilities Act protects workers whose disabilities don’t necessarily affect them at work because they take medication or use corrective devices. Now, in a trio of important new decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned the Equal Employment Opportunity […]
One of the Affordable Care Act’s many (many) provisions required employers with 200 or more employees to automatically enroll employees into the employer’s lowest-cost healthcare plan if employees failed to either select a plan or opt out of coverage. That provision had not yet gone into effect, however, as enforcement was on hold pending the […]
Is writing becoming a lost art? The adoption of new technology has forever changed how we communicate with one another—and that includes the written word. I’m certain my kids write more with their thumbs, texting incessantly on their phones, than any other way. And I say that even though two of my kids are in […]
Telecommuting allows employees to work part or all of their standard workweek from a remote location, “seamlessly commuting” by e-mail, cell phones, and virtual private networks. (Editor’s note: It’s not always “seamless.”) Telecommuting has evolved from being a convenience to a business strategy to a business necessity. With the high cost of commuting for employees, […]