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ERISA: 10 Tips for Ensuring ERISA Compliance

Making sure you comply with the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) is a lot easier when you have a basic understanding of ERISA’s rules. California plan administrators can use the following checklist as guidance to determine if their current plan complies with ERISA’s requirements, including some of the thorniest ones:   1. Have […]

California Equal Pay Act expansion takes effect January 1

by Cathleen S. Yonahara Freeland Cooper & Foreman LLP California’s equal pay law will provide protections for race and ethnicity as well as gender as of January 1, 2017. Since 1949, California law has prohibited gender-based wage discrimination, and in 2015, that protection was expanded to require equal pay for men and women who perform […]

Harvard Law Grad Reflects on Employers’ Prospects If Kagan on Court

by Joanna R. Vilos President Barack Obama today nominated Elena Kagan to replace Justice John Paul Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court. Stevens has a reputation for making employee-friendly decisions in cases that have reached the high court, but most employers don’t have much familiarity with Kagan or her views on employment-related issues. So how […]

Understand Workers’ Applications for Permanent Residence

By Naseem Malikand Daniel Pugen McCarthy Tetrault Let’s say you are the human resources director for a Canadian-based operation with affiliates in other countries. One of your numerous responsibilities is to manage the company’s temporary foreign workers, including Americans, in Canada. A challenge you face is handling retention issues with some foreign workers. Given their […]

Recruiting GLBT employees makes sense

Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) professionals are being increasingly targeted by corporate America — as both employees and customers. According to new research, the industry doing the best job of it is the financial services sector. In the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) most recent annual Corporate Equality Index, 32 employers in the financial services […]

Social media policy best practices: Electronic monitoring

How do you craft a social media policy and internet use policy that helps to maintain your business image and reputation, your right to duty of loyalty, and your right to privacy without infringing upon your employees’ rights to privacy and freedom of expression? How specific do you need to be in your employee handbooks […]

Can Employers Say What Workers Must Weigh?

Stung by rising healthcare costs related to excess employee weight, employers are helping their workers fight fat and win more than a slim victory. Have you noticed the increase in diet ads on TV recently? That’s business taking advantage of the general panic that hits the general public when it steps on a scale after […]

Counter Offers–Does the Bad Outweigh the Good?

Bob, a valuable employee, has just resigned! What can we do? A counteroffer is always an option, but should you or shouldn’t you? Caution, says consultant Chuck Csizmar CCP; you may succeed, but you may not like the result. It’s important to recognize that if you’re considering a counteroffer, it means that you missed the […]

Determining FMLA Eligibility: Impact of Supreme Court’s 2015 Same-Sex Marriage Decision

In the case of Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave to care for a family member, once the employer has determined whether an individual employee is eligible for FMLA leave, many times the next hurdle is determining if the family member is covered by the FMLA. This determination has become somewhat more complicated as […]

EEOC on the Lookout: Ensure Your Attendance Policies Are Legal

By Kelley E. Kaufman, Esq. These days, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is on the lookout for both inflexible leave of absence policies and no-fault attendance policies. While few employers welcome news of a targeted enforcement initiative, the best defense is a good offense. According to the EEOC, the Americans With Disabilities Act requires […]