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Background Checks: Important New Credit Report Rules; Plus A 6-Point Compliance Guide

Credit reports can be a useful tool for screening job applicants, but using them recently became more complex. That’s because of several important changes to the federal Consumer Credit Reporting Reform Act that are effective September 30, 1997. If you violate these provisions or a similar state law, you can be sued for steep penalties, […]

Legislation Introduced to Revise the FMLA

Apparently, Congress isn’t done expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA.) Just a few weeks ago, two different bills were introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives that would expand the scope of the Act. FMLA Compliance Manual, including a quarterly compliance bulletin with updates on the FMLA Specifics of proposed legislation On April […]

HATFA Will Cause Largest Pensions to Cut 2015 Plan Contributions

The renewed decline of funded status for defined benefit retirement plans this year has not led the largest U.S. DB plan sponsors to contribute from their coffers to compensate, a phenomenon that one investment advisory firm attributes to temporary interest rate stabilization. Until this year, corporate contributions to DB plans typically correlated with the plans’ […]

NLRB puts employees on the spot

by Burton J. Fishman In a ruling that could make workplace investigations at unionized facilities all but impossible, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) reversed a 37-year-old precedent that protected employees from retaliation.    Under the prior Anheuser-Busch standard, employers did not have to hand over witness statements, particularly from employees, to unions in discipline cases. […]

New law streamlines MSP settlement process with on-line information (starting 2014)

Currently, Medicare beneficiaries who have pending claims with third parties responsible for their injuries face settlement delays. The parties cannot determine how much of the settlement is to be used to reimburse Medicare, because Medicare has not been prompt in providing information on the amounts of the benefits it claims to have paid. The result […]

Top 5 Health Reform Issues Employers Should Focus on Today

It has now been almost a year since health care reform was first enacted. The first year involved many compliance challenges, not the least of which was keeping up with the many pieces of guidance issued by DOL, IRS and HHS. Plans had to expand coverage (more dependents, fewer dollar limits, no more questions about […]

10 Tips for Managing Out-of-Control E-Mail

Yesterday’s Advisor covered how to write better e-mails. Today, expert Janis Fisher Chan offers her suggestions for dealing with the sheer volume of e-mail in your inbox every day. In her recent book, E-Mail: A Write It Well Guide, Chan offers the following suggestions: 1. Turn off your computer’s “you’ve got mail” signal. This is […]

Counteroffers: Effective Retention Tool, or Display of Desperation?

Ghosts and goblins bedevil the children this Halloween week, but it’s retention that bedevils HR managers. Will counteroffers help retention? In this two-part article, today’s experts say yes, tomorrow’s say no. Retention is once again raising its head as the bugaboo of HR managers. You think you’ve got things settled and then suddenly your best […]