Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Just My E-pinionBy Cindy McPherrin Cindy McPherrin, today’s guest columnist, offers her thoughts on the challenges of coping with her suddenly acquired HR responsibilities. (We’d like to hear about the challenges you’re facing as well.) I am the office manager of a two-family owned mid-size design/building firm. We have professional architects, we provide construction management […]
Attorney Phillip Russell, a speaker at the upcoming National Employment Law Update conference, says the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is laden with pitfalls for employers and employees alike. Heading toward passage? While many experts predict that the EFCA will pass Congress and become law—even in modified form—some are deriding the Act as a case […]
By Richard J. Morgan For over 75 years, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was one of a very few federal labor agencies that didn’t require employers to post a general notice of employee rights in the workplace. Yet, on December 22, 2010, the NLRB decided it would change its 75-year history. On that date, […]
If an employee comes to you complaining about alleged harassment, it’s a no-brainer: You launch an investigation, end of story. But what about an employee who comes to you with a bullying complaint?
By Donovan Plomp of McCarthy Tetrault and Karen Sargeant, formerly with McCarthy Tetrault Spring will soon be upon us, and with it may come the urge to do some “spring cleaning” in the home and the workplace. This might mean ending an employment relationship that isn’t working out. In Canada, which has no concept of […]
The largest single settlement Cal/ OSHA ever collected—$462,000—was for a work-related fire. In 1999, Tosco Refining Co. was cited for 33 alleged violations of state workplace safety regulations as a result of a fatal fire at its Avon plant near Martinez. Thankfully, most workplaces won’t experience such tragedies, but even so, OSHA reports that workplace […]
Exit interviews are normally held with employees who have decided to terminate their employment or who have been discharged for cause. One purpose of conducting these interviews is to give departing workers the chance to express their thoughts, whether positive or negative, about the resignation or termination decision, as well as to offer their suggestions […]
Registered investment advisers and broker-dealers that may be misrepresenting their credentials or the benefits and features of individual retirement accounts will be targeted by the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations of the Securities and Exchange Commission, based on the initiatives listed in a Jan. 9 release of the agency’s 2014 examinatfion priorities. The so-called […]
Massive revisions in the Pension Protection Act have opened the door to automatically enroll every employee or to pay retirement benefits even as senior members of your team keep working. Here’s what you need to know about these new PPA-driven opportunities. Employers are generally leery of anything coming out of Washington that affects them. But […]
In a new approach to dealing with leaks of trade secrets, a court barred a high-tech employee from performing any work in his field for two years after he allegedly disclosed confidential documents to a competitor during a job interview. The case involved David Allouche, who worked for National Semiconductor Corporation in Silicon Valley. Allouche […]