Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
With Valentine’s Day around the corner, romance is in the air—and maybe even in the workplace. But while workplace romance may be a nice diversion for those involved, it can create some big risks for employers. This can include the threat of sexual harassment lawsuits when a relationship sours, lowered productivity, and even diminished morale […]
California employers continue to be hit by revelations from whistleblowing workers. The Southern California-based Northrop Grumman Corp. has agreed to pay $1.4 million to settle a lawsuit by a former employee who accused the defense contractor of overcharging the Air Force for B-2 bomber instruction and repair manuals. The worker who complained to the government […]
Employers with the best of intentions can get tripped up by “stealth” violations of testing discrimination laws, says Fay Hansen, blogging on the Workforce Management website. Fay Hansen points out several situations in which employers get into trouble with their testing. Jobs change The first stealth problem is simply that jobs change. In today’s work […]
We have eliminated many forms of workplace discrimination and made great strides toward erasing others, says attorney Mark Schickman. Nonetheless, one form of discrimination—“Beauty Bias,” as coined by Stanford law professor Deborah Rhode—remains alive, well, and possibly inherent in the human condition.
Among the add-ons to the $700 billion financial rescue package that Congress recently passed was a measure that will affect many employers whose health plans offer mental health benefits. The Paul Wellstone-Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 builds on and closes employer-friendly loopholes in the limited mental health parity measure […]
Minimed Inc., based in Northridge, hired a pest control company to spray pesticide overnight to eliminate fleas at the office. When clerical employee Irma Hernandez arrived at work the next morning, she noticed a Raid-like smell—and within a few hours she had a headache, nausea, and tightness in her chest. Hernandez told her supervisors she […]
Latino employees at an Arizona community college were understandably offended when a professor broadly distributed e-mail messages exalting the “superiority of Western Civilization” and deriding the contributions of nonwhite immigrants and Native Americans. But did the professor’s messages create a racially hostile work environment? The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (which covers Alaska, Arizona, […]
President Clinton has signed into law new legislation, S. 2323, that excludes stock options from overtime pay. The bill takes effect on August 16, 2000, and is intended to counteract a recent Department of Labor opinion letter stating that stock option profits must be included in a nonexempt worker’s base pay when you calculate their […]
The California Family Rights Act (CFRA) entitles eligible employees to take up to 12 weeks of leave in a 12-month period to recover from their own serious health condition, among other things. But what if an employee takes more than 12 weeks of leave? The California Court of Appeal recently answered that critical question.
New supervisors have a lot to learn about managing their people, and that’s to say nothing of the numerous compliance challenges they face. Compassionate but untrained supervisors can quickly create surprisingly expensive liabilities.