Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Wal-Mart is poised to defend against a wage-related suit that could have as many as 1.5 million class members. Your suit won’t be as big, but do you think it’s a good reminder to review your exempt/nonexempt classifications? Here, from BLR’s experts, are explanations of many of the trickiest classification questions: Executive Secretary An executive […]
So you read the previous article and want to make your company more friendly to your gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) employees (and therefore the GLBT community). A good first step is offering domestic partner benefits as a recruiting tool. Simply put, domestic partner benefits are benefits offered to an employee’s unmarried partner, regardless […]
It’s important to be sure you properly classify jobs as exempt if you’re asserting an exemption to the overtime pay requirements of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). That message was reinforced by a recent decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (which includes California) in which the court concluded that state social […]
Please don’t read this list literally! Vermont employment law attorney Jeffrey Nolan with Dinse, Knapp & McAndrew had his tongue firmly planted in cheek when he first shared this list with listeners during a national audio presentation on performance evaluations earlier today. Conference attendees asked us to send them a copy, and we thought you’d […]
Three blogs written by members of the Employers Counsel Network have been nominated for the American Bar Association Journal’s annual Blawg 100 competition. For the fourth year in a row, That’s What She Said, a blog written by attorneys at Ford & Harrison LLP, has been selected as one of the 100 best law blogs […]
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 […]
By Mark I. Schickman Imagine a horrible accusation made against one of your managers — maybe harassment, maybe violence, maybe theft, maybe drugs. This is an outspoken employee who has sued you before — and won — and with whom you have to be careful. But under heavy pressure from top executives, you immediately fire […]
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 […]
In yesterday’s Advisor, Whitney Warner shared secrets of winning lawsuits against employers. Today, more of her tips, and a policy system that’s designed to keep her and her ilk at bay. Warner is a partner with Moody & Warner, P.C., in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her remarks came at the recent Society for Human Resource Management […]
In two recent cases, employers are facing lawsuits based on inappropriate comments the complaining employee never heard or saw. In the first case, a Mexican-American applicant rejected for a position at State Farm Insurance got the green light to sue because the hiring manager later allegedly referred to another employee as a “dumb Mexican.” Although […]