Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
by Jamie Brabston As employers prepare to comply with the upcoming information-reporting requirements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which remain in place after the Supreme Court’s decision in King v. Burwell, Congress snuck higher penalties for failing to meet those requirements into a trade bill. House Resolution (HR) 1295, known as the Trade Preferences […]
Probationary periods allow employers to see whether a new hire is capable of successfully fulfilling the duties of the job he or she is being hired for, but they can also be used as tools to weaponize at-will employment—in which employees can be terminated or quit at any time—if they aren’t implemented correctly.
Research shows that workers come on the job already motivated, and common business practices rob them of it. The researchers offer some tools to reverse this process. “Most companies have it all wrong. They don’t have to motivate their employees. They have to stop de-motivating them.” With this one attention-getting statement, three researchers recently demolished […]
Yesterday’s Advisor looked at a tragic—but all too frequent—case of an employee using a cell phone while driving and causing an accident with serious injuries. The employer settled for millions of dollars. Today we look at how an appropriate policy can reduce that liability. Wouldn’t a ban on cell phone use while driving be a […]
As we reported last month, the California Legislature enacted a sweeping overhaul of the state’s 91-year-old system for compensating workers injured on the job—and Gov. Schwarzenegger quickly signed the workers’ compensation legislation, S.B. 899, which took effect immediately. Employers should soon see savings from the new reforms. The Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau has proposed […]
Xerox Corp. has been cited by the Hawaii Occupational Safety and Health Division for not developing an effective workplace violence prevention program that might have averted a mass shooting by a copy machine repairman that left seven co-workers dead. The agency charged that Xerox failed to train managers to recognize and reduce potential hazards as […]
A recent decision from the U.S. Supreme Court clarifies that employees suing for age bias under the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) must show that age bias was the motivating reason for the action taken against the employee.
In a long-awaited ruling that could put the brakes on some wage and hour class actions in California, an appeals court has provided welcome guidance and relief to employers on their responsibility to provide meal breaks and pay for “off-the-clock” work.
The summer vacation season is in full swing, and that means supervisors are getting inundated by employee vacation requests, some of which might be last-minute. While you don’t want to interfere with employee plans to spend time with their family and friends, you also need to make sure your business staffing needs are adequately covered, […]
One of the factors often cited as contributing to racial and gender disparities in the workplace is discrimination in the hiring process. This could come in the form of explicit discrimination against women or people of color by a hiring manager.