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News Notes: Court Gives Go-Ahead to Sex Harassment Lawsuit

The Ninth Circuit has reversed a lower court’s dismissal of an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit charging Pasadena-based law firm Reeves & Associates with sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination. According to the appeals court, a jury could find that a hostile work environment was created because of founder Robert L. Reeves’ alleged sexual jokes, leering, […]

Should All New Hires Have a STEM Education or Work Background?

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education is becoming vital to workplaces powered by automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and advanced mobile and technology platforms. But should all new hires come pre-equipped with such STEM education or work experiences?

Federal Minimum Wage Increases on July 24

On July 24, 2009, the federal minimum wage will increase to $7.25 per hour. The increase is the result of a May 2007 amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which boosted the minimum wage in three steps. The first two steps — to $5.85 and then a year later to $6.55 — were […]

House Passes Health Care Reform Repeal Legislation

On Wednesday, January 19, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act (H.R. 2), a largely symbolic bill that would repeal the health care reform legislation enacted last year, in a 245-189 vote. The new legislation, backed unanimously by House Republicans, would repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care […]

Noncompetes– Are They Enforceable or Not?

In the last issue of the Advisor, we covered tips for dealing with noncompetes. Today, more detail on that, plus how to train your supervisors and managers on hiring (and everything else). For some more guidance on dealing with noncompetes, we turned to the HR Red Book (What to Do About Personnel Problems in [Your […]

Telecommuting: What Are the Key Concerns in Starting a Telecommuting Program?

We’re contemplating a new policy that will allow many of our employees to work from home several days a week. Before we launch into this program, I’d like to have some clarification on what responsibilities—or liabilities—we have. If employees are injured while working at home, for example, what happens? If customers get injured while seeing […]