Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
In yesterday’s post, we discussed the idea that using artificial intelligence (AI) or big data in the recruiting process doesn’t eliminate problems with discrimination and bias. Perhaps counter-intuitively, these methods can actually emphasize bias if we’re not careful because the machine doesn’t know any better. It can only assess the (often imperfect) traits it is told to […]
Now that summer is here, students are looking for hands-on work experience and are often willing to work as a volunteer or intern for no pay. But many employers are not up to speed on the strict state and federal guidelines regarding who is legally considered an employee entitled to be paid at least minimum […]
These new figures lower the benefits cost estimates, based in part on savings from last year’s reforms and AB 749. In other workers’ compensation reform news, Gov. Schwarzenegger continues to press the assembly for action by threatening a January ballot initiative to take the issue of workers’ comp reform to the voters.
Employers may not have to adjust their qualified transportation fringe benefit programs after all — at least not just yet. A legislative provision that would have affected QTFBs by boosting the mass transit exclusion to the same level as that for qualified parking — the so-called “mass transit parity” provision — did not make it […]
The Obama administration released a compromise plan February 1 on how contraception is covered under the healthcare reform law, but it’s not clear whether foes of the original requirement will approve. Under President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, contraception is included as a free preventive service. The original rule exempted religious groups that employ mostly […]
When Municipal Resource Consultants (MRC) tried to compel former employee Nicholas O’Hare to arbitrate a wrongful discharge and age-bias lawsuit, O’Hare contended the mandatory arbitration provision he signed wasn’t fair. The agreement required him to arbitrate all claims against the company, while it permitted MRC to file a lawsuit against him for injunctive relief. A […]
Governor Wilson has introduced legislation to reform California’s wrongful termination laws. If passed, the measure would put an end to court cases that have allowed employees to sue on the ground that the employer’s actions or practices created a promise-though not in writing-that the person could only be fired for good cause. For example, employees […]
House Republicans have defeated a measure that would have forced insurers to cover mental health conditions to the same extent that they cover other medical problems. The provision, which the Senate had tacked on to a federal spending bill, would not have required employers to provide mental health coverage as part of employee benefits, but […]
by Brian Smeenk Much has been happening on the political front in Canada in the past two weeks. It has kept us spellbound, but all the politics has certainly not advanced the government’s economic agenda. On Monday, December 1, the three opposition parties in the federal Parliament announced that they had formed a coalition and […]
With the enactment of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA), plan sponsors were given a freedom they didn’t have before. The legislation, which William Arnone of Ernst & Young calls “the most far-reaching legislation impacting benefits since ERISA,” enables plan sponsors to offer employees investment advice without exposing themselves to liability for the outcome […]