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Key Employee: If I Take FMLA, I’m Fired???

Special from the Advanced Employment Issues Symposium, Las Vegas If you are a designated key employee, you may not be able to return to work after FMLA leave, but your leave can’t be denied, says attorney Stacie Caraway, who covered key FMLA topics atBLR’s Advanced Employment Issues Symposium, held recently in Las Vegas. While you […]

Take control of your time in five minutes or less

by Dan Oswald We live in a world where everything moves fast and is interconnected. There was a time when 20 miles may have represented an entire day’s journey. Now we can travel that distance in less than 20 minutes. And information moves even faster. We learn about things that are occurring halfway around the […]

emoji

Don’t Make That Face at Me!

Are you guilty of using emoji in work communications? I must confess, being a Millennial, I’ve used the smiley face in plenty of work-related e-mails and plenty of work e-mails that go out to other professionals not in this company. My rule of thumb is if someone else uses it first, that person won’t think […]

expectations

How to Maximize the Impact of Performance Appraisals

Many companies struggle with performance reviews. Modern performance appraisal methods typically consist of scheduled interviews, compensation discussions, and self-evaluation. When necessary, reviewers also offer ways for underperforming employees to improve.

5 Steps to Recruiting Better Teammates

There are plenty of qualities that make employees a great fit for your company. You want employees who are hardworking, loyal, ethical, efficient … the list could go on and on.

background checks

Criminal Background Checks: A Matter of Risk, Reputation, and Requirements for Employers

The process of commissioning a pre-employment criminal background search has tripped up many an employer, and for good reason. Criminal background checks can include many data points—arrest records, conviction orders, sentencing, appeals, inmate records and activities logged in sex offender or state abuse registries to name a few—stored in a wide array of locations ranging […]

Speech, Safety, and the Law: Managing Political Expression in Today’s Workplace 

Political debate isn’t just prevalent in the news or social media — it’s in Slack channels, office kitchens, and embroidered onto work attire. For HR professionals, this rising trend of political discourse raises a critical challenge: how do you balance employees’ rights to express political views with your responsibility to maintain a respectful, legally compliant […]

Is Your Check Culture Light On?

There is a lot of talk surrounding company culture, which is important. A company’s culture is the revving engine behind any successful organization. Keeping with the motor metaphor, companies like to discuss what type of “engine” they want powering their car. They carefully craft and tinker these “engines,” and once they’re done, they shut the […]

What’s the Over-Under on That Candidate’s Qualifications?

The term “over-under” is often used in the gambling world. An over-under bet is a wager in which a sportsbook will predict a number for a statistic in a given game (usually the combined score of the two teams), and individuals will wager that the actual number in the game will be either higher or […]