Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Litigation Value: Dunder Mifflin faces potential FTC sanctions for Erin and Pete’s fake “like” marketing campaign on Facebook. “Customer Loyalty” aired back in January, and I highly recommend Kristin’s post questioning the validity of Dwight’s loyalty pledge. I might add that such a pledge is probably not necessary considering that most states recognize in some […]
Litigation Value: Fire in the Hole prank = potential assault and battery charges for Dwight (not to mention the dry cleaning bill); Toby’s awkwardly affectionate overtures to Nellie = fodder for a potential hostile work environment claim against the Human Resources Manager; and using the Dunder Code to hunt for the fake holy grail = priceless. […]
This year’s worse than average flu season has some employers wondering what they can do to help keep workers healthy. Just one flu-infected worker, after all, can infect the entire workplace and bring productivity to a grinding halt. Employers have, of course, been through this kind of scare before. In 2009, when worries about a […]
(This is a continuation of the previous story) Exactly what standard of protection is acceptable in a QTFB debit card is unsettled. Not all cards are created equal, and some types do a better job of restricting transactions than others. Swafford maintains that the debit card program the DOT has implemented is not only […]
By: Sarah Swank Credit: Ober|Kaler Published: January 16, 2013 In 2009, concerns about a swine flu pandemic convinced some employers to consider requiring employees to be vaccinated. Now that we are in the midst of another flu epidemic, some employers are once again weighing the costs and benefits of a mandatory flu shot policy. In […]
Litigation Value: Nada, but a close shave; it’s lucky Dwight is clumsy and didn’t manage to insecticide-bomb his co-workers. Whoa, Mama. It’s been a rocky start to the New Year for the staff of Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton office. With Jim working part-time and spending days on end in Philadelphia, Pam is struggling to cope with […]
Federal agencies will accept alternate definitions of full-time employee for purposes of health reform’s play-or-pay mandate, to allow for industry-specific labor norms and seasonal workers. Some business owners and workers requested special methods of calculating hours for employees: (1) whose compensation is not based on hours, such as salespeople on commission; and (2) whose work […]
Employers may find this new information useful for planning or justifying their retirement plan expenses: Contrary to the popular belief that defined benefit retirement plans are more costly for employers to administer, data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that private-industry employers now spend more per employee hour worked for defined contribution plans. […]
Employers trying to comply with health reform’s play-or-play mandate — and calculate their exposure to penalties — now have more insight based upon a new notice of proposed rulemaking and a new set of questions and answers from the IRS. Under reform, employers have to calculate full-time equivalent employees for one or more of the […]
Employee pay and privacy are two of the most basic, yet potentially problematic issues for HR professionals, but guidance is available. Recently, questions on those two issues were put to a group of attorneys. To track or not to track The need to keep track of nonexempt employees’ work hours goes without saying, but is […]