Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
by Susan M. Webman Monday is Veterans Day, so we wanted to take this opportunity to remind you of some of the laws that regulate employing the men and women who have served our country as well as the opportunities that come along with employing veterans. The government’s recent focus on veterans’ employment issues, in […]
New concerns about data security on the health care reform exchanges are being raised by Republican lawmakers, who cite an internal agency memorandum that warned of inadequate testing on the eve of the exchanges’ Oct. 1 rollout. The security control assessment required by the Federal Information Security Management Act “was only partially completed” because the […]
Suspended Miami Dolphins offensive lineman and last-guy-to-realize-people-save-voice-mails-and-texts Richie Incognito is 6’3″ and weighs 319 pounds. He is (was) a member of the Dolphins’ players leadership council, and he was a 2012 Pro Bowler. Incognito, however, may finally be facing an insurmountable opponent: the corporate employment lawyer. The Dolphins put Incognito on indefinite suspension after reportedly […]
It’s a rare workplace that seldom experiences conflict. In fact, a 2008 global study on workplace conflict found that 85 percent of employees in the study experienced conflict at some level, and 36 percent of U.S. employees said they had to deal with conflict always or frequently. Globally, that figure was just 29 percent. With […]
Retailer Toys “R” Us will pay $35,000 to settle allegations that it required a deaf applicant to provide her own interpreter for a job interview according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. EEOC filed suit earlier this year on behalf of Shakirra Thomas, alleging multiple Americans with Disabilities Act violations. According to the commission, Thomas […]
By Isabelle East-Richard A recent Supreme Court of Canada decision arising out of Québec will have broad ramifications across Canada. In Payette v. Guay Inc. (2013 SCC 45 (September 12, 2013)), the Supreme Court of Canada settled the debate over whether the employment contract provisions of the Civil Code of Québec also apply to noncompete […]
The late Michael Crichton had an interesting contrarian streak for a popular fiction novelist. In one of his last novels, State of Fear, he stuck his thumb in the eye of the global warming/climate change “consensus” (it remains the only novel I remember reading that had footnotes). Readers saw his contrarian streak a decade earlier, […]
by Kara E. Shea Even though material aspects of Affordable Care Act (ACA ) compliance have been delayed, employers are still scrambling to understand and prepare for compliance with the new regulatory scheme. Early on, compliance has been something of a numbers game because the “play or pay” mandate is limited to employers with 50 […]
by Boyd Byers Is your employee handbook or policy manual haunted by shadowy policies and provisions that are treated as though they aren’t even there? “Ghost policies” can creep into a handbook in a number of ways. They may be relics that once lived useful lives—the legacies of long-departed HR managers—but their original purpose is […]
By Julia Kennedy It should be a relief to many employers (and employees) that their company has just one board of directors, with no second house to blockade budgets, freeze operating funds, or send large portions of the workforce home. Since an estimated 800,000 U.S. government employees were “furloughed” or required to work without pay […]