Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
A health insurer agreed to pay $1.5 million and adopt a detailed corrective action plan to resolve HIPAA security allegations stemming from a 2009 data breach. This is the first HIPAA enforcement action to result from the breach reports now required by the HITECH Act. Like many data breaches that have been making the news […]
By Arthur Silbergeld, Esq. Anyone who works on a computer knows the sinking feeling that comes with hitting that nasty combination of keystrokes causing your machine to freeze. The fact that many companies now keep IT staff available around the clock just to help frantic employees get their misbehaving computers working, retrieve lost documents and […]
by Jeffrey S. Beck Most employers are aware that to meet the burden of establishing a discrimination claim under the indirect method (i.e., without “smoking gun” evidence of discriminatory intent), an employee must offer evidence that similarly situated individuals outside her protected class were treated more favorably. While that principle is well established, cases can […]
By Kyla Stott-Jess and Gulu Punia A difficult employee states that he is quitting and walks out the door. Problem solved? Or just beginning? Recent cases illustrate that it’s hard to know when an employee has quit in the eyes of the courts in Canada. And it can be expensive when you get it wrong. […]
Litigation Value: Nothing much to speak of, although Dwight will hopefully value Jim a little bit higher now. Well, Dwight has a lot to thank Jim for after this week. I’d like to think that he might improve his attitude and behavior toward Jim — and the rest of the office, for that matter — […]
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is refocusing its HIPAA privacy enforcement efforts on seeking monetary penalties in cases of “abject failure” to comply, the head of HHS’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) indicated. “The majority of matters we handle are going to be resolved through education” as they have in the […]
Employers have many issues to consider when writing employee leave policies. Questions such as, “How will time accrue?” “When do employees become eligible for leave?” and “Under what circumstances should employees be paid when on leave?” barely scratch the surface. But when the issue is bereavement leave, employers may feel they have more at stake […]
As the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division steps up enforcement initiatives, the need for employers to monitor their wage and hour practices is growing. Speaking at the Society for Human Resource Management’s 2012 Employment Law and Legislative Conference March 5, Tammy McCutchen of Littler Mendelson in Washington, a former Bush appointee at DOL, […]
Never base a worker classification decision on uncertainty, according to attorney Christine Walters. Walters, a Maryland HR consultant presenting at the Society for Human Resource Management’s legislative conference in Washington, D.C., March 5, ticked off the many reasons employers might be inclined to classify a worker as an independent contractor. Among them: to avoid paying […]
The proliferation of mobile devices has blurred the line between employer and employee information, and created new threats to sensitive data that are all too well chronicled. But common-sense steps can still be taken to minimize these risks without stifling the usefulness of these new tools, two data privacy and security experts said in a […]