Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Update: Mental Health Parity Changes Take Effect January 1, 2010 Congress deferred the effective date of the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 to January 2010 for plans that otherwise would have been covered in 2009. The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act amends the Employee […]
Update Dec. 16: House Passes COBRA Subsidy Extension and Expansion Even as President Barack Obama prepares for a trip to Denver Tuesday to sign the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, better known as the stimulus package, many are still trying to sort out the bill, which Congress passed last Friday in dizzyingly rapid […]
Oklahoma’s immigration law, House Bill 1804, contains a number of employment provisions, including limitations on terminating employees while knowingly retaining unauthorized workers and requiring verification of employees’ legal work status. On February 11, 2009, Tulsa District Court Judge Jefferson D. Sellers ruled that the immigration law’s employment provisions don’t violate the Oklahoma Constitution. Oklahoma employers […]
Talent Management We’ve talked a lot about job loss. With U.S. companies slashing nearly 600,000 jobs in January, it has been top of mind for most of us. Here’s the upside in what is an otherwise very dismal situation. Layoffs can give a company the opportunity to cull its lowest performers, resulting in a leaner, […]
For the third week in a row, Congress and President Barack Obama have made changes to federal employment laws or regulations. First, it was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The next week, President Obama signed executive orders affecting federal contractors and unions. And this week brings us the stimulus plan with changes to COBRA […]
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced a 60-day delay in implementing the new Form I-9 for employment eligibility verification for new hires. The new I-9 forms were to take effect February 2, but a seemingly last-minute decision was made on January 30 to delay implementation of the I-9 forms and their accompanying […]
I was speaking with a friend recently. He had worked for a large financial services company and had lost his job the day before our conversation. My friend told me that he hadn’t been surprised by the announcement. In fact, he knew it was coming for some time and was just waiting for his “package.” […]
The HR Hero Line you are seeing today isn’t exactly what we had planned. But by noon on what is now being called “Bloody Monday,” we knew we needed to address the fallout from so many job cut announcements, which were then followed on Tuesday by possibly the worst unemployment report from the U.S. Bureau […]
Thursday morning, President Barack Obama signed the first bill of his White House tenure, putting his campaign theme of change into immediate action by overturning U.S. Supreme Court precedent.The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act will affect employers charged with pay discrimination by significantly expanding employees’ time for filing suit. Specifically, the Fair Pay Act amends […]
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled today (Jan. 26, 2009) that the anti-retaliation provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 apply to employees who voluntarily cooperate with an employer’s internal investigations, even if the employee didn’t initiate the investigation and has filed no formal charge. In the case, Vicky Crawford was […]