Month: August 2013

PTO and Vacation: What’s the Difference?

Creating a PTO policy may not be as straightforward as employers would like it to be. After all, it’s not just a simple name change. What an employer calls their employees’ time off and how it is treated is important because it will affect the legal obligations attached to it. Each state has its own […]

HHS Describes Employer Process to Undo Exchanges’ Decisions

The health care reform process under which employers can contest adverse determinations (that can trigger pay-or-play penalties) due to an insurance exchange finding that their plans fail to provide minimum essential coverage was finalized in program integrity rules put on public display on Aug. 29 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The […]

FMLA Leave: Expert Answers Employer’s Questions

Administering FMLA leave is not always a simple task. Sometimes even the simplest questions become complex, such as how long is a week of FMLA leave when it’s taken in hours instead of in a full block of time? Do FMLA medical certifications expire? What certification can be requested when an employee is taking FMLA […]

How to Make mLearning Work for Workforce Training

“We believe that mobile technology can become an engine of business learning in the same way the World Wide Web became the backbone of learning during the previous technological revolution,” says Alex Heiphetz, PhD., author of “mLearning: A Practical Approach to Mobile Technology for Workforce Training,” a policy paper from The McGraw-Hill Research Foundation. Heiphetz […]

Employee Leave—How Are Best Companies Handling It?

Participate in our brief survey and see how what you are doing stacks up against what other successful companies are doing. We’ll get answers to these questions and more: What kind of paid leaves are offered? (Bereavement? Vacation? Holidays? Maternity/Paternity? Jury Duty?) Do you offer vacation and sick leave or paid time off (PTO)? How […]

Exempt Vs. Non-Exempt: What are the Rules? (Q&A Part 2 of 2)

In a recent BLR webinar, Austin E. Smith lent his expertise to tell us about some of the challenges employers face when dealing with exempt vs. non-exempt employee classifications. For example, to meet the requirements for an administrative exemption, an employee must pass the “primary duty” test, which says that their primary duties must include […]

Exempt Vs. Non-Exempt: What are the Rules? (Q&A Part 1 of 2)

Classifying some employees as exempt from overtime means employers have to be careful—they must meet all of the initial exemption requirements, and also not take any actions that could jeopardize that exempt status (such as making improper pay deductions for exempt employees). This challenge raises many questions for employers, such as how to handle situations […]

Employee Leave—How Are Best Companies Handling It?

Year after year leave management sits at the top of the list of pain points for HR managers. How are other HR departments (and those of your competitors) handling leave? What’s happening in the real world? Please help us find out! Participate in our brief survey and see how what you are doing stacks up […]

Fire all the “cripples” and the “fatties?!”

As I mentioned in my July post, the film Horrible Bosses has enough material for weeks’ worth of blog posts. With three atrocious bosses blatantly making the lives of their employees miserable and disregarding a long list of employment laws, it is certainly a plaintiffs’ attorney’s dream situation and an HR manager’s nightmare. I am sure […]

Federal government eases stance on state marijuana laws

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announcement updating the federal marijuana enforcement policy means the federal government won’t sue to keep states from allowing controlled recreational use of marijuana, but the effect on employers isn’t yet clear. The DOJ announced on August 29 that it was revising its policy because of state legislation in Colorado […]