Month: September 2008

45 Effective Ways for Hiring Smart

Employment law attorney Michael Maslanka reviews the book 45 Effective Ways for Hiring Smart by Pierre Mornell. Review  contains tips for hiring the best employee, from interview questions to checking references. Recently, I ran across an excellent book, 45 EFFECTIVE WAYS FOR HIRING SMART: How to Predict Winners and Losers in the Incredibly Expensive People-Reading […]

Managing FMLA–‘It’s a Nightmare’

Ask most HR managers what their biggest headache is, and about 90 percent say “FMLA.” From eligibility to notifications to managing intermittent leave, it’s an ever-present problem. And FMLA is also widely abused. However, the good news is that abuse can be tamed to some extent, say attorneys Jeffrey A. Wortman and Nancy M. Cooper. […]

Can You Unilaterally Change an Employment Contract?

by Brian Smeenk Suppose you want to change an important term of your Canadian employee’s employment contract, such as the bonus plan, future salary adjustments or the termination package. Can you do it without the employee’s agreement? If so, how? Western Inventory Service Ltd. recently found out the hard way that it couldn’t unilaterally alter […]

Managing Down to Those Who Manage Up

In yesterday’s Advisor we talked about “managing up.” Today, tips about managing down, and an introduction to a new audio conference, Handling Difficult Conversations. Here’s a typical scenario between a subordinate and a boss: Bill comes up to Sally, the boss, who is running to a meeting, and says, “We have problem with x.” Sally […]

Hot List: Bestselling Business Books on Amazon.com

Amazon.com updates its list of bestselling business books hourly. Here is a snapshot of what books were hot this morning — Monday, September 15. 1. Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America by Thomas L. Friedman. The author of The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History […]

Tyson Foods: a lesson in religious tolerance, community relations

Tyson Foods is going a long way toward making employees of all religious persuasions happy. At least that’s the case at its plant in Shelbyville, Tennessee. About 700 of the 1,200 employees there came to the United States as political refugees from Somalia, and most of those 700 employees are Muslim. Recently, the Tyson plant’s […]

Are all religious holidays created equal?

One might think that the paid holidays an employer chooses to offer its employees is a matter for the employer and its employees. However, when Tyson Foods announced that Labor Day would be replaced with Eid al-Fitr as a paid holiday in its Shelbyville, Tennessee, plant, the response from the public was swift and harsh. […]

Companies lauded for diversity still have far to go

“Diversity Practices that Work: The American Worker Speaks,” a two-year national study of 5,500 workers, was conducted by Global Lead Management Consulting on behalf of the National Urban League to answer four questions: What do American workers think about diversity? How do the perceptions of employees in “effective diversity practices companies” compare with American workers […]

New EEOC guidance on religious discrimination in the workplace

The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC) has issued a new section in its compliance manual on religious discrimination in the workplace. The agency concluded that the sharp rise in the number of religious discrimination charges, the growing religious diversity in the United States, and requests for guidance from stakeholders warranted the new compliance manual section. […]

Renhill settles with EEOC on age discrimination, race discrimination, and retaliation suit

Fort Wayne staffing company Renhill Services, Inc., has settled a lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for retaliation and age and race discrimination. The company will pay $580,000 and up to $5,000 in settlement administrative expenses, according to the EEOC. The EEOC charged that Renhill violated federal law by failing to refer […]