Month: October 2010

Employers Welcome IRS Deferral of Health Care Reform’s W-2 Reporting Requirement

The IRS recently issued Notice 2010-69, which defers the Form W-2 reporting requirement found in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) by clarifying that such reporting won’t be mandatory for W-2s issued for 2011. The provision in the PPACA that addresses this W-2 reporting was designed to be effective for taxable years beginning […]

Discovery Is Dangerous—How to Reduce Liability

Discovery—the right of your employee’s lawyer to seek information from your company—has always been dangerous, and the advent of electronic communications has just made it that much worse. In today’s Advisor, attorney Jean Johnson offers suggestions for reducing liability This article focuses on the “request for production,” which is a request for documents and other […]

Tuition Assistance: Do Your Benefits Measure Up?

By Stephen D. Bruce, PHR Editor, HR Daily Advisor Eighty-five percent of employers report offering tuition assistance to employees, according to a recent survey of tuition assistance plans by BLR®‘s HR Daily Advisor. This is a significant increase over the 52% of employers who reported having such a plan in late 2007. A quick review […]

‘Your Honor, the Real Reason Was Performance’ (and I’m a Liar)

In yesterday’s Advisor, we looked at five things you never want to have to say in court; today, three more, and an introduction to the all-in-one solutions website for HR managers. ‘No, really it was performance’ This is the standard “now I’m changing my story” line. Here’s the scenario: you fire someone whose performance has […]

Hot List: Wall Street Journal’s Bestselling Hardcover Business Books

The following is a list of the bestselling hardcover business books as ranked by the Wall Street Journal with data from Nielsen BookScan on October 11. 1. StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths by Tom Rath. Are you unsure where your true talents lie? […]

9 Things You Don’t Want to Have to Admit in Court

Many times, the easiest way to train managers about HR issues is to ask them to imagine themselves on the witness stand. When they realize what they will have to admit to, they learn fast. “I fired him for no reason” This is the statement that “at-will believers” will have to make on the witness […]

Self Interest or Team Effort?

I was in a meeting yesterday and our discussion centered around how we could really engage certain people within an organization. We weren’t long into the discussion when someone said, “I always think that people are motivated by self-interest.” My first thought was that his comment was a bit cynical. But as I thought about […]

The Play’s the Thing

Litigation Value: A jug of wine, and thou. Unless the bottle nicked by Michael Scott (and shared with some of his coworkers) contained a vintage beyond the norm for community theater events, we could limit our legal discussion to petty theft. But how instructive — or fun — would that be? With the most recent […]