Month: June 2014

Former POW Shares 8 Leadership Lessons for Today’s Managers

In Leading with Honor: Leadership Lessons from the Hanoi Hilton, Ellis shares what he learned about leadership from his time as a POW. It’s a powerful read, as Ellis relays stories from his days in the Hanoi Hilton and how the leadership demonstrated by his fellow prisoners often meant the difference between life and death. […]

Expert Advice on Engaging Employees in Safety Training

There’s certainly nothing funny about the consequences of a lockout/tagout failure or a hazardous spill. But if humor can help employees learn and use strategies to prevent a potential tragedy, go for it, Dennis suggests. “Humor can be a double-edged sword,” he advises. “It can make you seem very personable, but you have to be […]

Does Your Safety Training Stick?

To find out more about effective safety training, BLR® talked with Jeffrey Dennis, a certified safety professional and president of Industrial Safety Solutions, Inc., a safety, environmental, and industrial hygiene consulting firm located in Birmingham, Alabama. Technology has enhanced many aspects of safety training, says Dennis. Both external and in-house trainers use a variety of […]

Wal-Mart workers step up wage strikes

Wal-Mart workers were set to protest in more than 20 cities on June 4 as efforts by low-wage workers to increase their pay continue. Fast-food and retail workers have been staging occasional strikes in cities across the country for over a year in an effort to boost wages and improve working conditions. The Wal-Mart strikes […]

$78,399,999—Now That’s a Range of Pay!

In the recently released “Equilar 100 CEO Pay Study,” an examination of the compensation of the CEOs of the top 100 public companies in the United States, the difference from the top paid to the bottom of the barrel was $78,399,999. Huh?

New York City law protects unpaid interns

by New York Employment Law Letter A new law that aims to protect unpaid interns in New York City from discrimination and harassment on the job will take effect June 15. The legislation, which was unanimously passed by the city council in March and signed by Mayor Bill de Blasio in April, is in response […]

Retaliation Suits: Still #1 on the Stupid Suits Hit Parade

Retaliation claims are now number one of all types of charges against employers, and they remain the stupidest type of charge. Stupid because most retaliation charges can be avoided if managers and supervisors just think before they act. Laws prohibiting retaliation as a form of workplace discrimination have expanded rapidly in the past few years, […]

Where there’s smoke, you’re fired: tackling rising costs of tobacco use

by Holly K. Jones, J.D., If there’s one thing on which smokers and nonsmokers can agree, it’s that smoking is an expensive habit. While tobacco companies and trade groups challenge coupon and discount bans on cigarettes, employers have taken up a different fight against the rising costs of smoking.   For several years, employers have begun […]

Playing the System, Crossing Borders to Refresh Visas—Fraught with Danger

Avoiding Costly Workarounds that Can Lead You Astray Some companies try to cut corners by using contractor agreements to replace local employees, thus doing away with Social Security costs and payroll systems. Yet regulators in places such as Argentina and Brazil require contractors to provide information about their engagements with an overseas company in an […]