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mental health

Workers with Intellectual or Developmental Disabilities: Eight Core Safety Competencies They Must Learn

By Jennifer Busick If you employ workers with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDDs), you’re dealing with a population that needs some targeted attention in order to prevent injuries. Guest columnist Jennifer Busick has compiled eight key safety competencies that these employees must develop in training.

Extraordinary damages not automatic in ‘cause’ cases

by Keri Bennett In Canada, courts can award two extraordinary forms of damages in a wrongful dismissal action: aggravated damages or punitive damages. In a wrongful dismissal action, employees who are terminated for cause often claim that they should be awarded aggravated and/or punitive damages in addition to reasonable notice damages. In a recent decision […]

commission

How Executive Compensation is Different from Other Compensation

When setting employee pay, there are a lot of things to consider. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than with executive-level pay considerations. Executive compensation differs quite a lot from other forms of compensation, and the thought process that goes into setting it must differ accordingly. Executive-level employees, just like other employees, are motivated in […]

Tips for Combating Drug or Alcohol Abuse in the Workplace

Drug or alcohol abuse in the workplace is obviously a serious concern. Not only could the employee be putting him- or herself at a health risk, he or she may also be putting other employees at a safety risk. And, of course, there’s a concern of reduced performance and productivity. Let’s take a look at […]

What is Employee Advocacy?

Have you heard of employee advocacy? In simple terms, employee advocacy refers to the act of employees promoting the company through their own personal actions and through their own networks. This is often on social media. It is separate from paying employees to promote the organization (such as hiring a social media manager).

Christmas Vacation, free beer, and the FLSA

by Boyd Byers In the holiday classic National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, family patriarch Clark Griswold is distressed because he has not yet received his Christmas bonus, which he is counting on to cover a check he wrote for a new swimming pool. Finally, on Christmas Eve, a courier arrives with a delivery. As his family […]

What Is Pay Compression?

Pay compression is the situation in which an organization has negligible differences in pay between people who have differing skill sets and/or experience levels. It often happens when current employee pay raises don’t keep up with increases in the market pay rate—resulting in a situation in which new hires are hired in at levels similar […]

‘Unlawful’ overtime rule temporarily blocked

A federal district court temporarily blocked the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) new overtime rule on November 22, just days before it was scheduled to take effect. The judge who issued the order called the regulation “unlawful” and said such actions should be left to Congress. At the request of 21 states, the U.S. District […]

Whistleblower

Preventing Whistleblowers in the Workplace: OSHA Expands the Rights of Whistleblowers

by Kara M. Maciel, Esq. and Dan Deacon, Esq., Conn Maciel Carey  In part one of this article, we focused on how the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has become more aggressive in its whistleblower enforcement efforts. Together, the EEOC and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have recently taken steps to make it […]