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Are Employee Background Checks Regulated by FCRA?

Employers performing employee background checks are actually subject to Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) regulations. FCRA applies to all consumer reports and investigative consumer reports, whether they’re conducted in house or by a third-party such as a consumer reporting agency (CRA). FCRA “is a federal law, and it imposes minimum standards on employers that they […]

When Can a Workers’ Comp Claimant be Disciplined?

“You will find that pretty much every workers’ comp law in the country does have anti-retaliation provisions. And so, just the act of filing a workers’ comp claim gives somebody protected status that’s somewhat analogous to somebody filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or filing a complaint under one of the wage/hour […]

Legal Restrictions on Employee Background Checks

Employee background checks are used by an estimated 92 percent of organizations in one form or another before hiring someone. They can be quite useful, but employers should be careful because the EEOC has been cracking down on illegal use of background information. Are you aware of what you should and shouldn’t be doing with […]

5 Components of an Effective Pay-for-Performance Program

5 Components of an Effective Pay-for-Performance Program There are 5 major components of an effective pay-for-performance program: Evaluation forms. These can be differentiated by employee groups if necessary. The evaluation form should clearly show the rating options for each category or goal and overall ratings. The form should clearly define what constitutes each performance or […]

Beachboard Debunks 13 Urban Legends of HR

Beachboard made his remarks at SHRM’s Annual Conference and Exhibition, held recently in Chicago. He is a shareholder in the Los Angeles and Torrance, California, offices of law firm Ogletree Deakins. Urban Legend #1  Assistants and secretaries need to have BlackBerries to better support those they work for—and they understand that (and don’t expect to […]

DOL: Revenue Sharing Will Not Be Considered a Plan Asset

Retirement plans’ sponsors and other fiduciaries associated with them got some reassuring news in early July when the U.S. Department of Labor stated in an advisory opinion that certain “revenue-sharing” fee payments by plan sponsors to their recordkeepers and other third-party administrators do not constitute plan assets for ERISA purposes. This means that service providers […]

How Is Compa-Ratio Used in Employee Compensation?

Do you use compa-ratios to check to see if your employee pay is meeting your organization’s compensation goals? What is a Compa-Ratio? For those of us just getting started with compensation metrics, the term “compa-ratio” may sound foreign. What is it? What does it do? “It’s basically taking a salary and dividing it by the […]

Scam alert! NHES warns of e-mail identity theft con

by Christopher J. Pyles New Hampshire Employment Security (NHES) has recently become aware of an identity theft scam being directed at employers. NHES is warning that e-mails coming from an address ending in “@detma.org” and using a subject line referring to “time-sensitive material” are being sent to businesses in an effort to obtain employees’ wage […]

Are You Training Employees to Be Leaders in the Community?

Primary objectives for training employees are always to help them perform their jobs in the most efficient and productive way possible. But once those goals are well in hand, additional objectives can be beneficial to both your organization’s bottom line and its corporate reputation. Well-known for training its own employees on lean principles, Toyota partnered […]

AMA says obesity is a disease: What does this mean for you?

by Jonathan R. Mook The American Medical Association (AMA) has officially designated obesity as a disease. In doing so, it explained that obesity is a “multi-metabolic and hormonal disease state” that leads to unfavorable outcomes like type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The AMA’s action has focused renewed attention on the so-called obesity epidemic and […]