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Dispute Resolution: What Are Your Recommendations Concerning Arbitration Agreements?

I’m tasked with making a recommendation concerning arbitration agreements for our employees. My questions are: Do you recommend these agreements? For all employees? How do we go about establishing this for new and current employees? Any particular pitfalls to watch out for? — Elaine, HR Specialist in Encino   The typical employee arbitration agreement requires […]

Leave: Is It a Good Idea to Allow Gifting of PTO Time?

Our PTO program wraps together all time off—sick leave, vacation, and personal time. Now we’ve had a suggestion that we allow “gifting” of PTO time; that is, permit workers with excess time to give it to a worker who, say, ran out of time and is dealing with an issue, such as his or her […]

Bulletin: Final Rule Addressing Stock Diversification Notice Penalty Issued

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration has published a final rule clarifying the penalty that may be imposed on a plan administrator for failing to provide a written notice to participants and beneficiaries of their rights to diversify the portions of plan accounts that are invested in the employer’s publicly traded securities. […]

Hiring: Should We Accept Video Resumes?

In our hiring training, we’ve told our managers to avoid information that is not job related, especially when it has to do with protected characteristics. But we still get a lot of details we shouldn’t know about in other ways. Some applicants send pictures with their e-mailed resumes and others send video resumes. What do […]

Terminating Employees: Neutral Investigation Helps Defeat Discrimination Charges

Richard King was a valued United Parcel Service (UPS) supervisor in Redding for more than 30 years, until he was fired for falsifying an employee’s timecard. King contended in a lawsuit that the real reason for his termination was disability bias. But now a California appeals court has dismissed King’s suit—and the case is a […]