Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
HR best practices, employment law tips, news and analysis, Q&As, and lessons learned from the courtroom.
According to the most recent Regional and State Employment and Unemployment Summary from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, state and regional unemployment rates continued their upward climb throughout the month of March. Forty-six states reported unemployment rate increases in March, and all 50 states and the District of Columbia have higher rates than they did […]
By Carol A. Hacker If you are a younger manager with responsibility for managing people who are older than you, you know what a challenge it can be. One of the biggest challenges for younger managers lies in how they are going to supervise people who are older than them, have more experience than they […]
by Don Harrison Dealing with workers’ compensation administrators (or claims adjusters or attorneys) can be as frustrating as trying to decode a teenager’s text messages — KWIM (know what I mean)? This week, we thought we’d provide you a cheat sheet to help you make sense of the workers’ comp world. Audio Conference: Workers’ Comp […]
Question and answer session with Hal Adler Q: Why is succession planning so important in a tough economy? Hal: Look at it this way. We’ve seen dramatic rebounds in the stock market. This thing could turn around as fast as it got here, but regardless of how long it takes, employers don’t want to be […]
Should our company use job descriptions? How long should they be, and what information should they contain? Do they really serve a useful purpose? Employers attorneys get those questions all the time, and the answer is always the same: Yes, employers should use lean, practical job descriptions that accurately reflect essential job duties because they […]
(Updated May 2010) By Hillary J. Collyer Summer is here, which means that student interns are arriving for their summer internships — and many of these internships are unpaid. Internships afford students the opportunity to gain practical, real world experience, as well as explore various career paths and develop potential contacts. Employers should be careful, […]
by Sarah McAdams The average office worker in America uses about 500 disposable cups every year, according to the Clean Air Council. If 10 million of them used their own mugs, it would eliminate about 312,500 miles of trash every year. Launching a “green coffee” program at your company can be as simple as changing […]
Layoffs have many downsides. Employee morale is guaranteed to drop. A company’s unemployment insurance premiums will rise, perhaps steeply. And if an employer provides severance packages and/or outplacement services, they could get very expensive. If layoffs are significant in number, a business may not be able to adequately compete once the economy turns around. And […]
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act) requires employers with 100 or more workers to provide 60 days’ advance notice of a plant closing or mass layoff. Sometimes employers need to act quickly to lay off employees and can’t provide the 60 days’ notice required by the WARN Act. A recent decision from […]
In today’s economic climate, companies are continually looking for ways to cut costs without cutting jobs and resorting to layoffs. One option many companies are considering is mandatory unpaid time off, sometimes referred to as an employee furlough. By requiring mandatory unpaid time off, companies can reduce payroll expenses by reducing the number of hours […]