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HR best practices, employment law tips, news and analysis, Q&As, and lessons learned from the courtroom.
“Work-life balance” is one of the most popular HR buzz phrases. Yet until a few years ago, work-life concerns were relatively unheard of. Nontraditional workplace and scheduling alternatives like working from home were considered a perk available to a fortunate few or as a temporary accommodation for a stressed-out employee. Employer programs like the flexible […]
Around the New Year, many of us start to consider what we could do better in the coming year. We consider things like joining a gym and eating more vegetables. It’s also a good time to think about how we could improve our work performance. Audio Conference: New Year, New Laws, New Employee Handbook? What […]
by John Husband Individual commitment to a group effort — that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. ~ Vince Lombardi I understand what it means to be an avid college football fan. In my earlier days, I was fortunate to be on three Big Ten Conference […]
by Boyd A. Byers Forty is a mystical number in many cultures. In ancient Babylonia, the number was known as kissatuin, meaning “the excellent quantity.” The great flood described in the Bible resulted from 40 days and 40 nights of rain. Forty is the only number, when spelled out in English, whose letters are in […]
What should employers do when workplace bullying and bad behavior are coming down the corporate ladder from bosses? Here are some ways to see if your frontline managers and supervisors are creating a bad work environment. Audio Conference: Busting Workplace Bullies: Reduce the Legal Risks of Abusive Behavior Flight from bad bosses The direct effect […]
‘Twas the night of the office party, and all through the houses, Employees were getting ready, and so were their spouses. Ties were knotted and straightened with care. Women put on dresses and combed through their hair. The children were ready, all showered and fed And continued to play Xbox until it was time for […]
(Updated August 2009) by Sarah Fuson With Thanksgiving less than a week away, thoughts turn to turkey and dressing, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. But Thanksgiving represents more than stuffing ourselves silly and watching football all day. The first Thanksgiving was held in 1621 by the Pilgrims, a group of Puritans who fled England because […]
Samuel Goldwin, the legendary movie producer, was famous for lines like, “A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.” When he was dealing with employees, one of his favorite sayings was, “I’ll take 50 percent efficiency to get 100 percent loyalty.” What does that have to do with employment law? Loyalty. In the […]
The holiday season is just around the corner, and busy employees are increasingly doing their shopping at the world’s gigantic electronic marketplace, located conveniently on their office computer. Careless e-mail use can end up as a huge lump of coal in an employer’s stocking — in the form of evidence used against it in litigation. […]
Although there’s no sure-fire method to prevent a disgruntled employee from filing a lawsuit against an employer, there’s a readily available tool that can help you defeat the majority of lawsuits: documentation. Employment lawsuits often are won or lost on the soundness and completeness of an employer’s recordkeeping practices. Here are a few tips to […]