Category: HR Management & Compliance

There are dozens of details to take care of in the day-to-day operation of your department and your company. We give you case studies, news updates, best practices and training tips that keep your organization fully in compliance with ever-changing employment law, and you fully aware of emerging HR trends.

Evaluations: How Can We Encourage Honest Performance Appraisals?

I’ve been reading about how important it is from a legal standpoint to give accurate performance appraisals, and when I look over ours, I know we’re not doing that—basically everyone is “good” or “excellent,” even though managers complain about poor workers. I know we’re going to get in trouble if we fire any of these […]

Theft: Can We Deduct the Cost of a Loss from the Whole Team?

We have agreed to operate on a team basis in our organization. We share workload, bonuses, etc. Now we’ve got a problem. We think someone on the team has stolen something from the office, but no one will admit to the theft. May we deduct a certain amount from each employee’s check to cover the […]

Great California Workplaces: Insomniac Games Is a Winner in Motivating Employees; The Game Plan for Success

What makes an organization a terrific place to work? We set on the path to find out with the Employer Resource Institute’s 2006 Great California Workplaces Award contest. As we discovered, keys to a great workplace include unique, innovative, and effective programs that combine to create a relationship of respect and trust between employer and […]

Hire in Haste, Regret at Leisure

By BLR Founder and Publisher Bob Brady In BLR’s nearly 30 years, I’ve hired a lot of people as we’ve grown to our present 225 employees. We have great people, from editors who get their kicks from analyzing regulations (yes, that can be fun!) to customer service reps who enjoy getting the billing and shipping […]

On-Call Workers: Does FLSA Make You Pay Them to Wait?

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), you have to pay on-call workers as they wait. Well, sometimes, anyway. Here are the criteria. The week between Christmas and New Year’s is traditionally a “stand-down” time at many businesses. A lot of employees choose to use this week to burn off remaining vacation time rather than […]

My End-of-Year HR Wish List

By BLR Founder and Publisher Bob Brady As Bob Brady (and many of you) will be taking some time off next week, here are his thoughts as one year ends and a new one begins. Bob’s next new column will appear in January. Happy holidays from Bob and all at BLR! I’ve been writing this […]