Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Unhappy employees who complain about how you do business can try a manager’s patience fast. It can be tempting to simply reject a disgruntled worker’s accusations-and even to discipline or terminate an employee who seems bent on charging your company with wrongdoing. But when an employee objects to one of your business practices, it’s a […]
Most employers know that state and federal anti-discrimination laws require you to offer reasonable accommodations to disabled workers to allow them to perform their jobs. But applying this seemingly straightforward rule to real-life situations is often trickier than it sounds. In several recent cases, employers have found themselves on the wrong end of expensive lawsuits […]
Over the past few years, pension benefits have come under increased scrutiny by employee advocates who claim benefits are often miscomputed and thus underpaid. If you’re targeted and it turns out you under-calculated retirees’ benefits, you might be surprised to find you owe a lot more money than you set aside. In response to the […]
Under California’s wage garnishment law, you can be required to withhold part of an employee’s wages to pay a bill collector, ex-spouse or other creditor. A new change in the law lets you charge employees a small fee every time you make a payment based on a garnishment order. Here’s a quick refresher on your […]
Suppose an employee shows up for work with slurred speech or is acting strangely. If you have a policy giving you the right to request a drug test when you have good cause to believe the person is under the influence, you might demand that the employee submit to a urinalysis. But be careful-a […]
It’s obvious you have to pay employees for all the hours they spend doing their job. But violations of this rule by employers are common, and they can be very expensive. A few years back, for example, Nordstrom had to set aside millions of dollars to settle a class action lawsuit charging numerous “off-the-clock” violations. […]
You probably know that docking the pay of an employee who is exempt from overtime is fraught with risk-the person could lose their exempt status and you could have to begin paying overtime, as well as back overtime for up to three years. And some courts have said that merely having a written policy giving […]
The problem can surface without warning. A former independent contractor applies for unemployment benefits, but the state can’t find any record that the person was on your payroll or that you paid unemployment taxes. Before you know it, you’re being audited and facing huge penalties for all the workers you may have misclassified as independent […]
As the Agency Rent-A-Car case shows, you can find yourself mired in an expensive lawsuit for misclassifying employees as exempt from overtime. Here are four common employer mistakes: Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. Employers run into trouble when they don’t know the rules on classifying employees. Private sector employers in California are […]