Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
In recent years, government agencies and female employees alike have increasingly focused on shattering the corporate glass ceiling. Now, a new California Court of Appeal decision demonstrates that failing to review your promotion practices before a gender-bias complaint surfaces can be an expensive mistake.
Under California law, you can be automatically liable for harassment committed by your managers and supervisors even if you had no notice of the problem and did nothing wrong. But just who qualifies as a supervisor has long been a troubling and important question because your chances of being held responsible increase as more employees […]
Can workers who swear to be totally disabled on an application for Social Security benefits turn around and sue you under the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), contending they’re qualified to work despite their disability claim? Two recent court decisions – one from the United States Supreme Court and the other involving a Northern California […]
You fire an employee for breaking a company rule. This common event may not seem risky, but a recent verdict shows that how you handle a termination can often get you in more trouble than the firing itself. In fact, Wal-Mart is now facing a whopping $20 million verdict partly because of how it discharged […]
As thousands of reservists are being called to military action in the Balkans and taking leave from their jobs, it’s a good time to brush up on the intricacies of the federal law that protects the rights of workers who serve in the armed forces. And a new federal court decision upholds the special benefits […]
When hiring a new employee, promoting an existing worker or reviewing compensation packages, it always helps to know what your competitors are paying. You don’t want to shell out too much or discourage the best talent by paying too little. California employers have just gotten some new tools to assist them. The California Employment Development […]
An undocumented employee who was injured on the job has had her request for rehabilitation benefits thrown out by the California Court of Appeal. Margalese Ortega-Ruiz injured her back while working at a Jack-in-the-Box restaurant in Santa Monica. After she filed a workers’ comp claim and requested vocational rehabilitation benefits, the restaurant discovered she wasn’t […]
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) requires employers with 100 or more employees to give workers at least 60 days’ written notice of a pending mass layoff or plant shutdown. Instead of giving notice, you can pay workers for the 60-day period. Now, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, which covers California, has […]
To defend yourself against a lawsuit by an employee terminated for sexual harassment or other misconduct, it’s essential to thoroughly investigate the accuser’s complaint, as the accompanying story illustrates. Here are the key steps Lucky Stores took which led the court to find it had acted properly before discharging the employee accused of harassment:
If you require employees to attend training or other meetings off-site, do you have to pay them for the extra time it takes them to get there? The answer is not always, at least if you’re a public employer. We’ll focus on a new case addressing this issue and then look at common travel time […]