Tag: Boyd Byers

OSHA Says Employers Must Ban Texting while Driving

by Boyd Byers Recently, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced an initiative to combat work-related distracted driving. OSHA’s first point of focus is texting while driving. Audio Conference: Monitoring Employee E-Mail, Texting and Facebook: What’s Off Limits Safety concerns prompt new laws Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of worker fatalities, and […]

The Wild, the Innocent, and the Super Bowl Shuffle

by Boyd A. Byers Super Bowl Sunday is February 7. About 140 million Americans will watch the game on TV, and 20 million will attend a Super Bowl party. While doing so, we’ll eat 20 million pounds of potato and tortilla chips. Let’s look at some other Super Bowl-related numbers for you to ponder in […]

Economy, Political Changes Could Create Perfect Storm for Employment Lawsuits

(Updated April 2009) by Boyd Byers Writer Sebastian Junger coined the phrase “perfect storm” to describe the simultaneous occurrence of different weather phenomena that combine to create a powerful nor’easter (a storm blowing from the northeast). Is a confluence of cultural, economic, and political events whipping up a perfect storm for employment law claims? Many […]

Lordy, Lordy, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act Turns 40

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 Physics and History Can Teach HR about Hiring and Firing

by Boyd Byers In physics, chaos theory is the concept that systems rely on an underlying order and are sensitive to initial conditions. As a result of this sensitivity, a small error or imprecision in the initial conditions grows at an enormous rate over time. Thus, two nearly identical sets of initial conditions applied to […]

Playing at Work and Working at Play

by Boyd Byers Every office has at least one. The guy who stockpiles Star Wars action figures in his cubicle. Or the gal with the Hello Kitty screen saver who jams to the same music as her teenage daughter. Twenty years ago, they would have been considered immature and unprofessional. Today, they’re more likely to […]