Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
In a remarkably last-minute fashion, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued final regulations protecting health care providers who withhold medical care based on conflicting moral beliefs. The rule, which covers federally funded health care providers, takes effect January 18, 2009 — the required 30 days after its under-the-wire December 19 […]
Litigation Value: $0 With “The Office” on hiatus for a few weeks, we thought we’d take a look at the webisodes to get our fix. In the most recent webisode, “The Outburst,” Oscar flips out on an unknown victim on his cell phone while sitting at his desk. Naturally, everyone within earshot becomes quite curious […]
When Tanuj Gupta joined AstraZeneca in 2006, he didn’t know many of his coworkers. “When I found out there were Employee Network Groups, I thought it was a great way to meet more people within the company,” says the executive director of external medical relations. And it was: “I met a fantastic group of people […]
Margaret Rivera, AstraZeneca’s senior manager of diversity, helps oversee 16 successful employee network groups. Here are her tips for making such affinity groups work: 1. Don’t force it. “Companies . . . should understand that the most successful employee groups often start out as grassroots organizations — they are volunteer organizations,” she counsels. 2. Make […]
The December Dilemma: practicing inclusion during the winter holidays. The top religious accommodation companies have made in the past 12 months? Considering different religious beliefs of employees when planning holiday-related events, according to the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) “Religion and Corporate Culture Accommodating Religious Diversity Survey.” Taking differing beliefs into account is never […]
A federal jury in Portland recently awarded $19 million to four African-American former employees of Asbury Automotive Group, LLC ? the former corporate owner of Thomason Toyota in Gladstone. The workers alleged they were forced to endure a hostile, racially charged work environment. Four salesmen, Carlos Barfield, Marcus Arnold, Jahaeel Hardy, and Kent Paul, sued […]
President-Elect Barack Obama has chosen former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle as his Secretary of Health and Human Services and health care czar. Daschle lays out his ideas about how to fix the ailing U.S. health care system in his book Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis, which was published in February […]
Some gay rights advocates are calling for “A Day Without a Gay” protest and boycott across the United States on Wednesday, December 10, to show opposition to California’s Proposition 8 and to show the power of the gay and lesbian community. Organizers are encouraging people to strike by “calling in gay” to work, taking the […]
by Karen Sargeant During these tough economic times, employers are often looking to increase flexibility. Several of our recent blog entries have discussed ways in which employers can do so – furloughs, work-sharing programs, changing employment contracts, and adjusting the size of the workforce. Recently, the British Columbia Court of Appeal granted Raytheon Canada some […]
Employment law attorney Michael Maslanka discusses Robert Sutton’s book The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One that Isn’t. General counsel are tagged as custodians of their companies’ most crucial, yet most sensitive and volatile asset: its employees. Henry Ford saw them as one big headache, immune from any analgesic’s curative powers: […]