Tag: HR

Implementing Pay Grades and Ranges: Common Pay Structure Issues

You also may find yourself facing employees who don’t fit into the standard pay grades for one reason or another or who have maxed out at their existing pay grade. You may even have an employee who is pointing to online salary information and claiming she’s not getting paid enough, which is a position HR […]

Metrics: 2 Common Errors That Make Them Worthless

Metrics guru Dr. John Sullivan says that human resources managers make two key mistakes when using metrics. Sullivan is a metrics consultant and professor of management at San Francisco State University. Mistake #1: Metrics in a Vacuum The first mistake, says Sullivan, blogging on www.ere.net, is that comp/HR managers tend to develop and implement metrics […]

PTO Plans vs. Traditional: Plusses and Pitfalls

Absences, like terminations, can be voluntary or involuntary; however, unlike terminations the distinction between voluntary and involuntary absences is not typically determined by who initiates the absence, says Hagan, who is a partner in the Dallas office of Sarles & Ouimet, LLP. He made his suggestions at a recent BLR webinar. Involuntary absences are employee […]

DOL’s Fiscal Year 2013 Budget Request Grants Premium Authority to PBGC

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released its budget request for the federal fiscal year (FY) 2013 on Feb. 13, as part of the budget proposal President Obama sent to Congress. The DOL budget request for FY 2013 is $12.0 billion, down from $12.6 billion for FY 2012. The department’s press release emphasized this reduction, […]

Early Retirement Plans: Win-Win IF You Follow Rules

ERIPs are a win-win, the attorneys say, because: Employers benefit from reducing wages and other costs associated with senior workers, and avoid the negativity associated with a RIF Employees benefit because a portion of that cost savings is passed to retiring workers who can retire earlier than they otherwise might. Anderson, a member of Miller […]

Invalid Releases Mean Employees Keep Money and Still Sue

Releases of claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) are typically part of ERIPs, but they have to be carefully drafted and managed say the attorneys. If they are not, employees probably can keep the money and still sue you. Anderson, a member of Miller & Martin PLLC in Nashville, Tennessee, and Maxwell, […]

Welcome Home, Soldier: Your Obligations to Returning Troops and Their Families

There are two primary laws that will come to bear, the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), the subject of this article, and Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the subject of a future article. Besides those legal responsibilities, many employers will also consider that they have a broader ethical obligation to those […]

Reemployment Rights of Returning Vets: What You Need to Know

Basically, you must reemploy a service member returning from military duty if he or she meets five criteria: The employee must have held a civilian job He or she must have given you proper notice of the impending military service, unless notice was unreasonable or impossible The cumulative period of service must not have exceeded […]

SM Background Checks—15% of HR, 100% of Hiring Managers

We’ve talked about the advisability of doing social media background checks before. Briefly, the negative of doing such checks is that you’re guaranteed to find out things you didn’t want to know about race, religion, etc. Once you have that information, it’s easy to suggest that it played a part in your decision-making. On the […]