Editor’s Note

How often has it happened that you get frustrated with workers who call in sick every other week? Or, are you more worried about sick people who DON'T wish to stay at home, and spread illness at workplace? Sick leave for employees, whether it's used for legitimate or not-so-legitimate reasons, has turned to be a major problem for many organizations as it costs the company a huge sum of money.

Is Use Of Accrued Sick Banks Compliant With FMLA?

A very common benefit design throughout the health care industry, is to provide employees with time off for incidental and extended absence due to disability through accrued sick leave plans, often called EIB (extended illness benefit) or EDL (extended disability benefit). Some employers have gone as far as to provide liberal paid time off (PTO) accruals where an employee can bank up to 480 to 520 hours of PTO to use for an extended absence due to illness or disability.

Legal and Compliance Excellence Advertisers: September 2016

Freedom Of Speech In Workplace: How protected are employees?

For example, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA)recently fined basketball teams Indiana Fever, New York Liberty, Phoenix Mercury and their players after the women wore all-black warmup gear to support the “Black Lives Matter” movement. Due to public outcry against the decision, the WNBA later removed the fine. However, the issue sparked a debate across the country: Don’t employees have the right to express their beliefs, especially if they do so in a non-confrontational way? Does one have freedom of speech in office?

‘Dark Web’: What employers need to know

So how do you access the rest of the Internet? Via Tor (short for The Onion Router). With Tor, people can access the Dark Web, which in turn makes everything they do on the Internet untraceable. Unlike the regular Internet which traces users via their IP address, Tor essentially ‘cloaks’ a person’s location, meaning that they can stay anonymous as they use the Dark Web. As you can imagine, this means that criminal behavior is a common occurrence—from drug sales to snuff films to child pornography, the Dark Web can be a gruesome place.

Workers’ Compensation - What Determines What You Pay In Premium: How HR can help?

At least once a year, most business owners sit down with their trusted advisors and go over the status of their business. At some point during this discussion, there is usually a conversation about their commercial insurance policies. Part of that discussion should be how the business can lower what it pays in premium. In most successful organizations, the human resource (HR) professional is a part of that conversation. The main way an HR professional can positively affect the amount of premium a business pays is by monitoring the claims process for the workers’ compensation policy.

Developing Immigration Policy: Four tips to attract and retain global talent

When you’re courting talent from other countries, or trying to appeal to visa or green card holders already in the United States, there’s one way to gain an edge over competitors: Your immigration policy. If you don’t already have an immigration policy in place, it’s time to create one. And if you do, it’s time to formalize it — and watch your acquisition and retention rates improve.

The Risks Of Not Having Human Resources: Five areas you are risking

What is Human Resources? Quite simply, HR functions as an advisor and a coach to an organization’s management. In the process of doing so, HR professionals carry out a number of activities in conjunction with managers such as sourcing (finding) job applicants, hiring and on-boarding them, analyzing jobs, writing position descriptions, managing employee learning and development, and health and safety programs, conducting employee performance management, negotiating collective bargaining agreements, improving employee relations, administering discipline and the employee performance appraisal process, ensuring legislative compliance, providing advice on health care benefits, compensation, and disability issues, and developing policies.

SEC Enforcement Actions-Changes To Severance Agreement: Proactive steps to consider to avoid action

Public companies should revisit their template severance agreements, in light of two recent orders by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).1 Standard severance clauses covering (1) confidential information and (2) prohibitions against receiving additional monetary awards have been deemed unlawful by the SEC, resulting in settlements and fines exceeding $600,000, plus other sanctions.

New Overtime: Regulations It’s time to prepare!

In May, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that millions of salaried workers, who currently do not qualify for overtime pay, will soon be eligible. Starting in December 2016, salaried employees earning less than $47,476 are entitled to overtime pay when working more than 40 hours per week, about double the current threshold of $23,660. Those who don’t comply – or don’t keep appropriate records proving that they are complying – can be penalized. While the change won’t take effect for a several more months, HR personnel need to start preparing now.