• The HR Specialist - Print Newsletter
  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
  • The HR Weekly

Compensation & Benefits

Do-it-yourself pay audits may not be such a good idea

03/09/2012

Allowing wage-and-hour problems to fester can land you in hot water, which puts a premium on performing a self-audit of your company’s pay policies. But be aware that you may have to provide this so-called self-critical analysis to employees’ attorneys, should they sue you. Take these steps to minimize this possibility:

Austin’s HBMG agrees to repay diverted retirement funds

03/08/2012
Austin-based information technology firm HBMG and its president, Manuel Zarate, have agreed to settle a lawsuit alleging the company failed to transfer employee retirement fund contributions into its 401(k) program.

Minimum wage increase: not 2012, maybe 2013

03/08/2012
President Obama’s push to raise the minimum wage from its current $7.25 per hour to $9.50 will likely fall on deaf ears in Congress this year.

Plan for the inevitable: How to handle lost W-2s

03/06/2012

Employees call Payroll every year saying they’ve lost their W-2s. Dealing with such requests can become a time-consuming headache, especially for larger organizations. Here are some tips for managing the reissued W-2 process.

Cuyahoga expands benefits for gay workers’ children

03/05/2012
By a vote of 6-4, Cuyahoga County commissioners have approved a measure that will provide health insurance benefits to the children of gay partners of county employees.

Manage work, play with formal vacation policy

03/05/2012

Many workers routinely skip vacations, handing back to employers more than $21 billion in unused vacation time each year. In fact, vacation is good for business—it lowers employee stress and prevents burnout. Consider your vacation policy an important element of your organization’s health.

Court: No unemployment for quitting to follow spouse

03/05/2012
The Court of Appeals of Ohio has let stand a decision that denied unemployment benefits to a woman who quit her job so she could move with her husband to California.

FMLA: It’s not your job to decide whether relative needs your employee’s help

03/05/2012
The FMLA provides leave for employees who need to care for seriously ill family members. Some employers argue that if several family members are providing care, they don’t have to approve FMLA leave if that means more than one family member would be present. That argument won’t fly.

Form W-2c: the agony of errors

03/02/2012
The earlier employers fix errors on 2011 W-2s, the less likely it is they’ll be penalized by the IRS. E-filers have until the April 2 to file original W-2s, but even those few extra weeks may not be enough to get off the W-2c hook for mistakes that come to your attention after e-filing.

Spring forward! Daylight saving time begins March 11

03/01/2012
Daylight saving time begins at 2 a.m., March 11. Graveyard-shift workers, therefore, will work only seven hours that day. If you pay those employees for a standard eight-hour shift, don’t include the extra hour’s pay when calculating their regular rates to determine overtime.