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

Compensation & Benefits

Suspect medical excuse is bogus? Ask employee for a (real) doctor’s note

06/07/2011
Some people will do anything to get out of work early, including lying about their child’s health. One employer did the smart thing and demanded proof when it became suspicious.

Which of the following issues causes the biggest problems in your organization?

06/07/2011
When it comes to HR headaches, our readers say employment law issues take a back seat to run-of-the-mill gripes and clashes between co-workers.

Feds issue new tip credit pooling rules

06/03/2011
Employers are now free to set the percentage of employee tips that can be placed in a tip pool. In years past, several court decisions conflicted with the U.S. Department of Labor’s position restricting the amount of tips an employer could require to be pooled.

Just having a condition doesn’t confer ADA protection

06/03/2011
Some employees think that merely having a serious medical or mental condition is enough to warrant ADA protection. But that’s not true.

Some work at home doesn’t make commute paid

06/03/2011
Some hourly employees have begun to argue that if they begin the day with a few work emails, they should be paid for the time they spend commuting to work. Fortunately, a 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals panel has nixed that argument. Had the case gone the other way, employers could have faced huge bills for paid commuting time.

Backup withholding required even after W-9s are tossed

06/03/2011

You must backup withhold on payments made to independent contractors if they don’t certify their Taxpayer Identification Numbers to you prior to payment. Contractors may make those certifications by providing you with Form W-9, which you must keep for three years. Caution: You may want to retain these forms for longer than three years. Here’s why:

Timely mailing rule applies to package damaged in transit

06/03/2011
If you mail a tax-related document on the date it’s due, you’ll be considered to have timely filed it, according to the tax code’s timely-mailing-is-timely-filing rule. The same is true if the document isn’t delivered because the post office mangled it during processing.

Another Bride, Another Groom: An SSN Problem About to Loom?

06/02/2011
June is wedding month, which means name changes for brides who take their husbands’ names and couples who hyphenate their names. Reminder: Newlyweds must get replacement Social Security cards showing their new names.

Houston company faces class-action COBRA lawsuit

06/01/2011
A former employee of Brunel Energy Inc. is suing the company for failing to notify her of her right to maintain her health insurance coverage after she quit in 2010—and she has proposed making the case a class-action lawsuit that could involve hundreds of other former employees.

Cable installers will split $270,000 in back overtime pay

06/01/2011
Integral Devel­opment Solutions LLC, a Plano cable TV installation company, must pay $270,696 in back over­time to 114 workers it incorrectly classified as independent contractors instead of employees.