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

HR Management

Stay distant from voluntary-benefits vendors

08/01/2005
There are many upsides to offering voluntary benefits such as long-term care insurance, prepaid legal services and pet insurance. However, if you link such programs too closely with your regular benefit plan, your organization could incur liability. Here are three ways to keep your distance.

Always verify FMLA eligibility before approving leave

08/01/2005
Issue: Courts won’t look kindly on employers that OK an employee’s FMLA leave but then change their minds.
Risk: In such cases, courts could grant FMLA rights even if the …

Adapt technology to disabled staff … within your means

08/01/2005
Issue: Various new technologies allow disabled people to be productive at work.
Risk: Courts say employers must provide such adaptive technologies in line with their resources.
Action: Here’s how …

Warn travelers to look for hotel-bill mistakes

08/01/2005
A remarkable 11.6 percent of hotel invoices include billing mistakes, resulting in U.S. travelers’ overpaying for rooms by a half-billion dollars each year, according to Wichita-based Corporate Lodging Consultants. On average, …

Apply now for a ‘dot-jobs’ recruiting Web address

08/01/2005
You can now simplify your online recruiting process by registering for an Internet address that ends in “.jobs.” The .jobs domain was approved earlier this year and SHRM announced that registration …

Benchmark your recruiting site: 4 questions to ask

08/01/2005
Issue: Your Web site’s “Career” page is the first (or only) experience that many potential applicants have with your organization.
Risk: Blow this opportunity, as many do, and those star …

Don’t let e-mail mistakes kill your attorney/client privilege

08/01/2005
Issue: Protect your right to keep communications between the organization and its attorney secret.
Risk: By misdirecting e-mail messages meant for your attorney, you can wipe out that attorney/client privilege. …

Employees waste twice as much time as you think

08/01/2005
HR professionals assume that employees, on average, waste 56 minutes per day at work. But the truth is that U.S. employees admit to squandering more than two hours a day, says …

HIPAA Rules Aren’t Just For Doctors and Hospitals

08/01/2005

Q. I’d like to know if our company needs something like a HIPAA form for employees to sign when we release personal information to others. Is HIPAA only for the medical field? —B.B., New York

Leave-deduction option isn’t enough to destroy exempt status

08/01/2005
One of the biggest pitfalls with the Fair Labor Standards Act is the salary trap. FLSA entitles exempt employees to their entire regular salary in any week they are ready, willing …