Safety/Health

Feds propose new HIPAA privacy rules

07/13/2010

The Department of Health and Human Services has proposed new rules to strengthen HIPAA’s confidentiality and security measures. While your health insurance carrier will have primary responsibility for compliance, you need to be able to answer employees’ questions about their new privacy rights.

OSHA inspector on the way! How to prepare, how to respond

07/08/2010

An unexpected visit from an OSHA inspector is often unwelcome—and unsettling, too. But if you’ve taken the time to prepare, it need not be traumatic. Planning ahead will smooth the inspection process—and put you in control of it. Plus, being prepared may make a good impression on the inspector, which could lead to being cited for fewer violations.

OSHA: Employers must provide safety training in ‘language and vocabulary’ that worker understands

06/23/2010

Many government safety regulations require employers to give employees safety or health training. In May, OSHA issued an enforcement memo to its inspectors, directing them to verify that employers are giving such training, “using both a language and a vocabulary that the employee can understand.”

OSHA triples fines for serious safety violations

06/22/2010

Saying that the current limits don’t act as enough of a deterrent, OSHA is increasing penalties for serious safety violations. The new policy raises the average fine from about $1,000 to between $3,000 and $4,000 for a serious violation—one that could cause serious injury or death.

Firing? Back with complete discipline records

06/18/2010

Employers that keep careful track of which employees are disciplined—and for what reasons—have a leg up if they’re ever sued for discrimination. Before you terminate any employee, take the time to pull up all similar past disciplinary files. If those records show you fired other employees for identical or less-serious offenses, chances are no court will second-guess your decision in the latest case.

Don’t write a zero-tolerance violence policy unless you plan to apply it every time

06/07/2010

Many employers have adopted so-called zero-tolerance rules prohibiting any kind of violence at work. But be careful how you enforce the rule. If you ever make exceptions, you’ll be asking for a lawsuit. Instead, terminate violent employees promptly, as soon as you verify what happened.

New federal safety program starting in June increases enforcement, fines on repeat offenders

06/04/2010

If your organization has been hit with OSHA safety violations in the past, consider yourself on double-secret probation. The agency’s new Severe Violator Enforcement Program starting in June will call for “a more intense examination” of work sites where previous safety violations have been found.

Know the one key limit on at-will employment

06/02/2010

Because Texas is an “at-will” state, employers are generally free to fire employees for any reason or no reason. Of course, firing employees under circumstances that would be illegal under any specific employment law won’t fly. But other than that, there is only one other discharge reason that puts employees outside at-will employment: Employers can’t fire employees for refusing to perform an illegal act.

Cintas reaches settlement in employee’s accidental death

05/11/2010

Cincinnati-based uniform company Cintas will pay an employee’s widow for her husband’s workplace death. Eleazar Torres-Gomez was killed at the firm’s Tulsa, Okla., plant on March 6, 2007, when he fell into a dryer while trying to clear a conveyor belt jammed with wet laundry.

What has four legs and hurts your employees every day?

05/04/2010

Even for office workers who exercise regularly, spending most of the day sitting increases the risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and some cancers. Here are four easy ways your employees—and you—can beat that deadly workplace peril: the chair.