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  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
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Joseph Beachboard

Do former employees have the right to demand copies of their personnel files?

07/24/2012

Q. We recently fired an employee who worked in our office. Several weeks later, our HR department received a phone call from the man demanding a copy of his personnel file. Are we required to send him a copy?

Can former part-timers collect unemployment?

07/24/2012

Q. Our company received a claim for unemployment compensation from one of our former part-time employees. Are part-time employees eligible to receive unemployment benefits?

Can you explain California’s alphabet soup of paid family leave laws?

06/20/2012
Q. What are the differences between FMLA leave, CFRA leave and PFL?

How far must we go to accommodate employees’ unusual religious beliefs?

06/20/2012
Q. We have an employee who claims to be a witch. She contends that witchcraft is her religion and has asked for certain holidays off. Are we required to accommodate this employee’s request?

When computing employee pay, are we allowed to round off employee working hours?

06/20/2012
Q. My company uses a time clock to track the hours of nonexempt employees. When we determine the wages to be paid to employees, can we round up or down to the nearest five-minute increment?

What are the pay rules when we have to close because of an emergency?

05/18/2012

Q. Our offices were closed due to a phoned-in bomb threat. As a result, we were forced to send home all our employees. Do we need to pay employees for showing up to work that day?

How does PTO affect terminations?

05/18/2012

Q. We are considering replacing sick leave and vacation benefits with a paid time off (PTO) program. How are these plans treated upon the termination or resignation of an employee?

How should we manage unused vacation?

04/19/2012

Q. Several of our employees have compiled a lot of vacation time. Is there any way we can manage how much vacation leave time our employees accrue?

What are the rules for unpaid internships?

04/19/2012

Q. Our company has received a number of résumés from college students interested in working as unpaid interns for us during the summer months. Would hiring such unpaid internships violate federal or state laws?

Is there a grace period for paying overtime?

03/19/2012
Q. We couldn’t obtain the amount of overtime one of our employees worked in time to include payment for those hours in the current payroll period. We understand that untimely payment of wages could expose our company to penalties. May we issue a paycheck to the employee for his regular hours worked and include his overtime payment in the following pay period?