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

Compensation & Benefits

Salaries flat in ’19, budgets increasing less than 3%

08/21/2018
As the job market continues to tighten, you’d think employers’ wallets would loosen up. But that’s not happening, at least not for broad increases in salary budgets.

Employee gets to prove OT claim, employer’s willfulness

08/16/2018
“I didn’t know an employee worked overtime” won’t get you far if a manager flouts the overtime rules, a federal trial court has held. Worse: The court is letting a jury decide whether the employer acted willfully when it failed to pay overtime to the employee.

How to successfully navigate payroll overpayments

08/16/2018
Recouping overpayments from employees can be a good experience, but often isn’t. Here’s some guidance from Barbara Youngman and LaTisha O’Neal to attendees at the American Payroll Association’s 36 Annual Congress in May.

Employees losing ground as inflation outstrips wage growth

08/14/2018
The “real wage” metric the federal government uses to gauge the average American’s take-home pay fell 2 cents in the last year, to $10.76 per hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Sell employees on benefits of HDHP/HSAs

08/14/2018
As you evaluate your health insurance options for the upcoming benefits year, you may be considering whether to offer high-deductible health plans, coupled with health savings accounts. HDHP/HSAs are a combination that can save big bucks for employers and employees alike.

IRS releases 2019 inflation adjustments for HDHP/HSAs

08/14/2018
The IRS has announced the 2019 inflation-adjusted figures for high-deductible health plans and health savings accounts.

Navigating Minnesota’s 3 paid sick and safe time laws

08/08/2018
Duluth recently became the third Minnesota city to enact a paid sick and safe time ordinance, following the lead of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. The ordinance differs in key ways from its Twin Cities cousins’.

Workers’ comp claims get expensive when more than one employer is involved

08/08/2018
The Minnesota Supreme Court has clarified the conditions under which an attorney representing an injured worker can obtain additional attorneys’ fees.

New tip rules: Prepare for a deep dive into the tip pool

08/06/2018
Employers have long been allowed to pay tipped employees less than the usual minimum wage. In some industries, tips have traditionally been pooled, so “back-of-the-house” staff can share in customers’ generosity. But the informality of tipping means it is a surprisingly complicated wage-and-hour issue.

Ensure employees know of retirement plan rollover rules change

08/06/2018
As a result of a provision in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the rollover distribution rules are now more relaxed for rollovers of defaulted loans resulting from plan terminations or a participant’s failure to repay a loan upon severance from employment.