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Compensation & Benefits

SHRM survey: Employers set 2014 holiday schedules

11/28/2013
Most full-time employees (78%) will receive six to 10 paid holidays per year, while most part-time workers (51%) will receive up to five paid holidays per year, according to SHRM’s 2014 Holiday Schedules survey.

How should we handle time tracking for nonexempt telecommuters?

11/27/2013
Q. We try to be a flexible workplace and sometimes get requests from employees to work from home for a day or two during school breaks and so on. I don’t have a problem with this for exempt em­­ployees, but what about hourly ones? How do we track that time?

Supreme Court to rule on ACA contraceptive mandate

11/27/2013
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases arguing opposite sides of the debate on an ACA provision requiring employer-provided health insurance to cover birth control.

Penalties rival incentives as work health tactic

11/27/2013
Employers will use both carrots and sticks to keep workers healthier and stem the tide of higher health care costs, according to the 2013/2014 Towers Watson Staying@Work Survey.

High-level managers have pay discretion? You’re courting a class-action lawsuit

11/26/2013
Broad discretion about compensation at the bottom of the pay scale usually prevents employees from pursuing a class-action lawsuit similar to the one in the Supreme Court’s 2011 landmark Wal-Mart v. Dukes case. However, all bets are off if the issue is pay for higher-level employees.

IRS OKs dropping health FSA ‘use-it-or-lose-it’

11/26/2013
The IRS has announced that employers sponsoring health flexible spending arrangements can drop long-standing “use-it-or-lose-it” rules that require employees to forfeit FSA funds if they don’t claim reimbursements by the end of a plan year.

Don’t let year-end duties ruin your Thanksgiving dinner

11/25/2013
Take a few minutes now to run down this Payroll checklist and your Thanksgiving feast will be unperturbed.

Payroll 2014: You’ll withhold something, but what, exactly, we don’t know

11/22/2013
The shutdown of the federal government earlier this autumn meant that the IRS was very late in releasing the 2014 personal exemption amount, which doubles as the annual withholding allowance amount. Also late, but now in the bag: the 2014 amounts for qualified transportation fringes.

Ex-worker didn’t return property: Can we tap his PTO?

11/22/2013
Q. After an employee quit, he failed to return certain company property (badge, access card, etc.). Can we legally withhold his PTO balance because of this? 

Debt threatens employees’ readiness to retire

11/20/2013
In a recent survey of participants in employer-sponsored defined-contribution retirement plans, more than 60% of households reported that they are accumulating debt faster than they are saving for retirement. The culprit: credit card debt.