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Compensation & Benefits

Deploy me to my happy place: U.S. military beats top firms

11/17/2010
Members of the U.S. armed forces are happier with their work than employees of top companies such as Johnson & Johnson, General Electric, Microsoft and Disney. So says a new survey by online career-guidance web site CareerBliss.com.

What hours can young teenagers work?

11/15/2010
Q. We have several employees who are 14 and 15 years old. Could you provide the specifics of the new regulations the U.S. Department of Labor recently issued relating to the work hours for these employees?

11 steps help make flexible work a success

11/15/2010
The DOL’s Women’s Bureau has started what it calls “a national dialogue on workplace flexibility,” and the agency is pushing employers to focus more on the work/life benefits of flex. Here are 11 steps you can take to make flex programs more successful—making work/life balance easier for your employees and improving your overall business operations:

Drivers get personal thank-yous from CEO

11/12/2010

Drivers who work for Fort Smith, Ark.-based ABF got personal thank-you notes from the CEO during National Truck Driver Appreciation Week in September. “Each of ABF’s employees contributes to the success of our company by working together as a team, and it doesn’t go unnoticed,” says CEO Wes Kemp.

Make choice up front: Employee or contractor?

11/11/2010

Adding staff? Decide up front if you want an employee or an independent contractor. Under the FLSA and state law, you must pay overtime to nonexempt employees. Not so for independent contractors. Make the employee-or-contractor call well before you bring someone on board. Don’t assume you can make the designation later. That usually won’t work.

Checking e-mail after hours: Should we pay?

11/11/2010
Q. Several nonexempt employees have smartphones. Do we have to pay them for the time they check work e-mail at home?

Pay cut may be legit reason to quit, collect unemployment

11/11/2010
To deal with a down economy, employers sometimes cut employee pay. A significant pay reduction may be grounds for an employee to quit and collect unemployment.

Don’t automatically concede unemployment to top execs

11/11/2010
Not every employee who loses a job through no fault of his own is eligible for unemployment compensation. About 40 job classifications are ineligible—most of them highly compensated or policy-making positions.

3M will steer retirees off its health plan, into Medicare

11/11/2010

Citing a projected rise in health insurance costs following enactment of the health care reform law, 3M has announced it will soon drop retirees from its own health coverage and instead pay them to sign onto Medicare-backed insurance.

Employee leave: Paid holidays trends for 2011

11/11/2010

Even though the economic climate remains tenuous, most employers will continue to offer the same number of paid holidays to employees in 2011 as in past years, says a new Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) survey. Here is the breakdown of each holiday …