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Compensation & Benefits

Feel free to discipline or fire if it’s warranted — regardless of employee’s FMLA status

05/11/2010

Thanks to a recent 11th Circuit Court of Appeals decision, it’s now clear that Florida employers can terminate employees who have FMLA leave coming—if they can prove they would have terminated the employee anyway. To prove that, you must be able to produce solid documentation showing that you were indeed going to terminate the employee whether or not she asked for FMLA leave.

How should we treat pay for mortgage loan officers under the FLSA?

05/11/2010
Q. Do we have to pay our mortgage loan officers overtime for any hours worked over 40 in a week?

What must we do to accommodate a nursing mother in our workplace?

05/11/2010
Q. One of our employees just returned from maternity leave and is now requesting that we accommodate her need to pump breast milk during the workday. Do we have to make this accommodation?

Lowe’s to offer free employee health screenings

05/11/2010
Home improvement giant Lowe’s is offering free health screenings to its employees. Lowe’s partnerships with health care providers throughout New York mean employees will be able to get free checks of their blood pressure, total cholesterol, triglycerides, glucose, waist size, hip size, weight, height, body fat percentage and body-mass index.

OK to base pay on performance–without bias

05/11/2010

If you’re thinking about switching to a production-based compensation system that pays more to the most productive employees, don’t worry too much about the plan’s possible disparate impact on some groups. As long as you don’t use the system to discriminate against a particular group—or favor another—courts are unlikely to conclude that any uneven results were caused by discrimination.

Study: Employees’ ‘doctor shopping’ costs you big

05/10/2010
Injured employees sometimes go door-to-door seeking a sympathetic doctor who will provide a diagnosis to extend their workers’ comp benefits. A new Johns Hopkins University study shows how prevalent such “doctor shopping” is.

Can playing softball be working time?

05/08/2010
Question: According to the company grapevine, a couple of managers are pressuring their employees to attend and play on their softball teams at the company’s annual picnic. Would these employees need to be paid for this time?

Returning temps and the FMLA: What are our obligations as the client company?

05/06/2010
Q. A staffing agency has informed my company that a temporary worker who was previously assigned to us is returning from a leave under the FMLA. What are our obligations to this individual?

Lowe’s to offer free employee health screenings

05/06/2010
Home improvement giant Lowe’s is offering free health screenings to its employees. Lowe’s partnerships with health care providers throughout Texas mean employees will be able to get free checks of their blood pressure, total cholesterol, triglycerides, glucose, waist size, hip size, weight, height, body fat percentage and body-mass index.

Ledbetter timing applies to Texas cases, too

05/06/2010

Here’s a big new worry for Texas employers: Employees who want to sue over long-ago discriminatory pay decisions can do so within 180 days of the last discriminatory paycheck, at least according to one state appeals court. The 1st Court of Appeals has ruled that the federal Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act applies to discrimination cases under the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act as well as Title VII claims.