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Wages & Hours

The HR I.Q. Test: August ’09

07/17/2009

Test your knowledge of recent trends in employment law, comp & benefits and other HR issues with our monthly mini-quiz …

Reducing salaries and hours: How to document?

07/17/2009

Q. We’ve reduced the salaries of our exempt employees and told them to work only 36 hours each week. Still, however, many of those employees continue to work 40 or more hours per week. Exempt employees feel uncomfortable documenting 36 hours, when, in actuality, they’ve worked many more hours than that. Should we ask exempt employees to document hours that are not necessarily true?

Job tasks changing? Don’t forget the FLSA

07/13/2009

Employees whose job tasks have changed may now be wrongly classified as exempt from overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act. That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen, one that could quickly eat up any temporary savings you’re trying to achieve—especially if it turns into a class-action suit.

Just-departed worker owes us money: Can we dock (or withhold) his final paycheck?

07/08/2009

Q. One of my employees who recently quit has failed to pay back a personal charge he made on our corporate credit card. Can I simply deduct the amount of the charge from his last paycheck or withhold his final paycheck until he pays for the charge?

Lawsuit: Minnesota strippers shouldn’t ‘pay for the pole’

07/08/2009

Exotic dancers at suburban Minneapolis’ King of Diamonds club pay the club a fee of $20 to $100 every night they work. King of Diamonds maintains the dancers are independent contractors and “pay for the pole” in order to earn tips. The club does not pay them an hourly wage. Attorney E. Michelle Drake sees things differently.

Funny thing about noncompetes: They protect employees, too

07/08/2009

Rather than trying to wage a court fight over what increasingly looked like a losing battle, a local company has decided to settle with an employee who sued to enforce a noncompete agreement he had signed.

Could someone who doesn’t work here possibly sue us for discrimination?

07/08/2009

Q. I have heard about a new federal law that makes it possible for a nonemployee to sue our company for discrimination. Is that correct? How could such a claim come up and is there anything we can do about it?

12 tips to help employees handle the stress of tough times

07/06/2009

Layoffs, pay cuts and an uncertain economy have left many organizations with fewer employees to do the work—often for the same or less money. Not all of those employees are handling it well. Here are a dozen ways you can deal with economy-induced employee stress and help your employees focus on their work:

Keep superstars on board with sabbaticals—even during tough times

07/06/2009

During a time of layoffs and budget cuts, you might not think a lot of organizations would be encouraging their employees to take lengthy sabbaticals—or that employees would feel secure enough to accept the offer. Yet six-week to six-month job pauses remain as common as ever. There are good reasons why the sabbatical is enduring even as other benefits become expendable.

Deployed employees keep benefits at Michigan military contractor

07/06/2009

Over the past five years, 74 of government contractor ArvinMeritor’s 525 employees have taken military leaves of absence—and most of them got to keep most of their employee benefits while they were gone. The Troy, Mich.-based firm pays the difference between military pay and the employee’s salary so the family can maintain its standard of living while a spouse is deployed.