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Employee Relations

Encourage healthy behavior with wellness reminders

01/05/2009

A good wellness program can spur employees to ditch unhealthy behaviors, reducing their health care costs and helping them work more productively. But that’s only if they participate. Here are four ways your organization can bolster participation by improving the way it communicates wellness to employees.

3 ways HR can help employees cut their health care costs

01/05/2009

As the economy worsens, rising health costs are driving more employees to cut their own spending on medical care. Here are three ways your organization can keep workers focused on their health even as they skimp on expenses …

Make sure employees understand the value of their benefits

01/05/2009

Boosting your benefits communication during troubled economic times can help your organization retain good employees and ease their worries so they can focus on work. The key: Show employees the value of their benefits.

Career mentors help colleagues who are attending school

01/05/2009

Mercy Health System in Janesville, Wis., pays up to $3,000 per employee for college tuition, and $1,000 more if the employee works with an in-house mentor for up to three years.

Consumer-driven health plans keep growing

01/05/2009

In their efforts to control health care costs, 45% of organizations have consumer-driven health (CDH) plans, up from 37% in 2007. Among them, 16% offer CDH programs to employees as their only option for a health plan …

Promote civility, but watch for discrimination

01/05/2009

How much effort should the HR office put into getting everyone to get along? The best approach is to let employees handle most social conflicts among themselves—as long as there are no overt signs of discrimination.

Are you prepared to follow the new FMLA regulations?

01/05/2009

On Jan. 16, the U.S. Department of Labor’s new FMLA regulations became effective. The most significant changes were to the regulatory scheme for handling employee leave certifications and medical documentation.

2 government workers charged in online sex flap

01/05/2009

Christopher Johnson, academic advisor at Ohio State University’s School of Nursing, and Vanise Dunn, a child sex-abuse caseworker at Franklin County Children Services, were placed on administrative leave following criminal charges of participating in a prostitution ring.

State snoopers disciplined for ‘Joe the Plumber’ inquiries

01/05/2009

Three top managers at the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services were suspended without pay for using state databases to spy on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher of “Joe the Plumber” fame.

Free laptops result in fewer snow days

01/05/2009

Standard & Poor’s has come up with a solution to snow days for employees of its Centennial, Colo., office: laptops. The credit ratings firm gives a laptop computer to any Centennial employee who wants to work from home during foul weather.