• The HR Specialist - Print Newsletter
  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
  • The HR Weekly

Employment Contracts

Terminations: 6 steps to ensure firing won’t backfire

07/01/2008
In most states, workers are employed on an “at will” basis, meaning they can leave the company at any time. Conversely, employers typically retain the right to terminate workers at any time for any legal, nondiscriminatory reason. Courts continue to chip away at the at-will doctrine, providing less flexibility to employers. This has led to an increase in wrongful discharge lawsuits …

HR Specialist Editors Bring You the Best from SHRM Chicago

06/24/2008
For a week each year, the Society for Human Resource Management’s Annual Conference becomes the center of the HR world. HR Specialist editors have joined 13,000 of our peers in Chicago this week for four days of professional development covering HR’s hottest topics and presented by the profession’s  leading experts. Here’s some of the best from the world’s biggest HR conference.

Sometimes settling a claim is the smartest thing to do

06/10/2008
Have you considered settling a claim instead of fighting it tooth and nail? Sometimes, that’s the smartest course of action—even if you believe your company didn’t do anything wrong. If you do decide to settle, make sure you ask your attorney to ensure that the terms and conditions are airtight …

Dealing with a fired employee who signed an arbitration agreement

06/03/2008
Q. All of our applicants sign an arbitration agreement. Recently, for the first time, an employee we fired (he had signed the agreement) had a lawyer send us a letter complaining about his termination. Can we use the agreement to prevent the employee from filing a claim for unemployment benefits or a charge of discrimination? …

Good news: Employees have just two years to file sales commission complaints

05/27/2008
It could have been the case that employer nightmares are made of—but the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals saved the day. Interpreting Indiana law, the federal court ruled that employees have just two years to sue over disputed sales commissions, not the 10 years a former employee argued for …

A settlement’s a settlement, court rules

05/27/2008
Once the legal bell tolls, you can’t un-ring it. So learned a South Bend educator who this spring sought to overturn an employment law settlement she had seemingly agreed to four years ago …

You can require employees to sign agreements to arbitrate employment disputes

05/27/2008
A federal court concluded that New Jersey contract law does allow employers to require employees to arbitrate most employment-related complaints. Plus, if an arbitration agreement contains terms that a court finds invalid, the court may throw those provisions out and still enforce the rest of the agreement …

U.S. Supreme Court rules on arbitration agreements

05/23/2008
The U.S. Supreme Court has handed down an opinion that may have important ramifications for employers and others who use arbitration agreements to resolve disputes. Although technically not an employment law case, the decision sets some important limits on how arbitration decisions are appealed …

Of MySpace & Money: Don’t try to muzzle millennials’ salary talk

05/13/2008

You’d never discuss how much money you make, right? Dude, that attitude is so 20th century! The 20-somethings you work with eagerly dish about salaries, bonuses and other work topics you might consider taboo. Managers tempted to forbid such talk? Don’t let them! Here’s why.

Stay out of court by giving copies of arbitration agreements to employees

05/06/2008
If you aren’t careful, arbitration agreements can leave your company paying more, not less. That can happen when employees file a federal lawsuit regardless of an agreement requiring arbitration. Then the court has to decide whether the arbitration agreement is valid …