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FLSA

Employees’ pockets picked while being frisked?

03/04/2011
Employees at Century 21 Department Stores in New York City and Long Island undergo searches every time they leave the store for breaks and at the end of the day. They say the process sometimes takes 15 minutes or longer. The problem: Century 21 makes them clock out first. Employees say that violates the FLSA.

Will bonuses affect employees’ ‘regular rate’ when calculating overtime pay under the FLSA?

03/04/2011
Q. We want to offer incentive bonuses to hourly workers in order to increase business and productivity. Will these bonuses affect the employees’ “regular rate” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for purposes of overtime calculation?

Welcome to HR Professionals Week: Monday, Feb. 28

02/28/2011
Welcome to HR Professionals Week, the second annual celebration of the people who make America’s workplaces productive, successful and fulfilling. Each day this week, we’re presenting a virtual gift basket of free skill-building training tools! Just click on the links to download!

$1 million more in OT for Fort Irwin contractors

02/24/2011
Login Email Address Password I forgot my password To continue reading this page, become an HR Specialist Premium Plus member today! Your subscription includes: Ask the Attorney: Answers to your HR legal questions Compliance Guidance: Access to 7,000 HR news articles, updated daily, sorted by state State-by-State: Summaries of HR laws in all 50 states […]

Should we pay for training time?

02/23/2011
Q. Occasionally, we offer in-house training and development programs for our employees. The training is strictly voluntary and isn’t conducted during normal working hours. Our company has never paid employees for the time spent attending such training. Is that legal?

OT would have been cheaper: L.A. company owes $3.2 million

02/23/2011
Los Angeles sportswear manufacturer Tapout would have been better off paying up in the first place. All former employee Michelle Thomas originally wanted was overtime pay and some disputed commissions she said she had earned. But now that a California Superior Court jury in L.A. has ruled, Tapout is on the hook for $3.2 million, including $2.4 million in punitive damages.

What keeps HR awake at night?

02/22/2011
Rising health care costs, implementing the new health care reforms, rapidly changing business and labor markets, growing regulatory complexity and managing the aging workforce top the list of challenges HR pros face. That’s what the Society for Human Resource Management found when it surveyed more than 9,000 practitioners.

Make the independent contractor vs. employee decision before you bring person on board

02/22/2011
Make sure you make the employee-or-contractor call before you hire an employee. Don’t assume you can make the designation later. That usually won’t work. And you probably won’t even discover the problem until it’s too late to fix it—when a terminated worker files an overtime lawsuit.

How can I discipline exempt staff for poor work?

02/15/2011
Q. After the holidays, our hourly employees returned to pre-holiday productivity. But our exempt employees didn’t. What can I do since their salaries aren’t dependent on how many hours they work?

Florida sued over floating minimum wage calculations

02/14/2011
In 2004, state voters approved linking the minimum wage to inflation. All went well for a few years, but now a lawsuit says the state got the math wrong two years ago.