HR Management

North Dakota first in 2014 job creation, riding oil boom

03/30/2015

Flush with oil and gas money, North Dakota led the nation in Gallup’s Job Creation Index last year. Of course, with energy prices tanking, it may not retain the top spot for long.

Your employee handbook: Helpful teacher … and scary betrayer

03/30/2015

Somewhere out there, there’s someone very unhappy that he either didn’t get the job he sought from you, or left on terms he didn’t get to dictate. Realizing there’s so little downside to suing an employer, he’ll soon identify one place he can cynically mine for loopholes that he and his lawyer can use to slam you. That place is your employee handbook.

Unless required, consider dropping drug tests

03/27/2015

For many employers interested in maintaining a safe and productive workplace, it doesn’t make sense to require pre-employment drug and alcohol screening or randomly make current employees provide urine or blood samples. That was the contrarian advice attorney James P. Reidy offered March 24 at the Society for Human Resource Management Employment Law & Legislative Conference.

Workplace suicide rate up

03/27/2015

Incidents of on-the-job suicide have increased since 2003, according to research by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Between 2003 and 2010, 1,719 suicides occurred at work.

1-Minute Strategies

03/25/2015

Here are quick tips on delegation, email organization, meeting prep and determining how assertive you are.

Social media prompts crime

03/25/2015

Employees who post details about your organization on social media make it vulnerable to criminals. You can mitigate the risk by following these tips.

If you provide on-site housing, any injuries may go beyond workers’ comp

03/23/2015

Some employers provide rental housing so employees can live near their work sites. If you do, be aware that employee injuries that happen near that housing can open a legal can of worms that will leave you wishing you only had to deal with a workers’ compensation claim.

The skills we believe our kids need to succeed

03/23/2015

Will my kid flourish by mastering the concrete details of math and science, or would she be better equipped in decades to come with well-honed intangibles, such as communication and teamwork? Or, more likely, will it be some combination of skills that proves most useful? That’s where respondents came down in a recent Pew Research Center survey.

Wellness: Big benefit or Big Brother?

03/19/2015

For several years, proponents have touted wellness programs’ success in lowering health care costs, decreasing absenteeism and raising employee morale. But those laudable goals haven’t insulated wellness programs from controversy.

Men finally regain jobs lost in Great Recession