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HR Management

Attract and keep great employees with these 5 ‘Best practices’ benefits

10/23/2007

As the HR profession celebrates National Work and Family Month—you knew October was National Work and Family Month, didn’t you?—it’s time to stock up on innovative benefits ideas from U.S. employers. From wellness incentives to “future leave,” these best practices help attract and retain great workers …

Drug-Resistant superbugs: How to protect your work force

10/23/2007

An easily acquired staph infection called MRSA now causes more deaths per year than AIDS—19,000 people in 2005. HR can play an important role in minimizing the very real risk of MRSA infection at work. The best prevention: cleanliness. Here’s how.

Recognize any of these 6 supervisor profiles?

10/23/2007

The hard-driving, ruthless boss may fit the stereotype of today’s most successful corporate executive. But the most effective workplace leaders are honest, caring  and flexible. Six profiles show the full spectrum of supervisory skill—as rated by employees.

Judge Stops Implementation of ‘No-Match’ rules

10/11/2007

A federal judge has stopped implementation of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) new rules on how employers should respond to “no-match” letters. Now unless the judge rules differently at trial, it’s back to square one for DHS.

HR tracking system helps ensure equal treatment

10/01/2007

When it comes to discrimination, your best defense is treating everyone absolutely equally. And that’s tough to do without a central HR tracking system. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Make sure you note any problems (and praise) in each employee’s official file. Then, do regular audits—pulling out data on age, sex, national origin and race—to tabulate the types of problems and any discipline levied …

Gourmet dining room keeps meal costs down

10/01/2007

You won’t catch employees of the Washington, DC-based American Enterprise Institute (AEI) brown-bagging it for lunch. Instead, they can enjoy three-course gourmet meals served in a top-floor dining room for just $4 …

Is mortgage meltdown affecting your employees, applicants?

10/01/2007

Recently, more and more Georgia homeowners are having trouble paying their mortgages. In fact, Georgia is in the top five states for foreclosures this year. And that’s driving down home prices, as foreclosed properties flood the Georgia market, especially in the Atlanta metro area. Here’s why that’s important for employers …

Exempt or nonexempt? Analyze your staff before a court does

10/01/2007

When a new position is created, HR professionals typically make a snap decision on a vital issue: whether the person filling it should be deemed exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act—i.e., they’re not eligible for overtime pay—or whether they’re nonexempt—i.e., eligible for time-and-a-half overtime pay. In many cases, that’s the last time the exempt versus nonexempt decision is ever reviewed for that employee. Not smart …

No immunity for failure to protect kids from sexual abuse

10/01/2007

Does your public-service agency work with minors? If so, you should be aware that the agency isn’t immune from liability if employees sexually abuse those minors. That’s yet another reason to carefully supervise any employee who has contact with vulnerable populations as part of their work …

Need to know: Avoid promising 100% secrecy

10/01/2007

HR often has vague policies for when they’ll share an employee’s confidential information. Fact: You can’t always promise an employee that her conversation with HR will be confidential.