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HR Management

You can set weekly vacation rule, but should you?

02/01/2005

Q. I know we’re allowed to tell employees which months they can’t take vacations, but can we also require that vacations be taken only by the week, and not in daily, hourly or half-day increments? —P.A., Nebraska

Check state law before deducting cost of lost tools

02/01/2005

Q. We want to start a policy that would deduct the cost of tools from employees’ final paychecks if the tools aren’t returned or if they’re returned damaged. Can we legally do this? —M.P., Kansas

Poke holes in your absence policy before a court does

02/01/2005
Issue: How consistently do you treat employee absences?
Risk: Many organizations’ attendance policies, inadvertently or not, include legally risky doublespeak.
Action: Examine your policy, looking for contradictions and inconsistencies …

Turn to temporary managers to fill gaps and cut costs

02/01/2005
Issue: Temporary managers and executives can fill a short-term void and save money in the long run.
Benefit: Filling the right positions with interim replacements can enhance your reputation as …

Trim your 401(k) expenses by knowing what’s ‘average’

02/01/2005
Issue: Paying higher-than-average administrative costs for your organization’s 401(k) plan.
Risk: Smaller companies unwittingly shell out bigger fees.
Action: Don’t take 401(k) fees at face value; shop around and …

Work with managers to motivate part-time employees

02/01/2005
Issue: Improving the productivity of your part-time employees.
Risk: Part-timers often feel, and are sometimes treated, like second-class citizens, which can hurt their performance.
Action: Work with supervisors to …

Crank up retention efforts; 75 percent looking to jump ship

01/01/2005
If your organization’s turnover rate hasn’t picked up recently, it’s only a matter of time. That’s the message of
a new Society for Human Resource Management survey that says 75 …

Best benefits can be found in the public sector

01/01/2005
Possibly to offset lower salaries, jobs in the nonprofit and government sectors typically come with richer employee benefits than similar private-sector jobs, according to a new Mercer HR Consulting study. It …

Temps can no longer bargain alongside regular employees

01/01/2005
Good news for employers: A new National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling makes it much more difficult for temporary employees to join the same union as the organization’s permanent employees.
…

New Web site targets companies that have sent jobs packing

01/01/2005
The AFL-CIO is providing a new online soapbox for employees who’ve seen their jobs moved overseas. The union has launched a new Web page that lists 200,000 U.S. employers who have …