Policies / Handbooks

Dress Codes

12/01/2014

HR Law 101: Workplace dress codes touch on a variety of issues, including workplace safety, freedom of speech, personal hygiene, customer relations, religious freedom, the minimum wage and racial and gender stereotypes. Employers have a number of legitimate reasons for imposing a dress code, but court rulings have limited their options…

Benefits: Should we put details in the employee handbook or the Summary Plan Description?

11/27/2014

Q. Should a small business employee handbook include a safe-harbor clause under the benefits section for their 401k plan? In the past, the benefits information in the handbook has been limited because it can change so often. Instead, the handbook just points the employee to the summary plan documents.

Bring Your Own Disaster? Delete legal risks with a smart BYOD policy

11/24/2014

Surveys consistently show that employees who work in a flexible workplace are happier and more productive. As a result, BYOD programs have taken off. BYOD programs do, however, come with greater information security concerns and legal risks.

How to weather winter, HR’s busiest season

11/19/2014

From establishing inclement weather policies to rethinking year-end bonuses, check out our guide to surviving the cold and the unexpected.

Unwritten rules: Flex benefits depend on informal policies

11/19/2014

Most employers allow some kind of flexible working arrangement. However, that’s often due to casual agreements between bosses and workers. Informal flex deals are more common than formal policies.

HIPAA: Compliance Rules

11/15/2014

HR Law 101: The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 made changes to three areas of the continuing-coverage rules that apply to group health plans under COBRA …

Study: Men value work flexibility, too

11/10/2014

For years, conventional wisdom held that women far more than men took advantage of flexible working arrangements to balance work/life responsibilities. Now comes a new study revealing that male employees feel equally empowered to use programs that allow flexibility in how, when and where work happens.

Replace Ebola panic with solid plan to deal with epidemics

11/05/2014

The threat of an Ebola outbreak has dominated the news for months. With the possible exceptions of health care-related organizations, it’s unlikely that most employers will ever have to deal with the disease. However, it’s a timely reminder that even relatively common maladies (such as the flu) can wreak havoc on business operations.

Should your no-smoking policy ban e-cigarettes?

10/31/2014

While they differ from traditional cigarettes in some fundamental ways, many employers are faced with a dilemma in terms of how to treat e-cigarettes in policy and in practice.

How do we rein in our staff on social media?

09/19/2014

Q. What are the rules and laws about social media? We have employees who have generated Facebook pages with our company name. They are also posting information that we are not ready to publish—such as the opening of another store in a new city.