Coming in June: Strategic Compensation with Sharon Koss

By Staff Writer

How do you push for better compensation planning at your company? How can you analyze your company’s current compensation philosophy, improve it and then communicate those improvements to upper management?

Summertime Blues: When Unpaid Internships Turn Into Wage Claims

Pop Quiz! If you are a “for-profit” employer with unpaid employees called “Summer Interns,” you better make sure the internship passes muster with the Department of Labor lest you be the unwary object of claims for unpaid wages and overtime. Get your No. 2 pencils out for this internship pop quiz:

DOL to Give Intern Pay Practices Closer Look Q&A

If you are hiring interns to work for you this summer, be aware that the DOL may be scrutinizing your pay practices. So, be sure you either pay them as employees or are able to prove that they meet the criteria for unpaid interns.

Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act Tax Incentives to Spur Job Growth

On March 18, 2010, President Obama signed into law a $17.5 billion dollar jobs bill entitled the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act. This bill includes a number of government incentives for hiring, including tax cuts, business credits and subsidies for state and local construction bonds, and moves an additional $20 billion into the highway trust fund for new spending on highway and transit programs. The HIRE Act is aimed at providing hiring incentives for employers to restore some of the jobs lost during “the great recession.”

How to Have Tough Conversations with Employees

Your employee was twenty minutes late to their shift on Monday and now it’s Thursday and it’s 15 minutes after they were supposed to arrive. They’re not around. You like this employee and have enjoyed their contributions. How can you have a conversation with them that will get them back on track and in the company’s good graces? This is a moment where knowing how to communicate effectively with staff and confronting difficult employees can help you get your job done.

An Employer’s View of Health Care Reform and What’s Next

Governor Schwarzenegger calls it “a good law.”

Attorneys General from several states claim it’s unconstitutional.

Whatever you have to say about it, Health Care Reform legislation is changing the face of health care for employers, big and small. The following list will give you a head’s up regarding some of the big changes coming in the next two years, and what you need to know from an employer’s view of healthcare reform. As a general proposition, health care reform will eventually require most individuals to get health insurance or pay a penalty. But what is going to happen this year and the next?

The Case for Using a Standard Employment Application Form

Do you have a standard employment application form that you require all candidates to fill out? If you do not, you should consider using one.

Most employers use application forms to solicit information that may be missing from applicants’ resumes and to establish a single, uniform document for all job candidates or groups of candidates. Standardizing the type of hiring information gathered makes it easier to compare job candidates objectively and can help protect you from discrimination claims.

Stretching Strategies for Managing Stress in the Workplace

Are your employees feeling stressed in the workplace? Hopefully, you are starting to lay the groundwork for a corporate wellness program but, in the meantime, your employees can access free stress management in the workplace articles and reliable website resources now.

Your Loyal Employees: Reasons to Hire Ex-Felons

After leaving my last position as a human resource manager for an online health organization, I never would have imagined where I would end up next. Possibly another HR job for another corporation or an office manager position at a law firm? Nope, I currently work for a federal work release program in the state of Washington. This is a residence hall where certain federal prison inmates, if selected, will come to finish off approximately four to six months of their federal sentence. While they live at work release, they are in the process of rebuilding their lives, connecting with support systems such as their families and loved ones, finding places to live, and most importantly, finding work.