Category: HR Management & Compliance

There are dozens of details to take care of in the day-to-day operation of your department and your company. We give you case studies, news updates, best practices and training tips that keep your organization fully in compliance with ever-changing employment law, and you fully aware of emerging HR trends.

disability insurance

Update Your Disability Benefits Claims and Appeals Procedures Before 2018 Deadline

HR employees typically begin planning for next year before autumn of the current year because choices about the next year’s benefits are made months before it begins. Whether you’re making many or few changes to the benefits you offer, your preparations for open enrollment provide a good opportunity to confirm that your benefits plans are […]

performance review

Performance Management: Who’s in the Driver’s Seat at Your Organization?

Few institutional practices are as old, or have been hated as long, as the performance review. Job ratings were used (and criticized) in China as early as the third century; in the early 1800s, an owner of cotton mills in Scotland hung color-coded wooden blocks over employees’ workstations to indicate their merit. The bureaucratic corporate […]

How FLSA Public Employer and Employee Coverage Differs from Private

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) defines an employer to include “any person acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to an employee,” including a public agency. Unlike most other federal employment laws, employers do not need to employ a threshold number of employees to be covered. Instead, specific criteria […]

Farm Trips for Employees Are ‘Life-Changing’

Yesterday we looked at how Keurig Green Mountain strives to be one of the best places to work. One of the ways Keurig Green Mountain boosts engagement is sending employees on “source trips” to coffee-growing nations to see the company’s supply chain for themselves. Employees have described the experience as life-changing. Steve Bruce, host of […]

Trump administration expands exemptions to ACA contraceptive mandate

On October 6, the Trump administration released two interim final rules that will vastly expand the availability of exemptions to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) rules requiring employer coverage of contraceptives. The ACA requires employers and insurers that offer group health plans to employees to cover certain approved contraceptive methods—at no additional cost to employees—or […]

age discrimination

7th Circuit: No ADEA Liability for Terminating Retirees Because of Benefit Costs

The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals—which covers Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin—recently decided an interesting and complex case involving allegations of age discrimination. Retirees who continued to work part-time for an Indiana county argued the county violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) when it terminated them to save money on health insurance benefits.

The Latest Business Practice: Relaxing Standards

Maybe you’ve started to notice it at local businesses you frequent. The cashier at the supermarket looks unkempt. The new receptionist at the salon has no customer service skills. You thank the waiter for bringing the check, but he doesn’t thank you.

HRWorks Sits Down with Keurig Green Mountain Coffee

Keurig Green Mountain Coffee, known as a “Best Place to Work,” offers all employees 52 hours each year for volunteer work; plus, the company runs additional companywide volunteerism opportunities. Steve Bruce, host of BLR’s popular podcast, HR Works, recently interviewed three Keurig Green Mountain employees about the volunteer programs. Here’s a transcript: