10/24/2008
North Carolina teachers reporting to school this fall found their state-awarded bonuses cut by 30%. Hundreds appealed to state Sen. Steve Goss, a former teacher, for help.
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10/06/2008
Texas has a large number of Spanish-speaking residents, and a workforce that can effectively communicate with those residents can be a prized commodity. But before you thrust additional work on Hispanic employees who can communicate with customers who don’t speak English well, consider the following case ...
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09/25/2008
Difficult times call for compensation professionals to make difficult decisions. If your average raise is 3.8% and you give it to everyone, your stars are going to look for a bigger bite somewhere else. In fact, they already are. To retain your top talent, you’re going to have to give them bigger-than-average raises ...
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09/05/2008
While USERRA may be comprehensive and quite broad, there is at least one area that courts seem willing to concede can be changed. The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has recently ruled that employees and employers who agree to arbitrate disputes can include USERRA claims in that arbitration agreement ...
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09/05/2008
Does your organization have arbitration agreements in place for some employees, but not others? Then make sure you keep careful track of whose cases should go to arbitration and whose should not. If one of your employees sues in court, you may lose the right to arbitration if you don’t object to the lawsuit quickly ...
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09/05/2008
If your organization has plenty of employees, but not enough of the skilled workers critical to surviving a down business cycle, you’re going to have to change your compensation plan. Three changes pave the way—finally!—for a pay-for-performance system that works.
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08/28/2008
Despite the economic gloom dominating the headlines, three new national salary surveys predict that U.S. employers will generally hold salary increases steady in 2009. The surveys predict that employers will award average pay increases at or near 3.8% next year, nearly identical to raises given during 2008 and 2007. But smart employers aren’t handing out 3.8% across the board ...
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08/13/2008
A woman who once earned millions each year as an oil trader for BP America has filed a sex discrimination lawsuit against the company. Alison Myers alleges BP gave a prime piece of business to a less experienced male trader and ultimately fired her when she complained ...
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08/12/2008
Despite the economic gloom that’s dominated the headlines for the last year, there’s a ray of hope for employees—and perhaps a sign that employers are bullish on business prospects for 2009. A pair of new surveys shows that employers are proceeding with plans to pay their workers more next year.
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08/12/2008
Q. Is it possible for an employer in Minnesota to enter into an enforceable noncompete agreement with an existing employee? ...
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08/08/2008
When it comes to calculating the exact cost of failing to pay employees correctly, many employers forget to add in the winning employee’s attorneys’ fees. In many cases, it pays to settle such cases early on because the tab for the other side’s attorney can quickly grow very large ...
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07/08/2008
A group of Minnesota employers is piloting a pay-for-performance program to combat employee depression. The program is sponsored by the Buyers Health Care Action Group (BHCAG) ...
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07/03/2008
A bank teller who makes a career at Tampa, Fla.-based Amscot Financial is likely to wind up as a manager or executive. The consumer-oriented financial services company keeps employees by making it a policy to promote. “Every key position is filled with someone from within,” CEO Fraser MacKechnie says ...
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07/01/2008
Q. We are a small company that has to aggressively market ourselves to our customers in order to compete with larger suppliers. To protect our client base, our COO wants to require our sales force to sign a noncompete/
nonsolicitation agreement. If we want our salespeople to sign off on a noncompete agreement, do we have to give them anything in exchange, like a bonus? ...
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07/01/2008
It seems inevitable. Anytime you award variable bonuses to some employees, there’s apt to be some grumbling from those who got less or nothing at all. But if you make sure to base bonus calculations on reasonable and legitimate business reasons, that grumbling won’t turn into a lawsuit you lose ...
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