Can You Keep a Secret in Human Resources?
Daniel Schwartz, Connecticut Employment Law Blog
“Earlier this month, The New York Times ran another column in its Workalogist series that asked the following question: “Are conversations with a human resources department confidential? I’m contemplating retirement in about three years and would like to gather benefit information from human resources now — but I do not want my supervisor to know. Once I decide, I would like to give three weeks’ notice.“
The FMLA Marriage Penalty: When Spouses Work for the Same Employer
Jeff Nowak, FMLA Insights
“One FMLA rule that tends to fly under the radar is the amount of FMLA leave available to married couples who work for the same employer.
Under 29 CFR 201(b), married couples in this situation can be required to share a combined 12 weeks of FMLA leave in two circumstances: To bond with their new child; or To care for their own parent with a serious health condition … How Does This Work in Practice?”
Four Employee Retention Strategies For The Modern Workplace
Kathryn Minshew, Fast Company
“As is widely understood, younger workers now expect to jump from one job to the next many times over the course of their careers, and for employers, that continual infusion of new blood can be a good thing. But in other cases, bleeding talent is just bleeding talent. The fact is that employees have largely evolved beyond the retention strategies many of their employers have had in place for decades. It’s time to do some catching up. Here are four simple strategies for keeping employees you like by making a few key changes to your work culture.”
5 Keys to Building a Successful Active Threat Plan
Jay Hart, Security Magazine
As the national conversation regarding violence in the workplace suggests a heightened awareness stemming from increased media coverage, recent studies suggest there may be statistical evidence supporting this perceived frequency. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about five percent of all businesses experience an instance of workplace violence each year. For larger organizations with over 1,000 employees, this rate is increased tenfold to 50 percent. A 2014 report from the FBI found active shooter incidents in the U.S. now occur on an average of once a month. Of these incidents, almost (45.6 percent) occurred at a business while nearly a quarter (24.4 percent) occurred at Pre-K to 12 schools and institutions of higher learning.
Although active threats and the environments where they take place can vary from incident to incident, the common threads found throughout can be woven together to create the fabric of an effective and successful safety program. The following are lessons learned gleaned from past experience that businesses can use as tools for building a solid foundation for a safety-minded workplace.
Related: What Can Employers Do About Gun Violence In The Workplace
Gaining an Edge via Mentoring
Dave Shadovitz, HRE Daily
Few of you, I’m sure, need to be convinced of the value of mentoring. But are certain workforce demographics more likely to gain from a formal mentoring program than others?
Well, according to a recent paper titled “Network Intervention: A Field Experiment to Assess the Effects of Formal Mentoring on Workplace Networks,” published in a recent edition of Social Forces, the answer is yes, assuming we’re talking about gender.
Why It’s So Hard to Fire an Abusive Prison Guard
Tom Robbins, The Marshall Project
Since 2010, the state has sought to fire 30 prison guards accused of abusing inmates through a convoluted arbitration process that is required under the union contract. Officials have prevailed only eight times, according to records of disciplinary cases released under state Freedom of Information Law requests. Those records show that most abuse allegations never reach the arbitration level: Another 80 cases brought against corrections officers, sergeants and lieutenants since 2010 were settled directly with their unions for penalties other than dismissal, such as suspension.
What’s Your Grief
This is a website and blog about grief founded by mental health professionals with experience in grief and bereavement. The site mission is described as promoting “grief education, exploration, and expression in both practical and creative ways. We aim to provide the public with education.” The authors also say:
” … grief is a complex, heavy, frustrating, scary, enormous…ahem, big topic. It starts with a death and envelopes everyone from family to friends, to friends of family and friends. Not only is grief an emotional, logistical, and existential nightmare, but it is taxing. It requires us to navigate a world without someone important, deal with complex feelings and emotions, and figure out ways to move forward when everything seems kind of bleak.”
We think it’s a helpful resource and we’ll add the blog to our sidebar. It might be a good resource to share with employees who experience a personal loss.
ACA myths: A baker’s dozen
8 myths about the Affordable Care Act
These two articles from Employee Benefit News are by Zack Pace. He authhored the first one earlier in the year and it proved popular, so he added a recent update. Of the original article he said:
Do you sometimes wonder if our society has made substantial progress over the last 20 years in routing factual information into the hands of educated consumers? While we can point to areas of vast improvement in certain markets, other areas leave us scratching our heads. One of those is the realm of the Affordable Care Act. As a benefits consultant, I come across all sorts of ACA mythologies every day. Yes, some of those are conspiracy-based, and others are political in nature, but most of the time, it’s just wrong information. Fear not – together, let’s clear up 13 of the most common inaccuracies.
Quick Takes
- 15 of the worst office pet peeves
- What Employers Can and Cannot Say During a Union Organizing Campaign
- Bad employees of the month: French HR Executives have the shirts ripped from their backs when laying off employees
- Dying for a good selfie shot?
- Beware blanket exclusion policies under the ADA
- Supreme Cases to Watch
- How many of these misused words trip you up?
- There are 1,440 minutes in a day. Here’s how the most successful people on the planet make the most of them.
- Dear Coworker, I Despise You: 3 Survival Tips For Coping With a Hateful Workplace
- 10 Performance Management Tips For the First Time Supervisor