Raising Kids and Running a Household: How Working Parents Share the Load
Pew Research Center

Family life is changing, and so, too, is the role mothers and fathers play at work and at home. As more mothers have entered the U.S. workforce in the past several decades, the share of two-parent households in which both parents work full time now stands at 46%, up from 31% in 1970. At the same time, the share with a father who works full time and a mother who doesn’t work outside the home has declined considerably; 26% of two-parent households today fit this description, compared with 46% in 1970, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of Current Population Survey data.

Alcoholism-Related Terminations
Keisha-Ann G. Gray, Human Resource Executive

Question: I’ve read news stories about former employees suing employers under the Americans with Disabilities Act for terminating their employment on account of them suffering from alcoholism. Does the ADA prohibit an employer from terminating an alcoholic employee if that employee has sub-standard performance?

Fatal mistakes
Sarah Kliff, Vox

A new line of research that Wu began in the 1990s has found that many health care providers experience anguish, turmoil, and emotional trauma in the wake of a serious medical error. The providers are, in Wu’s view, “second victims” of the mistake.

Just like their patients, these providers struggle to make sense of how an effort to heal turned into serious harm. One 2009 study found that two-thirds of providers reported “extreme sadness” and “difficulty concentrating” in the wake of harming a patient. More than half experienced depression; one-third said they avoided caring for similar patients afterward, for fear of making a similar mistake. Some consider suicide — and a smaller fraction, like Hiatt, take their own lives.

Nurses and doctors rarely discuss mistakes with their colleagues. Bringing attention to a mistake feels like highlighting one’s own incompetence. Clinicians know that their peers have somehow managed to survive these events and turn up to work each day. So they try to do the same.

The Big Issues Facing HR
Jen Schramm, SHRM

Tighter labor markets, economic uncertainty and globalization are key issues that will shape the workplace and the HR profession in coming years, according to the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM’s) Special Expertise Panels. These groups are made up of SHRM professional members charged with reporting emerging trends in areas such as ethics, global practices, HR disciplines, labor relations and technology. Throughout the past year, they have identified a wide range of challenges and notable trends, including the following.

The 10 essential cyber security training issues for your employees
Jon Hyman, Ohio’s Employer’s Law Blog

According to CFO magazine, nearly half of all data breaches result from careless employees. Whether it’s an employee using a company-issued laptop on an unsecured wifi network, or an employee losing a password-unprotected iPhone, your employees present the greatest risk to the security of your company’s network and data.
What can you do about it? Train your employees. They need to understand the risk of their carelessness, and the steps they can take to mitigate that risk.
Here are 10 issues about which you should be training your employees right now to limit your company’s cyber exposure.

What is a Grievance?
Bridget Miller, HR Daily Advisor

In short, a grievance is a formal employee complaint. Usually this comes about when an employee feels he or she has been negatively affected by the employer not holding up the terms (or misapplying the terms) of the employment agreement. A grievance could come from an individual or a group, and it could relate to a specific contract term or it could be related to violations of the collective bargaining agreement or other employer policies.

Promoting more ethical behavior at work
Jena McGregor. LA Times

A forthcoming study in the Academy of Management Journal that was recently highlighted in the Harvard Business Review found that when employees display moral symbols — such as a virtuous quote in emails or religious images hung on a cubicle wall — it could help prevent their managers from asking them to cheat or engage in other bad behavior.

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