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Compensation & Benefits

Workplace lexicon: Value-based insurance design

01/14/2014
This is the insurance industry’s lingo for a system of carrots and sticks that rewards patients for undergoing medical procedures with a good track record of success (think flu vaccines and hypertension treatment) and penalizes them for treatment of questionable value (hip-replacement surgery and many kinds of high-tech imaging, for example).

Mexico’s minimum wage up

01/14/2014
Increasing the minimum wage isn’t just a hot topic in the United States. On Jan. 1, Mexico’s minimum wage rose 3.9%, to at least 63.77 pesos—about $4.88—per day.

More small businesses might drop health benefits

01/13/2014
The Affordable Care Act probably won’t prompt many large employers to drop health insurance benefits, but small businesses are more likely to do so than they were last year, according to the National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans.

Gender Discrimination

01/11/2014

HR Law 101: Your supervisors probably understand that they can’t pay a male more than a female to perform the same job or dole out promotions only to males. What they may not appreciate are the more subtle forms that gender discrimination may take. They may not make an effort to scrutinize their decisions to uncover any entrenched patterns of discrimination and practices that discourage women from applying for promotions or asking for raises …

Tennessee interns score wage of $22 an hour

01/09/2014

College students who are lucky enough to land internships at Knox­­ville, Tenn.-based WeScore.com will earn $22 an hour. The Internet startup—slated to launch early this year—relies on more than a dozen University of Tennessee students to fill out its small staff.

Make sure your pay policies properly address meal breaks

01/08/2014
Paying employees for break time—or not paying them—is one of the trickiest aspects of wage-and-hour law compliance. Know your obligations!

Condé Nast ends internships

01/08/2014
Condé Nast, publisher of The New Yorker, Vogue, GQ and 26 other magazines, has stopped offering unpaid internships following legal fallout from 2012’s “Black Swan” lawsuit.

Boomers ‘terrified’ of out-of-control health care costs

01/08/2014
More than three in five (61%) pre-retirees now say they are “terrified” of what health care costs may do to their retirement plans, according to a new Harris poll.

MCM Grande & MCM Elegante pay $79,000 in back wages

01/07/2014
A U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division investigation has resulted in the MCM Grande and MCM Elegante hotels paying back wages and missed overtime to em­­ployees at several of its locations in Texas and New Mexico.

Beware offering FMLA instead of workers’ comp

01/07/2014
Some Texas employers try to discourage employees from taking workers’ compensation leave when they suffer an injury. Instead, they encourage employees to use FMLA and accrued vacation and other leave. Always make sure employees volunteer to make that choice.