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Employment Law

Race bias costs $300,000 for Malvern’s Vanguard Group

01/21/2010

The financial services firm Vanguard Group has settled a racial discrimination complaint with the EEOC for $300,000. The case involved Barbara Alexander, a black applicant for a financial planning manager position at a Vanguard office in North Carolina. The company is headquartered in Malvern.

The DOL is delivering on its vow to hire more investigators

01/20/2010

The threat of more rigorous enforcement—the U.S. Department of Labor now has 250 more wage-and-hour cops—is yet another reason to double-check to see whether your exempt employees are truly exempt.

Reprimand, mandate training to cut bias liability

01/19/2010

All employees, regardless of which protected class they belong to, have the right to work in an environment free from hostility. That doesn’t mean, however, that you have to fire every co-worker who does something that might be interpreted as hostile. Sometimes the appropriate response is to reprimand the co-worker and educate her so she’ll change her ways.

The HR I.Q. Test: January ’10

01/18/2010

Test your knowledge of recent trends in employment law, comp & benefits and other HR issues with our monthly mini-quiz …

Must all hours count toward OT ‘total hours’?

01/18/2010

Q. We currently pay employees for time spent driving from the office to work sites. We pay minimum wage for that driving time, but we don’t count those hours toward “total hours” worked for the week. That keeps overtime down because their hours aren’t accumulating until they arrive at the job site. Is this OK?

Checking up on sick workers: The 6 do’s and don’ts

01/18/2010
You probably don’t check up on most employees who call in sick because they do it infrequently and most likely are being truthful. However, every organization has its share of workers who abuse sick-leave policies. No state or federal laws regulate how employers can handle workers who call in sick. But beware: Going too far to ferret out shirkers could invite discrimination and harassment claims, and unnecessarily damage morale.

Stare masters: How much ogling equals harassment?

01/15/2010

What’s the difference between a friendly glance and a sexual stare? A recent court ruling shows that sexual harassment is in the eye of the beholder—and supervisors better not roll their eyes if they witness it …

If worker is out on FMLA leave, can we modify her job?

01/15/2010

Q. Before an employee left for FMLA leave, she performed two functions: administrative assistant and some HR duties. We filled the administrative position while she was on leave. Can we assign her to work only in the HR position when she comes back?

Not sure it’s sexual harassment? Take steps to end it anyway

01/15/2010

Not every complaint about alleged sexual harassment turns out to be true. Sometimes, the harasser may simply be a difficult personality. He or she may have it in for all co-workers, and the harassment that someone complains about may be completely unrelated to sex. That doesn’t mean, however, that you should ignore the behavior. Your best bet is to discipline the employee.

Before stiffing workers, ask: Do I look good in orange?

01/14/2010

Here’s an important lesson for employers: Judges don’t want to hear any excuses from employers that fail to pay back wages when ordered to do so. In fact, they’re perfectly willing to throw you in the slammer if you do. Example: Recently, the owners of a cleaning service were jailed when they didn’t make court-ordered payments of back wages owed to 385 workers.