Policies / Handbooks

How to weather winter, HR’s busiest season

11/19/2014

From establishing inclement weather policies to rethinking year-end bonuses, check out our guide to surviving the cold and the unexpected.

Unwritten rules: Flex benefits depend on informal policies

11/19/2014

Most employers allow some kind of flexible working arrangement. However, that’s often due to casual agreements between bosses and workers. Informal flex deals are more common than formal policies.

HIPAA: Compliance Rules

11/15/2014

HR Law 101: The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 made changes to three areas of the continuing-coverage rules that apply to group health plans under COBRA …

Study: Men value work flexibility, too

11/10/2014

For years, conventional wisdom held that women far more than men took advantage of flexible working arrangements to balance work/life responsibilities. Now comes a new study revealing that male employees feel equally empowered to use programs that allow flexibility in how, when and where work happens.

Replace Ebola panic with solid plan to deal with epidemics

11/05/2014

The threat of an Ebola outbreak has dominated the news for months. With the possible exceptions of health care-related organizations, it’s unlikely that most employers will ever have to deal with the disease. However, it’s a timely reminder that even relatively common maladies (such as the flu) can wreak havoc on business operations.

Should your no-smoking policy ban e-cigarettes?

10/31/2014

While they differ from traditional cigarettes in some fundamental ways, many employers are faced with a dilemma in terms of how to treat e-cigarettes in policy and in practice.

How do we rein in our staff on social media?

09/19/2014

Q. What are the rules and laws about social media? We have employees who have generated Facebook pages with our company name. They are also posting information that we are not ready to publish—such as the opening of another store in a new city.

Drug tests: What to do about ‘watered down’ results?

09/12/2014

Q. We have a couple of workers who keep getting “negative dilute” results of drug tests. Our policy is to not accept the result and to retest. Can we require the retest to be an observed collection?

Politics at work: 3 tips to limit election-year distractions

09/05/2014

Some employers try to quell this distraction by putting a gag order on political speech. That’s not a smart move. No-political-talk policies are almost impossible to enforce, plus they can choke morale and could expose you to a lawsuit.

Bring Your Own Device policies: Risks and rewards

09/01/2014

Employees are increasingly using their personal electronic devices—laptops, smartphones and tablets—for work purposes. The trend, dubbed “Bring Your Own Device” or “BYOD,” has redefined what it means to be “at work.” Employers jumping on the BYOD bandwagon face several challenges.