Human Resources

From the HR Support Center: Can I Ensure That a Terminated Employee Doesn’t Get Unemployment?

We will be terminating an employee who’s been with us only a month. How do I ensure that they don’t get unemployment? Unemployment insurance (UI) benefit claims can be difficult to contest. Most state unemployment departments will only deny benefits if the employee’s misconduct rose to...

25 March, 2019

EEOC Cases Illustrate Examples of Unlawful Discrimination at Work

The mission of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is to enforce federal anti-discrimination laws. When it receives and investigates a complaint that it deems legitimate, it tries to iron out a resolution with the employer in lieu of going to court. If that fails,...

20 March, 2019

From the HR Support Center: DOL Proposes New Overtime Rule

The Department of Labor has released a new proposed rule to increase the minimum salary that an employee must earn to be exempt from minimum wage and overtime under a white collar exemption. The Rule The proposed rule requires that salaried exempt executive, professional, administrative, and computer...

18 March, 2019

Employee Conflict: How to Intervene

The U.S. Department of Justice reports more than 2 million violent workplace crimes, on average, occur each year in the U.S. Homicide is one of the leading causes of death in the workplace. Retail businesses report nearly 300,000 individual violent workplace incidents a year. So, how...

13 March, 2019

From the HR Support Center: Obama Led New Minimum Salary for Exempt Employees Not Completely Dead

As you may recall, a new minimum salary for exempt employees almost took effect in December of 2016. The minimum salary of $23,660 per year was set to increase to $47,476 per year, but a last-minute ruling from a federal judge put all that on...

11 March, 2019

From the HR Support Center: Can a non-exempt employee manage another non-exempt employee?

Yes, it is completely permissible for non-exempt employees to manage other non-exempt employees. In fact, employers are under no obligation to classify employees as exempt, even if they meet the criteria under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Employers may have an entire workforce of non-exempt...

04 March, 2019

Workers Must Be Paid for Breaks of Less than 20 Minutes

A federal appellate court has upheld a lower court's ruling that a marketing call center wrongfully docked employees for breaks of 20 minutes or less during which they were logged off of their computers and didn't have to perform any work related duties [Secretary United...

27 February, 2019

From the HR Support Center: Do We Have to Honor an Employee’s Two-Week Notice Period?

Assuming there is no contract or agreement to the contrary, you’re not required to keep an employee on during their resignation notice period or compensate them for the duration of that period. However, we recommend considering a couple issues before asking an employee not to...

25 February, 2019

From the HR Support Center: Can We Discipline Employees Who Don’t Turn in Their Timesheets?

Yes you can, provided that the discipline doesn’t involve withholding, reducing, or delaying pay, as employers are required to pay for actual hours worked regardless of whether employees have fulfilled their timekeeping duties. In fact, we recommend using a progressive disciplinary process when an employee fails...

18 February, 2019

From the HR Support Center: If business is slow, can we send employees home early?

Yes, you can send employees home early due to a lack of work. Exempt employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act (not entitled to overtime) would need to be paid their entire salary for the day. Non-exempt employees (those eligible for overtime) would generally only...

11 February, 2019