News

Commentary: When it comes to Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave, not all comments are treated equally. Some comments may discourage an employee from using FMLA leave, thereby interfering with the employee’s FMLA rights and creating employer liability. In contrast, other comments from supervisors may be viewed as completely permissible requests and do not […]

Human resource professionals already have had several changes to absorb during a short holiday week, and yet another is in the works. The U.S. Department of Labor has proposed raising the annual salary level at which overtime pay kicks in from $23,300 to $50,440. The proposal is subject to a 60-day review period before a final […]

The Internal Revenue System says employers can now do a trial run of their electronic form filing for reporting requirements under the Affordable Care Act, giving nervous employers and their benefit advisers a way to test for readiness in advance of the reporting deadlines. The IRS has recently opened up its Affordable Care Act Assurance […]

The Society for Human Resource Management, a vigorous opponent of changes to overtime regulations proposed by the Obama administration, told the Department of Labor in comments last week that the changes will not only burden management but be a detriment to the workers they intend to help. The change floated by the DOL would raise the […]

Late last week, the National Labor Relations Board published a decision that will make many business leaders’ heads spin. By pronouncing a new legal standard to be used to determine if a business is a “joint employer” of another’s employees, the board has created an unprecedented amount of uncertainty for all types of businesses. Under […]

Workplace-sponsored retirement plans are an essential benefit for the majority of workers. Ninety percent of respondents to a Schwab Retirement Plan Services survey said they would think twice about taking a job if it didn’t have a 401(k) plan. “When it comes to retirement, there’s been a significant shift of responsibility from employer to employee […]

The number of employers who could be subject to the Affordable Care Act’s excise tax on high-cost health plans could be as high as one in four employers (26%) by 2018 when the tax goes into effect, unless changes are made to their existing health plans, according to new projections from the Kaiser Family Foundation. […]

It seems that working hard can, in fact, kill you. A new study shows a strong correlation between long working hours and two major health problems: Cardiovascular disease and strokes. The study, conducted by Mika Kivimaki, a professor of epidemiology at University College London, tracked 600,000 adults in the United States, Europe and Australia over a period […]

There’s more data available that suggests that, unless the so-called Cadillac tax is repealed, flexible spending accounts may be targeted for extinction. A survey of hospital management personnel found many will do away with the flexible spending account plan option if the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act tax on “rich” plans is not repealed or substantially […]

If you’re budgeting 3 percent raises for the majority of your workforce, you’re in good company, because 3 percent is the new pay raise standard. That’s what an annual compensation survey by Towers Watson reported. Those who make the annual salary decisions are planning to hand out 3 percent raises to most employees next year — […]