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  • HR Policies & Administration

    How To Become a Talent Magnet

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    Want the best of the best to flood your department with their resumes as they do at Yahoo! and Southwest Airlines? Develop your talent brand, says Libby Sartain, who was CHRO at both companies.

    Brand for Talent, Sartain's book co-written with consultant Mark Schumann, offers seven "essentials" for building your talent brand. (See yesterday's issue for the first five essentials.)

    Essential 6: Sustain

    The talent brand must be sustained, say Sartain and Schumann, and to a large degree, that is accomplished as a result of the culture.

    Culture is an amalgam of what workers experience, the words and actions of leaders, the face-to-face interactions, the products and services delivered by HR, and the messages and content of employee communications.

    Essential 7: Survive

    It used to be that branding was primarily controlled by the company and its marketing. Consumers had only limited opportunity to criticize the brand. And this was true for talent as well.

    Sure, there were a few disgruntled workers—and some complained, and a few sued—but for the most part, dissatisfaction with employers' brands was contained and of little concern.

    Enter social media. Immediate access to limitless networks for people to instantly share any idea with millions of others. Companies will have to work hard to preserve their brands against faceless rumors and complaints.


    In-depth talent management bootcamp—next week!


    The End Result of Branding for Talent
    Sartain and Schumann offer the following outcomes for those employers that carefully and diligently develop their talent brands:

    • The new marketplace for talent will have a clear understanding of why someone should work for you.
    • You will become a magnet for talent.
    • You will increase the number of people who want to work for you.
    • You will target the segments of the talent marketplace.
    • Your sourcing strategy will look more like a consumer marketing strategy.
    • You will be able to filter your candidates to meet your desired profiles.
    • You will streamline your talent acquisition programs and processes.
    • Your recruiters will finally move beyond the order-filler role.
    • You will give your internal communications new purpose.
    • You will give your leadership a new voice.
    • You can redefine your relationship with your workers.
    • You can establish a talent brand legacy at your organization.

    How To Recruit, Interview, Hire, Retain, and Engage Top Talent

    Talent management involves several moving parts—from recruiting and hiring to performance management, coaching and mentoring, succession planning, and using social media to communicate with and engage the workforce.

    It’s a constantly evolving process and one that requires a focused strategy to recruit, hire, engage, and retain a knowledgeable, productive, and successful workforce.

    On the recruiting and hiring front, there is an “art to hiring smart.” An employee who does not fit the technical or behavioral requirements of the position can cost the company up to 150 percent of his or her annual salary as well as significant customer dissatisfaction.

    Most resumes have some distortion in them, and reference checks do not always give you the full story of the candidates past performance. Candidates are being trained on how to handle themselves in an interview and present a polished version. Who can afford to take a chance when there is a good alternative?

    Join us for an in-depth webinar bootcamp next Tuesday, June 5, and learn:

    • The 8 steps to a first-class selection process
    • The dos and don’ts of the interview process and legal landmines to avoid
    • How to properly match candidates to jobs for maximum engagement and productivity
    • How to develop an employee’s talents to the fullest
    • Why people don’t get their jobs done—and how you can fix the problem
    • Basic tools and techniques of effective coaching and mentoring
    • 3 steps for developing an effective succession plan for your organization
    • Red flags that indicate an employee is not ready to be groomed for leadership
    • How trends such as social networking, mobile devices, and even video games are changing expectations about communications both inside and outside of the organization
    • And much more!

    Sign up for this must-attend talent management session now. Can’t make it on Tuesday? Order the CD and learn at your leisure.

    Download your free copy of Questions To Ask In An Interview: Interview Questions for Employers today!

  • Compensation, Benefits & Leave

    Rest and Meal Breaks in California: When Must a Meal Break be Given?

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    Rest and meal breaks in California are a topic of much discussion – they’ve been included in the California Wage Orders for more than 30 years! Nonetheless, the rules are continuously evolving, it seems. Rest periods (both for meals and for other rest breaks) are legally mandated for employees who work more than a specified number of hours, and employers can get into legal troubles for non-compliance. In a BLR webinar titled "Meal & Rest Breaks in California: Long-Awaited Brinker Decision Is Finally Here; What It Means for You," Marc L. Jacuzzi outlined some guidance on rest and meal breaks in California. Here are some tips on when meal breaks must be given.

    Rest and Meal Breaks in California: Are They Mandatory?

    Meal breaks in California are mandated by law. Jacuzzi explained that "when someone is suffered or permitted to work . . . for 5 hours, an employer is put to a choice" on what they may do. The employer must either:

    1. "afford an off-duty meal period"
    2. "consent to a mutually agreed-upon waiver if one hour or less will end the shift"
    3. "obtain written agreement to an on-duty meal period if the circumstances permit"

    Failure to do one of these will render the employer liable for premium pay, and the amounts add up quickly.

    Rest and Meal Breaks in California: When Must a Meal Break Be Given?

    An employer may not employ an employee for a work period of more than 5 hours per day without providing the employee with a meal period of not less than 30 minutes, except that if the total work period per day of the employee is no more than 6 hours, the meal period may be waived by mutual consent of both the employer and employee.

    An employer may not employ an employee for a work period of more than 10 hours per day without providing the employee with a second meal period of not less than 30 minutes, except that if the total hours worked is no more than 12 hours, the second meal period may be waived by mutual consent of the employer and the employee only if the first meal period was not waived.

    Unless the employee is relieved of all duty during a 30 minute meal period, the meal period shall be considered an "on-duty" meal period and counted as time worked. An "on-duty" meal period shall be permitted only when the nature of the work prevents an employee from being relieved of all duty and when by written agreement between the parties an on-the-job paid meal period is agreed to. The written agreement shall state that the employee may, in writing, revoke the agreement at any time.

    Rest and Meal Breaks in California: Additional Meal Break Requirements

    Simply allowing a meal break within these timeframes is not sufficient. To comply with regulations on rest and meal breaks in California, an employer must:

    • Relieve employee of all duty (but need not ensure that the employee does not work; in other words, there is no obligation to police meal breaks).
    • Relinquish control over the employee’s duties and activities during the break time. An employer that refuses to relinquish control over employees during an owed meal period violates the duty to provide the meal period and owes compensation and premium pay for hours worked. An employer that relinquishes control but knows or has reason to know that the employee is performing work during the meal period, has not violated its meal period obligations and owes no premium pay, but nonetheless owes regular compensation to its employee for time worked.
    • Permit a reasonable opportunity for uninterrupted 30-minute break.
    • Not undermine meal period policy by pressuring employees to perform duties in ways that omit breaks.

    Something as simple as a lunch break can have consequences if not properly applied. Are you in compliance?

    To register for a future webinar, visit http://catalog.blr.com/audio.

    Marc L. Jacuzzi, Esq., is a shareholder in the law firm of Simpson, Garrity, Innes & Jacuzzi (www.sgilaw.com). He advises clients regarding all aspects of the employer/employee relationship including hiring and termination, wage and hour requirements, employee classification, civil rights and discrimination issues, employee investigations, commission plans, employment contracts, employee handbooks and policies, confidential information agreements, reductions in force, leaves of absence, employment audits, M&A employment issues, violence in the workplace, and international employment issues.

  • HR Policies & Administration

    Brand for Talent, Attract the Best

    • 0 Comments

    On the one hand, we see businesses looking for "consumers of work" (employees) with new habits to understand and new appetites to satisfy. But on the other hand, we see tired talent strategies that no longer attract the new jobseekers, says Libby Sartain.

    Brand for Talent, Sartain's book co-written with consultant Mark Schumann, maintains that to attract the best employees, you must work diligently on building and maintaining your company's "talent brand."

    Sartain has a strong reputation in brand building as the former CHRO of both Yahoo! and Southwest Airlines.

    In the book, she suggests that your talent brand must:

    • Appeal to the consumer who has been trained to make decisions by the brand.
    • Help a business market each touch point of its employee experience.
    • Position the leadership of the business to be key "poster children" of what the brand stands for.
    • Shape the products, services, and experience the business offers to workers.
    • Be a "lens" through which each product and service can be developed as well as marketed.
    • Be THE strategic tool for a company to attract and retain people.
    • Help you to survive social media.

    The book proposes seven "essentials" for building a great talent brand.

    Essential 1: Wake Up

    It's a new ball game. The new employee or "consumer of work," as Sartain and Schumann say, orders work the same way as ordering a product or service. In a marketplace where knowledge is power, the information a potential worker can seize gives him the upper hand with a potential employer. Here's what these workers looking for:

    Expectations. Consumers of work look for a work experience, not a job. They expect the transaction to be flawless.

    Career. New consumers of work walk into a company fully expecting a complete program of how a career will develop, how performance will be managed, how pay will increase, and how work and life will balance.

    Engagement. The new consumers of work will expect to be a part of the action at work. They want an experience, to be involved in what the business is doing, and to be a voice that is heard. But they are also looking for fun. Work/life balance is an expectation, not an option.

    Connection. The new consumers will be in contact with colleagues and friends. They will rely on social media sites to discuss companies, jobs, career advice, and work stories. They will collect feedback and guidance from all the "experts" in cyberspace.

    Authenticity. The new consumers will demand authenticity in the work experience. They will sense a fake attempt to sell authenticity, or a "plastic fantastic,” as the book says.


    In-depth talent management bootcamp—next week! Learn more here.


    Essential 2: Look Ahead

     

    Tomorrow's work will be more flexible than it has been in the past, and it will be harder to find talented workers. That's where the employer brand makes a difference.

    In the new marketplace for talent, speed will be everything. The organization that uses its talent brand to create demand as a place to work will be first in line to become a magnet for workers.

    Essential 3: Create

    A company must aggressively market its employer brand to each segment of worker it needs to deliver what the business promises.

    To brand for talent is to have the discipline to develop a precise, results-oriented marketing strategy to reach specific segments of potential workers, to market an organization as a place to work, and to create demand in order to find, keep, and engage people to do the right work at the right time with the right results.

    Essential 4: Segment

    An organization must market its talent brand to the specific segments it seeks to attract and retain.


    There’s an art to hiring smart—do you know what it is? Find out next Tuesday.


    Essential 5: Implement

     

    Any brand—whether for a product, a service, a house of worship, or a place of work—must jump a series of hurdles to motivate a consumer to take action:

    • The brand must be recognized.
    • The brand must be believed.
    • The brand must be personalized.
    • The brand must be remembered.

    In tomorrow's CED, we'll discuss two more essentials and look at Sartain's vision for your talent brand.

    Download your free copy of Questions To Ask In An Interview: Interview Questions for Employers today!

  • HR Policies & Administration

    Inflated Ratings = Legal Woes, Guaranteed

    • 0 Comments

    Yesterday’s CED featured the Four Ms of setting good appraisal goals; today, legal pitfalls in appraisals.

    Because poor performance is often advanced as the reason for a termination, the performance appraisal system is frequently the crux of the defense against a wrongful termination suit. Here’s how to make sure your appraisals hold up.

    Direct Legal Problems in Appraisals

    One common claim is from an employee who claims that he or she was given a low rating because of membership in a protected class (for example, race, sex, age, religious belief, national origin, veteran status, or disability).

    To fight these claims, employers may consider three steps when doing appraisals:

    1. Concentrate on the job and the performance of its essential tasks.
    2. Avoid comments that could suggest a discriminatory attitude (women shouldn’t take jobs like this, men don’t usually take jobs like this, etc.).
    3. Be consistent. Reasonable consistency means treating similarly situated employees the same. Once there’s inconsistency, there’s eventually going to be the appearance of discrimination.

    Hiding Expectations

    Another common claim is that the employee never knew what was expected. Sharing expectations and results is part of fairness. Juries want to know: Did the employee get a chance to improve? Did the employee know what the consequences of poor performance were?

    Indirect Legal Problems

    Many legal problems of appraisals are indirect—for example, documentation issues and inflated ratings.

    Documentation Issues

    It’s a frequent problem in court that an employer has terminated an employee for poor performance, but the performance appraisal has a block checked “poor” without any supporting evidence or documentation. That makes defending the suit tough.

    Even worse—the appraisal can’t be found at all. (This is surprisingly and annoyingly common.)


    2012 California Employment Law Update: Last chance to save expires at midnight tomorrow—don’t miss out!


    Inflated Ratings

    Another legal problem that plagues performance appraisals is the problem of inflated ratings. These are a lawsuit waiting to happen. Positive or neutral ratings will confound your attempts to explain adverse actions that you based on poor performance.

    Imagine yourself—perhaps on the witness stand—explaining that a termination was due to incompetence, poor performance, or poor attitude. Then the defense attorney produces a string of recent performance appraisals—that you signed—indicating “satisfactory.” (Or, worse, “excellent.”)

    Case closed. Either you were lying when you filled out the appraisal, or you’re lying now. Either way, your credibility is shot. 

    California Employment Law Update: The Only Employment Law Conference You Need

    Job evaluations can trip up even the most experienced HR professional—but you also need to worry about wage/hour rules, intermittent leaves, accommodation arrangements, and more. And the fact that you work in California makes everything just that much more complicated.

    Don’t get caught short. Join us this fall for the 7th Annual California Employment Law Update conference in Berkeley.

    This acclaimed annual event, specifically designed for California employers, delivers rock-solid, bottom-line value with practical guidance for overcoming the latest HR challenges in California.

    Join us and learn the latest on …

    EMPLOYMENT LAW ENFORCEMENT
    The EEOC is ramping up, requesting for 2012 an $18 million budget increase over 2011 and slots for 30 new investigators. And California is stepping up its enforcement game, too. What can you as a California employer expect from this new spotlight on the state and federal antibias laws? An uptick in claims of disability bias, age bias, bias on the basis of genetic information, and more. It’s time to get prepared.

    • Equal Employment: Learn how to protect yourself from litigious employees and zealous government investigators.
    • NLRB: Get up to speed on the NLRB’s latest pro-union initiatives—and learn how to stay off its radar.
    • Wage/hour: Avoid the most common—and costly—employee misclassification errors that can destroy your reputation and your bottom line.
    • OFCCP: Don’t get caught in a costly spot inspection—we’ll explain how to stay out of trouble. 

    FMLA/CFRA & ADA COMPLIANCE
    The new ADAAA regulations have dramatically changed the face of FMLA—now, because so many more people with “serious health conditions” are also considered to have a “disability” under the ADAAA, the 12-week cap on FMLA leave may be turning into a thing of the past in many cases. And, of course, the California Family Rights Act (CFRA) already gives employees heightened protections. How to legally accommodate your employees and keep your business running smoothly these days?

    • Get up-to-the-minute guidance on complying with both the ADAAA and FMLA/CFRA—including recent court cases interpreting the intersection of the two types of leave.
    • Learn how to ensure your documentation on employee leaves is complete and correct.
    • Discover how to properly manage obesity, mental disability, substance abuse, and more under both the ADAAA and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA).
    • Find out why disability discrimination claims have spiked recently—and, even more importantly, how to avoid becoming part of this trend. 

    SOCIAL MEDIA
    You may or may not be on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and so on. But your employees are—and their social media habits could be costing you big in lost productivity. They could even be setting you up for a damaging lawsuit, depending on what they’re saying and how far they’re spreading the word. You won’t want to miss our up-to-the-minute social media session, where you’ll learn:

    • Why you absolutely must have a social media policy—and what should be in it
    • How social media can be HR’s best friend or worst enemy, depending on how you manage it
    • The fine line between monitoring your employees’ social media usage and overstepping the considerable privacy protections they enjoy under California law
    • How social media can help you avoid a bad hiring decision, which can cost twice an exiting employee’s salary 

    HIRING & RETENTION
    As the economy finally—finally!— gets back on its feet, it’s time to shift the focus from survive to thrive. Learn how to keep your superstars and find the next crop of incredible talent, while keeping employees at all levels engaged and involved in your business.

    • Will 2012 be the Year of the Employee Backlash? Could be, says Forbes. How to protect your workplace from demotivation and ship-jumping.
    • How to find—and land—the best and brightest, and encourage them to stay with you for the long haul.
    • Effective tips for handling compensation increases after years of flatlining (or even salary decreases, in some cases).
    • Strategies for avoiding candidates who are exceptional interviewees but sub-par employees.         
    • Practical tips for developing talent from within.  

    And much more!

    You’ll earn up to 15.5 hours of California-specific HRCI recertification credit, and MCLE credit is also available. Best of all, if you register before midnight tomorrow, you’ll save $100 off your registration!

    It’s an unbeatable deal—click here for all the details. We hope to see you there. But don’t delay—the clock is ticking on the early bird discount, and it’s gone at midnight tomorrow, so claim your spot now!

    Download your free copy of 10 Tips for Effective, Legal Performance Appraisals today!

  • HR Policies & Administration

    ‘But Nobody Told Me I Had To Get To Work On Time!’

    • 1 Comments

    Ridiculous as it sounds, “they never told me” is a standard defense in employment lawsuits. It plays to the jury’s sense of fairness, and it plays pretty well.

    ‘My Employees Must Know What I Want’

    Managers and supervisors don’t like confronting their employees about performance problems, so they tend to assume that employees are aware that they are not doing an acceptable job.

    Unfortunately, employees don’t think that way. They assume that everything is fine unless they are told otherwise. Then if there’s a termination and they are surprised by it, they fight back—in court.

    In front of a jury, “They never told me they were displeased with my work” becomes a poignant plea for justice. The jury—many of whom are employees themselves—is likely to agree that it wasn’t fair.

    In contrast, think of that same jury being shown a clear trail of formal performance appraisals and informal counseling that demonstrates how the company bent over backwards to try to get this employee up to an acceptable level of performance.

    The jury’s far more likely to side with an employer that gave a wayward employee every chance to improve.

    The Four Ms

    It’s easy to set good goals if you follow the Four Ms of goal-setting: Meaningful, Measurable, Makeable, Mutual.

    1. Good Goals Are Meaningful

    • Broadly based on and supporting the organization’s mission and strategy
    • Directly linked to division and departmental goals
    • Important to the organization
    • Important for the individual, relating to central parts of the job

    2. Good Goals Are Measurable

    Vague goals with no measures attached do little to motivate employees. They are nearly meaningless at appraisal time because they are open to completely different interpretations by the employee and the boss.


    Last chance to save for the 2012 California Employment Law Update!


    Some examples of vague goals:

    • Do a better job at X.
    • Shake things up and develop a better mousetrap.
    • Bring up that average a little.

    Try these goals instead:

    • Increase production of X by 10 percent given an overtime budget increase of 6 percent.
    • Evaluate the process of the widget production and delivery and restructure to achieve a 3-day reduction on order-ship time.
    • Bring the average truckloads delivered per month to 230.

    3. Good Goals Are Makeable

    A goal set so high that there is no hope of achieving it is no goal at all. And a goal that’s no challenge is a gift, not a goal. Spend time to find a reasonable balance.

    If an incentive is involved, it’s often useful to set several levels—for example, 5 percent improvement nets one level of incentive payment and 10 percent improvement nets a higher incentive.

    4. Good Goals Are Mutual

    Finally, goals should be mutually agreed-on. It’s important to have “buy-in” from the employee, which eliminates the complaint that “I didn’t know the goals or understand them.”

    Further, the employee’s insights into the job and how challenging it might be to attain a goal are important input in developing the goals.

    Frequent Measurement Is Key

    The appraisal meeting should never surprise the employee, most experts agree. Surely the metrics for important goals are calculated more often than once a year. So go over the numbers or the figures with the employee on a monthly or at least quarterly basis.

    For major projects, set milestones or stepping stones—a series of intermediate goals that let everyone track how the project is coming along.

    For example:

    Month 1:

    Interview staff involved, industry contacts, and vendor contacts.

    Month 2:

    Create detailed operation plan and budget.

    Month 3:

    Secure all necessary approvals; identify vendors.

    Month 4:

    Send out Request for Proposal to vendors.

    Month 5:

    Plan staffing changes and workflows.

    Month 6:

    Review vendor proposals; make site visits.

    Month 7:

    Select vendor; order materials; and equipment.

    Month 8:

    Prepare documentation, training, announcements, etc.; go for vendor training.

    Month 9:

    Take delivery and install; enter test data.

    Month 10:

    Train; enter full data.

    Month 11:

    Begin parallel running.

    Month 12:

    Switch over to new system.

    One thing to remind managers about during training—if the project fails, it will reflect poorly on the manager as well as the employee.

    In tomorrow’s CED, legal pitfalls in performance appraisals.

    Download your free copy of 10 Tips for Effective, Legal Performance Appraisals today!

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