It’s not just energy and food whose costs are rising rapidly. Healthcare is up there too.
Here’s an article from the Wall Street Journal with seven suggestions to save.
A small employer has settled an overtime misclassification lawsuit by writing a million dollar check.
200,000 ex-employees of Albertson’s Supermarkets will be paid up to $350 each – most far less – while the lawyers who brought a class action lawsuit against the grocer will score $3.5-million, according to terms of a recent settlement. All told, Albertson’s will pay out $15-million in the case.
The crux of the case rested on how much the employees were paid for their last day when they quit or were fired.
Here are the details, from CCH.
Entrepreneurs may not know it, but a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court may open them up to some nasty discrimination claims. Here’s why, from Forbes.
Bankruptcies are rising in Nevada, which this article in the Las Vegas Review Journal blames on the credit crunch and stifled economy. The article also includes some back-to-basics advice that you should use as a checklist to make sure your business is well-anchored to weather the storm.
Here’s a way to use HR skills to improve company productivity, without spending any more money:
Recently, executive coach/mountain climber David Lim compared running a company to climbing a mountain in a Wall Street Journal article: “In the context of mountain climbing, all team members have to be engaged in the process months before the climb — testing equipment, suggesting routes, collectively deciding on rules to obey on the mountain. If everyone isn’t on the same page before the climb, we won’t be when we’re on the mountain, which can be disastrous. The same applies to reaching business goals.”
Goals are not just for the leaders of the company. When employees are asked to set their own goals, they become more engaged in their work, take more ownership of their contributions, and become invested and motivated in getting better results. From a chief executive’s point of view, goals help to ensure that delegated work is being done correctly, effectively, and on time.
Read the full article, in the latest Vistage newsletter.
Workplace homicides have declined by 50% since the high-water mark of 1994.
Here’re the details, from Business Insurance magazine.
Are all effective managers good leaders? Are there certain abilities that distinguish an influential leader from an effective manager? Are some people “born leaders” and some destined to be followers?You probably have answers to these questions; however, yours may not be the same as the next reader or mine for that matter. There are an array of leadership classifications and approaches from which to study the leadership phenomenon, which makes it difficult to discern what information is useful and valid.Rather than add to the confusion, I’m going to talk about a set of leadership skills that, in my opinion, are critical for developing positive working relationships.
Here’s the full article, from the Ft. Worth, TX, Business Press.
USA Today reports on a growing trend wherein employees are buying their own laptops and cell phones if their employers won’t do it for them.
Businesses say they must carefully choose which electronics to provide for employees because they’re expensive. A BlackBerry e-mail device with one year of service costs around $1,400.
“You have to find the business value,” says Eric Davies, founder of the Davies Murphy Group, a marketing and public relations firm in Burlington, Mass.
Some companies end up being “penny wise but pound foolish,” says In-Stat tech analyst Bill Hughes. “These things do add value” — and often cost far less than an employee’s time, he says.
The HR Cafe offers this survey and analysis on a question that may have crossed your mind lately: should your company help its employees cope with these record gasoline costs?
We surveyed HR executives to find out what, if anything, companies are doing to help employees deal with rising gas prices. Here are the results:
