Labor Overtime And Independent Contractors
August 20, 2008
Employers often hire workers and categorize them as independent contractors to avoid paying overtime, taxes, and complying with other federal and state labor and employment related laws. In overtime cases the courts and the administrative agencies do not automatically accept the idea that a worker is not entitled to overtime rights by simply categorizing the worker as an independent contractor. The workers are more often than not still employees and can file overtime claims. The test to determine if a worker is an independent contractor is based primarily on the principal’s right to direct... Read more »
The Ceremony of Employee Recognitions
August 20, 2008
An employee recognition ceremony can be a big, elaborate gala or a small company picnic. An employee recognition ceremony can even be a surprise team meeting where the team leader is recognized by the team and his or her supervisor. It’s not really the employee recognition ceremony that counts, it’s the fact that the employee is being recognized that matters the most. When planning an employee recognition ceremony the first thing you should do is look at your budget. How much do you have to spend on this ceremony and how many people do you need to accommodate? Your budget will... Read more »
Protective Clothing - What Should And Employer Be Providing
August 19, 2008
Protective safety equipment is essential for any working environment where equipment, machinery or the risk of injury exists. It is a commonly overlooked part of site maintenance and care. Providing personal protective equipment, usually referred to as PPE is necessary for any workplace. The range of PPE available is extensive and it’s important to consider which areas of the body your staff or workforce need protecting before purchasing your clothing. Starting at the top of the body, helmets are an obvious requirement on any construction site. The risk of falling objects... Read more »
Health and Wellness on the Job
August 18, 2008
Work can be stressful at the best of times, so longer hours on the job often mean more stress and, as a result, more work-related injuries. These can include muscle and joint pain resulting from long hours sitting in the same position, repetitive strain injuries from performing (as the name suggests) repetitive tasks, work errors due to stress and fatigue, and illnesses aggravated by stress, including physical problems such as colds and flus and mental health problems... Read more »
5 Ways to Assess and Improve Your Employees’ Emotional Health
August 18, 2008
Emotional health is a state of wellness that comes from understanding and acknowledging our emotions and finding appropriate ways to express them. As employees, we often bring emotional problems from our childhood or current family life into the workplace because we haven’t dealt with them effectively outside of work. This can seriously damage workplace relationships and lead to poor performance and negative feelings all around. Many tools and techniques exist for helping us improve our emotional health. Some of the most common are given below, with real-life case histories illustrating their use. If an unpleasant mood or feeling persists over a... Read more »
Create a Healthy Workplace with the Help of Alternative Therapies
August 18, 2008
In Chinese, the word for crisis has two characters. One character is for “problem,” the other for “opportunity.” As absenteeism, disability claims and employee turnover increase, we find ourselves in a workplace health-care crisis. In a 2001 study entitled, Increasing Participation in Corporate Wellness Programs: A Segmentation Study of Employee Differences, Paula Haynes of the University of Tennessee underlines how important it is to provide a wide variety of services in corporate health and wellness programs to address our healthy workplace crisis. Although... Read more »
Do Employee Assistance Programs Work?
August 18, 2008
When a workers personal appearance declines and he or she is calling in sick more than usual, especially on the Monday after payday, it will be a series of red flags that should prompt some action on the part of management. However working with troubled employees without the benefit of an employee assistance program can be one of the most challenging and frustrating aspects of the managerial job. To ease this process, many companies have adopted various Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) that are... Read more »
Holistic Employee Assistance Is Good for the Bottom Line
August 18, 2008
We spend a large part of our lives at work. We make friends, network with colleagues and plan our retirement years based on our active lives in the workplace. But for all the time we spend at work, how healthy is the work climate? The answer to this question has become the focus for a growing number of companies that provide employee assistance programs. Everyone has experienced a cold or flu, which was “going around the office”, or had allergic reactions to cleaning fluids or strong perfumes in the workplace. Some jobs require physical endurance... Read more »
Saving the Small Business: Professional Employer Organizations
August 18, 2008
A professional employer organization, or “PEO”, is an entity that provides a spectrum of administrative services to businesses that are too small or just don’t want to do it themselves. These services include payroll processing, workers’ compensation insurance, employee benefits administration and human resources services. They are able to do what they do via a process called “employee leasing″. Although it is a strange word (how do you lease a human being?), the concept is really quite simple. If you use a PEO, then your employees... Read more »
Worksite Wellness Programs Now as Important as Cost and Workforce Issues
August 17, 2008
Work site wellness for their employees, employers are discovering, is good for the health of their businesses as well. Health and wellness programs help to cut the costs associated with poor employee health, which include absenteeism, loss of productivity and poor work quality. A recent Hewitt Associates survey of over 500 US companies indicated a significant paradigm shift in how companies view health benefits for their employees. Of those surveyed this year, 88% are committed to instituting long-term health care assistance programs (over the next 3-5 years) for their employees, with the goal of boosting the health and productivity of their workforce. This represents... Read more »
