Understandably, it can be hard to drag yourself into work when all you hear is bad news about the economy. Many workplaces are having morale problems in the wake of — or in anticipation of — layoffs. And it's starting to show in increased employee tardiness. According to a recent poll, 20 percen...

If your company was one of those that laid off a combined half million employees in the past six months, you’ve already sent out a bunch of COBRA notices. Thanks to the Obama Administration and Congress, now you have to do it again. Last week, President Obama signed into law the American Recovery ...

In our last post, we talked about eight ways for an employer to lose a noncompete case. Today, we cover something much simpler: how to lose a wage-and-hour lawsuit. It's really quite easy to do: Just screw up an employee's pay. That's all! No fussing, no mussing. You see, unlike in most any other ki...

I was going to write something about the Supreme Court's decision Monday in Crawford, further expanding the ability of employees to win retaliation lawsuits, but that's going to have to wait. (For those who can't wait, a PDF of the decision is here.) Instead, the biggest news on the workplace front ...

Is it me, or are we seeing a trend in press releases and internal memos about layoffs? In announcing the layoffs, whether publicly or "internally and confidentially" (which these days just means publicly with a slight delay — who really, in this day and age, thinks these memos and emails are going...

Cal Ripken Jr. must be be relieved. Thanks to the Department of Labor, it just got a little bit harder to become an "Iron Man." On Friday, the DOL's new Family and Medical Leave Act regulations go into effect. The changes are many and we will cover them in greater detail in posts to come. But before...

I hate change. No, not that kind of change. I really like "change" change. I want to be a change agent. My favorite song is Bowie's "Changes." Favorite movie: A Change of Seasons . And I'm all about Barack Obama's "Change you can believe in" slogan. (OK, none of those last three is remotely true. Ju...

States spend skitillions of dollars (a skitillion is one followed by a wad of zeroes, or ten to the wad) on catchy slogans and jingles to lure gullible businesses to open plants and offices there. If you're from Massachusetts and of a certain age (that is, you now enjoy your federal age-discriminati...

I'll never forget the stickers from the night before my wedding. On the other hand, my brother Bill probably can't remember them. Because of the fumes. Let me explain: Just before the wedding, my bride-to-be had everything under control. The flowers were set, the caterer was prepared, the ceremony s...

Managers and HR professionals have to pay attention to their employees. It's right there in the job description. Monitoring work, evaluating performance, tracking compliance. Sometimes, for various reasons, they have to pay attention to other things: an employee's computer files, email or internet u...