HR News & Trends

HR News & Trends

Appeals Court Strikes Down Rule on Union Posters in the Workplace

NLRB-Employees-Rights-Notice

The NLRB has had a ruling overturned by a federal appeals court — again.

The Los Angeles Times reports that“Employers cannot be required to post a notice that tells their workers they have a right to join a union and bargain for better wages, a federal appeals court ruled in the latest setback for the National Labor Relations Board.”

According to the newspaper:

The (NLRB’s) so-called poster rule would have required more than 6 million private employers to post a one-page notice in a prominent place. Labor leaders hoped it would help stem the long decline in union membership in the private sector. Only about 7 percent of private-sector employees belong to unions. Read more…

HR News & Trends

Millennials on the Job: They Want to Commit, But Will We Let Them?

123RF Stock Photo

Accenture recently published its 2013 College Graduate Employment Survey findings.

There’s lots of great data — especially if you plan to hire recent college grads. In fact, some of the data is surprising.

One of the important takeaways is that employers have unrealistic expectations for the skills of the hires they make out of college. They think these young people should be able to hit the ground running and are surprised and disappointed when they don’t.

And to compound the problem, these employers are not investing in training initiatives to get the newly hired up to speed in the short term or effective in the long term. Read more…

HR News & Trends, Legal Issues

New Jersey Governor Vetoes Proposed Workplace Social Media Law

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By Eric B. Meyer

You see, employment law dorks like me use tools like these to monitor the status of pending employment-law-related bills.

And yesterday, I got a hit informing me that, on Monday, Gov. Chris Christie vetoed this proposed New Jersey bill, which would prohibit employers from requiring employees and candidates for disclosing online usernames and passwords.

Savador Rizzo at The Star-Ledger of Newark summarized Gov. Christie’s reasons for vetoing the bill here: Read more…

HR Management, HR News & Trends

Should Employers Ask Candidates for Their Facebook Passwords?

Facebookpasswords Social media

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) which helps individuals protect their right to privacy and prohibits an employer from impersonating an employee online when other employees are interacting across social media platforms.

Removed from this bill at the last minute was a provision that would have banned employers from asking job candidates and employees for their social media passwords.

Given the public sentiment on this issue, not to mention the media outcry, this omission is a big surprise to me. Kudos to Congress for not caving to public pressure on this one. Read more…

HR News & Trends

Weekly Wrap: Why Are We So Crazed About “Passive” Job Candidates?

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I know what it is to be a “passive” job candidate.

OK, so maybe I wasn’t really all that passive if you get right to it. But twice, I was recruited by a search firm for a job when I wasn’t exactly out on the market and actively looking. And, it was really flattering to have somebody reach out to me about some great new opportunity.

So, that’s why the whole crazy mania about the search for “passive” job candidates today leaves me scratching my head.

Yes, there have always been companies and search firms out there looking for good candidates who aren’t really looking, and there have always been candidates who aren’t really looking but are open to possibilities, but why has today’s focus on passive candidates seem to have turned obsessive and at the expense of so many good, solid, “active” candidates out in the job market? Read more…

HR News & Trends

April Unemployment Numbers Show Economy is Still Growing, But Slowly

hiring

After a mediocre jobs report from ADP, and the government’s own anemic March report last month, economists and the financial markets were hoping today’s report on April employment would make it at least into six digits.

No worries. The report from the U.S. Department of Labor this morning said 165,000 new non-farm jobs were created last month, while the unemployment rate declined slightly to 7.5 percent, even as the size of the workforce ticked up slightly. (It is still lower than at any time in more than three decades.)

The government also adjusted up its initial numbers for both February and March, increasing the new job estimates by a combined 114,000. With the revisions, job growth in the first quarter totaled 618,000. That’s just slightly behind the 208,000 monthly average during all of last year. Read more…

HR News & Trends, Legal Issues

Arkansas Latest to Pass a Workplace Social Media Privacy Law

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By Eric B. Meyer

I don’t know much about Arkansas. My knowledge consists of Gennifer Flowers, Wal-Mart, and this handy-dandy iPhone app for harvesting deer. I also hear that the official state beverage is milk.

How about that?

But now I know one more thing: Arkansas has a new social media privacy law, which prohibits an employer from requiring or requesting that a current or prospective employee do any of the following: Read more…

Benefits, HR News & Trends

Aetna Cuts Predictions For First Year Enrollments Under Obamacare

Health care reform11

In a new sign that implementing the health law could take longer than expected, insurer Aetna said Tuesday it lowered the number of medical policies it expects to sell through online marketplaces that open for business in October.

“This is going to be a slow uptake,” Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini told investment analysts on a quarterly call to discuss financial results. “The process required to sign up, to get the subsidies, is going to take some time. And I think this is a two-year ramp to get the individual exchanges up to a level where customers are going to feel appropriate signing up. And so our estimates of what we believe … enrollment [will be] are dropping for the first year.”

He didn’t give a number, and insurers rarely disclose projections for specific business lines. But Aetna offered nothing to challenge perceptions that it will approach the Affordable Care Act’s subsidized marketplaces, also known as exchanges, with great deliberation. Read more…

Benefits, HR News & Trends

Yahoo’s Upgraded Maternity Leave: Good, But Not Best in Silicon Valley

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Although most observers are praising CEO Marissa Mayer and Yahoo’s upgraded maternity leave policy that gives 16 weeks of paid leaves to new Moms and 8 weeks to new Dads, here’s another perspective: although it’s good, it’s not the most generous among Silicon Valley companies.

According to the Los Angeles Times:

The new policy will allow mothers to take up to four months of paid leave. Parents who adopt will be able to take eight weeks off from work.

Yahoo will also give new parents $500 to spend on baby items and related services. New pets will also get some freebies, Yahoo said. Employees can get Yahoo-branded gifts for their cats and dogs.” Read more…

HR News & Trends, Talent Management

3 Cutting Edge Talent Management Practices From Silicon Valley

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Anyone who tracks advanced trends in talent management knows that many of them originated in the Silicon Valley.

However, you probably also know that many of the publicized practices that start in the Silicon Valley are so unique and outrageous (like the free Sweets Shop that is part ice cream parlor and bakery at Facebook), that no firm outside of the Valley ever copies them.

The three Silicon Valley practices that I am highlighting probably won’t require immediate action at your firm simply because they are so bold and outrageous that conservative talent managers will not even consider them. As a result, I am labeling them “leading edge practices that you should simply be aware of.” Read more…