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On April 2, 2018, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) should again be open for business for a flood of H-1B petition filings, which are subject to the annual cap. Employers are required to pay the higher of the actual or prevailing wage for the area of intended employment to sponsor an H-1B specialty occupation …
Continue reading “Interagency Cooperation: Raising the Bar for Immigration Compliance”
One of the most significant developments in employment law in 2017 was a federal district court in Texas declaring invalid the Obama Administration’s controversial new overtime rule that would have more than doubled the minimum salary level required to qualify for certain overtime exemptions under the FLSA. Although the business community won this battle, employers …
Continue reading “What to Watch for in 2018: The New Overtime Rule, Take Two”
Who doesn’t enjoy the annual company Holiday Party? Do any of these remind you of an event that you have attended? Employees, relieved of normal workplace stresses and worries, exuberantly extolling a year’s worth of hard-won achievements and desired esprit de corps; Happy workers collectively celebrating year-end bonuses and time off from work, eschewing business …
Continue reading “The Year End/Holiday Celebration in the Era of Reckoning”
December is a month of heavy spending. Not only are wallets taxed for holiday gifts, but December is also a heavy month for charitable giving. With money on everyone’s brains a little more this month, the All Things HR Blog thought it might be a good time to go do a Q&A of commonly asked …
Continue reading “A Holiday Pay Q&A to Keep Employers Off the Naughty List”
The IRS has taken actions indicating that the employer mandate penalties under the Affordable Care Act are about to be enforced. Employers should expect to begin receiving letters from the IRS indicating penalties are due for the 2015 year in the coming weeks. There are a few things that employers can do to be prepared …
As employers who sponsor 401(k) and 403(b) retirement plans prepare their 2017 year-end and 2018 “to do” lists, they should be sure to include a review of their processes for selecting and monitoring the investment funds they make available for plan participant investment and the fees their plans pay to record keepers and other service …
Continue reading “Minimizing the Risk of Costly 401(k) and 403(b) Investment Fund and Fee Lawsuits”
By Eric Kay and Sara Jodka There has been a recent trend whereby one party to a workplace conversation secretly records it and then attempts to use it as evidence against the other party. Typically, but not always, the recording party is the employee. The law in Canada allows one party to a conversation to …
Continue reading “RECORDING WORKPLACE CONVERSATIONS IN CANADA VERSUS THE UNITED STATES”
The Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) announced cost of living adjustments affecting dollar limitations for employer plans for tax year 2018. The IRS issued technical guidance detailing these items in Notice 2017-64, in addition to previous guidance in Rev. Proc. 2017-37 and Rev. Proc. 2017-58. Many of the limitations will change because the increase in the …
Many companies offer parental leave benefits above and beyond the 12 unpaid weeks required by the FMLA. However, well-meaning employers can run afoul of federal anti-discrimination laws by providing different parental leave benefits to fathers and mothers. Title VII bans employment discrimination on the basis of sex. 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000e-2. But recently there has …
With the recent change by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to mandate in-person interviews for employment based adjustment cases along with changes to require the review of social media and to what constitutes a misrepresentation of intent at the time of a visa application or entry to the U.S., employers must recalibrate and intensify …