Age Discrimination

The Professional Employer has a couple of good articles related to age discrimination.-

In Fiscal Year 2007, EEOC received 19,103 charges of age discrimination. EEOC resolved 16,134 age discrimination charges in FY 2007 and recovered $66.8 million in monetary benefits for charging parties and other aggrieved individuals (not including monetary benefits obtained through litigation). For the complete article click HERE.

Attorneys expect to see a rise in caregiving-related discrimination lawsuits as the rest of the country “grays”. Family responsibility discrimination cases increased almost 400% from 1996 to 2005. The average award was just over $100,000. (That figure does not include out of court settlements.) For the complete article click HERE.

Feds Crack Down on Undocumented Workers

Yesterday’s Houston Chronicle reports illegal immigration raids will increase in 2008.

For the complete article click HERE.

.

Kevin Lachus, a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorney, expects worksite investigations and immigration raids to increase significantly across the U.S. and especially in Houston.

As a government attorney, Lachus was involved in sweeping raids on the Swift & Company packing plants in 2006.

He and others say stepped-up worksite enforcement raids are part of a Department of Homeland Security strategy to force a revival of last year’s failed effort to reform the nation’s immigration laws. The idea is that disruptions caused by raids would unite business interests and immigration hard-liners to convince legislators to reconsider immigration reform.

Lachus, a lawyer with the Tindall & Foster immigration law firm in Houston, expects 150 raids across the country this year, up from 48 last year.

Employees are Wising Up

There are a vast number of websites today that offer education of employee rights. When an employee is concerned, upset, offended, or angered by workplace experiences they can quickly and easily find out what their rights are. See for yourself. When I googled “employee rights” I got back over 9 MILLION results. Here’s are some sample websites that a disgruntled employee might find:

—Employee Rights – Resource Center

—Help!! I Hate My Boss

—Injured Workers Alliance

—…and my personal favorite…

—How to Sue Your Employer and Win!

The explosive growth of the internet is changing workplace dynamics. Precise human resource management is now just as critical as accurate financial accounting. To avoid costly run-in’s with well informed employees business owners must do one of the following:

1. Research, understand and comply with all aspects of employment law. Then hire an attorney when bad things happen.

2. Hire an employee to do the research and worry about compliance. Then hire an attorney when bad things happen.

3. Outsource your employment liability to a Professional Employment Organization (PEO). Then let the PEO deal with the bad things.

Of course if those options don’t appeal you could always try pretending bad things won’t happen.

Overcoming Operational Inefficiencies

Here’s a great little article from our new friend Mike Russell of Organizational Development Solutions at Jobing.com

X

Whether your business employs two people or several hundred, outsourcing will save your company money and enhance the employee/internal client experience.

Unfortunately, however, many entrepreneurs don’t have the time to educate themselves and/or research the appropriate providers. Consequently, they are ill-informed and will delegate these details to an administrative assistant who is no more knowledgeable then his/her superiors.

By securing the services of subject matter experts to handle the administrative HR functions of your business, you reduce your employee headcount, ensure that greater quality control mechanisms are in place and enhance the employee experience while also protecting the integrity of the data and improving the timeliness of the reporting. Moreover, by outsourcing tasks that have legal implications and/or could cause liability for your company, you shift that legal burden to a third party and eliminate compliance risks. In short, it’s a “win/win.”

For the complete article click here.