When an employee takes leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, the employer is supposed to quickly provide him or her with certain notices. These may include an “eligibility” notice, a “rights and responsibilities” notice, and a “designation” notice. Although these notices can be somewhat technical, they’re strictly required to protect your rights. The Wackenhut Corporation found this out the hard way when Jacqueline Young took 12 weeks of FMLA leave. Once her leave

By the time Wisconsin-based JT Packard & Associates ran into financial trouble, it was also the target of a lawsuit by employees who claimed they hadn’t been paid overtime. Eventually, Packard went out of business, and its assets were sold to a company called the Thomas & Betts Corp. As part of the sale agreement, Thomas & Betts specifically said that it wasn’t assuming liability for the overtime claim. When a company purchases the assets of

The IRS has made it easier to deduct a home office, starting in 2013. In the past, the home office deduction was very difficult to document, and the IRS was very suspicious of it. Even people who could legitimately claim the deduction were often hesitant to do so for fear that it could trigger an audit. This year, though, the IRS has created a “safe harbor” for taxpayers. You might not be able to deduct every

Companies that want to hire foreign workers with specialized skills and expertise are facing a growing bottleneck with the H-1B visa program, which allows skilled foreign employees a visa if they are sponsored by an American employer. The number of visas is capped at 65,000 a year, with an additional 20,000 possible under a special program for applicants with master’s degrees and doctorates. This year, the government was flooded with 124,000 applications, and the cap was

More and more companies are allowing employees to work from home. That can be great … but working from home raises a lot of legal issues that many managers simply aren’t aware of. If you allow telecommuting – even if you allow it for only a few employees, or only part of the time – it’s a good idea to have a written policy that will protect you if questions arise or if something goes wrong.