Tips,For,Avoiding,Wage,amp,Hou business, insurance 5 Tips For Avoiding Wage & Hour Lawsuits
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Recent broadcasts from multiplesources including Kiplinger and thenational employment law firm of SeyfarthShaw are advising clients and workplace managers of the huge uptick in wageand hour class action lawsuits. This dramatic increase in the sheernumber and settlement size of these class action suits provides further supportto train managers in wage & hour issues.Both sources contend that wage & hourlawsuits are exponentially outpacing all other types of workplace class actionlawsuits. Collective actions filed in federal court outnumbered all othertypes of private class action suits, and hit the following states the hardestlast year: California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts,Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Washington. This trend is expected tocontinue into 2010.Seyfarth Shaw summarizes their findings intheir Sixth Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report by saying, "Increasing sophisticated classaction and collective action litigation, combined with aggressive governmentenforcement, means that employers are apt to face more claims and biggerexposures in 2010."The cost of losing these complaints andlawsuits for employers is huge. Seyforth Shaw reported that the dollarvaluation of the "top 10" private settlements in 2009 totaled $363.8million, up from $252.70 million in 2008.At OhioEmployer's Law Blog, attorney John Hyman wrote a 12/09 blog thathighlighted a $1 BiIllion classaction lawsuit (as he says, "yes that's 9 zero's!") filed against AT& T for their alleged misclassification of their first line managers asbeing "exempt." Unfortunately, it only takes one disgruntledemployee to instigate a wage & hours complaint that has the potential tobecome a major class action suit against an employer.Here are 5 tips you can implement in yourorganization to avoid wage and hour complaints and lawsuits:1). Conduct an wage & hour audit. Now is the time to become proactive, to be certainthat your organization's jobs are properly classified as being either"exempt" or "non-exempt" under the FLSA and DOL'sregulations. If you don't have the time to conduct the audit yourself,hire an experienced HR consultant or attorney to perform this analysis.2). Identify & focus onknown "problem jobs" includingjobs under the administrative exemption, IT jobs, outside/inside sales jobs,and first line supervision jobs. The FLSA evaluation tends to becomedifficult when evaluating the "threshold jobs" that are just on theborder of transitioning from being "non-exempt" to"exempt." States who have more restrictive wage & hourregulations regarding specified jobs groups can also be problematic.3). When in doubt, hire an expert to make the determination as to the properclassification status. Run the most difficult "problemjobs" by your labor attorney to make a final determination. Or....decide to manage this conservatively and classify "problemjobs" as being non-exempt to avoid any future problems. Of course, manyemployers don't want to do this because of the overtime pay costs.4). Bring your managers into thedecision making process. Get additional information from them about the job's responsibilities andduties as necessary, and use the time to educate them about why the job has tobe classified one way or the other. You'll have greater"buy-in" from them once the final decision's been made because theywere a part of the process.5). Train your managers. Clarify and correct common managerial beliefs such asdiscretionary classification of jobs based upon their whim, the differencesbetween "salaried" and "exempt," and key elements of yourcompensation practices. Knowledgeable managers won't allow unauthorizedovertime practices, missed lunch or regular breaks from their employees. Experts believe that approximately 70% ofbusinesses are out of compliance with wage and hour laws. Throughimplementing these five recommended practices, you could potentially save yourorganization thousands and maybe even millions of dollars in avoided complaintsor lawsuits. If you suspect that your company has wage & hour issues,don't wait for one of the 250 newly hired DOL agents to show up on yourdoorstep before you address them! Copyright 2010 Regan HR, Inc.
Tips,For,Avoiding,Wage,amp,Hou