Now that the calendar has turned to 2012, employers and employees alike are taking stock. Will the new year bring relief from a long recession? Will layoffs slow down and hiring speed up? Will discontented, overworked employees have a chance to recharge?
The answers are specific to individual employers and employees, but survey data provide some [...]

Unlimited vacation is a growing trend that may be a good way for organizations to provide an incentive or bonus to employees to reward them for good work without increasing salaries or providing bonuses or other kinds of incentives. The concept of unlimited vacation is very simple: Employees can take vacation, personal, and sick time [...]

HR professionals are frequently asked to do more with less. Moreover, these are challenging times, with companies facing increased employment litigation but having fewer resources for programs to strengthen the quality and longevity of the workforce. Exit interviews represent an effective and inexpensive, albeit little-used, tool for spotting and fixing problems before they turn into [...]

From the nightly news to the employee break room, one of the hottest topics right now is how the cost of gas keeps going up, and with the crisis in the Middle East continuing to escalate, there is no end in sight. Employees are feeling the pain of rising gas prices and some may be [...]

Q&A with Jamie Naughton, Cruise Ship Captain at Zappos.com
Q: What’s the secret to getting on Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work for in America” list?

Reading about sports superstars can provide HR professionals with valuable insight into the motivation and behavior of the employees you work with every day.

Employment law attorney Robert P. Tinnin, Jr., answers an HR practitioner’s question about improving a flextime program that has become unmanageable.

by Sam R. Fulkerson
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced in January that 93,277 workplace discrimination charges were filed nationwide during 2009 — the second-highest level ever — and monetary relief obtained for victims totaled more than $376 million. The 2009 data show that private-sector job bias charges alleging discrimination based on disability, religion, and [...]

by Sally J. Reynolds
Each year thousands of Americans resolve to quit smoking, but most will be unsuccessful. Some employers have begun implementing financial incentives to motivate their health plan participants to stop using tobacco. One type of reward may be a discount on health insurance premiums for employees who don’t use tobacco or are actively [...]

by Isabella Lee
After falling for more than a century, the retirement age of American workers is on an upward trend. According to a recent survey, 43 percent of Americans believe they will have to work during their retirement.