Not surprisingly, another active week across the blogosphere. Please support my fellow bloggers by checking out some of these links.
We'll start out with a couple of wage and hour issues. The Pennsylvania Employment Law Blog cautions companies that there are tricks and traps involved in holiday and year-end bonuses, and to watch out for wage and hour mistakes. Meanwhile, the Evil HR Lady answers a question on the legality and advisability of making deductions from the salary of an exempt employee for time away from work (hint, don't do it, as I advised back in June).
John Phillips, at The Word on Employment Law, has posted the 1st half of a 6-part series on the art of firing employees. (Part I, Part II, and Part III). The highlights so far - fairly evaluate performance, use progressive discipline, be consistent, and document everything. Good, basic, sound advice for all companies to follow. John tells me that Parts IV, V, and VI will be posted in the coming days, so keep an eye out for them.
HR World asks the question, "Are you pregnancy-friendly?", and suggests that such an approach is needed to prevent the loss of talented employees to motherhood.
Finally, Kris Dunn, The HR Capitalist, reports on the proposed Healthy Families Act, which would require employers with more than 15 employees to offer full-time employees seven days of paid sick leave.