The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act) imposes restrictions on the way layoffs are handled. It is designed to give employees advance notice of a layoff in order to find another job, to seek retraining in a new occupation, and to give state dislocated-worker units adequate preparation to assist affected workers. With a few exceptions, employers must comply with the WARN Act if they have 100 or more full-time employees or if they have 100 or more employees who regularly work a total of 4,000 nonovertime hours per week. Employers also must avoid discrimination when considering layoffs.
How Do You Cope with an Economic Recession?
Is the U.S. economy already in recession? Is that condition just around the next corner? Across the nation, employers find it nearly impossible to ignore the possibility that revenues and profits could drop--and they're already feeling the pain in real estate, construction, financial services, and the automotive industry. If you're still at the stage of the jitters, should you act on them?
Watch Out for Discrimination in Your RIF
Employers should be very careful about how they manage reductions in force, or RIFs. As the company targeted in this lawsuit found out, sloppy decisions can lead to expensive discrimination judgments.
HR Pros Say Economy is Hottest Workplace Topic
HR professionals report that the most talked-about topics in the workplace are the economy and company-specific topics--with less attention being paid to politics and the NCAA college basketball tournament--in a recent Compensation.BLR.com poll.
