One of the pleasures of writing a blog is discovering other blogs out thereReference - Morgue File, public domain discussing interesting topics.  These are some of the entries this past week or so that caught my eye, in no particular order.

  • The HR Capitalist Blog, run by Kris Dunn, has combined two subjects near and dear to my heart — baseball and employment law — into a "Carnival" post. What is a Carnival post? Essentially, just a "best of" various blogs for the human resources area.  It’s a fun entry that ties in the topics well.  (And I certainly appreciated the mention the blog.) 
  • The Alaska Employment Blog has a thought-provoking post as to what an employer should do when it has misapplied a policy in the past.  In other words, must the employer continue this "mistake" with later employees who may be similarly situated to the first employees? Will Schendel suggests no, and provides a path for employers to consider.  Of course, he is quick to note that not all situations will be able to apply this, but its also a good reminder that the best companies are the ones that recognize mistakes and fix them.
  • The Evil HR Lady’s humorous posts always get a chuckle. I’m amazed at some of the questions that people her.  This question — regarding whether a company could fire employee for dating a co-worker — is one such example. But what I particularly enjoyed was Evil’s dead-on response — spoken like an HR person with experience. 

Yes. You can be fired for dating a co-worker. You can be fired for picking your nose. You can be fired because your boss decided that he doesn’t like what you eat for lunch.

And, Evil isn’t afraid to acknowledge that some questions are best left for legal counsel. Sage comments for any HR generalist out there. 

  • Finally, the Workplace Prof Blog, which discussed an earlier article I had written this week,  also had a notable post that references 11 common 401(k) mistakes and how to fix them. Most notably, the listing of mistakes and solutions does not come from an academic or a practitioner, but from the IRS itself, via a 43-page hyperlinked document.  As I have talked about previously, HR employees and in-house counsel work best when they can spot issues, even when they don’t know the solution.  This document is a great resource, particularly for those who dabble in 401(k) plans but may not have a particular expertise, such as HR personnel at small-to-midsize companies.