Holly Jones

Holly K. Jones, J.D., is a Senior Legal Editor for BLR’s human resources and employment law publications. She understands the existing and emerging needs and challenges of human resources professionals thanks to several years of experience managing, writing, and editing key legal and compliance publications for BLR. Prior to joining BLR, Ms. Jones worked for the Tennessee Legislature's Office of Legal Services.

She graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in English Rhetoric and Writing, Political Science, and Psychology from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she also received a 2001 Citation for Extraordinary Academic Achievement. She received her law degree from Vanderbilt University Law School and is licensed to practice law in Tennessee.

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Holly_Jones
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  • Hi, Bill, and thanks so much for your question! If you are an HR.BLR.com subscriber we have several sample policies available that may meet your needs. These policies are in Word document format, so you can easily select the elements from each that…
  • Claudia, thanks so much for your excellent question and for using the Employers' Forum. I've responded via e-mail to your Ask the Expert question on this issue and thought I would also share my response here, just in case others are encountering s…
  • Pam, thank you for your great question and for breaking the ice in our brand new Strategic HR forum!  Just thinking out loud a bit, here are a few ideas that may either work as suggested or may give you some similar/adjacent ideas for comparable me…
  • Hello, Richard, and thanks for your great question. As you have no doubt surmised, these types of policies are a bit of a sensitive and nuanced subject, so unfortunately we also don't have a sample policy or template of this type among our HR resou…
  • Hello, and thanks for your question! There is no state or federal law that specifically prohibits an employer from replacing or refilling a position after the previous worker was laid off. As Florida is an at-will state, employment can be terminate…
  • Good morning, Dave, and welcome to the forum! In Delaware, the important aspect of this situation is not as much whether the employee gave proper notice, but how your company's vacation policy is worded/structured. No employer is required, by Dela…
  • Hello, PA HR Gal, and thank you for your inquiry! As you’re aware, this is a complicated situation, so let’s take it piece by piece. First, let’s start with the foundation for requesting fitness for duty certification in connection with the FMLA…
  • Hello, and welcome to the forum! In Ohio, workers' compensation claims are managed by the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation (BWC). If your employee was injured on the job, then this injury should be reported using the First Report of Injury form…
  • Legal issues aside, employers face the risk that the very job candidates they want the most will refuse to work for them if they request password information.  This is such a good point! I think it says a lot about employee/employer "fit." Person…
  • Just in the event that some of you haven't heard about this one, yet: http://raganwald.posterous.com/i-hereby-resign The (not real, but still going viral around the 'net) "letter of resignation" commentary on requesting access (whether through pass…
  • Another agreeing vote for Nae's answer. Also, just as a related note/product plug (:)) for those who may be interested in further information on criminal background checks and other screening methods, in the most recent two issues of [url=http://st…
  • We've been pretty swamped here at the BLR offices, too. In fact, part of what we've been meeting on are ways we can improve this forum for our readers and facilitate conversations (whether existing or new) among our customers and HR pros. One of t…
  • With regard to the federal requirement under the FLSA, the DOL provided some remarkably helpful guidance in a [url=http://webapps.dol.gov/FederalRegister/PdfDisplay.aspx?DocId=24540]request for comment document last year.[/url] Lounges, anterooms, …
  • I am as clueless as can be -- almost willfully so -- about most sports, but that naivete actually served me rather well in the March Madness pools while I was in law school. I wasn't worried about 7/10 this or statistics that, I just picked what fe…
  • Speaking for FMLA (though I believe the answer is similar for CFRA): The answer is "could be." I know, not helpful. As with many of those "could be" and "it depends" and "possibly maybe" issues in federal law and regulations, it largely comes d…
  • Great question, leadvisor! The answer to your question largely hinges on "mandatory." First, is the training these officers are seeking mandatory for them to maintain their jobs (or licensure related to their jobs) or is it closely related to thei…
  • Great question! With the caveat that I'm stepping a little bit outside my element, as this question falls more securely in estate and property law than employment law, I absolutely welcome others' input in addition to mine. In theory, you can name…
  • Hi Bullion, Unfortunately, I think you've hit the nail on the head -- the regulations [I]are[/I] confusing, as is the case with so many FLSA issues and questions. The intricacies and details of travel pay are a bit too involved to get into on a …
  • My partner-in-crime Jessica Webb-Ayer and I are, I believe, the only ones at our office who dressed up today, though the fact that we also just moved to a new office space today might have kept some folks from wanting to be dealing with unpacking AN…
  • Great question! We not only cover this topic for all 50 states in [url=http://store.hrhero.com/50x50][i]Fifty Employment Laws in Fifty States[/i][/url], but coincidentally, the cover article for this month's issue of our monthly multi-state newslet…
  • Unfortunately I don't know that that information sheds any additional light on the subject -- the cleaning and maintenance would still be for the benefit of the employer (probably moreso, in fact, if the employees aren't able to keep the uniforms) -…
  • Under federal law, employers are allowed to deduct uniform (and maintenance/cleaning) costs from employee paychecks so long as the deductions don't take the wages below the federal minimum. As you noted, many states have further restrictions, but u…
  • For the most part, yes, sick leave buy-backs must be calculated as regular wages. (There's actually a circuit split among the federal courts -- the Sixth Circuit, [url=http://www.hrlaws.com/node/1206141]no stranger to disagreeing with the DOL,[/url…
  • The [I][url=http://store.hrhero.com/50x50]Fifty Employment Laws in Fifty States[/I][/url] manual covers the first part of the question, direct deposit, in [url=http://www.hrlaws.com/node/1075019]Chapter 10.[/url] For the second part of the question…
  • Another way to look at low work situations is to compare the rules for on-call employment. Under the FLSA, if you have employees who are on-call, whether or not you must pay them for their time depends on whether they are "engaged to wait" or "wai…
  • Great question! I don't know of a specific, directed prohibition toward hiring dishonorably discharged individuals as federal contractors; however, there are some repercussions that follow the discharge itself that may disqualify the individual for…
  • Hi Michelle, I presume you may be referring to the matter in [i]Sutton v. Tomco Machining, Inc.[/i], an Ohio case in which the question was whether there is a public policy exception to the employment-at-will doctrine when an employee suffers a wor…
  • Thanks for your question, Michelle! Chapter 27 of [i][url=http://store.hrhero.com/50x50]50 Employment Laws in 50 States[/i][/url] notes that Ohio's disability definition and accommodation requirements are the same as the federal ADA; however, und…
  • My family has always had a very no-frills approach to the holidays, which always makes me excited to read other people's traditions. Jessica, I will more than gladly adopt the country ham breakfast tradition, as that just sounds fantastic this morn…
  • In mid-February, the newly-updated 2011 edition of our [i][url=http://store.hrhero.com/50x50]50 Employment Laws in 50 States[/i][/url] manual will be available and will have detailed information on background checks for all 50 states. Current subsc…