HR on Mic

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed into law on July 4, 2025. It covers a range of employee benefits topics that will be of interest to employers, including tax-deductible overtime pay, pre-tax dependent care accounts, and tuition reimbursement. In this episode of Towne Benefits' HR on Mic, Corbin and Barbara provide helpful information about the bill and ways employers might use its pr...

Company cultures can go bad over time. Today Corbin and Barbara discuss how to recognize a toxic culture and practical steps you can take to turn things around.

ICYMI - If you're responsible for your company's HR or payroll compliance functions, you will find that the IRS has given you a little gift in 2025 by lightening the 1095 reporting load. This episode explains the details of four important 1095 changes that may benefit you.

Happy New Year from Corbin and Barbara of HR on Mic. Time flies, and we are honored to serve as "co-pilots" to the People Managers who take care of our client companies. We thank you for reaching out to us, and we wish you success and happiness in 2025!

For many people managers, FMLA administration is anything but fun. In our latest HR on Mic episode, “Fundamentals of FMLA” Corbin and Barbara provide a wealth of information on things you need to know when you receive an employee’s request for FMLA. Which employees are covered? Can you require medical certification? Can FMLA leave be taken intermittently? Get the answers to these questions and man...

Have you ever had an employee ask for some sort of accommodation for a medical or religious reason? “Accommodation” is a word that you may hear from time to time if you’re a people manager, and in this episode of HR on Mic, Corbin and Barbara explore three laws that require employers to make employee accommodations under certain circumstances. 

If an HR on Mic episode on retaliation seems familiar, it's because Barbara and Corbin discussed it before. It’s that important. About 55% of the EEOC actions that employees file against employers include a retaliation component.  This newest retaliation episode provides more practical prevention guidelines and real-world examples. Whether you’re dealing with FMLA, the ADA, or any one of the...

If you feel like the list of employer reporting requirements continues to grow, you’re not imagining things. Recently, the new kid on the block was the RxDC Report. June 1, 2024 is the deadline for reporting the 2023 RxDC information to CMS.  What is the RxDC Report? RxDC stands for “prescription data collection.” The goals of the report include identifying the drivers of prescription drug and med...

The federal Family and Medical Leave Act guarantees many workers access to unpaid, job-protected parental, family caregiver, personal medical, and military exigency leave. In the recent past, 13 states have enacted mandatory family leave programs, and in another 8 states, voluntary family and medical leave programs are now in effect or soon will be. Like the federal FMLA, these state laws, called...

In addition to helping prevent Exit Interviews, Stay Interviews are a simple tool that can help you retain your high-performing team members and, simultaneously give your company the advantage in attracting the employees you're competing for. In this episode of HR on Mic, Corbin Granger and Barbara Jennings share helpful how-to information on how a Stay Interview program can work for your com...

Welcome to a new year! In this episode, Barbara and Corbin share their plans for HR on Mic in 2024. 

AI has made a big splash in the media lately - from business to politics to court cases. If you’re a people manager, you might be concerned about the potential impact of artificial intelligence on human resources management. In this episode of HR on Mic, Corbin and Barbara discuss some of the ways that AI will be a useful HR tool as well as aspects of AI that HR managers should be aware of before...

It’s a goal of most companies to be a good place to work. But what happens when an employer’s generosity comes back to bite them? In this episode of HR on Mic, Corbin and Barbara discuss health plan insurers’ Actively at Work requirements. 

What happens when the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Workers Comp collide? Some people call this possibility the Bermuda Triangle of employment laws, and in this episode of HR on Mic, Corbin and Barbara offer several possible scenarios where they may overlap, and how to navigate a successful outcome.  

When it comes to health plan elections, employees can only make changes at certain times, or as a result of certain events. In this episode of HR on Mic, Corbin and Barbara review when and how an employee can change health plan elections. 

The realm of human resources is a world of initials. We would have a hard time getting through an eight-hour day without them – FLSA, ATS, ADA, COLA, DEI and a host of others, including our own field: HR. In this episode of HR on Mic, Corbin and Barbara share answers to some questions about FMLA, initials that are a source of confusion for many employers. 

The only thing in life that we can count on is change, and there is a change in the Affordable Care Act reporting requirements that will soon affect many employers. In this episode of HR on Mic, Corbin and Barbara help you prepare for the new reporting requirements. 

Would a manager at your company intentionally retaliate against a company employee? Probably not. Yet over 50% of the EEOC charges brought against employers include a charge of retaliation. In this episode of HR on Mic, Corbin and Barbara explain common retaliation scenarios and how to avoid them. 

“Harassment”, and its frequent companion “Retaliation” are words no people-manager ever wants to hear in the workplace. Most of the time when we hear the word harassment, we think about sexual harassment, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Employees can be illegally harassed for many different reasons including race, sex, religion, and national origin, along with other protected characteristi...

Our first episode is timely, as Barbara and Corbin explore the details of Virginia's new organ donor leave law. The law takes effect on July 1, 2023 and mandates that employers with 50 or more employees provide unpaid leave from work for organ and bone marrow donation. Join to learn what we know right now!

At Towne Benefits, we’re always considering new ways to enhance our client relationships. We are pleased and excited to introduce our latest tool in the HR and compliance toolkit: a podcast that provides helpful information on human resources and compliance topics in short, easy-to-listen-to segments.  In this first episode of HR on Mic, Corbin Granger and Barbara Jennings of our HR and Compliance...