Author: Jeff Cassman

The Beginners Guide to Sick Leave Laws

Everyone gets sick. But what happens in the workplace when an employee misses work due to an illness or injury? Do employers need to compensate them for time missed?

There are specific laws that govern the answers to questions like those. Failure to abide by these sick leave regulations could land your business into some serious trouble with compliance issues and labor laws, so you must understand how these laws work.

This guide will help clarify common sick leave laws so you can determine whether or not the law applies to your business or unique situation.

What Are Sick Leave Laws?

Sick leave laws are the rules and regulations for employers that determine whether or not they need to pay employees who miss work due to being sick. Depending on the location, things like preventative care, diagnoses, an existing health condition, an injury, caring for a family member, and more could all fall under the scope of being “sick.”

According to the US Department of Labor, there are no federal laws that require paid sick leave. However, federal law does require certain employers to offer unpaid sick leave to employees who meet certain criteria.

Other sick leave laws vary by state, county, and city regulations.

The Basics of Sick Leave Laws

Sick leave laws can be a bit confusing, especially if you’re a beginner. But the following sections will cover the core components of sick leave laws to help you understand the topic with clarity.

FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act)

The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993—better known as FMLA—is a US labor law that provides eligible employees with job protection and unpaid leave due to qualifying medical or family-related reasons.

FMLA does not require employers to pay employees who miss time for sick leave, but their…

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You Can Instantly ‘See’ Through Another Person’s Eyes

Perspective taking helps us understand how the world looks from another’s point of view.

We can spontaneously form images of the world from another person’s perspective, research finds.

This allows us to virtually see things from another person’s perspective in an instant.

The new study shows our brains can change our perspective without doing any ‘mental rotation’.

Mental rotation is our ability to manipulate objects in our minds and, cognitively, it is hard work.

Ms Eleanor Ward, the study’s first author, explains that sometimes we don’t need to do this mental rotation:

“Imagine you’re in a car and you see a pedestrian crossing the road, and a bus is travelling at speed towards the crossing.

Suddenly you realize the driver hasn’t seen the pedestrian and could hit them, so you beep your horn.

How did you make this split-second decision?

Our study suggests you automatically put yourself in the bus driver’s shoes and saw the scene through their eyes.”

The results come from a study in which 203 people had to judge whether letters had been rotated or not.

Below is an example:

All the Rs on the top row are the ‘same’ R rotated.

The Rs on the bottom row are all mirror-image Rs and are also the ‘same’ R.

The Rs on the top row are not the same as the Rs on the bottom row.

The results of the study showed that people were much quicker to spot whether the letters matched when they took someone else’s perspective.

In other words, they didn’t have to mentally rotate the images — they ‘saw’ the image through the other person’s eyes.

Dr Patric Bach, study co-author, said:

“Perspective taking is an important part of social cognition.

It helps us understand how the world looks from another’s point of view.

It is important for many everyday activities in which we need interact with other people.

It helps us to empathize with them, or to work out what they are thinking.

Our study provides new insights that people can do this because they very quickly and spontaneously form a mental image of how the world looks to another person.

As soon as we have such a mental image, it is easy to put ourselves in the other person’s place and to predict how they will behave.”

The study was published in the journal Current Biology (Ward et al., 2019).

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What Eye Tracking Can Teach Us About Form Optimization and Design

Eye tracking has long been used in the fields of UX and CRO to accurately map where a user’s focus is when navigating a website. There have been many practical conclusions that have come out of this research such as this article published by CXL last year.

However, as form specialists, we wanted to hone in on what eye tracking could tell us about web forms and how to improve their user experience. In this article, we’ll explore some of our biggest takeaways and how they can apply to your own form design. 

Methodology

Before we dive in, it’s first important to highlight how we came about our research. We partnered with Nudge Insights, a UK based behavioral science consultancy to conduct a study on how users interact with form flows and fields. Using state of the art eye-tracking technology, we got users to make their way through six UK financial forms:

While straight measurement of time spent completing each field is a valid measure (and one supported by most form analytics tools), we wanted to take advantage of the technology to track specific eye-based metrics, namely:

  • Fixations – A fixation is essentially when the eye settles and focuses on a particular part of the form (remaining stable for a minimum of 60 milliseconds), indicating attention.
  • Saccades – A Saccade is the rapid eye movement between two fixation points.

When pieced together fixations and saccades make up a scanpath.

The findings and conclusions in this article are all based on the assumption that the smoother the scanpath (i.e. the lower the fixation count / duration), the better the form experience for the user. 

High fixation counts and durations at a particular point in a form indicates that the user had more difficulty in completing the field or section.

Example of high fixation points presented throughout this formExample of high fixation points presented throughout this formAn example heatmap output from the eye tracking study

Six Key Findings

As noted above, these conclusions are predicated on the assumption that guiding your user quickly and efficiently through the form is good. Distractions, delays and confusion are bad. Here are our takeaways. 

1. Use Text Fill rather than Dropdowns for Date of Birth

Previous research has shown that dropdown menus provide a poor user experience in forms. These studies have used time or click based methodology to demonstrate how dropdowns create greater friction than a text or radio based interface. Our research reinforced these conclusions based on eye tracking evidence.

As part of the study, Nudge Insights looked specifically at the date of birth field on each of the forms. It’s generally thought that formatting the DOB field should be relatively straightforward—it only requires the day, month and year to be input. Although there are various ways of structuring this field, most forms settle on text fill, drop down or some combination of these elements.

The below…

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The Best Online Incorporation Services – 2021 Review

Historically, incorporating a business has been a time-consuming and expensive process. Business owners had to hire attorneys, fill out complicated paperwork, and wait months before their legal entity was officially formed.

But not everyone has thousands of dollars laying around to hire a lawyer, and most people aren’t comfortable filing incorporation paperwork on their own.

The solution? Online incorporation services.

With an online incorporation service, anyone can form a C-corp, S-corp, nonprofit, or other corporate entity types directly from their computer.

Just answer a few basic questions about your business, and the service provider will handle the rest. Online incorporation services prepare and file your incorporation documents directly with your specific Secretary of State. They also provide crucial resources like legal consulting and registered agent services.

In short, you can get everything you need to form a legal business entity from an online incorporation service—fast and cheap.

But which one is the best? We’ve identified and reviewed the best online incorporation services on the market today. Use this guide to determine the perfect option for you and your business.

The Top 7 Best Online Incorporation Services

  1. LegalZoom – Most popular online incorporation services
  2. Incorporate.com – Most versatile
  3. Northwest Registered Agent – Best customer service
  4. MyCorporation – Best for small business
  5. ZenBusiness – Best incorporation service for simplicity
  6. Swyft Filings – Best for nonprofits
  7. Incfile – Best cheap incorporation services

The following reviews contain more information about the use cases, benefits, packages, and pricing for each service on our list:

#1 – LegalZoom — Most Popular Online Incorporation Services

  • Starts at $149 + state fees
  • S-corp and C-corp
  • Lifetime customer support
  • 100% satisfaction guarantee

Get Started

More than 400,000…

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Small Irritations – The Legacy of Flies

Small Irritations – The Legacy of Flies

Nothing rouses me to determined resolve like the catastrophe of a fly in the house. I stalk from room to room crouching – whacker at the ready.

You know you’re rich beyond belief when the day’s biggest irritation is a musca domesticain buzzing in the kitchen.

House fly. Small irritations become big distractions.

We recently bought a four-pack of fly whackers. (Another sign of wealth.) You can’t have too many implements of execution for flying rodents. One waits in the kitchen, and one is at the ready in my office. Two spares in the closet provide peace of mind. Sometimes I take a spare whacker on the back deck to prove my prowess by assassinating foolhardy antagonists.

A fly’s legacy is the stain it leaves when you kill it. I tried to prevent their legacy with gentle whacking, but I usually just stunned them. They shook it off, laughed, and flew away.

The only thing more infuriating than a fly in the house is feeling them laugh after escaping the fly whacker. It emboldens them.

Life truth: A dead fly’s legacy is less infuriating than a living fly’s buzz.

I’m proud to say that I’ve knocked flies out of the air with my fly whacker. I flail at them like I’m caught in a swarm of hornets. Kapow! Then I leap on them before they get away. I feel like a man when I knock a fly out of the air and kill it.

Killing flies is like meditation – I wouldn’t know if the house was burning down. Nothing is more satisfying than outsmarting a fly.

Small irritations become big distractions. Or, maybe they bring out our best.

What small irritation might you solve quickly today?

What small irritation should you let go?



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Episode 1387 Scott Adams: Persuasion Hits and Misses, Including Hamas, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Inflation, QANON and More

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How to Conduct a Job Interview

Recruiting new talent and conducting job interviews can be a daunting task for those without experience. The recruitment process takes time, energy, and a lot of administrative work, and conducting the interview itself can feel just as nerve-wracking for you as for your applicants.

But the process doesn’t have to be so daunting or arduous. With the help of the right recruitment software and some interview preparation, you can recruit top-level talent and conduct killer job interviews relatively stress-free.

So if you want to conduct a smooth-sailing job interview, stick with us, as we tell you exactly how to do it.

The Easy Parts of Conducting a Job Interview

Even if you’re not a particularly social person, the easiest part of conducting a job interview is that you have common ground with the applicant–you already work for your company, and they want to. That gives you a good starting point.

You get to share your passion for your line of work, the company’s goals and values, and paint an ideal picture of the job role to new candidates. Furthermore, you get to be a part of shaping the future of the company by choosing which candidate brings the most to the table.

Recruitment can be an arduous process at times, but with the right tools it doesn’t need to be. Breezy HR is an end-to-end recruiting solution designed to help you attract and hire top-level talent efficiently and stress-free. Breezy HR provides you all the tools you need to recruit, organize, and keep in touch with all your candidates.

The Difficult Parts of Conducting a Job Interview

When it comes to conducting a successful job interview, preparation is key, particularly when it comes to formal interviews with a multi-step…

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Roosters, Peacocks, and Leaders Who Smell Like Sweat

Roosters, Peacocks, and Leaders Who Smell Like Sweat

Pretending success is easy deceives your team and destroys your highest points of influence.

Let people smell the sweat.

Pretending success is easy feeds the lie that you can sip margaritas while making meaningful contribution.

Effortless success offends potential.

Muddy runner. Everyone who makes a difference - over the long haul - smells like sweat.

Unglamorous stories:

Tell people how you fell in the dirt when the race ended, not how you cruised over the finish line. Victory without sweat is cotton candy.

Unglamorous stories – you might prefer to forget – are your highest point of influence. We want to know what you learned when your face was in the mud.

The only connection between “glamor” and “leadership” is L, A, and R. The only connection between “glamor” and “management” is M, G, and A.

The thing that makes you glorious is getting up after falling on your face. The ridiculous idea that magic pills solve problems insults aspiration and dilutes resolve.

Roosters and peacocks:

The leader who never sweats wears a mask.

Aren’t you sick of rooster-leaders crowing about easy success? Aren’t you tired of peacock-leaders who flaunt their feathers and hide their weaknesses?

Roosters and peacocks want to fix you because they’re so glorious.

Frauds offer easy success to impress novices and take money from the gullible.

When someone wants to know how you achieved success, they really want the secret to winning without effort. But easy success rots the soul.

Splash the sweat:

Everyone who makes a difference – over the long haul – smells like sweat.

Tell sweaty stories about your journey. Gullible novices find purpose when you show them there’s something more than glamor to leading.

Beginners learn they need others when you talk about getting up with a muddy face because others helped you.

Unglamorous stories mean most when told with gratitude and optimism.

What struggle helped you learn to lead more effectively?



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