Business terminology is usually easy to comprehend, but making sense of law and compliance-related jargons can be tough on the brain.

In addition to ‘performance appraisal’ and “corporate culture’, there is more to HR terminology. Here is a list of terms every HR professional should know in 2018.

AAP

AAP or Affirmative Action Plan are pre-determined set of result-oriented procedures followed by a company. AAP is used to rectify past mistakes by taking affirmative action.

Ban the Box

The box mentioned in this phrase refers to the checkboxes listed in an employment form. Questions that probe candidates for previous criminal records or a disability are discouraged by employment law and must be removed from the job application.

Cafeteria Plan

A cafeteria offers meal options for your employees. Employees can tailor a benefits’ plan according to individual needs.

Carve-Out

You might have heard this term several times from your benefits consultant. Carve-Out literally means to opt-out or discontinue a specific perk or category from your benefit plan (e.g. therapies or vision care). Services discontinued from last vendor can be contracted from another benefits service provider.

COBRA

This acronym has nothing to do with snakes. COBRA refers to the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. This federal law was introduced in 1985 and according to the U.S. Department of Labor: “amends the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the Internal Revenue Code and the Public Health Service Act to require group health plans to provide a temporary continuation of group health coverage that otherwise might be terminated.”

Collective Bargaining

Collective bargaining is a process when one or more union representatives meet with employer to negotiate wages, worker’s rights or employment conditions.

Prevailing Wage

Prevailing wage is the minimum wage (rate of pay) that contractor and vendors need to offer employees belonging to a government body.

Statutory Benefits

These are the basic benefits that a company must offer their employees such as, social security taxes, workers’ compensation, leaves benefits, medical leaves, unemployment insurance, etc.

ULP

Unfair Labor Practice or ULP are unfair employer or union practices that violate the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute (a part of National Labor Relation Act). An inquiry is conducted by the board of NLR to investigate unfair practices.

Wage Theft

Employers who don’t pay the legal or contractual wage to their employees are guilty of wage theft. Theft may be in form of unpaid overtime, non-payment of last pay-check after resignation, non-payment of complete working hours, non-payment of minimum wage, or not paying at all.

If you need help with a compliance issue, consult JS Benefits Group. We are a group of employee benefit consultants and HR consulting firm in Pennsylvania. Call 877 355-6070 and connect with our experienced consultants.