People Processes: Recent Episodes
Rhamy Alejeal
This podcast is for HR Professionals, Business Owners, and CEOs who want to learn and discuss the tools, tactics, and strategies that help us create a happier, more productive employee workforce.
If your employees receive any form of tips, this new IRS rule could change everything. The “No Tax on Tips” section of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act opens up major tax deductions, but only for specific occupations. From bartenders to plumbers, this update affects how employers report and deduct employee tips. In this episode: […]
One promotion. One raise. One poorly handled pay conversation — that’s all it takes to spark resignations, lawsuits, and a cultural breakdown. Most turnover linked to pay transparency issues starts weeks before an exit interview, when employees feel pay decisions are arbitrary or secretive. In this episode of Don’t HR Alone, you’ll learn: The #1 […]
Are your job descriptions quietly draining six figures from your budget? One company thought their 8.8% workers’ comp rate was just “the market”—until People Processes uncovered the truth. In this episode, Rhamy Alejeal breaks down how we audited and reclassified their workforce, collaborated with brokers, and delivered a $130,000+ annual savings. No special discounts. No loopholes. Just solid HR work that any employer can replicate. If you haven’t touched your job codes, descriptions, or audit documentation lately, this is your wake-up call.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
• Why most businesses overpay for workers’ comp
• How classification codes are misunderstood
• What auditors really look for
• State-specific pitfalls in multi-location teams
Get the step-by-step guide we use with clients to prepare for audits, reduce comp rates, and avoid premium spikes. Download: Workers’ Compensation Audit & Compliance Checklist
Book a Free Consultation with Rhamy Alejeal (U.S. businesses, 10+ employees)
https://youtu.be/QpHjMvboTq8
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1) just introduced major federal tax deductions for employees — but the recordkeeping burden now falls squarely on employers.
In this episode, Rhamy Alejeal breaks down what you must do to stay compliant, avoid audit risk, and support your workforce with accurate W-2 reporting for 2025.
Free Download: No Tax Tips & Overtime Deductions Guide
Need Help? Book a free consultation with Rhamy Alejeal — exclusively for U.S. businesses with 10+ employees.
https://youtu.be/ji7LYWrfjfA
Are your hires too safe? Too familiar?
If your team keeps “getting along” but missing deadlines, it’s time to stop hiring for sameness. In this episode, Rhamy Alejeal busts the myth of culture fit—and shows you how to hire smarter using culture add.
What You’ll Learn:
• Why “fit” is often just bias in disguise
• The real reason your interviews aren’t working
• How to define your company culture in behavior terms
• The 4 most common hiring mistakes HR leaders make
Hire smarter with 6 proven questions, a scoring rubric, and a guide to identifying high-impact candidates. Download the Culture Add Interview Guide now!
Want to improve your hiring fast? Book a free 30-minute consultation with Rhamy Alejeal. Exclusively for U.S.-based businesses with 10+ employees.
https://youtu.be/reiaJbsgAdQ
Confused bonus plans are driving your top talent out the door.
One client gave a $10K bonus — and the employee still quit. Why?
Because unclear incentives cause more damage than no incentives at all.
In this episode of Don’t HR Alone, Rhamy Alejeal breaks down:
• How to design compensation plans that actually drive performance
• What “Total Target Income” is — and why you must define it
• The 3 types of incentive comp (and which to use when)
• Common bonus mistakes that erode trust
• Why even a small bonus can outperform a big one — if timed right
Want to fix broken bonus plans before they cost you your best people?
Download your FREE Incentive Compensation Toolkit
Want an incentive plan that drives revenue—not resignations? U.S. businesses with 10+ employees can book a FREE 30-minute strategy call with People Processes CEO Rhamy Alejeal
Please share this with an HR leader or business owner who needs to hear it.
https://youtu.be/-tO83yc6ZOo
Most growing teams suffer from chaos, burnout, and reactive hiring—not because they’re bad at hiring, but because they skipped the org chart.
In this episode of Don’t HR Alone, Rhamy Alejeal breaks down a clear, 4-step org chart strategy that tells you exactly who to hire next—and when.
What You’ll Learn:
• The 3 signs your org chart is failing your team
• Map your dream team for future growth
• How to prioritize your next hire with maximum ROI
• How structure reduces burnout, turnover, and drama
Stop panic hiring. Get strategic. Download your free Future Org Chart & Hiring Toolkit
Book a free 30-minute consult with Rhamy Alejeal (for U.S. companies with 10+ employees)
Subscribe, like, and share to help another overwhelmed business owner.
https://youtu.be/DAYJF2fC-SE
1 in 5 new hires quit before their first paycheck. But it’s not about salary. It’s your onboarding. Starting a new job can be rough if companies lack proper employee onboarding. In this episode of the Don't HR Alone podcast, Rhamy Alejeal reveals:
• The biggest onboarding mistakes that drive away great hires
• How to structure a 90-day onboarding plan that works
• Why orientation is NOT onboarding — and what to do instead
• The real cost of poor onboarding (and how to fix it with automation)
Don't lose another employee to chaos.
What You’ll Learn:
✅ The 4-phase onboarding plan that actually retains employees
✅ What to do before Day 1 to set up long-term success
✅ How to integrate culture, connection, and performance from day one
✅ Why most checklists fail — and what to do instead
✅ How technology + automation can save your HR team time and money
Free Download: New Hire Onboarding Checklist
Book a free consultation with Rhamy Alejeal – exclusively for U.S.-based businesses with 10 or more employees.
Share this with an HR leader or business owner who needs to hear it.
https://youtu.be/celgjpu8aYo
Most companies treat job descriptions like paperwork — but they’re actually one of your most powerful tools for retention, accountability, and legal protection.
In this episode, you’ll learn how to design job descriptions that are strategic, legally sound, and performance-driving.
You’ll learn:
✅ How to perform a real job analysis
✅ The key sections every job description must include
✅ How to prevent legal and performance issues with clarity
✅ Why a clear job description can fix performance, not just document it
Download the FREE Job Description Template. Use our professionally formatted, fully compliant, easy-to-customize template to protect your business and set your team up for success.
Want expert help creating job descriptions that actually work? Book your consultation with Rhamy (Free for U.S. employers with 10+ employees)
Drop your biggest job description question in the comments — Rhamy reads and replies personally!
https://youtu.be/7yUtpY7rEeM
Is Your Job Ad Actually Repelling the Right Candidates? Most job ads read like HR legal documents—boring, vague, and forgettable. If you're posting the same job description online and wondering why you're not getting quality applicants, this episode is your wake-up call.
In this episode of Don't HR Alone, Rhamy Alejeal breaks down why most job postings fail and reveals the 8 essential elements that turn boring listings into powerful recruiting tools. Whether you're getting zero applicants or the wrong ones, this framework will change the game.
✅ Why job descriptions ≠ job ads
✅ The secret to writing ads that attract and repel (yes, repel!)
✅ How to define culture and impact to get the right people
Download the FREE 8-Step Job Ad Framework now!
💬 Need help fixing your hiring process? If you’re a US-based business with 10+ employees, book a free 30-minute consultation with Rhamy Alejeal — CEO of People Processes
Please share this with an HR leader or business owner who needs to hear it.
https://youtu.be/kByH_rGhmtg
You're wasting thousands on benefits your people don’t understand.
Most companies launch benefits like a compliance checklist. But if your team doesn’t value them, you’re just burning cash—and loyalty. This episode is your wake-up call.
In this episode of Don’t HR Alone, Rhamy Alejeal (CEO of People Processes) exposes why most benefit programs flop—and gives you a 10-step roadmap to fix them fast.
What You’ll Learn:
• Why your benefits are being ignored
• How to market benefits like a product launch
• Simple changes that increase retention (17% in 6 months!)
• Tools and templates for year-round engagement
• Real-world client success stories
Make your benefits actually matter. Grab the toolkit Rhamy uses with clients to boost retention and slash turnover. Download the Free Benefits Communication Toolkit.
Tired of underutilized benefits, miscommunication, and disengaged teams?
If you're a U.S.-based business with 10+ employees, book your free HR consultation
Share this with an HR leader or business owner who needs to hear it.
https://youtu.be/t8gcJG2h8_U
Retaliation is now the most common reason businesses face lawsuits under the EEOC — not discrimination, not harassment. In this episode of Don’t HR Alone, Rhamy Alejeal reveals how retaliation claims happen, why most leaders never see them coming, and 5 essential actions to protect your company.
Protect your team and your business: Download our Free Anti-Retaliation Checklist
Are you a U.S.-based business with 10+ employees? Book a free HR consultation with Rhamy Alejeal to uncover blind spots in your retaliation policies, train your team, and protect your culture from compliance chaos.
Share this with an HR leader or business owner who needs to hear it.
https://youtu.be/3YbbOJpDPqk
You fired someone for misconduct—or poor performance—and days later, you get hit with their unemployment claim. Can they really still qualify?
In this episode of Don't HR Alone, Rhamy Alejeal breaks down exactly what disqualifies an employee from receiving unemployment benefits—even when they quit or you terminated them. He covers the 7 official disqualifiers, common employer mistakes, and how to protect your business with smart systems and better documentation.
👉 If you've ever been blindsided by an unemployment claim, this episode is a must-watch.
📥 Download your Free Unemployment Documentation Checklist to protect your business and stay compliant.
📅 U.S. business with 10+ employees? Worried about unemployment claims after a termination? 🎯 Get clarity and confidence — Book your FREE 30-minute consult with Rhamy Alejeal
https://youtu.be/GkBuetjgbh4
Getting written up at work can feel discouraging—but it doesn’t have to be the end of the story. In this episode, we break down the smart, strategic way to respond to a write-up so you protect your professional reputation and set the stage for future success.
What You’ll Learn:
• The right way to respond (verbally and in writing)
• How to document your perspective without escalating conflict
• Employer best practices to protect your company from retaliation claims
• Why documentation is everything—and how to do it right
🎯 US-Based Business with 10+ Employees? Book Your Free 30-minute HR Consultation
📥 Download your FREE Write Up Response Template
💬 Have you ever received a write-up you felt was unfair—or had to issue one that backfired? Please share your story below 👇 and let’s talk about what should have happened instead.
https://youtu.be/MjDFr5B3h_U
Think you can fire anyone at any time because you're in an at-will state? Think again. In this episode of Don't HR Alone, Rhamy Alejeal, CEO of People Processes, breaks down the truth behind at-will employment — and how to avoid the lawsuits that come with getting it wrong.
What you’ll learn:
• What “at-will” actually means
• Legal exceptions that can ruin your case
• The discipline strategy that helps you prove good faith
• How to terminate while protecting your company
What’s your biggest question about firing employees legally?
Drop it below 👇
🎯 US-Based Business with 10+ Employees? Book Your Free 30-minute HR Consultation with Rhamy Alejeal
📥 Download your FREE Progressive Discipline Guide
🔔 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more actionable HR insights every week.
https://youtu.be/sAFTslVP8J8
Are you an employer with 50 or more W-2s? You could be at risk for massive IRS penalties under the Affordable Care Act. In this episode of Don't HR Alone, Rhamy Alejeal breaks down everything you need to know to stay compliant with ACA regulations in 2025 — and avoid receiving the dreaded IRS Letter 226-J.
You’ll learn:
✅ How to calculate your Applicable Large Employer (ALE) status
✅ What triggers ACA penalties A and B — and how to prevent them
✅ How to ensure your health plan meets Minimum Essential Coverage (MEC) and Affordability requirements
✅ The right way to track employee hours, classifications, and safe harbors
✅ What to do immediately if you receive an ACA penalty notice
Free Resource: Employer Guide to ACA Play or Pay Rules
Book a FREE 30-Minute Consultation with Rhamy Alejeal (for U.S. businesses with 10+ employees)
🔔 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more actionable HR insights every week.
https://youtu.be/zU0tNl4aslk
Hiring is one of the biggest — and riskiest — expenses for any small business. In this episode of the Don’t HR Alone podcast, host Rhamy Alejeal sits down with Michelle Scribner, CEO of Sum of All Numbers and Master Certified Profit First Professional, to unpack when to hire, how much to spend on labor, and how to protect your business from cash flow disasters.
Whether you’re thinking about your first hire or trying to scale a team, Michelle and Rhamy deliver real-world benchmarks, simple frameworks, and financial guardrails that every entrepreneur should use to build a sustainable team.
What You’ll Learn:
✅ How to calculate whether you can afford to hire
✅ The Profit First method applied to labor costs
✅ How much of your budget should go to payroll (and why it’s probably wrong)
✅ What percentage of real revenue should be operating expenses
✅ When it’s OK to dip into your owner’s profit to invest in staff
✅ What to do if your unicorn employees are burning out
💬 What’s your biggest hiring mistake—or the best one you ever made?
👇 Let us know in the comments!
💻 Visit Michelle Scribner’s Website:
Explore financial clarity and support at https://sumofallnumbers.com/
📲 Follow Michelle for More Insights:
Instagram & Facebook: @sumofallnumbers
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/michelle-scribner-94ab881aa
📧 Get in Touch:
Email Michelle directly at mscribner@sumofallnumbers.com
✅ Take the Free Business Financial Health Check
In just 2 minutes, gain personalized insights into your business’s financial health. Start here ➡️ https://bit.ly/3Ws4gLB
📅 Need help now? Book your FREE consultation with Rhamy Alejeal today — exclusively for U.S.-based businesses with 10+ employees
https://youtu.be/xVHqnfJE4WI
ACA Reporting just got a major overhaul — and for once, it's GOOD news!
In this episode of Don't HR Alone, Rhamy Alejeal (CEO of People Processes) breaks down the 5 Big ACA changes for 2025, including:
• Less paperwork
• Flexible deadlines
• Easier electronic distribution
• Reduced IRS penalties
Learn how to take full advantage of these updates to simplify your ACA reporting, stay compliant, and avoid costly mistakes.
🎯 FREE ACA Resource: Get the ACA Changes Checklist + Sample Notice
✅ Book a FREE 30-Minute Consultation with Rhamy (for U.S. businesses with 10+ employees)
🔔 Don't forget to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, & HIT THE BELL for more expert HR & compliance insights.
https://youtu.be/TFwrsHL6vcY
How can you tell if your top employees are experiencing burn out? Is your entire identity wrapped up in your work? In this episode of Don't HR Alone, our host Rhamy Alejeal interviews clinical psychologist Dr. Janna Koretz, founder of Azimuth Psychological, to explore the hidden dangers of career enmeshment—when your job becomes your sole identity.
You'll learn:
• Why career enmeshment often leads to burnout, mental health crises, and even professional collapse.
• How to recognize the signs in yourself and your employees.
• Actionable strategies to build a healthier, more resilient workforce.
Book a Free HR Strategy Consultation with Rhamy Alejeal (U.S. businesses, 10+ employees)
Explore Dr. Janna Koretz’s website at https://azimuthpsych.com/ for expert insights and free resources, including a burnout calculator and values navigator.
💬 What’s your take? Have you ever struggled with separating your identity from your job? Drop a comment below—we read and respond to every one!
https://youtu.be/OJcZbtZYWWw
In this episode of Don't HR Alone, host Rhamy Alejeal welcomes Tracy LaLonde, author of The Joychiever Journey, to break down how trust works in the workplace. Should employees earn trust, or should leaders give it freely?
Discover how trust affects employee engagement, retention, and productivity—and why some companies thrive while others struggle with micromanagement and turnover. Plus, Tracy shares her top strategies for creating a workplace built on mutual trust and psychological safety.
🔹 In this episode, you'll learn:
✔️ The science of trust and how it impacts team performance
✔️ The right way to handle employee accountability (without micromanagement)
✔️ The role of intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation in leadership
✔️ A 5-step process to building trust in your company
✔️ The biggest mistakes leaders make when trying to create engagement
📌 Want expert HR solutions? If your US-based business has 10+ employees, book a free consultation with Rhamy Alejealtoday!
Visit Tracy's website at https://www.joychiever.com/ to learn
more about her keynote speaking experience, programs she can deliver to your company, and to order her books. You may also follow her at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracylalonde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/joychiever
🔔 Don’t forget to LIKE, COMMENT, and SUBSCRIBE for more insights from Don't HR Alone!
📝 Have a trust dilemma in your workplace? Drop your question in the comments!
https://youtu.be/PQ0-euuwHB4
Gossip is destroying your workplace culture—here’s how to stop it!
Ever walked into a meeting and felt the tension in the air? Workplace gossip can turn into a silent productivity killer, creating division, distrust, and low morale. In this episode of Don't HR Alone, Rhamy Alejeal, CEO of People Processes, breaks down:
✅ The difference between harmful and positive gossip
✅ 5 proven strategies to eliminate toxic workplace gossip
✅ How to use positive gossip to strengthen your team
FREE DOWNLOAD: Get our No Gossip Policy Template to establish a workplace built on trust!
Struggling with workplace gossip? Let’s fix it. If you're a US-based business with 10+ employees, book a FREE 30-minute consultation with Rhamy Alejeal now!
💬 Got a question about workplace gossip? Drop it in the comments—we read and respond to every one!
https://youtu.be/I9pjSw8SSD0
Employers, Are You Ready for the New Workers' Comp Law? New York just changed the game—employees can now file for workers' comp due to workplace stress, and other states may follow soon. This could mean more claims, higher insurance premiums, and major HR headaches. So how can you protect your business? In this episode, Rhamy Alejeal breaks down:
✅ What this new law means for employers
✅ The risks of rising mental health claims
✅ How to update your HR policies and insurance NOW
✅ Actionable steps to protect your business
Book a FREE 30-minute consultation with Rhamy Alejeal(US businesses with 10+ employees)
🔔 Don't miss an update—hit LIKE & SUBSCRIBE for more expert HR tips!
💬 Have a question? Drop a comment below—we read & respond to every one!
https://youtu.be/spKD4lT-G54
ICE Audits are on the rise—if an auditor knocked on your door tomorrow, would you be ready? Mistakes can cost up to $28,000 PER EMPLOYEE, not to mention the risk of business closure!
In this episode of Don’t HR Alone, Rhamy Alejeal, CEO of People Processes, breaks down what business owners & HR pros MUST do to stay compliant and avoid massive fines. You’ll learn:
✅ What triggers an I-9 audit (and who is most at risk)
✅ The biggest mistakes employers make & how to fix them
✅ How to conduct a self-audit before ICE does it for you
✅ E-Verify: Do you really need it?
✅ Simple steps to protect your business starting today!
📢 FREE DOWNLOAD: Grab your I-9 Audit Checklist now
💡 NEED HELP? Book a Free HR Consultation (for US businesses with 10+ employees)
🔔 SUBSCRIBE for more updates on the latest HR trends, legal changes, and business strategies.
📩 Questions? Drop a comment below! We respond to EVERY question.
https://youtu.be/wPKfdcXF-V8
Struggling to find the right employees? Hiring the right team isn’t about luck—it’s about job analysis, job descriptions, and filtering bad applicants early. In this episode, Rhamy Alejeal breaks down how to hire correctly and how to structure a bulletproof hiring process.
📢 Key Takeaways:
✔️ Job Analysis: The critical (but often skipped) first step to hiring.
✔️ Job Descriptions vs. Job Ads: Why they are NOT the same thing.
✔️ The Four-Stage Hiring Funnel: How to filter out bad candidates.
✔️ The Final Interview: Why culture fit matters.
📌 FREE DOWNLOAD → Get your Free Guide: 👉 Interview Questions to Avoid
📅 BOOK A FREE CONSULTATION → If you're a US-based business with 10+ employees, schedule a 30-minute consultation with Rhamy Alejeal
🔔 SUBSCRIBE for More HR & Business Growth Tips!
💬 Drop a comment – What’s your biggest hiring challenge? We reply to every comment! 👇
https://youtu.be/DNFiozG57Zg
Tired of feeling stuck in your business? What if you could make your time worth $10,000 an hour? Join Rhamy Alejeal and Dr. Sabrina Starling as they reveal the secret to scaling without burnout—by focusing on high-value work and hiring A-Players.
🎯 What You'll Learn in This Episode:
✅ The $10,000 an Hour Mindset – How to spend your time where it matters most
✅ Why A-Players are essential for growing your business effortlessly
✅ How to delegate, step back, and scale without burning out
✅ The biggest mistakes small business owners make when hiring
✅ Real-life success stories from entrepreneurs who mastered this system
📌 FREE DOWNLOAD → Get Dr. Sabrina Starling’s Chart of $10,000 an Hour ActivitiesNOW!
📅 BOOK A FREE CONSULTATION → If you're a US-based business with 10+ employees, schedule a 30-minute strategy session with Rhamy Alejeal
💡 Learn More About Dr. Sabrina Starling:
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drsabrina
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SabrinaStarlingTTP
📘 TTP Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/tapthepotential
📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drsabrina/?hl=en
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrSabrina
🌐 Mighty Networks Community: https://tap-the-potential.mn.co/sign_up
🎤 Watch Dr. Sabrina’s TEDx Talk:
📺 TEDx Wilson Park: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya1n3RG_R34
🔥 Ready to build a business that runs itself? Hit LIKE, COMMENT, and SUBSCRIBE for more HR and business growth strategies!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABxL2ZXnMdk
Are Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) really meant to help struggling employees improve, or are they just a prelude to termination? In this episode of Don't HR Alone, Rhamy Alejeal, CEO of People Processes, breaks down:
✅ What a PIP REALLY is & how to use it effectively
✅ The BIGGEST mistakes employers make when using PIPs
✅ How to create a legally sound, results-driven Performance Improvement Plan
✅ Are PIPs a step toward termination? The HR debate explained
✅ How PIPs affect employee morale & retention
📢 US Business with 10+ Employees? 📆 Book a Free Consultation with Rhamy
📥 FREE DOWNLOAD: Get Your Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) Template
📢 COMMENT BELOW:
Do you think PIPs actually help employees improve, or are they just a way to fire someone legally? Let’s discuss! ⬇️
Don’t HR Alone! Subscribe to the Don't HR Alone Podcast for more expert insights! 🎙️
https://youtu.be/Bg2UhNjMM9g
Struggling to manage a team with Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z? You’re not alone! Employee needs vary for by generation. Each has different values, work styles, and motivations—and if you don’t understand them, your best employees might walk out the door.
In this episode, Rhamy Alejeal breaks down proven strategies to create a workplace where every generation feels valued, engaged, and motivated to perform at their best. 💡 Whether you're dealing with Gen Z retention challenges, Millennials demanding flexibility, or Gen X and Boomers feeling overlooked, we've got you covered!
What You’ll Learn:
✅ The biggest mistakes leaders make with a multi generational workforce
✅ What each generation REALLY wants from their workplace
✅ How to improve engagement, productivity, and retention
✅ The four key pillars of a thriving, inclusive company culture
Don’t just manage—LEAD. Your team’s success depends on it.
👉 📥 Download our FREE Generational Engagement Blueprint
📅 Ready to take it to the next level? If you’re a U.S. business with 10 or more employees 👉 🚀 Book a FREE 30-Minute Consultation to get expert advice on improving your team dynamics and achieving organizational success.
If you found this helpful, hit that LIKE button, SUBSCRIBE, and SHARE with other leaders who need this info! Let’s build a workplace where every generation thrives. 💪✨
https://youtu.be/22CW43Un4QI
Attention U.S. Employers! The 540-Day Work Permit Renewal Extension is now permanent—offering crucial relief for businesses facing delays in Employment Authorization Document (EAD) renewals. Starting January 13, 2025, the automatic renewal period for employees awaiting visa extensions will be extended from 180 to 540 days, giving employers more time to avoid layoffs and keep their workforce intact. In this episode, Rhamy Alejeal, CEO of People Processes, explains the impact of this change on Form I-9 verification and how it affects your hiring practices.
Book your FREE consultation today! Don't miss this opportunity to stay compliant and protect your workforce.
🔔 Subscribe to our channel for more updates on the latest HR trends, legal changes, and business strategies. If you found this video helpful, please LIKE, SHARE, and COMMENT below with your thoughts about the 540-Day Work Permit Renewal Extension.
https://youtu.be/V40sB384IHc
Struggling with employee attendance issues? You're not alone! In this episode of Don't HR Alone by People Processes, host Rhamy Alejeal breaks down how to create a culture of accountability that inspires your team to show up, give their best, and take pride in their work, by setting clear expectations and addressing issues with empathy.
Learn how to:
✅ Set clear and enforceable attendance policies
✅ Address the root causes of attendance problems with empathy
✅ Balance accountability with support to retain top talent
Whether you're an HR professional or a business leader, this video is packed with actionable tips to improve employee attendance issues while boosting morale, productivity, and team cohesion.
👉Download our FREE Attendance Policy Template: https://peopleprocesses.com/free-downloads/?podcast=Attendance
👉Book a free 30-minute consultation for tailored advice for your organization: https://peopleprocesses.com/request-a-consultation/
EmployeeAccountability #AttendancePolicy #peopleprocesses #DontHRAlone #employeemorale #teammorale #management #leadershiprole #worklifebalance #highperformanceleadership #empathyinbusiness
Are you a small business owner looking to better manage risk and save on taxes? In this episode of Don't HR Alone, Rhamy Alejeal sits down with Van Carlson, Founder and CEO of 831b.com, to explore how an 831(b) plan can act as a game-changing tool for businesses. Learn how this plan protects against unexpected risks, provides tax-deferred savings, and fills gaps in traditional insurance.
Van shares real-world examples, expert advice, and actionable insights to help you safeguard your business and its future. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain a competitive edge in your industry!
👉 Learn more and connect with Van, visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/vancarlson/
Website: https://www.831b.com/
https://linkedin.com/company/sra-831b
https://instagram.com/sra831b
https://facebook.com/SRA831b
https://youtu.be/PuH2RJyO-6M
Missouri voters approved Proposition A, bringing the Missouri Paid Sick Leave Law into effect on May 1, 2025. This law could reshape how businesses handle sick leave—are you prepared to stay compliant and protect your business?
🎙 What You’ll Learn:
✅ Key details of Proposition A
✅ Who’s covered, accrual rules, carryover policies, and documentation requirements
✅ Practical steps to update your policies and avoid costly mistakes
Don’t Miss Out! 👉 Download Your FREE Proposition A FAQs Today!
If you’re a U.S.-based employer with over 10 employees, don’t wait to get ahead of these changes. Schedule your free consultation with Rhamy now and take the first step toward compliance.
💬 Have questions? Drop them in the comments below! Don’t forget to hit like and subscribe to keep your business informed and thriving.
The 2024 FLSA Overtime Rule has been BLOCKED, throwing a major curveball for employers across the country. In this video, we break down exactly what this means for your business and what YOU need to do next to stay compliant. Whether you’ve already made adjustments or were preparing for upcoming changes, we’ll help you navigate this new legal landscape with confidence and clarity.
👉 What You'll Learn:
• The key impact of the court’s decision on the 2024 FLSA Overtime Rule
• Immediate actions you must take to stay compliant
• How to keep your team engaged and trust intact despite changes
• How to future-proof your business against future regulations
Don’t let this surprise ruling disrupt your business. Take action now and download our free FLSA Exemption Flowchart to help navigate these changes:
🎯Businesses can book an HR consultation with Rhamy! Mention “PODCAST” in your request for a FREE 30-minute consultation.
🔔 Subscribe to our channel for more updates on the latest HR trends, legal changes, and business strategies. If you found this video helpful, please LIKE, SHARE, and COMMENT below with your thoughts on the recent FLSA changes. Let’s navigate these changes together, so your business thrives!
https://youtu.be/j3dyMzdWbOQ
Are you ready to break free from financial stress and create a business that works for you, not the other way around? In this episode, Ron Saharyan, co-founder and managing partner of Profit First Professionals, explains how the revolutionary Profit First cash management system empowers entrepreneurs to prioritize profit, streamline cash flow, and achieve sustainable growth.
Learn actionable insights on:
✅ How to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty
✅ The importance of profit sharing for employee retention
✅ Aligning company culture with financial success
✅ Tips for nonprofits and startups to adopt the Profit First methodology
Whether you're a startup, a nonprofit, or a well-established business, this episode offers valuable insights into building a financially healthy and sustainable business.
Take the Next Step Today!
🎁 Want to get started with the Profit First methodology? Be one of the first 10 viewers to receive a free copy of the book Profit First! Fill out the form to claim your copy https://profitfirstprofessionals.com/profit-first-booster-bundle/ A separate email will be sent to book winners to request shipping information, but everyone who signs up will receive $397 Worth of Profit Boosting Resources for FREE!
Book a free consultation with Rhamy to discuss your specific HR challenges and discover how we can help your business thrive.
📧 Need expert advice on Profit First or upgrading your bookkeeping practice? Email Ron Saharyan at rons@profitfirstprofessionals.comfor insights and support.
To find out more about Ron, visit here.
For Ron’s Facebook page, click here.
https://youtu.be/bGjdlo5rCzs
In this episode of Don't HR Alone, Rhamy discusses potential changes to IRS Rule 4980H, which governs health insurance eligibility under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The proposed change, supported by Congressman Steve Cohen and other congressional members, would reduce the evaluation period for determining health insurance eligibility for variable hour employees from one year to three months.
This episode explores the implications for businesses with high labor turnover and variable hour staff, practical strategies to prepare for the changes, and the importance of upgrading HR tracking systems and auditing employee classifications.
⚡️ Don’t get left behind! Download A Practical Guide to Affordable Care Act Health Insurance Eligibility for Variable Hour Employees for actionable insights. 👉 https://peopleprocesses.com/free-downloads/
Need personalized guidance? Schedule a free 30-minute consultation with Rhamy to discuss how these changes could impact your business. 👉 https://peopleprocesses.com/request-a-consultation/
https://youtu.be/BopaIR9wphg
Ever wondered why your paycheck doesn’t seem to go as far as you’d like, or gotten a hefty tax bill in April? Learn how the IRS Tax Withholding Calculator can help you take charge of your tax withholding, prevent surprises, and keep your finances on track.
Why Does Withholding Matter?
Most of us don’t think about withholding until tax season when surprises pop up. A big tax bill can strain your budget, while a large refund might mean you’ve given the IRS an interest-free loan. Adjusting your withholding can help you strike the right balance for your finances.
Take the guesswork out of your taxes! Use the IRS Tax Withholding Calculator now and secure your financial peace of mind. https://www.irs.gov/individuals/tax-withholding-estimator
MORE HR RESOURCES: https://peopleprocesses.com/free-downloads/?podcast=IRSwithholding
If you have questions, drop them in the comments below. Taking control of your withholding can make a significant impact on your financial health—don't miss out!
https://youtu.be/VunbkWagRyI
The First Circuit Court ruled that inside sales representatives are not exempt from FLSA overtime requirements, making them eligible for overtime pay. In this episode of the People Processes Podcast, we'll discuss how misclassifying your sales team can lead to significant legal and financial consequences. We’ll guide you through essential steps to ensure your business stays compliant and protected.
If you're a US-based business with over 10 employees and have questions about employee classification, 🗓 Book a free 30-minute consultation with Rhamy [https://peopleprocesses.com/request-a-consultation/]
🔗 Download our FLSA Exempt/Non-Exempt Questionnaire to review your team's classification: [https://peopleprocesses.com/free-downloads/]
Share your thoughts in the comments below! Have you ever faced issues with employee classification?
https://youtu.be/xWJG-6ZjPJI
Is your business ready for the major FLSA salary threshold increase hitting in January 2025? This change could significantly impact your payroll, employee classifications, and bottom line.
In this episode, you'll:
Understand how the minimum salary for exempt employees jumps from $43,888 to $58,656 annually ($1,128 per week).
Discover key steps to avoid costly mistakes and ensure compliance with the new FLSA regulations.
Learn when to raise salaries or reclassify employees for optimal business outcomes.
Don’t wait until the last minute! Download our Free Salary Calculator and FLSA Exemption Flow Chart: https://peopleprocesses.com/free-downloads/
🎯 Businesses can take immediate action! Book a free 30-minute HR consultation with Rhamy and mention "PODCAST" in your request [https://peopleprocesses.com/request-a-consultation/]
👍 Like, comment, and share this video to help spread the word about these crucial updates!
🔔 Subscribe to our channel to stay updated on all our latest content.
https://youtu.be/DYZqSxg2jko
In this episode of the People Processes Podcast, we discuss a common challenge many managers face: what to do when an employee refuses to sign a write-up. We’ll break down the steps you can take to handle the situation professionally and legally, ensuring your business remains protected. Learn about the importance of documentation, offering rebuttals, and what actions to consider if the refusal is part of a larger issue. Stick around for actionable insights and tips to navigate this tricky situation!
💡 Key Takeaways:
- Understanding the purpose and legality of a write-up
- Steps to take when an employee refuses to sign
- Documentation tips for protecting your business
- Best practices for creating a disciplinary process that works
Need help with your company's disciplinary policies or facing challenges with employee write-ups? Get expert HR advice to protect your business and create a more effective work environment.
🎯 Need help? Book your free 30-minute consultation with Rhamy
👉 Download our free Write-Up Template to develop a standardized policy for your business.
https://youtu.be/NVf7jxSbUcc
Big news for businesses! A Texas court has temporarily blocked the FTC’s proposed ban on noncompete agreements, but don’t get too comfortable—the fight isn’t over yet. Your noncompete agreements are safe, for now, but this ruling brings up critical questions: What does this mean for your business? How should you adjust your strategies? In this episode of the People Processes Podcast, we break down the court’s decision, what it means for you, and the steps you need to take to protect your company moving forward.
🚨 Key Takeaways:
Understand the current status of noncompete agreements.
Learn how to review and revise your agreements to ensure compliance.
Get actionable tips on how to prepare for potential changes in the law.
🎯 Free Resources: Download state-specific noncompete guidelines and a sample policy
🎯 Exclusive Offer: Book your free 30-minute consultation with Rhamy
Don’t let legal changes catch you off guard—subscribe to the People Processes Podcast to stay ahead of the curve. If you found this episode helpful, leave a comment or question below—we respond to every comment! Let's keep your business thriving!
https://youtu.be/P4ZuXYhiitI
Is your employee bad-mouthing coworkers online? Leaking confidential info? Our latest episode tackles managing employee social media to avoid PR disasters!
Social media can be a goldmine for businesses but it can also turn into a nightmare when employees overshare or post inappropriately. This episode dives deep into the common pitfalls of employee social media use and equips you with the tools to avoid them.
Here's what you'll learn:
• How to craft a bulletproof social media policy that protects your company's reputation. ️
• When (and how) to intervene in employee social media mishaps.
• The legal boundaries of employee free speech online. ⚖️
• Real-world examples of employee social media disasters (and how to prevent them!).
Stop employee social media meltdowns before they happen!
Let us know in the comments below.
• Have you ever dealt with an employee social media issue?
• What are your biggest concerns about employee social media use?
Subscribe for more insights on managing your workforce effectively!
https://youtu.be/MOc6UwvGHXs
The Federal Trade Commission's recent decision to ban non-compete clauses for most workers is a major shakeup for businesses. Is this the end of protecting your trade secrets and client relationships? In this episode, learn about alternative strategies, legal considerations & how to build a winning workplace culture. Don't get caught off guard!
👍 Like and share to spread awareness!
🔔 Subscribe for more HR & business insights! Leave a comment & tell us your thoughts on the FTC's decision.
https://youtu.be/TSx6q0BvN3U
Is YOUR Salary About to Change? The Department of Labor's (DOL) final rule on overtime exemptions increases minimum salary requirements for white-collar workers. A pivotal change set to take effect on July 1, 2024. These regulations will dramatically alter the salary threshold for exempt employees, impacting countless workers across the United States, including those like Sarah, who balances intense work periods with cherished personal time.
In this episode, you'll:
- Understand the New Overtime Rule: What the increased salary threshold means and how it affects both employees and employers.
- Real-Life Impact: Explore how these changes will reshape the work-life balance for employees like Sarah, who find themselves juggling between professional responsibilities and personal engagements.
- Practical Strategies: Gain insights into how businesses can navigate these changes effectively without disrupting their operations or compromising employee satisfaction.
- Expert Advice: Equip yourself with knowledge and strategies to ensure compliance and maintain efficiency in your workplace.
Whether you're an employer wondering how to adjust salaries and manage labor costs, or an employee concerned about how these changes might affect your work arrangement and income, this episode is packed with essential information to help you prepare for the upcoming changes.
https://youtu.be/CgGvLFvrQR4
🔍 Dive into the controversial concept of "performance punishment" in organizations. Working hard can be seen as punishment because initially, high performers might get more challenging tasks due to their abilities. This extra workload can feel unfair and overwhelming - leading to the perception that hard work is punished.
🌟 Discover why exceptional performance shouldn't go unrewarded and how organizations can foster a culture of appreciation and growth. Don't miss out on valuable tips for both employees and employers to thrive in today's competitive landscape.
https://youtu.be/rxVj1UxqGL4
California's SB 553 mandates a Workplace Violence Prevention Plan (WVPP) by July 1st, 2024! This important law is designed to keep California's workplace safe, but navigating the requirements can be confusing. Don't worry, we're here to help! In this episode, we'll break down everything you need to know about the Cal/OSHA WVPP, including...
• Key Requirements of a WVPP
-
Written Plan
-
Employee Training
-
Inspections
-
Incident Log
• How to develop your WVPP (with or without an attorney)
• Potential consequences for non-compliance
• Why this matters even outside California
Don't let compliance catch you off guard. Get started on your WVPP today. 👉 Got questions or need guidance? Drop a comment below - we're here to help! For more insights and assistance in navigating these updates, visit https://peopleprocesses.com.
See the links to all the free resources from Cal/OSHA below.
SB 553
Cal/OSHA Workplace Violence Prevention Guidance and Resources webpage
Model WVPP
Cal/OSHA fact sheets for Employers
Cal/OSHA fact sheets for Employees
https://youtu.be/y-IDo5L8JXw
Are you facing a terrible work environment that's making you consider quitting? You might be experiencing constructive discharge! This episode dives deep into this legal concept, explaining what it is, how it can happen through harassment, discrimination, or unreasonable working conditions, and why it's important for both employers and employees to understand.
We'll also explore the legal implications of constructive discharge, including how it can be treated as wrongful termination. By the end of this video, you'll know how to protect yourself and your rights in the workplace.
Don't stay silent if you're facing a hostile work environment! Empower yourself with knowledge about your workplace rights. Like this video and subscribe for more HR insights. Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. And if you need further guidance, visit our website, peopleprocesses.com, for additional resources.
https://youtu.be/vlpEhFX94xo
Feeling stuck with a struggling employee? Should you demote your employee? Don't jump to demotions! Demotions: a tempting solution, but a legal nightmare? Discover a better approach to employee performance issues that boosts morale & keeps your top talent. Shield your business! Subscribe to the People Processes Podcast for more expert advice on leading your team effectively.
https://youtu.be/8E2UPrKa5Po
🕵️♂️ Can you be both an employee and an independent contractor at the same time? Dive deep into the legal and financial intricacies of dual employment statuses, including crucial DOL and IRS factors, through real-world examples and expert analysis. Whether you're evaluating secondary roles within your current employment or considering hiring employees for independent tasks, this discussion is packed with insights on navigating these dual roles legally and effectively.
Subscribe to our channel, hit the like button, and share this episode with your network. Have a question or want to join the conversation? Drop a comment below or share this video on social media tagging us to get involved. Let's navigate the complex landscape of employment together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR3YLfvMS_Y
Unlock the secrets of effective compensation planning with our latest episode! 🚀 Dive into the Strategic Approach to Annual Raise Planning and discover key insights on salary adjustments, tenure-based increases, and maintaining a competitive edge in the job market. 💡 Elevate your business's success and employee satisfaction by mastering the art of strategic compensation.
salaryincrease #compensationstrategy #hrinsights #SalaryPlanning #peopleprocesses
https://youtu.be/J4-JvpS8zcU
https://youtu.be/bjiInaNCSE8
Incentive compensation programs are primarily used to promote the efficiency and productivity of the workforce. Many organizations view incentives as an important tool for improving performance.
In this episode, learn the art and science behind crafting effective incentive programs.🔍 Explore the ins and outs of overall compensation design, with a specific focus on incentive pay. From bonuses to commissions, Rhamy guides you through building a customized compensation scheme that shapes behavior and drives results. 💡
Tune in to gain a competitive edge in talent management and business success. 🔥 Don't miss this opportunity to revolutionize your approach to incentives and maximize your team's potential.
IncentiveCompensation #talentmanagement #businesssuccess #teammotivation
https://youtu.be/Rn56we1S56A
Understanding withholding tax is crucial for financial control. Employers withhold a set amount from an employee's paycheck, directly remitting it to the IRS in their name. This withheld money acts as a credit against the employee's annual income tax bill.
To understand your Form W-4, we break down the complexities, providing clarity on your paycheck deductions and how they influence your tax situation. Don't let tax season catch you off guard—be in control!
👍 Don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit the bell icon for more insightful content on mastering your finances! 💼💸 #SubscribeNow
https://youtu.be/fBYO_79ADOw
The U.S. Department of Labor published the issuance of the final rule under The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regarding Employee or Independent Contractor Classification. 🎙️ In this episode, Rhamy Alejeal, CEO of People Processes, breaks down the major Fair Labor Standards Act update arriving in March 2024.
🌐 Why is this Episode a Must-Watch?
Discover the historical roots of the FLSA, its role in establishing minimum wage and overtime pay standards, and the game-changing recent legal developments that demand your attention. Get ready for a deep dive into the economic reality test and the six factors that will redefine how you classify employees and independent contractors.
🔥 Highlights:
✅ Understanding the Economic Reality Test
✅ Detailed Analysis of the Six Economic Reality Factors
✅ Recent Legal Shifts and Implications
✅ Practical Tips for Businesses and Workers
📊 Practical Implications for Your Business:
Get ahead of the curve and ensure compliance by gaining insights into the intricacies of the FLSA updates. Learn how these changes impact daily operations, long-term planning, and the overall economic landscape.
🔗 For more insights and assistance in navigating these updates, visit https://peopleprocesses.com. Our team at People Processes is here to support organizations across the United States in handling HR with expertise and precision.
👍 If you found this information valuable, don't forget to like, share, and subscribe for more updates on essential HR topics! Stay informed, stay compliant.
🛡️ #hrcompliance #FLSAUpdate #IndependentContractors #businessregulations #FLSAguidelines #employeeclassification #workerclassification #PeopleProcesses #hrinsights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnog955sSR8
🤯 Are your workers 1099 contractors when they should be W2 employees? 😱 Dive into our latest episode for a step-by-step guide to rectify the situation of employee misclassification. Learn how the Voluntary Classification Settlement Program (VCSP) can save you from hefty penalties and reshape your tax compliance. Subscribe now for more HR insights! 💼
https://youtube.com/watch?v=lTI-z6xT2pQ
Ever asked why safe harbor matches rock the 401(k) world? When it comes to offering a competitive and attractive retirement plan for your employees, a 401(k) plan with a safe harbor match is an excellent option. Safe harbor matches ensure that your plan meets certain requirements set by the IRS, making it more accessible and beneficial for your employees. However, with several safe harbor match options available, it's crucial to select the one that aligns best with your company's goals and financial capacity. In this episode, we'll walk you through the different safe harbor match options and help you determine which one might be most suitable for your group 401(k) plan.
🤝💼 Don't miss out on this valuable insight that can attract and retain top talent, all while ensuring compliance. Subscribe now and boost your employee engagement! 🔒💼
https://youtu.be/Qbo8szTShMA
Is it job abandonment or something else?🕵️♂️ Job Abandonment is when an employee doesn’t show up, with no intention of returning, and importantly, without communication. Join Rhamy Alejeal in unraveling the mystery of Job Abandonment. When does absence become abandonment, and how should businesses navigate this challenging territory? From defining policies to the compassionate approach and legal intricacies, this podcast episode provides a comprehensive guide. Let's navigate the complexities of HR together!
Subscribe now for invaluable insights that illuminate the path to compassionate and effective HR management. 🌐 Explore more on our website: www.peopleprocesses.com
https://youtu.be/H-GfZ9n28G0
Unlock the secrets of identifying and nurturing leadership potential in your team! 🌟 In this episode, we explore the signs, strategies, and key attributes that set the stage for leadership readiness, providing you with invaluable insights to enhance your team's leadership landscape.
Discover the qualities that define an effective leader—initiative, strong communication, problem-solving prowess, empathy, adaptability, and continuous learning. Learn how to spot these qualities in your team members and unleash their leadership potential for the benefit of your organization.
This episode isn't just a discussion; it's a practical guide to cultivating a culture of leadership excellence within your workplace. Whether you're a business owner, manager, or aspiring leader, the wisdom shared in this episode will empower you to build a strong and sustainable leadership pipeline.
🎙️ Subscribe, like, and hit the notification bell for more HR wisdom.
💬 Share your leadership stories and insights in the comments!
🌐 Visit our website for additional resources and tools: www.peopleprocesses.com
https://youtu.be/Qn8fGg5auB4
The IRS recently made an announcement that holds significant implications for employers and HR professionals alike: the Affordable Care Act (ACA) affordability threshold for 2024 will be adjusted to 8.39%, down from 9.12% in 2023. This change might seem minor, but it holds substantial ramifications for businesses.
Stay ahead of the curve, protect your organization, and keep your team informed. Don't forget to hit the like button, subscribe, and share this vital information with your network. For comprehensive resources and expert insights, visit our website at peopleprocesses.com.
Join us in staying informed and agile in the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare and employee benefits.
https://youtu.be/hYz3PD05GgM?si=QuQr9tGHSshWRCK4
Discover effective strategies to help employees who don't get along, turning conflicts into catalysts for innovation and productivity. Join Rhamy as he outlines key points from early intervention to leveraging strengths and weaknesses, providing actionable insights for HR pros and team leaders.
[youtube https://youtu.be/CFFgreZRB_I?si=XuP3ul7xkx4DL19Y]
In this episode, we are going to talk about The Power of Appreciation. Specifically, how leveraging that power can boost your employee morale through effective recognition.
Share in the comments a special memory or a shoutout to a colleague who deserves some recognition today. Let's keep empowering each other and unlocking our full potential! 🏆💪❤️
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj_r1ntUk1M] If an employee becomes ill with COVID-19 symptoms, they may request for paid sick leave under the FFCRA only to seek a medical diagnosis, or self-quarantine only if advised to do so by a healthcare provider. If tested positive, the employee may continue to take paid sick leave. This does not apply for illnesses unrelated to COVID-19—though employers may allow them to telework at their discretion. You may not take paid sick leave under the FFCRA if you unilaterally decide to self-quarantine for an illness without medical advice, even if you have COVID-19 symptoms.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YduFG1ETZY] Under the circumstances existing currently, the ADA has specifically allowed employers to bar an employee from physical presence in the workplace if he refuses to have his temperature taken, refuses to answer questions about whether he has COVID-19, has symptoms associated with COVID-19, or has been tested for COVID-19 and is positive.
If the employee claims under the ADA that they have a medical reason for refusing a temperature check, the employer can still bar them from entering the workplace. However, their reason should be documented and accommodation should be provided to the employee (i.e. work from home). If accommodations of any sort are not possible, then the employee will be on unpaid leave. They can also be fired if the role cannot stay unfilled.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6k_vgtvmTU&w=560&h=315] The simple answer is “no”. The Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act (GINA) prohibits employers from asking employees medical questions about family members, and it is still in force. GINA does not prohibit employers from asking employees whether they’ve had contact with anyone who has been diagnosed with COVID-19 or may have symptoms associated with the disease. The CDC also recently issued guidance that explained, from a public health perspective, that only asking an employee about their contact with family members would unnecessarily limit the information obtained about the employee’s potential exposure to COVID-19. So, employers should not only ask about family but about everyone. In fact, they should remove the word “family” from their attestation. Asking this question shows due diligence, best practice, and care for other employees.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwIiTDvEjmY] A new bill in California was finalized that would expand the California Family Rights Act to make it an unlawful employment practice for employers with five or more employees to refuse to grant an employee’s request to take up to 12 workweeks of unpaid protected leave during any 12-month period to bond with the employee’s new child or care for themselves or a child, parent, grandparent, grandchild, sibling, spouse, or domestic partner, as specified.
Under existing law, family and medical leave requirements extend only to the employee’s self, child, parent, or spouse. The employer coverage threshold is currently set at 50 or more employees. This has been expanded to include a grandparent, grandchild, sibling, spouse, or domestic partner. The bill also reduces the employer coverage threshold to five or more employees.
Under the bill, which applies also to employees of state and local political subdivisions and cities, an employer that employs both parents of a child would be required to grant leave to each employee. Currently, the employer is only required in those circumstances to grant both employees a total of 12 workweeks of unpaid protected leave during the 12-month period.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ0aYhbhPSk] Referring to a case involving Cal/OSHA and frozen foods manufacturer Overhill Farms Inc. and its temporary employment agency Jobsource North America Inc., employers failed to protect hundreds of employees from COVID-19 at two plants in Vernon. This was due to the lack of physical distancing procedures among workers including where they clock in and out of their shift, at the cart where they put on gloves and coats, in the break room, on the conveyor line, and during packing operations. Each employer accrued over $200,000 in proposed penalties.
The employers did not take any steps to install barriers or implement procedures to have employees work at least six feet away from each other and they did not investigate any of their employees’ COVID-19 infections, including more than 20 illnesses and, in the case of Overhill Farms, one death.
Other violations that put workers at risk of exposure to COVID-19 include the failure by both employers to train employees on the hazards presented by the virus and failure to investigate any of the more than 20 COVID-19 illnesses and one death Cal/OSHA uncovered amongst their employees. The employers did not adequately communicate the COVID-19 hazards to their workforce, and Overhill did not report a COVID-19 fatality to Cal/OSHA.
Illnesses must be investigated and additional protective measures implemented. Serious illnesses and deaths must be reported to Cal/OSHA. Employers should also notify workers of possible exposure and report outbreaks to county public health officials.
https://youtu.be/EFcPkW82VCc Under the FLSA, employees are entitled to be paid a minimum wage for each hour worked and to be paid one-and-a-half times their regular rate of pay for each hour in excess of 40 hours worked in a workweek (some states have slightly different regulations).
Certain employees are exempt from these requirements, including employees who are employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity, as well as outside salespeople.
A three-part test was created in order to define who are exempt professionals:
The salary basis test determines that the employee must be compensated on a salary or fee basis.
The salary level test determines that the salary paid must meet a specific minimum amount.
The duties test determines that the employee’s primary duty must be to perform work that requires either knowledge of an advanced type in a field of science of learning, customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction; or invention, imagination, or talent in a recognized field of artistic or creative endeavor.
An alternative to this three-part test for this particular exemption is the “highly compensated employee test”, which eliminates the need for a detailed analysis of the employee’s job duties. Under this test, the employee qualifies as exempt if they customarily and regularly perform at least one of the exempt executive, administrative, professional, learned, or creative duties, and receives total compensation of at least $107,432 a year. The total compensation must include at least $684 per week, paid on a salary or fee basis as well.
The FLSA exemptions are just as much part of the FLSA’s purpose as the minimum wage and overtime pay requirements, and therefore must receive a fair (rather than narrow) interpretation. The Wage and Hour Division, therefore, interprets the act neither expansively nor narrowly, but instead according to conventional canons of statutory interpretation.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmjNGQGvsKg] A group of mechanics employed at a South Carolina chain of tire and automobile repair stores was paid under a compensation plan that contained two components. They received an amount determined by multiplying the particular mechanic’s “flat rate”;—an hourly pay rate assigned to each mechanic based on that mechanic’s particular skill, experience, and certifications—by the mechanic’s " turned hours," a pre-established amount of time designated by the employer for each mechanical task, for all tasks completed by the mechanic during the relevant pay period.
The compensation for turned hours did not account for the actual time spent working on a particular task or during the pay period overall, however. Instead, it was based exclusively on the number of tasks completed and the pre-assigned turned hours for such tasks (the same measure of turned hours used to form a mechanic’s pay for a particular task also was used as the basis for the labor costs charged to the customer for that task, although the rates paid by the customers were greater than mechanics’ flat rates).
While the above describes the key component of the compensation plan, the secondary component is that of differential pay. When the amount of a mechanic’s turned hours compensation earned over a given pay period was less than 1.5 times the statutory minimum wage multiplied by the mechanic’s actual hours worked during the same period, he or she also received a supplemental amount, referred to as “differential pay”; and designed to ensure that mechanics always earned at least 1.5 times the statutory minimum wage for all actual hours worked. The differential pay rate was set at whatever amount was needed to render the mechanic’s total compensation—i.e., turned hours pay plus differential pay—equal to $11.02 per hour for all actual hours worked during the period. As a result, if a mechanic’s turned hours fell below a certain percentage of their actual hours, he or she was compensated as though having earned a straightforward wage of $11.02 per hour.
The mechanics filed a putative class-action suit against the company, after which both sides filed motions for summary judgment seeking a ruling in their favor regarding whether the employer’s method of compensation is a bona fide commission plan under the FLSA—and, if so, whether the plan was exempted from the statute’s overtime pay requirements. The employees argued that the employer’s commission rate was a "sham" that did not meet the requirements to qualify for the Section 7(i) overtime exemption, that the totality of the employer’s conduct demonstrated a clear pattern of reckless disregard for the FLSA, and that the court should find that a three-year statute of limitations applied in denying the company’s motion for summary judgment concerning employees who had filed their written consents to be part of the class within those three years.
The FLSA provides two potential limitations periods: a two-year statute of limitations applies for non-willful violations, but a three-year statute of limitations applies when the violation is willful (employees bear the burden of proof when alleging that a violation is willful). In the case at bar, the employees conceded that the company’s failure to consult with a lawyer concerning its compensation plan could not alone demonstrate a willful violation of the statute. Rather, they contended that, combined with its other conduct, the company’s failure to have consulted with an employment lawyer or with the Department of Labor (DOL) when it implemented the at-issue compensation plan was sufficient to establish a willful violation.
The court found that the employees provided no evidence that the employer was on notice that its compensation plan violated the FLSA, however, noting that the company’s corporate counsel had worked with the DOL during an investigation of the plan and that a DOL audit had...
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5_adTNqND4] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has laid out new workplace strategies for COVID-19-related violence prevention in order to avoid conflict if customers refuse to adhere to safety protocols being enforced by employees.
The CDC has posted information on limiting workplace violence related to retail and service businesses’ COVID-19 prevention policies. This information is also intended for other customer-based businesses, including department stores, grocery stores, gas stations, and restaurants that are opened and have implemented state, municipality, and company-directed Coronavirus prevention policies.
The policies that may prompt violence toward workers include requiring masks to be worn by employees and customers, asking customers to follow social distancing rules, and setting limits to the number of customers allowed in a business at any given time.
The CDC defines workplace violence as “violent acts, including physical assaults and threats of assault, directed toward persons at work or on duty.” Workplace violence includes:
Threat: verbal, written, and physical expressions that could reasonably be interpreted as intending to cause harm.
Verbal assault: yelling, swearing, insulting, or bullying another person with the intent of hurting or causing harm. Unlike physical assaults, the intent is not necessarily to cause physical harm, but negative emotions of the person being assaulted.
Physical assault: hitting, slapping, kicking, pushing, choking, grabbing, or other physical contacts with the intent of causing injury or harm.
Employers are encouraged to take the following actions to prevent workplace violence:
Offer customers options to minimize their contact with others and promote social distancing. These options can include curbside pick-up; personal shoppers; home delivery for groceries, food, and other services; and alternative shopping hours.
Advertise COVID-19-related policies on the business website.
Put in place steps to assess and respond to workplace violence. The response will depend on the severity of the violence and on the size and structure of the business. Possible responses may include reporting to a manager or supervisor on-duty, calling security, or calling 911.
Assign two workers to work as a team to encourage COVID-19 prevention policies to be followed if staffing permits.
Identify a safe area for employees to go to if they feel they are in danger (e.g., a room that locks from the inside, has a second exit route, and has a phone or silent alarm).
Post signs that let customers know about policies for wearing masks, social distancing, and the maximum number of people allowed in a business facility.
Provide employee training on threat recognition, conflict resolution, nonviolent response, and any other relevant topics related to workplace violence response.
Remain aware of and support employees and customers if a threatening or violent situation occurs.
Install security systems (e.g., panic buttons, cameras, alarms) and train employees on how to use them.
As part of the training, employees often learn verbal and non-verbal cues that may be warning signs of possible violence. Verbal cues can include speaking loudly or swearing. Non-verbal cues can include clenched fists, heavy breathing, fixed stare, and pacing, among other behaviors. The more cues have shown, the greater the risk of violence.
During training, employees also learn how to appropriately respond to potentially violent or violent situations. Responses range from paying attention to a person and maintaining non-threatening eye contact to using supportive body language and avoiding threatening gestures, such as finger-pointing or crossed-arms.
Basic “dos” for employees to prevent workplace violence include:
Do attend all employer-provided training on how to recognize, avoid,...
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gi7xFp--uE] We will be looking at an explanation from the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor about the Fair Labor Standards Act, specifically about employee reimbursements.
Generally, the FLSA requires covered employers to pay non-exempt employees no less than the federal minimum hourly wage for all non-overtime hours worked in a given workweek. 29 U.S.C. § 206. Employees must receive these wages “free and clear.” 29 C.F.R. § 531.35. An employee’s wages include the “reasonable cost” of “board, lodging, or other facilities” that primarily benefit the employee, and therefore the reasonable cost of such items count towards satisfying an employer’s obligation to pay the minimum wage. 29 U.S.C. § 203(m). But the cost of “other facilities” that are primarily for the benefit or convenience of the employer cannot be counted as wages. 29 C.F.R. § 531.3(d). Those costs include tools of the trade, required uniforms—or required use of a personal vehicle. An employer violates the FLSA “in any workweek when the cost of such tools” (and the like) “cuts into the minimum or overtime wages required to be paid….” Id. § 531.35. Therefore, an employer violates the FLSA if the employee’s wages, minus expenses, end up below the federal minimum wage for a given non- overtime workweek. See id.; see also id. §§ 531.3(d), 531.36(b).
A reimbursement to cover expenses incurred on the employer’s behalf or for the employer’s convenience is sufficient if it “reasonably approximates the expenses incurred.” Id. § 778.217(a).2 A reimbursement amount based on IRS guidelines, including the annual standard mileage rates, “is per se reasonable.” Id. § 778.217(c).
While employers must keep records of “the dates, amounts, and nature” of items added to or deduct from each nonexempt employee’s wages, neither the FLSA nor WHD’s regulations require them to keep records of employees’ actual expenses. Id. § 516.2(a)(10). Employers are instead required to keep records that they used to determine the number of additions to or deductions from wages paid. Id. § 516.6(c)(2).
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2Q8P2LF124]
The Department of Labor has posted a clarification letter about the FLSA and addresses the question of whether commercial drivers can be paid solely on a commission basis.
The FLSA exempts from its overtime pay requirements certain employees of “retail or service establishment[s]. The exemption applies to any employee:
who works at a retail or service establishment,
whose employee’s regular rate of pay exceeds one and one-half times the applicable minimum wage in the workweek in which he or she works overtime, and
whose earnings in a representative period consist of more than 50% commissions
The United States Supreme Court recently held that exemptions under the FLSA deserves a “fair (rather than narrow) interpretation” because the exemptions are “as much a part of the FLSA’s purpose as the overtime-pay requirement.” Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro, 138 S. Ct. 1134, 1142 (2018) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Accordingly, WHD must apply a “fair reading” standard to all exemptions to the FLSA—including the Section 7(i) exemption addressed in this letter.
The client who sent in the letter employs truck drivers from three different establishments and pays the drivers solely on a commission basis to transport fluid waste from customer oil field locations to disposal facilities. The client pays each driver 27% of the gross revenue received by the client for each truck driven regardless of how many hours are worked each week. Each driver works approximately 60 each week scheduled as 12-hour shifts, five days a week.
The inquiry letter represents that the regular rate of pay for each driver exceeds one-and-one-half times the federal minimum wage. The truck drivers qualify for the Section 7(i) exemption if the client is a retail or service establishment.
To qualify as a “retail or service establishment,” (1) your client must “engage in the making of sales of goods or services”; (2) “75 percent of its sales of goods or services, or both, must be recognized as retail in the particular industry”; and (3) “not over 25 percent of its sales of goods or services, or of both, maybe sales for resale.”
The letter by the Department of Labor concludes that the client—provided that they provide waste removal service, has services that are recognized as retail within the waste removal industry, has trucks that are not that different from what is used for the general public and uses a quantity that is relatively similar to that of a retail service provider—would qualify as a retail or service establishment. Their employees would, therefore, be exempt. If not, they need to track the hours of their workers as they will be entitled to overtime and minimum wage payments.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYX_R6_GXVs] The Equal Employment Opportunity Council released guidance early in August 2020 that addressed employees who may be suffering from opioid addiction, referring to it as an opioid disability protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
While this guidance is directed specifically towards employees, employers can read through the document to help them think about how to deal with the issues addressed. When an employee comes to an employer with an addiction, especially opioid addiction, understand that it is classified as a disability under the ADA, meaning the employer is required to provide reasonable accommodation.
If the company has a drug testing policy and an employee tests positive for a particular drug, if they have a prescription for it—in order to treat something that is a legitimate medical concern—know that this is a disability and not a reason to fire them. If the employee is unable to safely operate heavy machinery under the particular drug, reasonable accommodation may be needed if the employer can afford it.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz13X5PfR4Y] Employees that work from home on an hourly basis need an ability to clock in and out for their scheduled hours and an ability to report the time that they worked in an unscheduled time. For example, if the employer was not expecting the employee to work at 10 pm, and yet they did, the employer has to put together a reasonable process for reporting the unscheduled work time so that the employee can be paid accordingly. It can be a discipline issue if they work unscheduled hours, and the employer may have to bar access to their clocking in if need be. No matter the circumstances, however, the employee must always be compensated for the extra hours.
This Field Assistance Bulletin (FAB) provides guidance regarding employers’ obligation under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA or Act) to track the number of hours of compensable work performed by employees who are teleworking or otherwise working remotely away from any worksite or premises controlled by their employers. In a telework or remote work arrangement, the question of the employer’s obligation to track hours worked for which the employee was not scheduled may often arise. While this guidance responds directly to needs created by new telework or remote work arrangements that arose in response to COVID-19, it also applies to other telework or remote work arrangements.
However, if an employee fails to report unscheduled hours worked through such a procedure, the employer is not required to undergo impractical efforts to investigate further to uncover unreported hours of work and provide compensation for those hours. Id.
However, an employer’s time reporting process will not constitute reasonable diligence where the employer either prevents or discourages an employee from accurately reporting the time he or she has worked, and an employee may not waive his or her rights to compensation under the Act. Id. at 939; see also Craig v. Bridges Bros. Trucking LLC, 823 F.3d 382, 388 (6th Cor. 2016).
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUn4WQ017ds] It can be difficult for management to understand why an employee may be excelling in one area of a job while underperforming in another. Performance is evaluated on an ongoing basis but, often, it is an annual review. A Performance Improvement Program (PIP) basically shortens the length of performance reviews. It provides more feedback more often to an employee, normally around a specific issue. A PIP should be implemented when an employee consistently performs poorly or behaves inappropriately. For example, if an employee is consistently late for work, missing due dates, or conducts themselves in an improper manner, a PIP may be a necessary initiative. Although it may be easy to identify where an employee falls short of expectations, it can be difficult to identify the root cause of the problem. For instance, issues in an individual’s personal life, conflicts at work, or even management style may all be the reasons for performance issues. PIPs can give employees the opportunity to correct any behavioral or performance issues that may be affecting their overall success. By providing employees with achievable and timely goals, employees are given the opportunity to be more engaged at work. The facilitator of the PIP should meet regularly with the individual throughout the process to provide feedback that can keep the employee motivated and productive, as well as to hear feedback from the employee. Although PIPs are centered around employee work performance, there are a variety of benefits for both the employee and the company. Organizations have reported the following benefits as a result of implementing PIPs: Increased productivity Greater quality of work Deepened relationships between management and the employee Greater job fulfillment In short, PIPs are there to help pinpoint a specific issue and work together for the future of the employee and the company. Greater job fulfillment on behalf of the employee is almost always the result of a successful PIP. It is important to let your employee know that they have great potential and that you truly want them to succeed with the company, hence why you are implementing a PIP instead of simply firing them.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_35zj3H11g] The short answer to this question is “yes”. Of course, telecommuting is preferable. If the work can be done from home, the employer and employee should discuss options to prevent complications that arise due to situations such as the current lockdowns or city-wide protests.
Do keep in mind that factors such as business expenses vary by state whether they are reimbursable by the employer. The processes for tracking attendance and upholding performance standards for exempt employees should be planned out.
If it is necessary to come in for work, note that, so far, in each state that has instituted a curfew due to “social unrest”, commuting to or from work is still allowed. To avoid confusion, and keep your employees safe, create a letter for each employee on the company letterhead to keep in their car when traveling to and from work. It is as simple as modifying the standard letter used for essential businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, which you may refer to below.
[Disclaimer: Businesses should consult the relevant guidelines to determine whether they are an essential business.]
[Date]
[Employee Name and Address]
To whom it may concern:
The employee identified above is employed by [Name of Business], which [Describe services your business provides] and is continuing operations at [Address of Business] during {the shelter-in-place order as an essential business under the relevant law. } OR {the times at which the city has instituted a curfew}.
[Company name] is committed to complying with the relevant requirements and appreciates your assistance in enabling our employees to continue to provide business functions to the community. This employee generally works a schedule of [X to X] and this letter does not apply to time outside of normal working hours. If you have any questions, please contact me at the number below.
Sincerely,
_____________________________
[Name of Executive]
[Phone Number]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfwwapAGcco] In answering this question, it is important to note the differences between “noncompete”, “non-solicitation”, and “company” or “trade secrets” when navigating future opportunities. “Noncompete” simply means that the employee cannot seek work in the same industry by becoming an employee or partner of a competitor.
Note that the “duty of loyalty” exists without any sort of agreement— although it is always better to spell things out to all your workers via your non-disclosures. An organization’s current employees are under a “duty of loyalty” to the organization. Each state defines that duty a bit differently. In general, employees are not permitted to induce current customers, suppliers, or other employees to leave the organization, nor are they allowed to operate a competing business while still employed by the organization. When that duty is breached, the employer may be entitled to collect lost profits, punitive damages, and out-of-pocket costs incurred to train replacements. Offending employees may be forced to forfeit their salaries and to give up any profits they made as a result of the disloyal conduct. Also, courts may issue injunctions forbidding the employees to engage in similar conduct for a specified period. Under the duty of loyalty, the law generally prevents an individual from using trade secrets or proprietary information of a current or former employer to the detriment of that employer.
A trade secret can be any information that derives independent economic value from not being generally known or readily ascertainable. Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia have adopted in whole or in part the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA). The UTSA codifies the basic principles of common law trade secret protection and may afford employers protection even in those states, like California, where restrictive covenants are generally not enforceable. The UTSA protects an employer from misappropriation and misuse of actual trade secrets, which are defined as information, including a formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique, process, drawing, data, or customer list that:
Derives independent economic value — actual or potential — from not being generally known to or readily ascertainable (by proper means) by other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use.
Is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy.
An employer must take reasonable measures to maintain the confidentiality of trade secrets. In determining whether reasonable steps have been taken, courts balance the costs and benefits on a case-by-case basis. Even states that have not adopted the UTSA generally accord similar protection to trade secrets under the Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 757.
To determine whether a piece of information is a trade secret, states following the Restatement of Torts will generally examine the following six factors:
The extent to which the information is known outside the business.
The extent to which it is known by employees and others involved in the business.
The extent of measures taken by the business to guard the secrecy of the information.
The value of the information to the business and its competitors.
The amount of effort or money expended by the business in developing the information.
The ease or difficulty with which the information could be properly acquired or duplicated by others.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHr2N0tkHcc] In this episode, we dive into Post Accident Drug Testing. After Oct 2018, OSHA has stated that most instances of workplace drug testing are permissible, including:
Random drug testing;
Drug testing unrelated to the reporting of a work-related injury or illness;
Drug testing under a state’s workers’ compensation law;
Drug testing under another federal law, such as a U.S. Department of Transportation rule; and
Drug testing to evaluate the root cause of a workplace incident that harmed or could have harmed an employee. However, the Department warned that, if the employer chooses to use drug testing to investigate an incident, the employer should test all employees whose conduct could have contributed to the incident, not just the employee who reported an injury.
And in TENNESSEE, we dove a little deeper into the minimum property damage levels stated in TN Laws.
Reasonable suspicion testing
Reasonable suspicion” is based on a belief that an employee is using or has used drugs or alcohol in violation of this company’s policy and is based on specific, objective and articulable facts and reasonable inferences drawn from those facts in light of experience. Among other things, such facts and inferences may be based upon, but not limited to, the following:
Observable phenomena while at work such as direct observation of substance abuse or of the physical symptoms or manifestations of being impaired due to substance abuse;
Abnormal conduct or erratic behavior while at work or a significant deterioration in work performance;
A report of substance abuse provided by a reliable and credible source;
Evidence that an individual has tampered with any substance abuse test during his or her employment with this company;
Information that an employee has caused or contributed to an accident while at work;
Evidence that an employee has used, possessed, sold, solicited, or transferred drugs while working or while on the employer’s premises or while operating the employer’s vehicle, machinery, or equipment; or
Involvement in an accident that results in an injury to another individual or in property damage exceeding Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000.00), or such minimum amount as set by U.S.DOT Guidelines, if less.
The key takeaway from this episode is that laws and regulations change often and quickly. Before 2016, the above would work, from 2016-2018, no good, and after October 2018, the above works, but you also need to consider state changes!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opgvh1N2grU] This episode goes through law updates in August 2020:
Nebraska Employee Misclassification: The Employee Classification Act is amended to change enforcement provisions. The change provides that the commissioner may issue a citation to a contractor when an investigation reveals that a contractor has violated the act.
Nebraska Smoking in the Workplace: The Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Act is amended to exempt electronic smoking device retail outlets from smoking prohibitions under the law. The limited exemptions under the law permit smoking in public places where the public would reasonably expect to find persons smoking, including guest room suites designated as smoking rooms, institutions engaged in research related to smoking, and tobacco retail outlets, electronic smoking device retail outlets, and cigar shops, with narrow application and restrictions under the law.
Nebraska Wage Payment: The Nebraska Wage Payment and Collection Act is amended to provide and change requirements for wage claims under the Act; to prohibit employers from discriminating or retaliation against employees who file a suit or complaint under the Act or who testify, assist or participate in an investigation, proceeding, or action concerning a violation of the Act; to provide restrictions on employers with unpaid citations; to require the Department of Labor to post certain information related to compliance and enforcement of the Act on its website.
New Hampshire Criminal Background Checks: A new law prohibits a public employer from inquiring about or conducting a criminal background check on a prospective employee prior to an interview. Such inquiries are permitted during an interview, however, effective September 22, 2020.
New Jersey Minimum Wage: The New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development has adopted new regulations to protect fair wages for tipped workers. The regulations specifically state that tips belong exclusively to the employee.
Puerto Rico Workplace Harassment and Bullying: Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vazquez Garced signed House Bill 306 on August 7 to create the “Law to prohibit and prevent workplace harassment in Puerto Rico,” which establishes the policy against harassment in the local workplace, defines its scope, procedures, prohibitions, and sanctions.
Rhode Island Equal Opportunity in State Employment: A new law creates a new process with standards to be utilized when deciding whether past convictions should disqualify an applicant from receiving the state-issued occupational license, permit, certificate, or registration they seek. Further, the law prohibits state agencies from discriminating by considering protected characteristics in the granting denying, or revoking of a license or charter.
Vermont Unemployment Insurance: The maximum weekly benefit amount in Vermont increased to $531 effective July 5, 2020.
Wyoming Unemployment Insurance: The maximum weekly benefit amount in Wyoming effective July 5, 2020, is $526.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O-t_rz13pU] This episode goes through law updates in August 2020:
Georgia Disaster and Emergency Services Volunteer Leaves: Under the Disaster Volunteer Leave Act, employees of state agencies who are certified disaster service volunteers may be granted paid leaves of absence for no more than 15 workdays in a 12-month period to participate in specialized disaster relief services for the American Red Cross.
Georgia Meal and Rest Periods: A new law requires employers to provide a paid break time of reasonable duration to an employee who desires to express breast milk at the worksite during working hours.
Georgia Paid Sick Leave: Without action by the Georgia General Assembly, the state’s sick leave laws were set for automatic repeal effective July 1, 2020. However, the Assembly did act to extend the state’s sick leave laws, until July 1, 2023.
Georgia Unemployment Insurance Law: The method for determining maximum weekly benefit amounts is amended with regard to high average unemployment rates. For claims filed on or after June 14, the maximum benefits payable to an individual in a benefit year is to be the lesser of: (1) 14 times the weekly benefit amount, if this state’s average unemployment rate above 4.5 percent up to a maximum of 26 times the weekly amount added for each 0.5 percent increment in this state’s average unemployment rate above 4.5 percent up to a maximum of 26 times the weekly benefit amount if this state’s average unemployment rate exceeds 10 percent; or (2) one-fourth of the base period wages. If the amount computed is not a multiple of the weekly benefit amount, the total will be adjusted to the nearest multiple of the weekly benefit amount.
Indiana Privacy: Indiana law prohibits an employer from requiring a candidate for employment or an employee to have a device implanted or otherwise incorporated into the candidate’s or employee’s body as a condition of employment, as a condition of employment in a particular position, or as a condition of receiving additional compensation or benefits.
Indiana Unemployment Insurance: The Indiana Employment Security Act is amended to revise contribution rate schedules for calendar years after December 31, 2020. The selection of the appropriate schedule for the calendar tax year is based on the fund ratio, which is determined by taking the balance of the fund on the computation date and dividing it by the total payroll of all contributing employers for the preceding calendar year.
Kentucky Drugs in the Workplace: A new law orders the Cabinet for Health and Family Services along with the Office of Drug Control Policy to promulgate regulations for employer-facilitated substance use disorder treatment programs for employees who have failed an employment-related drug screen. Maintaining such a program is voluntary on the part of employers and participation would require consent from the employee.
Maryland Discrimination Based on Arrest Record: A new law requires the Maryland Department of Labor to develop a list of any federal state incentive programs available to an employer who hires and trains formerly incarcerated individuals.
Maryland Equal Pay: New law requires an employer, on request, to provide an applicant the wage range for the position for which the applicant has applied. The law also prohibits an employer from taking any negative action against the applicant because he or she did not provide wage history or a wage range and prohibits an employer from relying on wage history, except when voluntarily provided, for the purpose of determining fair wage.
Maryland Privacy: Employers are prohibited from using certain facial recognition services during an applicant’s interview for employment unless the applicant consents by signing a waiver.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gjNHRI2KAs] This episode goes through law updates in August 2020:
California Unemployment Insurance: Tax-rated employers will receive relief from unemployment insurance benefit charges related to COVID-19. Alongside other states, California will not count COVID-19-related claims against employers.
Colorado Labor Relations: The Colorado Partnership for Quality Jobs and Services Act was enacted to provide state employees with the right to self-organization. This law gives more freedom to employees to not participate in unions.
Colorado Paid Sick Leave: The Healthy Families and Workplaces Act creates paid sick leave in Colorado. Under the new law, upon hire, employers begin accruing paid sick leave at the rate of one hour for every 30 hours worked, up to 48 hours.
Colorado Unemployment Insurance: The maximum weekly benefit amount in Colorado effective July 1, 2020, is $590. The alternative maximum weekly benefit amount is $649. The minimum weekly benefit amount remains $25.
Colorado Whistleblower Protections: The Worker Rights Related to a Public Health Emergency law prohibits employers from discriminating, retaliating, or taking any adverse action against any employee who raises a concern about workplace health and safety practices or hazards related to a public health emergency.
Connecticut Minimum Wage: The minimum wage in Connecticut will increase to $12 per hour on September 1, 2020, per a scheduled increase.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts3aW2E7J1Q]
This episode covers COVID-19 liability. As an employer recovering from shutdowns in your area, you may be in danger of getting a consumer or employment complaint from their potentially getting sick in your office or store. The liability shield for these situations is a major part of the discussion for the proposed stimulus bill because there is a major concern that, without it, many businesses will become vulnerable to legal troubles once they reopen.
Since the federal government has not yet acted, many states have come in and put their own liability shields in place. Hunton Andrews Kurth's COVID-19 Complaint Tracker tracks by state and type. Of the 4,280 complaints filed as of August 13, most (around 1,000) are related to insurance claims, malpractice suits, civil rights cases, and government taking.
The key cases to be covered by the liability shield proposed by Congress are called “consumer cases”. These include personal injury, price gouging, product liability, recurring membership fees charged during a shutdown, and wrongful deaths. Through the tracker, it was found that only a few of the aforementioned 4,280 cases are actually related to consumer cases.
Nevertheless, many states have taken action to blunt the risk that businesses will be held liable for COVID-19-related injuries.
Take the time to examine the CDC guidelines for businesses and employers and make sure that they are being followed, as they do provide extreme protection in the case of a lawsuit.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWS79DfmIZA] Despite the many drastic developments that the U.S. has undergone in 2020, the Department of Labor remains vigilant in prosecuting and charging those convicted of primary violations. This episode covers the five cases filed last month.
Three unrelated employers in Florida and Minnesota have paid a combined $6,528 in back wages to three employees for violating the paid sick leave requirements of the newly-enacted Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), according to the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD). The agency also announced collecting $92,290 for 27 employees from an Idaho company that violated the Davis-Bacon Act, and a civil money penalty of $17,586 for a North Carolina McDonald’s franchise for violating the FLSA’s child labor requirements.
These are the cases:
Medley, Florida-based Martinez Truss Co. has paid an employee $4,352 in back wages for wrongly denying paid sick leave under the FFCRA. The employee had requested time off after their child’s school closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
After a WHD investigation, the County of Carver, Minnesota, has paid $1,136 in back wages for violating the FFCRA by wrongly denying a worker’s request for paid leave to care for her child when her daycare center closed during the pandemic.
The Boys & Girls Club of Palm Beach County, Florida has paid $1,040 in back wages to an employee after the wage and hour agency determined that the employer violated the FFCRA’s paid sick leave requirements. WHD found that the Boys & Girls Club of Palm Beach County wrongfully denied an employee’s request for emergency paid sick leave after the worker’s doctor-directed the employee to remain at home due to coronavirus-related concerns.
Federal contractor JM Concrete Inc., based in Idaho Falls, Idaho, has paid $92,290 in back wages to 27 employees for violating the Davis-Bacon Act’s prevailing wage requirements on a government project.
Mt. Airy Partners Inc., a Summerfield, North Carolina-based enterprise operating 12 McDonald’s restaurants in North Carolina, has paid a civil money penalty of $17,586 for violating the FLSA’s child labor requirements.
These incidents demonstrate that the DOL is attentive even to “smaller” cases involving amounts as little as $1000. Should your business be prosecuted, the legal costs involved are going to be significantly higher than the penalties, and the wasted time and morale impact on your employees will be huge.
Take the time to review your wage and hour policies, including overtime, minimum wage, prevailing wage, minor payments, employment of minors, required leaves, and considerations around the FFCRA.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP7oCJPkkSM] On August 3, 2020, a Tennessee Valley Authority action prompted President Trump to issue an Executive Order that cracks down on H-1B visas by requiring federal agencies that use government contractors to scrutinize contracts awarded in fiscal years 2018 and 2019 to determine whether:
Contractors and subcontractors used temporary foreign labor for contracts performed in the United States, and, if so, to determine the nature of the work performed by temporary foreign labor on these contracts; whether opportunities for U.S. workers were affected by this hiring; and any potential effects on the national security caused by this hiring.
Contractors and subcontractors performed in foreign countries services that were previously performed in the U.S. and, if so, whether opportunities for U.S. workers were affected by such offshoring; whether affected U.S. workers were eligible for assistance under the Trade Adjustment Assistance program authorized by the Trade Act of 1974; and any potential effects on the national security caused by this offshoring.
Among other things, the EO also directs the Secretaries of Labor and Homeland Security to take action within 45 days to protect U.S. workers from any adverse effects on wages and working conditions caused by the employment of H-1B visa holders at job sites.
According to the EO, it is the policy of the executive branch to create opportunities for U.S. workers to compete for jobs, including jobs created through federal contracts. These opportunities, particularly in regions where the federal government remains the largest employer, are especially critical during the economic dislocation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Trump. "When employers trade American jobs for temporary foreign labor, for example, it reduces opportunities for United States workers in a manner inconsistent with the role guest-worker programs are meant to play in the Nation’s economy," the EO states.
Each agency head that enters into contracts must assess any negative impact of contractors’ and subcontractors’ temporary foreign labor hiring practices or offshoring practices on the economy and efficiency of federal procurement and on national security. The EO directs each agency head to propose action, if necessary and as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to improve the economy and efficiency of federal procurement and protect national security.
Agency heads also must, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Personnel Management, review the agency’s employment policies to assess compliance with Executive Order 11935 of September 2, 1976, "Citizenship Requirements for Federal Employment," and Section 704 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020.
The EO further requires each agency head to submit a report within 120 days to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget summarizing the results of the required reviews, recommending, if necessary:
Corrective actions that may be taken by the agency and timeframes to implement those actions; and
Proposing any Presidential actions that may be appropriate.
In short, issuing H-1B visas when outsourcing (replacing American workers with foreign workers) is going to have a much higher level of scrutiny under the Department of Labor, the specifics of which will be made clearer in the next few months. If you are someone who uses H-1B visas currently, please take a close look at your documentation as you may soon be required to turn them over.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8s1XvWo4V0] A recent COVID-19 employer survey conducted by Willis Towers Watson says that a majority of North American employers expect that most of their furloughed workers will return to work by the first quarter of 2021. However, relatively few employers expect this to be the case for laid-off employees.
Even though more employees are working remotely than ever before, few companies have policies in place that could encourage this arrangement once the dust settles around the pandemic.
According to the survey, 55 percent of respondents expect most (at least three out of four) of their furloughed employees to be back at work by the first quarter of next year; however, just one in six (16 percent) expect to rehire most of their laid-off workers by then. Public health and economic recovery are two of the biggest factors in deciding which employees to bring back to work. However, employers need to adapt to having a larger percentage of remote workers—a new normal which will fundamentally change their culture.
Looking ahead, employers expect that the proportion of their workforce who are full-time employees working from home (19 percent) will be less than half of the current levels (44 percent) but nearly three times what it was last year (7 percent).
However, less than two in 10 employers (19 percent) have changed policies to encourage more remote work although 60 percent are planning or considering doing so. Only two in 10 (20 percent) have provided tools and resources to employees who may work remotely long term, although two-thirds (66 percent) are planning or considering doing so. And just one in 10 respondents (10 percent) have acted to offer employees subsidies to manage costs of working remotely while nearly three times as many (29 percent) are planning or considering doing so.
Nevertheless, roughly eight in 10 employers (79 percent) made adjustments to reflect the new protocol while more than half (58 percent) adjusted to the definition of the role of the workplace and what work should be primarily done onsite versus remotely. And nearly three in 10 employers (29 percent) made changes to move work to different jobs.
Additional survey findings include:
Over half (52 percent) of employers expect most (three out of four) workers who took a pay cut or had their workweek reduced will be back to normal levels by the first quarter of 2021.
Three in 10 employers (29 percent) have accelerated or adopted new special initiatives, such as technology rollouts, while nearly four in 10 (38 percent) have changed or are planning or considering changing where work is done to reduce supply chain risks.
More than half of respondents believe changes they have made since the pandemic began have had a positive impact on employee wellbeing (53 percent) and the employee experience (51 percent).
Most respondents have a sufficient budget to maintain and effectively deliver existing talent and reward programs (88 percent), but fewer have the budget to add critical new programs (58 percent) or adopt new technologies (49 percent).
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4ou875lubg]
The California Labor Commissioner’s Office has filed separate lawsuits against transportation companies Uber and Lyft for committing wage theft by misclassifying employees as independent contractors, which deprived their drivers of a host of legal protections such as paid sick leave and reimbursement of drivers’ expenses, in violation of California labor law.
In 2018, the California Supreme Court’s Dynamex ruling established the "ABC test" for determining whether a worker is an employee under various California labor laws. Under the ABC test, workers are considered employees unless they are free from control from the hiring entity, perform work outside of the hiring entity’s usual business, and engage in an independently established trade or occupation.
The lawsuits seek to recover amounts owed to all of Uber’s and Lyft’s drivers, including the nearly 5,000 drivers who have filed claims for owed wages with the Labor Commissioner’s Office. Moreover, the lawsuits seek recovery for a wider range of statutory violations and damages than those asserted in individual wage claims and other lawsuits.
The lawsuits, filed in Alameda County Superior Court, ask the court to order Uber and Lyft to stop misclassifying their employees and provide the protections available to all employees under the Labor Code.
The suits also seek the recovery of unpaid wages, penalties, and interest, as well as civil penalties and any costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees incurred by the Labor Commissioner’s Office.
The Labor Commissioner’s Office estimates that Uber and Lyft each employ more than 100,000 drivers. Amounts collected by the Labor Commissioner for unpaid wages liquidated damages owed to workers, penalties owed to workers, and reimbursement of business expenses owed to workers will be distributed to all drivers who worked for Uber or Lyft during the period covered by this lawsuit, not just to those drivers who filed individual claims with the Labor Commissioner.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owy-xuAGWFU] Today’s episode explains President Trump’s recent executive order to extend pandemic unemployment benefits, student loan payment deferrals, eviction protections, and payroll tax cuts in the wake of COVID-19.
One of the new benefits allows for $400 per week into December, compared to the previous unemployment insurance of $600. President Trump explained that states will be covering 25% or $100 per week per individual.
Another of the memorandums issued addresses student loan payment deferrals. Payments on federal loans were suspended through September, and Trump’s memorandum seeks to extend payments through the end of 2020. Lastly, Trump issued a memorandum deferring payroll tax obligations through 2020, advising the Treasury Department to allow employers to defer payments for the employee portions of specific payroll taxes. Generally, federal funding is controlled by Congress, leading to potential challenges for these executive actions.
With regard to the payroll tax deferral, the Secretary of the Treasury is directed to use his authority to defer the withholding, deposit, and payment of the 6.2 percent Social Security tax on certain wages or compensation paid between September 1, 2020, and December 31, 2020. This withholding deferral only applies to employees with wages or compensation payable during a bi-weekly pay period that generally is less than $4,000, calculated on a pre-tax basis. The amounts deferred are to be without penalties, interest, or additions to the tax.
Given that a comprehensive stimulus bill may be passed that will obviate the need for the Executive Order, the anticipated Treasury guidance, and the September 1 effective date, we do not recommend that employers take immediate action to implement the deferral, although they will need to review any implementing guidance issued by the Secretary of the Treasury and to evaluate the risks in implementing the deferral of the employee portion of the Social Security tax, which ultimately may need to be withheld from future employee wages or compensation.
If you have questions or need assistance, please reach out to the People Processes Team with whom you regularly work. We will continue to review all relevant guidance and legislation and will provide updates as appropriate.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ojro6EBuw8&w=560&h=315]
In this episode, we answer four common questions regarding harassment in the workplace.
We received a complaint about harassment. How should we respond?
When a company suspects that an employee has violated its harassment or discrimination policy, we recommend conducting a complete (and well-documented) investigation into the allegations. This includes speaking with the employee who made the complaint, the accused employee, and any witnesses they name. A memo summarizing the findings should be placed in the accused employee’s file.
Take the appropriate action, whether it is to terminate the accused employee or to conduct corrective measures such as a written warning and additional training on the company harassment policy. It is often prudent to consult with legal counsel upon receipt of any allegations of harassment or discrimination.
We had an employee claim she was harassed by a coworker, but instead of coming to management, she posted to social media. Can we discipline her for not reporting the harassment to a supervisor?
Employers should avoid disciplining an employee who has made claims of harassment. Even if it wasn’t reported in the workplace, it is important to begin an investigation into the alleged harassment right away. Since you are aware of the behavior, failing to investigate and stop the harassment could open you to liability. Taking action, investigating the harassment, and documenting your efforts may provide protection if your choices surrounding the social media post are challenged.
It is also important to have a social media policy in place, as well as a policy and procedure for employees to report workplace harassment. In the future, this may help an employee report the situation to a supervisor or manager instead of posting on social media.
Do we need to investigate rumors of harassment even if no one has made a complaint?
Yes, we recommend you investigate. A company always has some inherent liability in relation to discriminatory or harassing comments or behavior. The level of liability usually correlates to the nature, severity, and context of the comments, the position of the employee who made them, and what the employer does or does not do about it.
Since you have knowledge of a potential situation, we recommend you investigate the matter and take appropriate disciplinary action if it turns out your anti-harassment policy was violated. As you conduct the investigation, document the discussions you have as well as your findings and reassure those you interview that their participation will not result in retaliation.
I just received an anonymous complaint. What do I do?
When an employer receives an anonymous complaint, it is important to remain calm and review the complaint objectively, even if the accusations seem false or egregious. Although the complaint was received anonymously, the company still has an obligation to take action, if necessary, to ensure that employees are provided a workplace that is safe and free from harassing or discriminatory conduct.
If you do not have enough information, follow up within available channels, request additional information, and make use of your company’s anonymous reporting tool if applicable.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTCyKVzjues] Today’s episode summarizes all we have discussed regarding the FLSA exemption and provides an assessment that we recommend you perform with every single one of your employees.
Even if the information you write down is not entirely accurate, simply having this information on paper for each of your employees makes a huge difference whenever a situation calls for you to recall these critical factors.
On each evaluation sheet, provide the following information:
Name
Job category/ID
Name and title of the evaluator
Company name and tax ID
Direct supervisor’s name (if applicable)
Date of evaluation
There are eight categories under which employees can qualify as exempt:
Administrative exemption
Learned professional exemption
Creative professional exemption
Computer employee exemption
Outside sales exemption
Highly-compensated employee exemption
Business owner exemption
Executive exemption
On your evaluation sheet, respond “yes” or “no” to each of the listed statements. A response of "yes" to every statement supports a determination of exempt status for that category; a response of "no" to one or more statements supports a determination of nonexempt status. Employees may fall under more than one of these categories.
Should the employee be determined to be exempt, select all of the categories they fall under, out of the eight. Otherwise, note down that the employee does not qualify for an exemption.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2c6Zy4kgM8]
In Part 3 of our series on understanding FLSA exemptions, we went over the qualifications for the professional employee exemption. In Part 4, we will cover the computer employee, outside sales employee, and highly-compensated worker exemption. To qualify for the computer employee exemption, the following tests must be met:
The employee must be compensated either on a salary or fee basis at a rate not less than $684 per week (as of 2020) or, if compensated on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour.
The employee must be employed as a computer systems analyst, computer programmer, software engineer, or other similarly skilled workers in the computer field performing the duties described below.
The employee’s primary duty must consist of:
The application of systems analysis techniques and procedures, including consulting with users, to determine hardware, software, or system functional specifications.
The design, development, documentation, analysis, creation, testing, or modification of computer systems or programs, including prototypes, based on and related to the user or system design specifications.
The design, documentation, testing, creation, or modification of computer programs related to machine operating systems.
A combination of the aforementioned duties, the performance of which requires the same level of skills.
Note that this exemption only applies to employees who are primarily engaged in computer systems analysis and programming or other similarly skilled computer-related occupations. It does not apply to employees engaged in the manufacture or repair of computer hardware and related equipment. These are employees whose work is highly dependent upon, or facilitated by, the use of computers and computer software programs, such as engineers, drafters, and others skilled in computer-aided design software.
To qualify for the outside sales employee exemption, all of the following tests must be met:
The employee’s primary duty must be making sales or obtaining orders or contracts for services or for the use of facilities for which a consideration will be paid by the client or customer.
The employee must be customarily and regularly engaged away from the employer’s place or places of business.
Highly compensated employees performing office or nonmanual work and paid total annual compensation of $100,000 or more (which must include at least $684 per week paid on a salary or fee basis) are exempt from the FLSA if they customarily and regularly perform at least one of the duties of an exempt executive, administrative, or professional employee identified in the standard tests for exemption.
The regulations contain a special rule for “highly-compensated” workers who are paid total annual compensation of $100,000 or more. A highly compensated employee is deemed exempt under § 13(a)(1) if:
The employee earns total annual compensation of $100,000 or more, which includes at least $684 per week paid on a salary basis.
The employee’s primary duty includes performing office or nonmanual work.
The employee customarily and regularly performs at least one of the exempt duties or responsibilities of an exempt executive, administrative, or professional employee.
Thus, for example, an employee may qualify as an exempt highly-compensated executive if the employee customarily and regularly directs the work of two or more other employees, even though the employee does not meet all of the other requirements in the standard test for exemption as an executive.
In Part 5, we will do a recap of the eight categories under which employees may qualify as exempt.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wvWuy0oBhU] In Part 2 of our series on understanding FLSA exemptions, we went over the qualifications for the administrative employee exemption. In Part 3, we will cover the professional exemption.
There are two general types of exempt professional employees: learned professionals and creative professionals.
To qualify for the learned professional employee exemption, all of the following tests must be met:
The employee must be compensated on a salary or fee basis at a rate not less than $684 per week (as of 2020).
The employee’s primary duty must be the performance of work requiring advanced knowledge, defined as work which is predominantly intellectual in character and which includes work requiring the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment.
The advanced knowledge must be in a field of science or learning.
The advanced knowledge must be customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction.
To qualify for the creative professional employee exemption, all of the following tests must be met:
The employee must be compensated either on a salary or fee basis at a rate of not less than $684 per week.
The employee’s primary duty must be the performance of work requiring invention, imagination, originality, or talent in a recognized field of artistic or creative endeavor.
Teachers are exempt if their primary duty is teaching, tutoring, instructing, or lecturing in the activity of imparting knowledge, and if they are employed and engaged in this activity as a teacher in an educational establishment.
Likewise, an employee holding a valid license or certificate permitting the practice of law or medicine is exempt if the employee is actually engaged in such a practice. An employee who holds the requisite academic degree for the general practice of medicine is also exempt if he or she is engaged in an internship or resident program for the profession.
The salary and salary basis requirements do not apply to bona fide practitioners of law or medicine.
In Part 4, we will be going into the computer employee, outside sales employee, and highly-compensated worker exemption.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMr29G6SAUw] In Part 1 of our series on understanding FLSA exemptions, we went over what an exempt employee is, what you can and cannot do to their pay, and why you may want to have an exempt employee. In Part 2, we are deep-diving into the administrative exemption.
To qualify for the administrative employee exemption, all of the following tests must be met:
The employee must be compensated on a salary or fee basis (as defined in the regulations) at a rate not less than $634 per week (as of 2020).
The employee’s primary duty must be the performance of office or nonmanual work directly related to the management or general business operations of the employer or the employer’s customers, and
The employee’s primary duty includes the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance.
For those who operate educational establishments, the administrative exemption is also available to employees compensated on a salary or fee basis at a rate not less than $634 a week, or a salary basis which is at least equal to the insurance salary for teachers in the same educational establishment. This means that, if a teacher is paid less than $634 per week, an administrator does not have to make $634, but instead make the insurance salary of the teachers. Their primary duty of these employees is work related to academic operations and functions in an educational establishment.
Employees engaged in academic administrative functions include:
Superintendents or other heads of elementary or secondary school systems, and any assistants, responsible for the administration of such matters as curriculum, quality, and methods of instructing, measuring and testing the learning potential and achievement of students, establishing and maintaining academic and grading standards, and other aspects of the teaching program.
Principals and any vice-principals responsible for the operation of an elementary or secondary school.
Department heads in institutions of higher education responsible for the administration of the mathematics department, the English department, etc.
Academic counselors who perform work such as administering school testing programs, assisting students with academic problems, and advising students concerning degree requirements.
Other employees with similar responsibilities.
Jobs relating to building management and maintenance, jobs relating to the health of the students, and staff such as social workers, psychologists, lunchroom managers, or dietitians do not perform academic administrative functions.
In Part 3, we will be going into learned and creative professional exemptions.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY6wzGSvdhY] In this episode, we break down salaried versus hourly pay. This is going to be Part 1 of 5 for our weeklong coverage of the exempt and non-exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires that most covered employees in the United States be paid at least the federal minimum wage for all hours worked and overtime pay at time and one-half the regular rate of pay for all hours worked over 40 hours in a workweek.
There are a few exemptions, all of which fall under the general class of “white-collar employee” (which does not appear anywhere in the FLSA but is recognized as the short-hand term). The FLSA and associated Department of Labor regulations exempt employees employed as bona fide executive, administrative, professional, and outside sales employees, certain computer employees.
To qualify for an exemption, employees generally must meet certain tests regarding their job duties and compensation.
For the FLSA exemptions to apply, an employee generally must be paid on a salary basis of no less than $455 per week and perform certain types of work that:
Is directly related to the management of his or her employer’s business.
Is directly related to the general business operations of his or her employer or the employer’s clients.
Requires specialized academic training for entry into a professional field, or is in the computer field.
Is making sales away from his or her employer’s place of business.
Is in a recognized field of artistic or creative endeavor.
Exempt employees do not need to be paid for any workweek in which they perform no work.
The employer may make deductions under certain circumstances:
When the employee is absent from work for one or more full days for personal reasons other than sickness or disability.
For absences of one or more full days due to sickness or disability if the deduction is made in accordance with a bona fide plan, policy, or practice of not providing compensation for salary lost due to illness.
To offset amounts employees receive as jury or witness fees, or for military pay.
For penalties imposed in good faith for infractions of safety rules of major significance.
For unpaid disciplinary suspensions of one or more full days imposed in good faith for workplace conduct rule infractions.
Also, an employer is not required to pay the full salary in the initial or terminal week of employment, or for weeks in which an exempt employee takes unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KZ8yZlZQoA]
In Part 2 of this six-part series, we go into further discussion on employee classification with regards to independent contractors vs employees.
We will start by covering the other two other tests which the NLRA uses to determine the employer-worker relationship: The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) Economic Realities Test and the Discrimination Statutes Test.
The FLSA Economic Realities Test may apply only to workers designated as employees, not independent contractors. Thus, the proper classification of workers is critical to determine the application of these laws.
The employer-employee relationship under the FLSA is tested by economic reality rather than technical concepts. The test examines factors focused on the total activity or situation of the relationship.
An employee is one who is dependent upon the business to which the individual renders service
The amount of workers’ investment in facility and equipment
The nature of degree and control by the principal
The amount of initiative, judgment, or foresight in open market competition with others required for the success of the claimed independent contractor
The degree of independent business, organization, and operation
There are certain factors which are immaterial according to the FLSA:
The place where the work is performed
The absence of a formal employment agreement
Whether the alleged independent contractor is licensed
Additionally, the Supreme Court has held that the time or mode of pay does not control the determination of employee status.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Discrimination Statues Test is the most stringent of the three tests. It is often used in discrimination cases.
The question of whether an employer-employee relationship exists is fact-specific and depends on whether the employer controls the means and manner of the worker’s performance. The factors indicating that a worker is in an employment relationship include:
The employer has the right to control when, where, and how the worker performs the job.
The worker does not require a high level of skill and expertise.
The employer furnishes the tools, materials, and equipment.
The work is performed on the employer’s premises.
There is a continuing relationship between the worker and the employer.
The employer has the right to assign additional projects to the worker.
The employer sets the hours of work and the duration of the job.
The worker is paid by the hour, week, or month rather than the agreed cost of performing a particular job.
The worker does not hire or pay assistants.
The work performed by the worker is part of the regular business of the employer.
The worker is not engaged in a personally owned distinct occupation or business.
The employer provides the worker with benefits such as insurance, leave, or workers’ compensation.
The worker is considered an employee of the employer for tax purposes.
The employer can discharge the worker.
The worker and the employer believe that they are creating an employer-employee relationship.
This list is not exhaustive. Other factors may affect the determination of whether or not the employer-employee relationship exists. To be considered an employee, not all or even a majority of the items on the list need to be met. Rather, the determination must be based on all the circumstances in the relationship between the parties, regardless of whether the parties refer to it as an employee or an independent contractor relationship.
In Part 3, we will go into salary vs hourly choices.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9to1DzgGAOk]
In this episode, we discuss the new Q&A released by the Department of Labor around Coronavirus, particularly with regards to labor-related scenarios.
QUESTION #1: How many hours is an employer obligated to pay an hourly employee who works a partial week because the employer’s business is closed?
Under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), an employer has obligations to provide leave in a variety of cases. But what if you have to close your business? The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) generally applies to the hours actually worked. It does not require employers who are unable to provide work to nonexempt employees to pay them for hours the employees would have otherwise worked.
QUESTION #2: If an employer directs salaried exempt employers to take a vacation or leave without pay during office closures due to a public health emergency, does this impact the employee’s exempt status?
No. Exempt employees who are salaried generally must receive their full salary in any week that they perform any work, subject to certain very limited exemptions. The FLSA does not require employer-provided vacation time. However, when an employer offers bonafide benefits or vacation time to their employees, there is no prohibition on an employer requiring that vacation time be taken on specific days.
QUESTION #3: What are an employer’s obligations to an employee who is under government-imposed quarantine?
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) encourages employers to be accommodating and flexible with workers impacted by government-imposed quarantines. They can offer alternative work arrangements such as teleworking, work-from-home, and additional paid time off. However, they are under no obligation to retain them. If the employee is ill or is taking care of someone who is ill, this falls under the FFCRA. If a quarantine order prohibits employees from physically going to work, this falls under the answer to Question #1.
QUESTION #4: How many hours per day or per week can an employee work?
The FLSA does not limit the hours per day or per week that employees aged 16 or older can be required to work. However, employers must pay for overtime.
QUESTION #5: Can an employee be required to perform work outside the employee’s job description?
Yes. The FLSA does not limit the type of work that employees aged 18 or older can be required to perform.
QUESTION #6: May an employer encourage or require employees to telework or work from home as an infection control strategy?
Yes. Telework can also be a reasonable accommodation for high-risk employees (i.e. asthmatic, overweight, etc.). Employers cannot single out employees to telework or continue reporting to the workplace on a basis prohibited by any of the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) laws.
QUESTION #7: In the event that an organization bars employees from working from their current place of business and requires them to work from home, will employers have to pay those employees who are unable to work from home?
Under the FLSA, employers generally only have to pay employees for the hours they work, whether at home or at the employer’s office. However, employers must pay at least the minimum wage for at least all hours worked and at least time-and-one-half the regular rate of pay for hours worked in excess of 40 hours a week. Salaried employees must receive their full salary in any week in which they perform work with very limited exemptions.
QUESTION #8: Are businesses and other employers required to cover any additional costs that an employee may incur when they work from home (i.e. internet connection, phone lines, security, electricity, etc.)?
We have to break this down into those who are covered by the FLSA and those who are not. Employers have no obligation to cover expenses incurred by salaried FLSA-exempt workers. For those who are covered by the FLSA, the
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fkIAe7X-VQ]
In this episode, we discuss the Affordable Care Act in 2020. This year’s changes include the suspension of the penalty for the individual mandate. While the penalty is now $0, note that it is still illegal to not have health insurance. The affordability percentages have likewise changed as of July 2020.
We will go into the affordability requirement under the ACA. There are three contexts to the affordability of an employer’s plan which have recently changed:
The employer shared responsibility penalty for applicable large employers (also known as the payor play rules or employer mandate)
An exemption from the individual mandate tax penalty for individuals who fail to obtain health coverage
The premium tax credit for low-income individuals to purchase health coverage through an Exchange
Today, we will focus on the first and the last of these changes.
The Affordable Care Act applies to individuals, as well as employers with more than 50 full-time equivalents. This means that, if an employer has more than 50 full-time employees, they need to calculate their number of full-time equivalents.
The IRS established an affordability percentage. If you are an Applicable Large Employer (ALE), you have to provide Minimum Essential Coverage (MEC), and it has to be affordable to your employee. This was changed from 9.5% in 2013 to 9.83% going into 2021. Make sure to check for the new rate for the year every July.
If you are not an ALE (i.e. small business, sole proprietor, etc.), the 9.83% still matters, and this percentage is the maximum that you can pay for affordable coverage as long as you make 400% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) or less. In this case, you will need to avail of individual health insurance on https://www.healthcare.gov/ (HealthCare.gov).
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUiQw_nynjE]
What is the Difference Between Form 1099-MISC and Form 1099-NEC?
In Part 2 of this six-part series, we discuss the important differences between Form 1099-MISC and Form 1099-NEC which made its return in the 2020 tax year after a 38-year absence.
Form 1099-MISC, meaning Miscellaneous Income, is an information return that businesses use to report payment types, such as payments made to independent contractors. You can also use Form 1099-MISC to report other payments, like royalties and rents. It is similar to a Form W-2, but specifically for independent contractors.
Form 1099-NEC, meaning Nonemployee Compensation, is not a replacement for Form 1099-MISC. It is only used in place of Form 1099-MISC for reporting independent contractor payments starting in 2020. Form 1099-NEC was brought back after 38 years to separate nonemployee expenses and clear up confusion for both the taxpayer and the IRS.
Nonemployee compensation uses the following payment types to independent contractors:
● Fees
● Commissions
● Prizes
● Awards
● Other forms of compensation for services
Make sure to separate 1099-NEC payments from other 1099-MISC payments, and only make a submission if you have paid the worker $600 or more in nonemployee compensation.
Like Form 1099-MISC, there are multiple copies of Form 1099-NEC which you must distribute. Send these five copies to:
● Copy A: The IRS
● Copy A1: State tax department, if applicable
● Copy B: Independent contractor
● Copy B2: Independent contractor
● Copy C: Keep in your business records
When you hire an independent contractor, they will fill out a Form W-9 (employees fill out Form W-4). The employer will use the information on Form W-9 to report nonemployee compensation at the end of the year.
When filling out Form 1099-NEC, include the following information:
● Business’s name, address, and phone number
● Business’s TIN (Taxpayer Identification Number)
● Recipient’s name, address, and TIN
● Total nonemployee compensation
● Federal and state income tax withheld
Keep in mind the new due date for Form 1099-NEC. Starting in 2021, the employer should send copies to the IRS, as well as to workers they have paid nonemployee compensation to, by February 1. Form 1099-MISC, on the other hand, is due on February 28.
In this six-part series, we take a look at employee classification. When looking to hire for your business, it’s important to look at whether you’ll be taking on an independent contractor or a traditional employee. You’ll also need to decide whether the job is going to be FLSA Exempt or nonexempt and, finally, whether you’re hiring for a full-time or part-time position. In Part 1, we discuss why people misclassify employees and outline the ways we distinguish between employees and independent contractors. Why is employee classification important? Consider this: Depending on the state, 10% to 20% of employers misclassify at least one employee, which has huge financial repercussions and is the most likely Department of Labor complaint a small business will face. Independent contractors (not to be confused with employees under contract) are employees who have contractual agreements to complete jobs and have complete control over their job performance. They reduce human resources, payroll, bookkeeping expenses associated with employees, and they reduce the overall number of employees (which eliminates the employer’s need to comply with certain statutes). The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) uses the Common Law Agency Test to decide whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. Among the factors which indicate the existence of an employment relationship includes: An employer controls the details of work performance. An employer provides work supplies and a place to work. A permanent working arrangement exists with the employer that will ordinarily continue as long as performance is satisfactory. Among the factors which indicate the existence of an independent contractor relationship includes: Workers are engaged in a separate business or occupation, particularly if they are professionals. A specialist does the job without supervision at the workplace. The worker defines the time required for a workday rather than abiding by a typical company workday. The job requires a high level of skill. The employer pays the worker for each, individual job completed. The worker is engaged in a personally owned business. In Part 2, we dive into the two other tests which the NLRA uses to determine the employer-worker relationship: the FLSA Test and the Discrimination Statutes Test. Thank you for tuning in.
Every business has put together multi-year strategies, and from there worked backward to establish short-term goals. With the unexpected impact of COVID-19, many of these big picture plans lost steam. This is particularly true for small businesses. While a number of larger companies may have the resources to continue to scale in spite of the current situation, a good amount of those operations with no more than a few dozen employees are fighting just to survive. How can companies of any size adapt their vision and execution to the unique challenges affecting 2020 and beyond? Today’s guest answers that question. We have interviewed Kathy Bowman Atkins, Founder, and CEO of The Lattitude Group. She helps other CEOs and business leaders set the course for their business. She has perfected the process for change and does something that most consultants don’t: follow-up and follow-through. 1) What led you to where you are now professionally? Like many other consultants, I started my career in corporate America and ended up as an executive doing mergers and acquisitions for a Fortune 100 company. I was traveling 80% of the time all over the world and had parents with very severe illnesses, so I decided to take a break for about 10 months along with a colleague who was experiencing much of the same. We put our heads together and planned for our future. We realized that our strengths in corporate America were setting a vision and inspiring people to it, and recognizing the potential in people who couldn't see it in themselves and helping them realize it. That’s what led us to start The Lattitude Group. 2) How should small business owners proceed in the wake of COVID-19? We’re a very long-term, strategic company. We traditionally look at the five-year plan then break it down into smaller timeframes, but because of COVID-19, we have to do a reversal of that due to all the uncertainty. Don’t worry about your five-year vision, because we don’t know enough to predict what’s going to happen. Instead, let’s talk about the next six months. We put together a three-part process for this that depends on where your business is. We’re looking at the projections and asking what’s the worst-case scenario, financially. What opportunities have been missed and what can be capitalized on within the next six months? We help them define those and then execute them, all the while helping them with accountability and change management. Weekly, we’re going to set one or two metrics that you’re going to absolutely manage. If those metrics go off-kilter, we make changes. That’s the way it is. Once we get through those six months, we then talk about what the future holds. Then it’s another six-month plan. By the end of 2021, we can start looking at big, strategic things. Otherwise, we plant stakes in the ground and start planning around that. 3) What would you advise those established companies that are actually ready and eager to scale even during COVID-19? We have colleagues in the large format printing business. That market has become somewhat soft right now, but as it turns out, their equipment can make plexiglass. Their business is now booming thanks to their making the shift to creating plexiglass for a variety of companies. There are a couple of questions that you, as a business owner, need to ask upfront: Is this our new business (and it most likely is not) and does this sustain us such that we can actually think about what to do when our traditional business comes back so that we’re better prepared coming out of COVID-19 than we were going into it. We have to talk to the owners and ask them why they’re doing business and what they’re trying to accomplish for themselves. They should also define what they’re willing to do and not do to get there—in other words, their values. The owners get the first take of where the business goes because they put in real equity and sweat equity. We then interview their employees and ask them what their...
Everything that happens in life is neutral until you put a label on them. Listen in as today’s guest shares how he was able to turn a near-death experience into a catalyst that shaped his life’s purpose: to help corporate leaders and their people build resiliency. We have interviewed Michael O’Brien, executive business coach, TEDx speaker, author, and Chief Shift Officer at Peloton Executive Coaching. His mission? To help leaders prevent bad moments from turning into a bad day. 1) Can you recall your worst day as a leader and entrepreneur? A couple of stories come to mind. My “last bad day” was when I got hit head-on by an SUV when I was out on a bike training ride. Another one was early on in my entrepreneurial life. I spent 22 years in corporate America. The last job I held was General Manager for sales and marketing operations for a global pharmaceuticals company. I was doing pretty well, but I decided to follow my purpose and passion by starting my executive coaching career. In 2016 I was a year and a half into it. I was preparing a talk one day but didn’t have a lot of prep time due to family reasons. The talk was an absolute disaster. 15 minutes into it, I just lost my way, and for the first time in my professional life, I had to say, “Can we stop?” I just wanted the whole day to be over. Later, I was in my car and called my wife to tell her that I stunk up the joint. She told me that I was probably making a bigger deal out of it than it really was. I thought that my whole career as an entrepreneur was over. When I got home, I wrote a blog post and recorded a podcast in order to turn my experience into a teaching moment that I could share with others. That day taught me about resilience and using lessons from my setbacks to lead me down a better direction. By the way, that company stayed as one of my clients because it was such an authentic moment for them. 2) You talk about another story on your website that really set the stage for how you view resiliency today. Can you tell me about that? This is my origin story. It was July 11, 2001. I was out for a company offsite in New Mexico. I decided to bring my bike since I had a goal to cycle through all 50 states. That morning, I came around a bend, and a Ford Explorer was fully in my lane, traveling around 40 miles an hour. I didn’t have enough time to avoid him. I remember hitting his grill, into the windshield I went and came to the asphalt below as he came to a halting stop. I regained consciousness surrounded by EMTs, and I knew that my life was in the balance. Throughout my whole life, I thought I was following the script, adhering to the letter of the law. In reality, I was chasing happiness by comparing myself to others and keeping up with the Joneses. And now, here I was, on the cold, desert asphalt of New Mexico fighting for my life. As they brought me to Albuquerque, I told myself that, if I got through this, I would change how I lived my life. When my doctor told me that my future was uncertain, I thought I’d never been happy again. I stayed in that funk until a mentor told me that everything in my life is neutral until I label them. Nothing has meaning unless I give it meaning. I could stay a victim, or decide to rise up. That, to me, was a big “ah-ha” moment. I believe that an accident happened to me, not to me. It helped me lead in a different way that allowed me to get into the executive suite at a very young age. I credit my recovery as a big driver in helping me reshape my life—shifting my life if you will. 3) What exactly were those new paradigms that helped you climb the ladder in the corporate world? One of the big ones was spending some time each day just being quiet and being present. Some people can call it “meditation” or “mindfulness”. I didn’t think of it that way. I grew up doing sports and knew that the mind was very important; so I knew that if I could get my mind right, I could get my body right. Every morning, I get quiet and...
Turbulent times paralyze the majority. The remaining few see strife as an opportunity to claim what many are not able to see just yet. We see this playing out today in the business world, a few months into the world-shaking effects of COVID-19. While countless companies have folded, others have embraced the realities of VUCA and steered their strategy toward rebuilding their teams through strengthening their employment culture and maximizing relevant technology. What exactly are these companies doing to thrive in the New Normal? Today’s guest answers that question. We have interviewed Ira Wolfe, workplace futurist, recruitment marketing strategist, employee selection expert, author, TEDx speaker, and President of Success Performance Solutions since the company’s inception in 1996. 1) What is VUCA and how does this idea give us a peek at the future of work? VUCA originated in the early 90s following the fall of the Berlin Wall. The U.S. military realized that the world was changing fast and that our enemies would no longer be countries or sovereign states. Instead, we would be facing terrorism which knows no boundaries. So the war colleges came up with a war strategy for the future which determined that the environment was going to be Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous. Over the years, VUCA has become popular with business strategy, mostly at the C-level. The question is, “How do you manage a business in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world? 2) What was your worst experience as an HR futurist and how did you overcome it? I’ve been through many tough times, and at the moment, they felt terrible. People always tell me that I’m a skeptic, and I’d add that I’m a realist, but I always see opportunity in the crisis. I’ve been in this business for 25 years. I started out as a dentist. If you watched my TED Talk where I talk about change, very early on I say that I love everything about dentistry but dentistry. I loved running the business. I loved working with people. I loved building my team. I loved helping people become healthier. I loved educating people. I just didn’t love doing the work. I started my practice in 1980 on credit. There was a shortage of silver at a time when dentists used silver fillings and X-rays. I was also in a town of 5000 people with 11 dentists. Finally, the first case of HIV in America is of a person who died in a dental office. So, that was certainly a challenging time, but I adapted to every situation and made things work for my business regardless. My philosophy to overcome personal and professional challenges like this is Bob Johansen’s VUCA Prime, a response to VUCA which stands for Vision, Understanding, Clarity, and Agility. This requires shifting from a fixed to a growth mindset: being open to all the different ways I can turn setbacks into opportunity. 3) What is today’s primary challenge faced by organizations that are looking to grow or expand? If you asked me this six months ago, I’d have said that organizations struggled to find good people. All of a sudden, as of Monday this week, we had 45 million unemployed. So, the challenge now is three-fold: skill shortage, cultural fit, and automation. The economy will continue to struggle for up to a year, and so companies need to be prepared with fielding the countless candidates that are looking for work. You need to have the right technology to go through the numbers and make sure that you hire not just for skill but for the integrity of your employment brand. 4) What are the steps that a company should take when evaluating applicants while staying true to their employment brand? The first step is to get the word out about the opening. In my book Recruiting in the Age of Googlization, I came up with the acronym REACH. How do you reach people? That means asking, “Where would the people that you’d like to hire hang out?” (HINT: Top talent doesn’t hang out at Indeed.com. They hang out at networking events and...
Focus the organization and fuel the people. It’s easy for leaders in business to get caught up in managing others and accomplishing tasks over connection and introspection. As we learn in today’s episode, 77% of leadership comes from who a leader is, and not what they do. Our guest presents a case—backed up by industry data and statistics—for becoming inwardly sound and others-focused as the two key traits of the most efficient and effective leaders. We have interviewed Tim Spiker, a leadership advisor, author of The Only Leaders Worth Following (2019), and the founder and President of The Aperio. 1) What role do systems and processes play in your who, not what principle? There is a process by which people can grow and develop into better human beings. When we look at leadership development, our process is aimed at making people more well-developed human beings because it creates a better bottom-line result. 2) What’s the broad idea behind how “77% of leadership comes from who a leader is, and not what they do”? I worked for a consulting firm, and we would put leaders through a series of leadership assessments and experiences on the West Side of Pike’s Peak. Inevitably, we’d get questions from them like, “What’s the magic mix of personality and natural ability that helps to create a more effective leader?” We had enough data to look into that question; so we crunched the numbers and discovered that there was no correlation. However, our analysis did find some other correlations. We had eight aspects of leadership that were being measured on our assessment. What the software run had found is that just two of those areas were accounting for almost 70% of the variability on the assessment. If you divide a pie into eight pieces, any two pieces should only be worth 25%. Years later, when we had ten times the number of data points, another analysis was run and found that those two areas had gone up to 77% in accounting for the variability of the assessment. I realized that those two aspects of leadership that were driving all of that variability were a function of who you are as a leader, as opposed to what you do. 3) What do you mean by “who you are”? We have a whole lot of stereotypes around what the “ideal” leader looks like, most of which are true. By “who”, we mean inwardly sound and others-focused. These two traits materially impact everything that we do as leaders in a positive way. It’s not that what we do doesn’t matter. It’s that what we do is highly impacted by how inwardly-sound and others-focused we are. And a huge part of that is being secure in who you are as a leader. 4) What was the worst experience you ever had on your journey as an entrepreneur and leader? There was once an opportunity where I was working in an organization, and the person that I reported to was part of the executive committee. One day, at an executive committee meeting, I was asked to do a presentation on somethings that we were working on, and there was a snippet of a detail where I had said something different than the person I was reporting to. This person was very concerned about how others in the room might perceive that difference, even if it was just a minor detail. My boss talked to me afterward and when we got to the topic of that part of the meeting and he got really quiet before saying that it was time for me to start protecting both him and myself. After that, I had to provide reports every single week detailing every single thing that I was doing. After a few years, I realized that I had to move on from this really unhealthy, insecure leader who was lacking in self-awareness. 5) What advice would you give to those who might be in a similar situation that you were in at the time? The simplest answer to tell them is, “Hey, this isn’t going to get better. You might as well start looking elsewhere right now.” This brings to mind the quote: “When somebody shows you who they are, you should believe them.” It’s a bit of a...
Spend your energy wisely. Automation, and any other duplicatable process, allows you to minimize the time it takes to execute your processes and frees up time for you and your team to think about how you can improve those same processes. The more value you can extract from a single hour of your day, the greater the outcome that you are ultimately trying to achieve as a company. Conducting one-on-ones with every single member of your team not only creates a culture of transparency; it potentially transforms the quality of your output almost overnight. But how can you incorporate one-on-ones in a repeatable, time-efficient way? Today’s guest answers that question. We have interviewed Stephanie Scheller, the founder of Grow Disrupt, to discover best practices for setting up a system that allows you to spend your energy entirely on what you love to do while keeping your business growing. 1) What led you to become a business and leadership coach? I’ve always had this obsession with processes, even when I was young. I remember reading the Cheaper by the Dozen books and being amazed at how the dad was able to buy his family a massive house by providing feedback on how to streamline processes. After college, I had a lot of experience as a marketing consultant, as well as a salesperson, before I decided to start my own sales training business, which eventually shifted into a consultancy for small businesses. 2) What were some of your worst experiences as an entrepreneur? A year and a half after starting my sales training business, I realized that it wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my professional life. I wanted to be a business trainer and put together business events. Someone suggested that I put on an actual event. So I recruited a bunch of speakers for our very first Grow retreat back in 2016. It was a good event, and I enjoyed putting it together. It was freeing to discover that I didn’t have to be the expert—I could just hire the experts and provide the tools that business owners need to grow their companies. So, we’re coming up on next year’s retreat. It was late at night and I was stressing out because we were lacking money. I needed to sell more tickets just so I could break even. I added up all the bills I needed to pay off by the end of the year and realized that I needed to get paid about $90,000 in three months. I’ve never even made $30,000 in a single month at that point. I couldn’t sleep that night. 3) How did you solve that problem? I didn’t have a ton of tools at my disposal to deal with that at the time. Around 1:30 the next morning, I sat up in bed and picked up my laptop because I couldn’t sleep. The only thing I could think of doing was to make posts on social media. I texted my coach later for help. We sat down and he gave me a handful of strategies. One of them was to go back to my list to run what we call the “marketing touch strategy”. We had a list of about 800 people. If I sold all of my tickets for the event, I’d be fine. I reached out to everyone on that list and followed up accordingly. I actually hired an assistant, Rachel, who would run our marketing touch strategy by sending emails and setting up appointments on my behalf. 4) If you could talk to yourself four years ago and offer just one system to make your entire process more efficient, what would that system be? For a long time, I only did marketing and sales coaching. People would ask me about how to manage their people, and I always replied that you need to run one-on-ones with your team. Cover these three things: 1) What’s gone well over the last period (weekly or monthly); 2) What could have been improved; 3) What are the goals for the upcoming period? 5) What’s the importance of doing these one-on-ones? My team and I are constantly communicating and we’re all on the same page. But the reason we do the one-on-ones is that it creates a very specific safe space for them to come to me with problems of what I’m doing, as...
[vimeo 430717492 w=640 h=360]
https://vimeo.com/430717492 (PPP Forgiveness New App Walkthrough) from https://vimeo.com/user11614220 (People Processes) on https://vimeo.com (Vimeo). I'm going to show you a little bit about the New PPP Forgiveness Applications. There are now two of them. One an EZ version, one a full version, we're going to talk about which one you should use, and then we'll walk through them.
So to get started, we have the four documents that you need to download. I'll include them in the email that you probably got when you're looking at this.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UXUH9VNOyFstVcw8iLDuhbeU6YMzjjtI/view (PPP Loan Forgiveness Application Form 3508EZ)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Urjva2k9TpUya64X-v95ev8uwvVmMOWV/view (PPP Forgiveness Application 3508EZ ( Revised 06.16.2020))
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UacQ0Hqd23OwXGsop1oo5hw984ucNKwh/view (PPP-Loan-Forgiveness-Application-Form-EZ-Instructions)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UWt4cjNXftx_S-He1A8Sn4gQMgaFrs-J/view (PPP-Loan-Forgiveness-Application-Instructions_1_0.pdf)
There is a forgiveness calculation form. You can consider this the full application. It's only five pages, but it's got some complexity to it. The 3508EZ, which is the quick and EZ form, just three pages, and then there are instructions for each one.
So let's start with instructions for how to choose which form to use. If you fall under at least one of the three boxes below, at least one, you can do the EZ form, you do not submit the instructions with the form. It's just, here's how it works. So, Number 1, excuse me. If you are a self-employed individual, an independent contractor or sole proprietor who had no employees when you applied use Form EZ. If you did not reduce the annual salary or hourly wages of any employee by more than 25% during the coverage period or alternative covered period, compared to January 1 to March 31, 2020. So if you take January 1 to March 31, 2020, get your average pays, and then you can compare that to your covered period and we'll talk about that in a minute. If it's all the same, accepting those who made over 100,000, if they still make over 100,000 then this applies. And not only the average in terms of hourly wages and annual salary but also the number of employees and the average paid hours of employees between January 1, 2020, and the end of the covered period.
You can ignore reductions that arose from an inability to rehire individuals. So if you were going well through March 31, and then you dropped a bunch of people. Cool. And then you brought a bunch of people back and now we're all back here at the end of the covered period, except for a few people who wouldn't come back to work, that's fine. You get to count them as coming back as long as you offered them the job formally and they declined or saved to have both of those. Or the borrow did not reduce the annual salary or hourly wages of any employee by more than 25% during the coverage period or alternative period compared to those between January 1 and March 31. And this is key. You didn't cut anybody's pay their wage or their salary, but you were unable to operate during the covered period at the same level of business as before February 15th, due to compliance with requirements established or guidance issued between March 1, 2020, and December 31 by HHS, Senator to CDC, those kinds of people. And it had to be specifically related to maintenance of standards of sanitation, social distancing, or other work. If you can check any one of these sets of three boxes, you are able to use the EZ form. If you wound up having salary reductions or the average number of employee reductions, you have to still use the longer form. Okay.
Now, at this time, most of this is the same instructions basically between the two forms. So I'm just going to use the EZ form instructions for now. Most of the information here is very straightforward. It's your loan number, your
We're gonna be talking about two things that have happened in the last week. On June 15th, the Supreme Court issued some landmark federal civil rights laws, rulings that have affected Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It prohibited discrimination based on sex. But they have now determined that that includes gay and transgender employees. So we're gonna talk about how that affects things. However, on June 12th, the US Department of Health and Human Services issued a final rule implementing Section 1557. That's a civil rights provision of the Affordable Care Act that's related to nondiscrimination in all federally funded health care. So what are these things do? Alright. Section 1557 on the ACA limited the ways you discriminate internally with benefits. So benefits can't unduly benefit men over women, different races, those sorts of things. In the original language, it also included gender identity and termination of pregnancy as being included in sex discrimination. And it had a requirement that health programs and activities distribute nondiscrimination notices in at least 15 languages to all patients and customers. So there's a lot of different pieces to this. That rule has now been issued, but it removed gender identity and termination of pregnancy from being included as sex discrimination. So Section 1557 specifically has come out. Been put into place. A couple of things are, that it will be effective on August 18, 2020. But it no longer includes gender identity and termination of pregnancy as things that are limiting for healthcare providers under Section 1557. You can discriminate based on those things. But then three days later, on June 15th, the Supreme Court ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on sex, that you cannot discriminate against gay or transgender employees without discriminating based on sex for activities that are done by a man makes him gay. Previously we said, "Alright, being gay is not a protected class necessarily." But now they're saying, "Hey, because to be gay, you have to be a man, or to be a lesbian you have to be a woman, some activities are done by a specific gender. Therefore, it is a sex-based discriminatory item." They did the same for transgender issues. So this is a big surprise. It was kind of, I mean, I'm not gonna go into the politics of it, but it was 6-3 included Neil Gorsuch and Justice John Roberts, which were both conservative appointees, but 6-3 ruling, that is now the law of the land came out three days after Section 1557. So what Section 1557 has to do with anything we don't know, right? Because three days after it was out, they said no one can discriminate based on gender identity. So that's going to be revised. So for those of you in the medical profession, you probably saw a lot about Section 1557 last week, but of course, now, that's all changed. So we're going to see how that plays out. What you need to know internally as a small business owner, just like discrimination based on race, or gender or age is a protected class. This means, for example, you can't do things that are going to unduly screw up the employment of people based on those classes. You can no longer do that either based on sexual orientation, or transgender orientation. So both gender and sexual orientation are now a protected class. So this is important. This is based around a case in which I may go into more depth. If y'all care about me going into the actual cap, I've read the entire Supreme Court Justice ruling. It's both the majority opinions, concurring opinions, and dissenting opinions. And it's fascinating to me, but I think it's a bit beyond the scope of an HR podcast. But there's a couple of cases that were combined, but one of these, for example, was a funeral parlor, where one of their frontline employees who interacts with clients. I guess the client is the family of the deceased, so not the deceased, but
[vimeo 422432919 w=640 h=360] https://vimeo.com/422432919 (People Processes Podcast: OSHA Strikes Back) from https://vimeo.com/user11614220 (People Processes) on https://vimeo.com (Vimeo). And today, we're going to be taking a look at some new OSHA updates that have come down the way. So let's dive right in. So the first thing to know is that during the COVID-19 crisis, OSHA has been heavily criticized for its lack of response, they've been considered missing in action by many people who watch the industry. What has happened is that they are now going to start enforcing COVID-19 reporting for all employers across the United States. So as non-essential workplaces have begun to reopen or prepare to reopen across the country, OSHA has updated its guidance to provide for more on-site inspections and enforce record-keeping and reporting requirements against all employers. This again comes because they've been criticized. And so what happened on May 18th is the AFL-CIO largest union in the world, I believe at least the United States sued the agency on May 18th. They asked the DC court of appeals to step in and getting force the OSHA to issue guidance around these topics. On May 19th, the very next day, OSHA issued its Updated Interim Enforcement Response Plan for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) that's linked on our website peopleprocesses.com. If you're listening to this podcast-only version you need to check it out on there. It goes into effect on May 26th. I'm recording this on May 25th. But I think you probably won't hear this until about a week later. What happens is that it resets its price version and it provides direct instructions. It's written for the OSHA inspectors and what they're supposed to do. It provides instructions for their area offices and what they call their CSA chose their compliance Safety and Health Officers for handling COVID-19. And that's important because they release it publicly so that we can see what they want us to do. Primarily, it's going to increase onset inspections. They updated enforcement guidance. It's going to increase that inspection in all types of workplaces. The new guidance reflects changing circumstances in which many non-critical businesses have begun to reopen in areas of lower community spread. The risk of transmission is lower in specific categories of workplaces and PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) that is potentially needed for inspections is more widely available. So OSHA says they can now inspect those things more safely. That's a problem because originally, they stopped a lot of enforcement because they were afraid they get COVID. They have also issued new enforcement guidance for recording cases. And this is really the broader key. For those of you who've never really dealt with OSHA, this is the bigger deal. Starting May 26th, the revised guidance, again linked on our site, will require employers to record cases of the Coronavirus. If the case is confirmed as Coronavirus is work-related as defined by 29 CFR 1904.5 and involves one or more of the general recording criteria, again in 1904 but it's not seven. That means medical treatment beyond first aid or days away from work. So, this is the key here, the new thing is that you're going to have to report COVID-19 cases if they came from work, which is going to be difficult to prove, but it's gonna be difficult to prove they didn't as well. So under the new policy, OSHA is going to enforce those record-keeping requirements for all employee Coronavirus illnesses for all employers. Under the earlier April 10th guidance, record keeping requirements were not required under certain circumstances for employers in the healthcare industry, emergency response organizations, correctional institutions, they've removed that. If you're a home health care agency, this applies to you now. It didn't before applying to everybody. So, here's how it breaks out. I went through the whole section of 1904 law. First thing is that...
Due to the PPP Flexibility Act, the SBA has released updated forgiveness applications. Yes, I said applications, because they have now released an "EZ" version, along with the more complex original.
Below is a video I put together to help you determine which application you should use, along with links to the apps and instructions!
[vimeo 430717492 w=640 h=360]
https://vimeo.com/430717492 (PPP Forgiveness New App Walkthrough) from https://vimeo.com/user11614220 (People Processes) on https://vimeo.com (Vimeo).
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UXUH9VNOyFstVcw8iLDuhbeU6YMzjjtI/view?usp=sharing (FA$TRAK BORROWER INFORMATION FORM)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Urjva2k9TpUya64X-v95ev8uwvVmMOWV/view?usp=sharing (PPP Forgiveness Application 3508EZ ( Revised 06.16.2020))
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UacQ0Hqd23OwXGsop1oo5hw984ucNKwh/view?usp=sharing (PPP-Loan-Forgiveness-Application-Form-EZ-Instructions)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UWt4cjNXftx_S-He1A8Sn4gQMgaFrs-J/view?usp=sharing (PPP-Loan-Forgiveness-Application-Instructions_1_0)
The idea of outsourcing work used to be a questionable practice, whether for ethical reasons (i.e. exploiting lower wages) or patriotic ones (i.e. stealing jobs from Americans). Today’s guest explains why these concerns are nothing more than misconceptions, and why hiring VAs, particularly from the Philippines, is becoming more popular with U.S. companies today than ever before. While many small businesses now see the potential value in outsourcing, the process itself may seem daunting. What are the differences between the online and in-person hiring process? How can you make sure that your VA is using their time wisely? What should American employers keep in mind when communicating with Filipino employees? Today’s guest answers those questions and more. We have interviewed John Jonas, the founder of OnlineJobs.ph, to discuss the step-by-step process for scouting for, interviewing, hiring, and managing Filipino VAs. 1) How has outsourcing changed in the last 11 years that you’ve been managing OnlineJobs.ph? I hired my first virtual assistant in the Philippines in 2005, and she continues to work for me today. Some things have changed, but most things haven’t. The workforce in the Philippines hasn’t really changed. They’re still Westernized and speak good English. But the demand for the Filipino workforce has gone way up since then. 2) What would you say to U.S.-based small businesses that have reservations around outsourcing? First of all, I don’t see very much of that anymore. We’re not taking away American jobs. Usually, when someone is hiring a virtual assistant in the Philippines, they didn’t have someone in the U.S. in the first place. It’s not like you’re taking a U.S. job and shipping it overseas, which is what we have typically, in the past, think about outsourcing. Secondly, there are fewer communication issues between Americans and Filipinos as opposed to Americans and Indians, simply because Filipino culture is much closer to that of the U.S. than Indian culture is. Also, the Philippines has this odd culture of loyalty. When you hire a Filipino, as long as you treat them well, they will never stop working for you, hence my first VA staying with me all these years. That’s such a big deal for a small business owner. 3) What is your advice for business owners who are about to launch or scale and are looking to recruit for their team? My advice is to go to OnlineJobs.ph and just start looking through profiles. Go search for the skills you’re looking for and note the rates that people are putting up in exchange for their skills. 20 to 30 minutes of searching will give you a good idea of available skills and average rates. The mistake I see many employers doing is that they start shortlisting candidates. On OnlineJobs.ph, there are more than a million profiles. If you start shortlisting people and they already have a job, there’s a higher chance that they won’t respond to your offer. This goes back to the loyalty thing. They’re very loyal to their current employer. The next step is to contact those people whose profiles you viewed (say 20), or post a job and let people apply for it. I typically do both of these to raise the possibility of finding the best fit. Also focus on hiring detail-oriented people, since remote working requires you to be more attentive. Simply adding an instruction to the listing, such as, “Include the word ‘pink Cadillac’ in your letter” can reveal a lot about your applicants. 4) In those job openings, is there particular information that you recommend which may be peculiar to hiring in the Philippines versus hiring on your standard Monster.com advertisement? We have a tendency to look for a “superhero” when we outsource: people who can do everything from designing your website to making phone calls to writing your content, etc. Those people don’t exist. Culturally, Filipinos aim to please. They don’t want to disappoint. So if in your job post, you list 15 different...
Today, we're gonna be talking about the fact that many states have made laws that presume COVID-19 was contracted at work and makes you liable via workers' comp for any contraction of COVID-19. We're gonna talk about that and we're gonna talk about how to fight back against that argument and what would happen if you were to have a claim. First though, please subscribe to our podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, pretty much any podcatcher of your choice. You can also subscribe to peopleprocesses.com, which will give you exclusive subscriber-only content. Now, let's dive into this. California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed an executive order creating what they're calling a rebuttable presumption to receive workers' compensation benefits, that employees who test positive for COVID-19 contracted the virus at work. Now, what that means is they have created an executive order that says, if you got COVID-19 and tested positive, there is a presumption that you contracted the virus at work. But it can be refuted or argued against given very specific requirements and we'll go over those in a second. This is called https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/5.6.20-EO-N-62-20-text.pdf (N-62-20). Its link at peopleprocesses.com. You can click on the words it'll go to the website, you can read the executive order. California has become the latest state in a line to expand these workers' compensation benefits to the employees during the pandemic. We tuned into a webinar to hear McGuireWoods which is a law firm partner Sabrina Beldner, and her colleague in the firm's labor and employment practices explained that states such as Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin, have all enacted orders similar to California's. That seems to be a national trend. Again, that's Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, and now California. "Like California, other states have taken actions to expand workers' compensation benefits to employees or create a presumption that employees contracted COVID-19 in the course of their employment to obtain workers' compensation benefits," says Ms. Beldner. Also, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, and Vermont are among the jurisdictions where the efforts are pending to enact a similar presumption in favor of employees who have contracted COVID-19. According to Beldner, the state order means that employers across the country who may want to rebut that presumption should implement considerable best practices, including: I'm going to go through these one at a time. Establish a COVID-19 workplace health and safety policy that complies with OSHA and any applicable state or city health and safety mandates. Establish a policy that specifies the frequency with which common areas and frequently touched surfaces will be sanitized and disinfected. Many companies have increased the amount of frequency that they do these things, but they have not documented them. Implement workplace safety features, such as requiring frequent hand washing, face coverings when interacting with other employees or customers, and social distancing. Provide employees with personal protective equipment, such as masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer. Require daily temperature checks and reporting of symptoms. Prohibit any individual who demonstrates symptoms or tests positive for COVID-19 from entering the workplace. Required daily inquiries of employees regarding exposure to individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19, such as family members, friends, or neighbors. And most importantly, track and retain all the prior information (in a method that protects confidentiality) to be able to dispute any notion of workplace...
Today we're going to be taking a look at the PPP Loan Forgiveness Application, which was released on Sunday, May 18. We're going to go through it. I am recording a video of this as well, which will allow us to, if you'd like on our website, I'll have a link to the video. We'll have our standard transcript. We'll have a link to the forgiveness application itself. But if you'd like to watch a video where we go through it together, that would be awesome. As I said, I'm going to record that, and this way we can work on it together and kind of go through it piece by piece. So open that up now.
Now, in the meantime, if you haven't already, please subscribe to our podcast and notifications at peopleprocesses.com we're also available on iTunes, all the podcatchers of your choice, Google podcasts, Stitcher, whatever you'd like Spotify, check us out on there so that you know when we have great updates like this.
Now, I'm going to switch over and I'm now sharing my screen. So let's take a look and dive in.
Okay. So the PPP Loan Forgiveness Applications, this goes first of all back to your lender, it does not just get sent off to the SBA, that's a very important thing to know. You want to start with that now, there's a lot of different pieces to it. There's a calculation for us, a couple different schedules and worksheets, demographic information form, which is optional. The primary things that you must do are the Forgiveness Calculation Form and Schedule A. There's also like I said, a worksheet on that so that you can kind of calculate some of them.
Now, there are lots of definitions on the first page. There's a couple of pretty straightforward ones. Your PPP Loan Number, your Business Legal Name, all those. There are a few key ones, the PPP Loan Disbursement Date, this is the date that an Employee looks, sorry, the Loan Disbursement Date, this is the date that the money hit your account. Okay? So you need to have this, I didn't realize that my screen wasn't sharing. So I apologize. That's why I slipped up there for a minute. So the date you received the PPP loan proceeds from the lender if the loan proceeds were treated on more than one date into the first date on which you received PPP loan proceeds. Now one question we have at this time is if you've received the money, they pulled the entire amount back and deposited a different amount. Which one do you use? Ask your lender. But most people seem to be thinking that this is going to be the latter date even under that scenario. If you received multiple disbursements to come up to a certain amount, then it would be the first one.
If you have EIDL numbers, those sorts of things go in there. This is important because we're going to ask about the Payroll Schedule and the Payroll Schedule affects the covered period. Enter the eight weeks which is a 56-day covered period of your PPP loan. The first day of the coverage period must be the same as the PPP loan disbursement date. If you receive your proceeds on, for example, Monday, April 20. the first day of the cover period is April 20 and the last day of the cover period is Sunday, June 14. Now, this is very important. There is an alternative payroll cover period you can use. This is for administrative convenience borrowers with a bi-weekly or more frequent payroll. So those are your weeklies as well, may elect to calculate eligible payroll costs using the 56-day period that begins on the first day of their first pay period following the PPP Loan Disbursement Date. For example, if the borrower received its PPP loan proceeds on Monday, April 20, and the first day of its first pay period following, its PPP loan disbursement is Sunday, April 26. Then the first day of the alternative payroll covered period is April 26. And the last day would be June 20. Borrowers who elect to use this must apply the alternative payroll cover period, whenever there is a reference in this application to the covered period...
Today we're going to be interviewing David Veech. David teaches leaders how to love, learn, and let go so they can create a workplace that fully engages the creative and productive powers of their people. He learned through 20 years of service in the army and is still learning after 20 years of being in the consulting and training space. His messages will hopefully inspire you and your teams to obliterate obstacles, accelerate innovation, and evaluate performance, leaving everyone motivated and engaged for the future. We're very excited to have him here. Before we do though, I want to ask you, please subscribe to our podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, pretty much any podcatcher of your choice. You can also subscribe at peopleprocesses.com which will give you exclusive subscriber-only content, including a quick summary and checklist after this interview of some of the key highlights. David, thank you so much for coming on, Sir. Welcome to the show. This is very exciting. Well. So, David, tell me, you are, I mean, you've had a heck of a journey. You're not one of them, fresh off the boat, 22-year-olds fresh out of the college, set up a company. You've done this quite a while. I've tried. Yeah. So, 40 years ago, you started in the army. Is that about where your leadership journey began? I went to college on an ROTC scholarship, though, was commissioned when I was 20 years old, into the infantry and I went to a combat unit but I managed to make it 20 years in the Army without ever getting shot at. Outstanding. And so after you got out of the army, you wound up setting up a consultancy organization, is that right? Well, yeah. My last job in the army was teaching. I was teaching at the Defense Acquisition University Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. And that's where they have all the production quality and manufacturing specialists that go through a particular training program. And I was assigned to bring a lean curriculum into that program. And so I taught there for a few years and because I didn't know a whole lot about lean, I went out and found the experts at the University of Kentucky, and went through their programs so that I could kind of steal that content and build it into the content I was creating for the Defense Acquisition University. And I created a relationship with the UK and they liked me enough to hire me when about six months before I retired from the army. They hired me and I started teaching, continuing education courses for them. It was pretty cool. Now, I don't think many people who at least haven't been in the army don't think of the army as a, I don't know, has a manufacturing arm or has I mean, of course, they buy things, I guess. But what is it you would teach, I mean, engineering and money, maintenance, that kind of thing to your army soldiers? Well, we have a government office in virtually every defense contractor facility. So when I was stationed at the Lockheed Martin Vought Systems Plant in Grand Prairie, Texas for three years, I was the operations manager, and we did government oversight of the production schedule of the quality of the products to make sure that all the bookkeeping was squared away. So there are just all of the business specialties that are required in government oversight to make sure that we're getting our money's worth out of the defense programs. Absolutely. So we teach those people the things that they need to know to manage the quality production and management of the system. One of the things that I wanted to especially do there in that last job, was 1998-1999. And a lot of defense contractors were trying to apply these Lean principles that Toyota made famous. And I got to see them do that. And I got to see a bunch of government folks shut him down because it was different from what they understood the processes were supposed to be like. And so my goal was to teach all of those government folks to not block that...
At some point, businesses big or small will run into the issue of wasted time which, by extension, turns into wasted money. Usually, it’s a case of the business owner or a manager becoming too involved with tasks that ought to be delegated to others. To address such cases, time analyses should be conducted to identify the issues, which should then be documented. This can be as simple as taking out a piece of paper and writing down your observations. Many small business owners, however, lack the time or inclination to do this. Larger businesses, on the other hand, tend to have so much documentation piled up over the years that extracting the right solutions from this heap of information may become overwhelming. Even if they already have processes in place, other possible obstacles include adoption, usability, or effectiveness. In either case, it may help to enlist the services of a third-party organization. FUEL it was created to tackle these common challenges faced by businesses of all sizes. We have interviewed company President Cindy Ogden on how her team may be able to help your business establish systems that address these challenges. 1) Why did you decide to specialize in process improvement? I have a passion for organizational development and new technologies. During my early years in human resources, I was always keeping up with the latest technologies, with a particular focus on how they can improve employee performance. I decided to start my own business to help customers or clients come up with a permanent solution to fix their problems. We put processes in place for learning to happen which, by extension, will allow behavioral change. My Lean Six Sigma Black Belt training complements this because I was taught to think in terms of measuring performance. 2) How do you pinpoint the exact problem that your client’s organization has? It all comes down to documentation. We first ask them if they have documented policies and standard operating procedures. Companies grow very quickly. At first, everyone is familiar with what the standards were; but as the company grows, the ideas gradually fade from memory because they haven’t been written down. People end up doing their own thing. I want to see the documentation of the workflows and expectations. If we don’t have that, we can’t expect employees to follow a process. Additionally, think of your employees like customers. With that context in mind, think about what can make their jobs more efficient. This will help in formulating processes that take the human element into account. 3) Even with documentation and knowledge of the problem, we sometimes still have trouble diagnosing the cause of the problem. How do you deal with that? The diagnosis is a checklist. If you think the problem has ten possible causes, you should ask the right questions that can guide you to the right answers. It can even be as simple as asking your customers to provide feedback that can answer those questions for you. For companies that do have documentation in place that was built up over the years, information overload is a common issue. It’s hard to dig through it quickly to find the right solution, so there also has to be a review process in place. Without one, you can get outdated information as part of your knowledge base. You’ll be asking the wrong questions and, therefore, you’ll be getting the wrong answers. You need a dedicated group of people that can review information on, say, an annual basis, and updated processes based on synthesized information. 4) What can we learn from your worst mistake as an entrepreneur? In the last few years, the biggest mistake I’ve made is poor planning from a budget standpoint: adding resources and being optimistic about jobs coming in, onboarding before I had ink on paper. All entrepreneurs have felt this pressure to make quick, often difficult, decisions. I had to come to a point where I needed to realize that my excitement and optimism should
James Sinclair is the CEO and co-founder of the EnterpriseAlumni as the market-leading alumni in the retiree engagement platform. EnterpriseAlumni is a multinational software corporation that develops enterprise software that manages corporate alumni and retirees of large companies like Google, P&G, Pearson, etc. James has a background in large enterprise innovation and has worked for companies like IBM, SAP, and EDS. He also contributes to media on the future work of large enterprise innovation and entrepreneurship. What Do You Think About the World of People Working for The Same Company Being Over? The reality of this situation is that people are more mobile, they are more willing to move. They don’t feel the need to stay with a company for life as our fathers or grandfathers did. As there are more opportunities in the market, there is more desire and value in moving elsewhere and getting a diversity of experience. People are going to move jobs, often. There is a saying “My grandfather had one job his whole life, my father had three, and I have three right now.” How Did You End Up in This Field? I have always worked in the large enterprise innovation space with large customers that are moving from on-premise to the cloud. During this, they have to bring the process that they have spent millions of dollars in creating. We taught companies that ANY idea you have, you can bring to market using software inside 90 days. There was no problem as complex that software wasn’t able to adapt to the cloud. So after a lot of investigation and research, we realized that there was a massive gap in available tools, mainly around a challenge in finding the right candidate due to talent shortages and high cost. My solution was that our former employees are the greatest talent pool we can possibly get. So I created my platform, EnterpriseAlumni What Was the Biggest Challenge You Faced In Your 7 Year Journey In Running EnterpriseAlumni?Today, we are in the middle of a pandemic, and it has forced us to think about our business growth, our customers, and employee status. This has been the biggest test of our company’s resilience and the culture that we have created. At EnterpriseAlumni, our team is like a family. We openly discussed the possible implications of our customers from different sectors, and we know many are suffering. We devised a plan to personally go and take care of all the burdens that they are facing while they work to keep their business running. It was a challenge for us because we had to change our entire business model for them, and they appreciated our gesture. Why Are Your Ex-Employees Important and What One Should Be Thinking About in Terms of Business Resources? It doesn’t matter if you are a small business or a Fortune 10 company, you spend a lot of time and money on recruiting people, training them, and teaching them how your business works. Then, when they leave, they take all this knowledge and contact with them. This is not the way to off-board someone you have invested a lot of money in. Instead, you can maintain a relationship with them in which you are able to benefit long term. This helps in increasing productivity and boosts the morale of the workforce that is left and gives you the opportunity to re-hire them after they gain more skills and contacts. This will help your business be more successful. Why Should a Business Have a Smooth Leaving Process? Leaving is inevitable/ In the years that I have worked, I have observed that many employees leave on a bad note because the employers are reluctant to let them go. No matter why they leave, the employer and remaining team feel “betrayed.” These employers fail to see the opportunity and the benefit they could get if they retain a good relationship. If the exit is done smoothly, there is a high chance that they might come back after gaining more skills,
Today, we're going to actually dive into a checklist, which will be available on our website of great information to reopen. It's our return-to-work checklist and I'm so excited to be talking about this. We may not be all there, we're not all be reopening coming up soon, some of us may have never shut down. But this episode, we're going to talk about some of the steps you can take to get ready for that. Before we go too deep, though, I want to ask you, please subscribe to the podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, pretty much any podcatcher of your choice. You can also subscribe at peopleprocesses.com which will give you exclusive subscriber-only content. This is going to have on our website People Processes. There's a link to actually download the checklist that we're going to be going through here on the podcast today. Podcasts are great, but sometimes you just need to download it. You will have to drop your email in to get it. If you're already subscribed, please don't be afraid to drop your email in there again. I promise it scrubs for duplicates, but it's just the easiest way we could figure out how to get this out to everybody quickly. We will also be probably emailing it directly to a lot of you who are already on our subscriber list. I think almost all of you will get a copy via email. It’s just some of you who haven't subscribed recently, I can't send you big files like this. Okay. It's not a big file. It's two pages but I can't email you the actual file. Anyway. Families First Coronavirus Relief Act has been a heck of a thing from a legal perspective. We've had CARES Act requirements, we've had issues around sanitation, all kinds of changes. If you're ready to open up shop and you're bringing people back, here's the first place to start. There's a poster, FFCRA poster, you gotta put it in a visible place. If employees are gonna remain working from home, you should have already emailed it to them or post it to the company interweb or the employee website or put it as part of their documents. They've signed a receipt for it, whatever. But when you start opening back up and people are coming back in, put the poster up, I know you've probably forgotten about it. It was a month ago at this point that that went out. But if you haven't done it yet, now is the time. Okay. Step II. You need to do a review of your hiring practices. Yes, not all of your employees are going to come back. As you start reopening, you may need to hire people just like you used to. You need to take a look at that. See if your staffing needs have changed. Maybe you don't need the same roles. Do you need to change benefits or pay to become more competitive, maybe less competitive? I don't know. But if everybody's coming back to work at the same time, you may need to do a little dance. Get some better people in there. You need to review your interview process, both the application process, the interview process, the screening process, to get that to a remote technique as much as possible. Anyway, you need to think about your onboarding practices. Again, no reason to be passing a bunch of paper around the office or having people sit in someone else's office. We can do this electronically now. So review your onboarding practices, make sure that they're up to date, and that they're good to go. And if you are only recalling some workers that were laid off for furloughed, ensure your practice for determining who to recall does not discriminate against any group of employees. This is quite important, guys. Some of you are going to be pulling back just maybe half your staff in a particular role. Well, you're saying, "Alright, I'm pulling back this role because of this." Well, how are you making half the staff selection? It's important to document as long as it's for business reasons. You could say seniority, you could say skill based on last performance review. You can say anything but gender, don't do...
Today, we're gonna be taking a deep dive into Five Wage and Hour lawsuits that we're seeing from actions employers took related to COVID-19. We just want to go through these, hit the highlights, see if there's a place you can fix this now before people start contacting lawyers. Before we go too deep, I want to ask you please subscribe to our podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, pretty much any podcatcher of your choice. You can also subscribe at peopleprocesses.com which will give you exclusive subscriber-only content. I look forward to seeing you there. Now, let's dive in. Employers are forced to make tough decisions often at really fast speeds as they operate during the pandemic and resulting economic shutdown that we've had by making tough decisions without consulting legal counsel. Well, people can get involved in very expensive lawsuits specifically Wage and hour suits. Particularly, class actions are the most common and expensive for employers. There was a great webinar by Seyfarth Shaw LLP, called Litigation Trends in the Post COVID-19 World. Lynn A. Kappelman is a partner with the firm in their Boston office. She discussed these Wage and Hour issues that arise as employers look to control payroll costs while maintaining operations. And also, as they look ahead to reopening as the crisis is, Kappelman followed up with labor and employment law daily about common Wage and Hour traps that can befall employers during this unprecedented crisis and I'm stealing a lot of info from her. Not stealing but she had a great webinar. So I'm trying to make sure we plug her but man, some good stuff. So Kappelman just basically put out there over and over, that plaintiffs attorneys are already focused on these issues. They're already publishing on their website, FAQs, guidelines for potential plaintiffs, marketing for potential claim plaintiffs who may have experienced any of these traps. So it's out there and we'll talk about which states are most at risk, but it's the ones you think about when you think about this stuff. So we'll go over those at the end. But basically, it's up and running and they are looking. The most common wage-hour risk. This is Number 1. It's going to be with respect to exempt employees who are losing that exempt classification. This can have a long-term consequence for your liability, including having to pay overtime going forward, pretty much forever to these formally exempt salaried employees. Many companies have reduced employees’ pay across the board to spread the pain of a forced bell typing. Cool. An employer that imposes a salary cut, though, must be careful not to reduce exempt employees’ pay below the minimum salary level. Now, the Federal FLSA salary threshold is $35,568 per year, but many states have a higher floor, you got to check that. So if you've cut your salaries across the board, and you've cut below that exempt level, you now have non-exempt employees. You got to track their hours. Make sure you're paying overtime. Make sure you're paying minimum wage out. Most employers, maybe they've imposed a 20% pay cut. A lot of them want to also reduce work hours. So maybe you've said, "All right, we're going to take Fridays off". Monday through Friday cut everybody's pay 20%. However, to do so for exempt employees runs afoul of the FLSA salary basis test. It's okay to reduce someone's pay by 20%, but you can't reduce their duties by a commensurate level because you'll undermine the salary basis and lose the exemption, explained Kappelman. So here's what's come up the most. You furloughed exempt employee, so that's I think, one primary issue. You don't want to cut, you're gonna have to think about the salary level but you also got to think about the duties test. A kind of flip on that and this is probably the most common issue I see at our level, not like a giant, you know, 100,000 man companies at the smaller level. What we...
Many companies, now that the PPP funds have been distributed, are making the big decision this week on whether to layoff employees or not. I wanted to bring another option to the table to protect your team when they can not work. Obviously, the "best" option for the employee is paid leave, but that’s unaffordable for some small businesses (see our info on the FFCRA to see if that could help though!). Furloughs, on the other hand, allow employers to cut labor costs without severing that relationship fully. What is a furlough? A furlough is a suspension from work without pay for a finite period of time. It can be mandatory or voluntary. While public and private institutions can both furlough employees, you’re probably most familiar with them at the federal level. Workers are often furloughed as a cost-saving measure during a government shutdown. It also happens sometimes when labor organizations can't come to an agreement or budget with the employer. Organizations do this when they don’t want to lay off staff but temporarily can’t afford to pay them. For private businesses, furloughs are often cyclical or seasonal, responding to dips in business. It can allow the business owner to pause the workers’ pay without terminating them. What’s the difference between furlough vs. layoff? The terms “layoff” and “furlough” are both used to describe situations that involve a lot of workers, and usually they apply to job losses where finances—not performance—are the triggering factor. (A single poor performer who is let go, on the other hand, is generally “terminated” or “fired” instead.) While laid-off workers are sometimes rehired, the term usually refers to an indefinite—often permanent—break in the employment relationship. A furlough, on the other hand, is typically for a shorter, fixed period of time. Workers are told to stop coming in to work or that their hours will be cut back. While laid-off employees are officially separated from employment, furloughed workers remain on your books as current employees. Pay and benefits Laid-off workers are essentially fired, triggering final pay requirements. Furloughed workers, on the other hand, are still employed and generally do not receive an official final paycheck or vacation payout. (Although you should carefully review the laws of your state because in some states a furlough can trigger final pay requirements.) But you can basically think of a furlough as a certain number of mandatory unpaid days off. But—and this is an important point—depending on how long a furlough goes on and how many hours are cut, a furlough may be a triggering event for COBRA purposes if the employee is dropped from a group health plan due to a loss of work hours. When and whether this happens is governed by the terms of your particular health plan and the requirements in your state. MOST plans have waived "work hour" requirements. It will vary depending on your insurance, but you can normally keep them on your companies group policy! That's a big difference. Be aware, if you terminate all your employees, they may not get COBRA or other continuation coverage because the policy will usually get terminated by the carrier. Regardless, be sure to contact your insurance carrier before deciding how to proceed. Terminations then, mean no pay, and no insurance. MASS terminations could also mean no COBRA. Similarly, an employer can get into trouble under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) if a furloughed employee is prematurely dropped from group coverage. That's a whole can of worms beyond the scope of this episode. Before implementing either a layoff or a furlough, make sure you understand the implications from a benefits perspective—consult your broker if you have any questions. Exempt workers Employers generally cannot dock the pay of exempt employees without jeopardizing their exempt status. If an exempt employee performs work in any week, they generally must still be paid their salary. But there’s an...
Today, we're going to be diving into the interactions between Unemployment and the Paycheck Protection Program or the CARES Act. We're going to talk a little bit more about that in just a second. But before we go too deep, please subscribe to our podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, pretty much any podcatcher of your choice. You can also subscribe at peopleprocesses.com which will give you access to subscriber-only content, lots of links on these pages, supporting documents, checklists and special discounts on things like our in-depth deep dive into the termination process, including 30 and 32 part lesson, state-specific information, all the forms you need. If you wind up going down the route of layoffs or terminations could be super helpful for you. For that, we have a 50% coupon code for subscribers to bring that price down a ton. Now let's dive in. The CARES Act has had far-reaching implications for our clients and listeners. I, personally, have tried to stay out of advising people on the CARES ACT loans. My company People Processes in the HR world and the Paycheck Protection Program, which is part of the CARES Act, are the BANK's jobs to administer, and they've had a heck of time presenting even marginally standardized processes or advice over these first two weeks of the PPP. But the dust is settled now, I'm not going to be going into the ins and outs of how the PPP to warrant loan works. If you don't already know you've missed the boat. Funds ran out last week. So this is more about our decision making now for that 20 % or so of companies that have gotten a PPP loan. So our current question has been coming up. I've been getting emails about, for those of you who have applied for the PPP, and actually gotten funds or at least an SBA guarantee, and you're waiting on deposit, CONGRATULATIONS! I mean, you're in a small minority of businesses and I really do think it can be very helpful to you. However, it seems some of those people didn't quite read the fine print on those loans. The PPP loans are forgivable, but ONLY if you :
Spend 75% of the money in the eight weeks following the loan on the payroll. And you have to keep 75% of your headcount that you applied with on your loan, which is really last year's average headcount 2019. And then you have to actually spend the other 25% on qualified expenses. So if you get a pile of money from them and you don't spend it over the next eight weeks on payroll, rent, mortgage interest, those sorts of things. You're going to have a problem. Let's say you have a business like a restaurant. A month ago you laid off the vast majority of your staff. Now you receive the PAYCHECK PROTECTION PROGRAM that's what it's called money. But you have no staff to pay, no work to do. How do you get the loan forgiven? Well, the short answer is you don't. I mean, I hate to say it, but the loan is forgivable only when you have payroll to support it. If you are a hair cutting salon and under a mandatory shelter in place order, having employees come in to cut hair is "not an essential service." If you receive the funds this week, but your payroll is only 5% of what it was last year, well, you're probably gonna have to pay this loan back rather than have it forgiven. Your alternative is to "hire" your people back to say, "All right, well, look, we laid off all of you. Come on back." Rather than have them claim unemployment. You can pay them to work from home, too. The haircutting salon, the restaurant, the residential floor company that asked us about what they do like floor refinishing, they can't go into people's houses right now. They originally did some major cuts, they CAN put people back on the payroll. Consider having daily or weekly happy hours or strategic meetings (over the web!), "Brainstorm - Plan - Execute" meetings that can make sure you are ready to roll when things come back...
Today we're going to be interviewing Rocky Romanello. He has had an illustrious career spanning more than 40 years focused on supply chain logistics, retail sales, sales operations, all kinds of things at UPS, including the UPS Store franchise network. He became the Chief Executive Officer and Board of Directors for UniTek Global Services, a provider of engineering construction management and he is currently the founder and CEO of 360 Management Services, LLC. He's an experienced CEO, he's led one of the largest rebranding initiatives in franchising history. The UPS Store revolutionised the $9 billion retail shipping and business services market. And we're going to talk to him today about leadership and his journey and the advice he can give us for our growing companies. Before we go too deep though, I want to ask you, please subscribe to our podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google, podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, pretty much any pod catcher of your choice. You can also subscribe at peopleprocesses.com, which will give you exclusive subscriber only content, including a follow up summary on this very episode. Rocky, thank you so much for coming on. Welcome to the show. Rhamy, thank you very much for having me. So Rocky, you have I mean, you've done a ton. You're not a green new business owner who just started up last week. I'd love for you to tell me how you got to where you are today. I know you spent a lot of time at UPS. What was that like? And why did you wind up striking out on your own Well, of course, it was a great career at UPS. It had a promotion from within policy, which I took advantage of. I actually started out as a part timer unloading trailers. I was working my way through college and I actually was going to college to be a high school history teacher and a baseball coach. And as I was working my way through school, I realized that the best leaders were those leaders that could get their people to connect the dots. So I never gave up my passion for coaching or my passion for teaching. To me, I just did it in a different classroom, which was the business setting. And so I always felt like I was still pursuing those passions of coaching and teaching. As I said, UPS had a promotion from within policy and my dad told me two things when I started the job. He has since passed, but he told me two things. He said, "Whatever they asked you to do, say yes and thank you, and then learn your job and learn some more.” And so for me, as I was working my way up through UPS, I learned and your passion is people in the processes. So for me, one of my most valuable lessons I learned early on, was I may not have felt ready for that promotion that UPS tapped me on the shoulder for, but what I realized is that there are times when you have to believe in your people until they're ready to believe in themselves. And you bridge that gap maybe of confidence, or you bridge that gap maybe of knowledge. And that to me, was probably one of my greatest lessons. As I was growing and developing and learning how to manage and manage large groups of people, I never forgot that lesson that I was taught firsthand by me being that person who was a little bit nervous and a little bit scared. But UPS, believing in me until I was ready to believe in myself. And then of course, I mean, you started with like, loading the docks. I mean, you started at the bottom and worked your way all the way through. I mean, you've learned every lesson along the way. Not every job. Yes, yes. And you know that, that valuable lesson for me was that it empowered me and gave me that confidence to manage because I was a part timer. I became a UPS driver. I drove from Plainfield, New Jersey. And so for me that valuable lesson, Rhamy was around me, was the fact that every new job I took on and as you spoke in the introduction, I was tapped on the shoulder when we purchased mailboxes and etc. We consequently, we branded the UPS Store, I took on that...
Today we are interviewing Ralph Peterson. He is the owner and operator of Ralph Peterson LLC, which is a Management Development Company. It specializes in helping mission driven organizations, built five star management teams, primarily in the long-term care industry. In addition to Peterson LLC, Ralph was also a number one bestselling author, internationally syndicated columnist, highly sought after Management Development coach and a public speaker. So we're excited to have him on. We thought with his intersection between the long-term care world's medicine and management in general, he'd be a great guest on today's podcast. Before we bring him on though, I want to ask you, please subscribe to the podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, any pod catcher of your choice. You can also subscribe at peopleprocesses.com where you will get exclusive subscriber only content. I look forward to seeing you there. Now let's get over to Ralph. Ralph, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Man. I'm excited to have you. You have such an interesting and long career in Long-Term Care Health words, which I guess is another word for like nursing homes. Right Nursing homes. That's right. And so why do you think you focus on that versus management of long-term care in nursing homes? Like, how did that happen? Well, what happened was, I was always looking for, I've worked in everything. I started out in housekeeping. It was my first job. I was 16 years old working on housekeeping and then I went into fast food. I've worked in construction. Excuse me. And then I ended up in the Marine Corps. And then when I got out of the Marine Corps, I answered a blind ad for a management. For a company looking for a manager. There was a company that was growing by leaps and bounds working in management. And it was super intriguing to me. I've always wanted to be in charge. I got my first management job. When I was 16 years old. It took like weeks to get my boss to ask me, and said, "Hey, I'm expanding. I got a couple of other jobs, but I need somebody to run the day crew doing the lawn mowing," and I was six, I cannot tell you. I'm the youngest of four. I've never been in charge of the remote control. You know, where we're going, what games were playing? Nothing. So when he said, I'm thinking about putting you in charge making you the foreman. My head just went. I got so excited. Like I couldn't believe I was another opportunity to be in charge. He finally puts me in charge on a nice rainy Monday morning and about Eight minutes later, I get fired for fighting with my employee. Oh, well, an auspicious start. I lost my first manager job in eight minutes. And he said something really interesting when he was bringing me home, he was driving me home. And he said, you're never going to be able to be a manager, if you don't understand you have to be better than everybody else. And the idea that I had to be better than everybody else kind of pissed me off, kind of like, "Why do I have to be better than everybody else? Why? Why do I have to hold my time when other people aren't holding their time? Why do I have to do the right thing? Why do I have to be the bigger person?" And the truth is, of course, that's what separates managers from non managers, good leaders and bad leaders. But logically…. Yeah, so you were 16. You try. You had that and then let me ask you this then. So how would you think, obviously, management principles, there's a whole study of management, right? There's all kinds of great things to learn. Do you think that in the nursing homes or managers for nursing homes, do you think that there's any specific differences between management styles purely because of the medical profession you're in? Or do you think it's pretty universally applicable? I think it's pretty universally applicable. I think we all struggle with the same challenges. And we all are drawing from the same recruitment...
Today we're speaking with Kris Plachy. Kris has poured her life's work into learning about understanding, and then guiding leaders through the tricky path of learning how to lead a team in a space where there's a lot of noise and advice. Kris has designed the "How to have team leadership" through her lead your team roadmap, and we're super excited to have her. Before we dive in though, I want to ask you to please subscribe to our podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, any podcaster of your choice. You can also subscribe at peopleprocesses.com where you will get some exclusive subscriber-only content, like our current telework checklist for going home base for your employees. Kris, thank you so much for joining us today. Welcome to the show. Thank you. It's my pleasure to be here. I'm super excited to talk with you because a lot of business owners right now are going through some difficult times. And I want to hear about how your leadership strategy works. But first, not many little girls and boys dress up as HR and leadership experts when they're going to Halloween, right. We're not exactly firefighters here. How on earth did you wind up after 25 years in this sort of profession in this space? Well, yeah, it's funny, you should say that. I think people who might have known me when I was eight might have said, "Oh, yeah, you're gonna be a leader. A bit of applause." Yeah, that's funny. Let's see. So it was a very natural process. I started my career right out of college with a recreation degree, so you might imagine that didn't lead me to a lot of.... Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, what is a recreation degree? I don't want to take too long on your story. But you gotta tell me what that is. Well it was, yes, there was one class where we learned how to do face painting. I'm not gonna lie. That actually did happen. But mostly it was quite interesting. We learned all about the importance of healthy leisure, and encouraging lifestyles of activity and recreation. So a lot of people who do study recreation go into the parks and recreation field, they become out as Park Rangers. You know, community park, district leaders, that kind of thing. I actually was interested in tourism, and travel and so I had every intention of staying in that space until I did about a year and a half stint and realized I hated it. As we have with many colleagues. Yeah, I needed to kind of stumble my way through that. So you know, but I did complete it. And I had this funny little minor in law because I wanted to be a lawyer first and then I decided I didn't love that either. So yeah, I think when you're sort of riffing there about, you know, little boys and girls don't act like whatever this is for Halloween. I never knew what I wanted to be. I never had a clear career path. And so I just got a job when I graduated as a recruiter for a private startup online school program. Nice. And I was good at it. I was good at sales. I was good at consulting, which I later realized was coaching and this one in the early 90's, when I discovered a side class. So I realized there were more classes on being a coach, being a professional coach. And this was honestly like 1994, Rhamy. A long time ago. So I went to this class and I was immediately like, "Oh, that's what I'm supposed to do." So what happened then, next many years, is I follow the trajectory of leadership. So I was a frontline recruiter for a couple years. Then I got promoted to manager for about four years. Then I got into training for several years. And then I got into senior leadership and I was leading upwards of 200-250 people. And all the while was continuing my learning and studies of coaching. And for those who have kind of followed the profession, that's sort of been the trajectory as well, we started seeing more and more interest and support and resources and learning for people who wanted to be coaches and all sorts of...
And today, we are interviewing Amber Hurdle. Amber hurdle is the CEO of Amber Hurdle Consulting. It's a multi-award winning talent optimization firm. They pioneers using both science and marketing principles to strengthen customers' brands from the inside out. She really helps with costly business problems like ineffective recruiting turnover, under performance, declining morale, leadership gaps, and we are so excited to have her in the show today. Before we dive too deep, I want to ask you real quick, please subscribe to our podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, pretty much any pod catcher of your choice. And you can subscribe at peopleprocesses.com which will give you exclusive subscriber only content. Last week for example, we sent out sample furlough letters and updated policies around the Family's First Coronavirus Relief Act. This is recorded 3-23. Our subscribers had sample policies 24 hours after the law passed. Now let's dive in. Amber, thank you so much for being on the show. Thanks for having me, Rhamy. Well, I am just ecstatic to have you in. There's a lot going on in the country right now. Like I said, this is a March 23 recording. This probably won't come out until mid April. We have no idea what the situation is going to look like out there. So we'll try to keep our coronavirus info to the minimum and instead focusing on the things that you have accomplished. Now, Amber, not many little girls and boys dress up as leadership and HR consultants when they're eight years old to go trick or treating. How on earth did you wind up in this very strange field? That's pretty dang busy right now. Well as someone who dressed up like Janis Joplin for I don't even know how many years in a row. You know what, she inspires people, it's leadership. There we go. That's right. Yeah. I think and I talked about this a lot when we talk about personal branding is, that there are breadcrumbs that you can follow if you look back on your history and see how you chose to show up in various situations, whether that's professionally or in your family or in your social settings or volunteerism, or whatever. And you can see that there are some very specific gifts that keep popping up as something that you feel led to share with other people. And so the gifts that I have from a vantage point of really being able to see somebody for who they are or a situation for what it is. Being a very quick thinker, being able to really put chaos into a strategic streamlined process to work through. I can create common chaos very quickly and then buy people into that solution. And then connecting people. So engagement and communication have always been things that have served. I've used to serve other people. And it just made sense in the end, to do that in a professional setting because I can impact more people by going into an organization or into an audience than trying to do it otherwise. That's very self aware, Amber, and that's awesome to hear. But what I want to hear is you have a pretty unusual way though, right? Because if I remember from your bio, you were a teen mom. I'm kind of on a very different path than consulting with international celebrities and fortune 100 companies. Knocking on my door back then. Give me that story. How did you get from, you know, I don't know. I can't imagine the place you were in there to kind of now grown kids and rocking out all over the world. Well, good question. I credit a lot of what I've learned in life to that experience. And I wasn't like a bad girl. I was actually very involved. I mean, not to marginalize any teen mom, but I'm just saying like, I wasn't a troubled youth. I didn't have a troubled childhood. None of that, like I was very normal. I was on channel for news at Six and 10 for a week. Like, just weeks before I found out I was pregnant because they were featuring me and about a dozen other Middle Tennessee students because we...
This is going to be Part VI of our COVID-19 Q&A. These are just questions that are coming in hot from our various employers and subscribers. We want to help before we dive in too deep. Today, what we're going to be talking about employer liability concerning this worker's comp, basically, and so we're gonna go into kind of the ins and outs of that before we do though, please take a moment to subscribe makes a huge difference. You can subscribe on the pod catcher of your choice. That's iTunes, Google podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, whatever. But also subscribe at peopleprocesses.com. Information is changing quickly. We're providing tons of subscriber only content, like our sample communication letters furlough notices charts and explanations for quick reference, all sorts of sample policy versions of the FFCRA pieces. We want to get those out to you quickly. Podcasts are hard to get a lot of info out like that. So subscribe to People Processes for us so you can get a copy as well. All right, let's dive right in. Here's the first question. My employee may allege or it has alleged that they contracted the coronavirus while at work, will this result in a compensable worker's compensation claim? This is the key question. And the answer is it depends if the employee is a healthcare worker or a first responder, the answer is likely yes (subject to some variations in state law), but in most cases absolute darn lewdly. For other categories of employees, an actual workers compensation claim is possible, but the analysis would be very fact-specific. It's important to note that the workers' comp system is an unknowable fault system, meaning that an employee claiming a work-related injury does not need to prove negligence or anything on the part of the employer. Instead, the employee needs only prove that the injury occurred at work and was approximately caused by their employment. Additionally, the virus is not an "injury" but is instead analyzed under state law to determine if it's an "occupational disease," those vary. To be an occupational disease, (again with some state law variations), an employee must generally show two things: the illness or disease must be "occupational", meaning that it arose out of and was in the course of employment; and the illness or disease must arise out of or be caused by conditions peculiar to the work and creates a risk of contracting the disease in a greater degree and in a different manner than in the public generally. As for the other categories of employees, compensation for a workers' comp claim is going to be determined on a case-by-case basis. The key point will be whether the employee contracted the virus at work and whether the contraction of the disease was "peculiar" to their employment. For example, if they were in full furlough, they never left their house ever. Period. No grocery. It’s nothing. The only time they came out was to work in your grocery store. Well, they could have a strong claim that if they get the disease, it's from that. Even if the employer takes all the right steps to protect their employees from exposure, a compensable claim may be determined where the employee can show that they contracted the virus after an exposure, the exposure was peculiar to work, and there were no alternative means of exposure demonstrated. Absent any state legislation on this topic, an employee seeking workers' comp benefits for coronavirus infection would still have to provide the medical evidence to support the claim. Employers who seek to contest such a claim may be able to challenge the allowance if there is another alternative exposure or if the employee's medical evidence is speculative. Finally, employers should be aware that states are taking action on this issue. For instance, Washington Governor Jay Inslee recently directed the Department of Labor and Industries to "ensure" workers' compensation protections for...
This is Part V of our COVID-19 Q&A series. We're gonna be talking about health insurance applications over the coronavirus, including layoffs and furloughs. We're going to talk about specific coverages that are being offered new enrollment periods, all kinds of fun stuff. As we dive in or before we do, do me a favor, please subscribe. It makes such a difference to our ability to continue to produce long-form free content like this. You can find us on iTunes, Google podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, any pod catcher of your choice. Also if you subscribe at peopleprocesses.com we have subscriber only content, including sample communications that you can use to send out to your employees, edit them, run by your attorney if you'd like. And everything from communicating furloughs to how these benefits change or work. We want to help you communicate those, peopleprocesses.com to subscribe. Now let's dive right in. The first question and I apologize if I sound a little funny, I've got a really bad allergies here at the beginning of April, late March. It is not Coronavirus, but just quite allergic, I apologize. First question we're getting which is a lot is, If our employees are no longer working, are they still entitled to group health plan cover? So what happens when I terminate someone or lay them off? The answer depends. The answer is, Not Necessarily. Are they entitled to group health plan coverage? You need to check your health plan document (or certificate of coverage if your plan is fully insured) to determine how long employees who are not actively working may remain covered by your group health plan. Most of the time, it's through the end of the month in which they are terminated or become ineligible due to an hour reduction. Once this period expires, active employee coverage must be terminated (unless the insurance carrier or self-funded plan sponsor agrees to temporarily waive this eligibility provision), and you must send your Cobra notice. If your plan is self-funded and you'd like to waive the coverage because you can, that's cool, but make sure that your stop-loss coverage carriers agree to cover claims related to participants who would otherwise be ineligible for coverage. That's a big deal. As of late March, many fully insured plans are WAIVING minimum hour requirements and generating a new special enrollment period. So if you're cutting someone who's full time down to 20 hours a week, normally, that would be a life event in their coverage on whatever day your plan document says. Normally, at the end of the month you do that. However, most of the fully insured companies, the large ones out there, HUMANA, Aetna, Cigna, United have decided, "Hey, you 're going to waive that minimum coverage requirement if you choose to do so. If you choose to do so you have to do it for everybody. Keep that in mind." And that would allow you to continue insurance for employees who've had major hour reductions. Well, that leads to the next question. What happens to the group health plan coverage if employees are not working enough and unable to pay their share of premium? In the normal everyday stuff, if they can't pay the premium, then group health plan coverage would cease when that employee's share premium is not timely paid. However, several actions might be taken that could allow coverage to continue. First, the insurance carrier providing the health coverage may voluntarily continue the coverage while this disaster is sorted out. Like I said, most of them have and until an employee reopens their doors. More likely, the employer will make an arrangement with the insurance carrier to provide health coverage to pay the employees' share premiums to keep coverage in place (at least temporarily) and that's actually what's going on. The insurance carriers are fine with the employer picking up a whole cost until the employer can reopen its doors or the employees start working enough hours to...
This is going to be Part IV of our Q&A on COVID-19. And we're going to talk specifically a little bit about the FFCRA (Families First Coronavirus Response Act). Since the last podcast episode, this is past. It's a law that provides many provisions, but some of them are things like, paid sick leave and paid emergency family leave for those employees. The question we're going to be addressing is, "If I lay off an employee, do I have to pay this new sick leave and when does that kick in?". We're also going to talk about the differences between a "layoff" and a "furlough" as that seems to be coming up quite a bit in our chats. Before we go too deep, please subscribe to our podcast. If you can find us on iTunes, Google podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, any pod catcher of your choice makes a huge difference. You can also subscribe at peopleprocesses.com. If you're on there right now, where you go there, a little pop up will show up. It's also in the top right. We have tons of exclusive subscriber only content, like our entire coronavirus kit, where we have sample communications with employees, how to communicate a furlough, how to talk about salary reduction, how to do telework and get people to utilize that and not necessarily take the leave. Those are all addressed in our policies. So please subscribe there. Okay. Here's what you need to know. Starting April 1, 2020, which is when this podcast comes out. The Families First Coronavirus Relief Act (FFCRA) is a federal law that will require employers to facilitate two major changes. Under the law, employees must be given: 1. Up to two weeks of emergency paid leave (EPSL) for illness, quarantine or school closures and; 2. Up to 12 weeks during which the first two weeks are unpaid. So another 10 weeks for care for children during school closures related to COVID-19, most of which must be paid as well. There are a few exceptions to both of those. This is not going to be an in -depth on the FFCRA. There's tons of information about that on our website. And again, for our subscribers. This is the question, Do we still have to provide the Emergency Paid Sick Leave (EPSL) or Emergency Family Leave (EFMLA) if we lay off or furlough our employees? And the answer is, If you've laid off (ended the employment relationship), they are no longer employees. So these leaves are not going to apply. Workers who are still employed by you but not currently working any hours due to a business slowdown or shelter-in-place order are basically a furlough versus termination, they would also not qualify. The leave may only be used when an employee is unable to work because of the reasons listed in the law (their own sickness, a family member sickness, or school daycare closures). An employee who has already been put on a furlough is unable to work because you have nothing for them to do, either because business slowed down or the government has required closure. That's different than if they can't come in because they are sick or under a government order themselves. For quarantine government orders normally a medical order in the case of an employee. You gotta be cautious, though, not to base layoff or furlough decisions on the employees' potential need for leave, as this can constitute unlawful retaliation or interference with their rights under the law. So you can't put people on furlough because you think they're the ones who are going to take the leave. You put people on furlough, because you don't have work for them to do. Does that make sense? Same with termination. Remember, the government is going to fully fund these leaves through a payroll tax credit. If you don't have the funds available to cover the leaves until tax time, then you may use your payroll tax set aside to fund them. You still don't have enough, you can apply for an advance from the IRS. And as of Friday, March 27, a whole new law is passed where they expect to do significant...
Today, we are interviewing Bill Coletti. We are so excited to have him on. He is a reputation management, crisis communications and professional development expert. He's been the Wall Street Journal risk and compliance panelist. He's a best selling author of "Critical Moments: The New Mindset of Reputation Management," and he has been on the senior counsel in crisis management, corporate communications and reputation defense to a ton of clients such as ATt&T, Target, American Airlines, Home Depot, Xerox, Nuclear Energy Institute, Cargill and major universities. And I can't wait to get his insight and plans into how we can react to this. Just crazy time. Before we go too deep though, I want to ask you to please subscribe to our podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, any pod catcher of your choice. You can also subscribe at peopleprocesses.com which will give you exclusive subscriber only content. Now, Bill, thank you for coming on the show. I'm so excited to have you. Rhamy, I am looking forward to a good conversation and providing some help to folks as they try to navigate through this unprecedented time we're in. Yeah, and it's going to be a free flowing conversation for you long time listeners. We're going to skip things like your worst moment in your business career. And we're just going to deal with what value Bill can give us for our listeners. So, Bill, give a quick rundown of how you got to where you're kind of a point man on crisis management. Started my career doing political campaigns. I did politics for ever since I graduated in college and beyond, did that for the first half of my career then went to a large public affairs, issues management agency. And then we were acquired by a large global public relations firm. And I ran their global crisis practice. And then about five years ago, went out on my own and started our firm "Kith". About what they said five and a half years ago. Outstanding so for the last five and a half years, you've been working under your own shingle, working with people to try and manage these sorts of public relations issues. Exactly. Just really trying to do it in the word "Kith", is meaningful to us. If you're not familiar with it, there's a phrase from literature called "I'm Going Home to Visit My Kith and My Kin", you can or your family and your Kith, we subscribe to be kind of your original friends that taught you sophisticated habits so your family teaches you things about making you who you are. your friends, your high school friends, your college buddies. Those are the folks that really teach you a different set of skills, but more sophisticated life skills. And so we try to be the kids to our client, in providing those sophisticated insights and perspectives. That's outstanding. We're learning something already. What a great name. The name of my company for 10 years was Popular Financial, and it was called "Pop" because we started on Poplar Avenue. And when I started my company, it was still pretty new after 911 and Rhamy Alejeal, the insurance agency just didn't seem like it would fit very well down here in the deep south. So, but yes, we recently changed the People Processes to say what it is we do, which works perfectly. Yeah. Well. So, Bill, right now we have a business. We have it. We have a health crisis. We have a family crisis. But beyond that, we actually also have a relations crisis, right? How do we talk to our clients, our employees, it's a lot about not just figuring out operationally how to survive, but our communication strategy. And that's something where you kind of step into, right? Yeah, exactly. That's there. So for the past, I've lost track of three or four weeks, we've been working with clients with their initial responses, and most everybody's past their initial response here in the United States. And we're now in this sort of really mushy middle section. And we really spend a lot of time talking to companies,...
Today, however, we are doing Part III of our COVID-19 Q&A, so we're gonna be talking about Coronavirus. Today's Part III is all about, basically, employee's right of refusal to come to work, what sort of things you have to deal with in terms of unreasonable expectations of security equipment. How does that work? We're going to be going in there now. Part I. We talked about telecommuting guidance. Part II. We went into what actually needs to happen if someone is sick or suspected of having the virus. Tomorrow or on our next episode, we will be talking about the, "How group health insurance coverage section Coronavirus? What sort of ways can you take advantage of that?" Part V. We're going to talk about the employees who are calling in sick. So we're about Wage and Hour related issues related to Coronavirus. Do we have issues with how are we going to pay these people when they're working from home? Those sorts of issues. Finally. Part VI. We're gonna talk about employer liability. Probably the least important part of this but we do need to cover it. Are you on the hook if your employees get sick at work from coronavirus? So, let's dive into Part III here. Can an employee refuse to come to work because of a fear of infection? This question and others like it we get through our social media and from our clients directly who are needing help. If you want to submit a question of your own, please check us out on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter @peopleprocesses. We'd love to hear from you there. We really appreciate subscribers there. It makes us feel like someone's out there listening. And we're just not talking to the ether. So take a look. Let us know if there's anything we can help you with, ask any questions. If an employee refuses to come to work because of their fear of infection, the question is like, “Is that like a disciplinary issue?” Right, I need you at work. Well, employees are only entitled to refuse to work if they believe they are in imminent danger. This is Section 13(a) of OSHA. This is the Occupational Safety and Health Act, not the OSHA administration. It defines "imminent danger" to include, "any condition or practices in any place of employment which are such that a danger exists which can reasonably be expected to cause death or serious physical harm immediately or before the imminence of such danger can be eliminated through the enforcement procedures otherwise provided by this act." OSHA discusses imminent danger as where there is "threat of death or serious physical harm," or "a reasonable expectation that toxic substances or other health hazards are present. Exposure to them will shorten life or cause substantial reduction in physical or mental efficiency." So, the threat must be immediate or imminent, which means that an employee must believe that death or serious physical harm could occur within a short time, for example, before OSHA could investigate the problem. Requiring travel to China or to work with patients in a medical setting without personal protective equipment at this time may rise to that threshold. Most work conditions in the United States, however, do not meet the elements required for an employee to refuse to work now. Once again, I guess I should say this is being recorded on March 14 2020. If you're listening to this in April, things are going very badly, may be different. But right now, the conditions aren't there. This guidance is general and employers are going to need to determine when this unusual state exists in your workplace before we're determining whether it is permissible for employees to refuse to work. In addition, Section 7 of the NLRA. The National Labor Relations Act extends broad-based statutory protections to those employees (in union and non-union settings) to engage in "protected concerted activity from you to mutual aid or protection." So, just keep in mind, such activity has been defined to include...
This is Part II of our coronavirus COVID-19 QA. We're going to be talking about what to do here when you think an employee may be sick or you've received words that they're sick or that they come in contact with someone sick. We're going to go around the actions to take this as Part II of our QA, hopefully you've listened to Part I already. Where we talked about implementing a remote work policy and putting in telecommuting in your organization. Part III. After this we're gonna talk about when an employee can refuse to come into work because of a fear of coronavirus. "Can they refuse to work if they don't have a mask?Can they all be allowed to wear a mask at your retail store?" Like, "How do we deal with that? Part IV. We're going to talk about group health insurance, and its interactions with coronavirus. We're gonna talk about ways to take advantage of what's covered, what's not. Part V. We're going to talk about Wage and Hour. We're going to talk about what we have to pay here if we send people home because they're sick, if they're calling in sick and you don't think they're sick, because they just want time off, like, "How does that work?" We're talking about the wage and hour implications. Part VI. We're talking about liability. "Is this a worker's comp issue? Are we liable as employers if employees come in and get sick?" We're going to cover that in Part VI. For now, check us out. These questions have all come from social media and our clients. So hop on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. Message me, let me know if you have any questions so we can add them as we go. All right. So here's the first question I get. Can we send an employee to ask them to stay home or leave work if they exhibit symptoms of Coronavirus COVID-19 or just the flu? Like, Should we can wait? Yes, you are permitted to ask them to seek medical attention and get tested for COVID-19. The CDC states that employees who exhibit symptoms of influenza like illness at work during a pandemic should leave the workplace and be made to do so. During the H1N1 pandemic, the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) stated that advising workers to go home is not disability-related if the symptoms present are akin to seasonal flu, or in that time the H1N1 virus. Therefore, an employer may require workers to go home if they exhibit symptoms of COVID-19 coronavirus or the flu. So if someone's there, and they're sweating, they're looking like a favor, or they're hacking and coughing or they're sneezing. It's like, "Bro, go home, you can't be here." Okay. So, first of all, if they're exhibiting flu-like symptoms, you can send them home. But that goes on to one more thing like what if they're sweating and you go, "Well, maybe I should take their temperature." Can you take the employees temperature at work to determine whether they might be infected? This is a complicated one. The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) places restrictions on the inquiries that an employer can take into an employee's medical status, and the EEOC considers taking an employee's temperature to be a "medical examination" under the ADA. The ADA prohibits employers from requiring those exams and making disability-related inquiries unless (1) the employer can show that the inquiry or exam is job-related and consistent with business necessity, or (2) the employer has reasonable belief that the employee possesses a "direct threat" to the health and safety of the individual or others that cannot otherwise be eliminated or reduced by reasonable accommodation. Taking an employee's temperature may be unlawful if it's not job-related and consistent with business activity. So the inquiry and evaluation to whether taking temperature is job-related, is fact-specific. It's going to vary a lot. The EEOC's position during a pandemic is that employers should rely on the latest CDC and state or local public health assessments to...
We've received many, many questions coming in about the coronavirus. And we've broken this into six short key episodes, where we're just going to talk about some of the key pieces that are relevant to your organization as we try to deal with this pandemic. There are a lot of moving pieces going on. So I guess I should say that this was recorded on March 14 2020. They will be coming out over the next two weeks at the latest, hopefully faster as they go through production and we will be getting them out each day or every other day or so until they are through. We're going to first talk about a question we're getting the most of which is remote work and how to send everyone home. Part I. Should we send everyone home because of the coronavirus? Part II. We're going to talk about what happens if we think an employee may be sick. “What should you do?” Part III. “Can employees refuse to come to work because of their fear of coronavirus?” And the sub-questions about that: “What if they don't want to wear a mask?” “What if they are saying they won't work without a mask?” Part IV. We're going to talk about group health insurance and how it is reacting to coronavirus. What things are covered automatically, what aren't how those work and additional ways you can take advantage of those and communications you should send to your employees. Part V. “What about paying these employees that either you sent home sick, they call in sick?” Maybe they're saying they're sick but they're not. You're just you know, they're just saying they are. “How do we deal with the wage and hour implications of this.” And finally, we're going to talk about workers compensation and answer the question of the employer liability. Part VI. If an employee gets sick with coronavirus and where that falls and that's going to be Part six. Let's dive into part one. Real quick reminder, you can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, reach out to me on LinkedIn, Rhamy Alejeal. People Processes on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send us your questions. If you need help, sample communications, message me. All of our clients have already received communications to us with employees checklists on telecommuting, all sorts of things. I definitely want to assist in any way we can during this time. So if we can be of help, please let me know. Alright, let's first talk about this question. Should we put in a temporary remote work policy in light of coronavirus? I mean, Should we send everybody home? Whether you do this or not is entirely dependent on your organization's circumstances and the area of the country where your workers reside. You may not want to introduce a new system like this. If you've not yet had the time to test and develop remote work capabilities, it could very likely cause you more problems than it solves. On the other hand, if you've got established protocols in place, this is a great opportunity to leverage them. In our company, we've been allowing telecommuting for years, everyone is outfitted with laptops, biometric security devices, separate security key fobs, all these things that allow us to confidently allow our employees to do their job from home. Our employees are disciplined and working from home, they understand the ins and outs of it. They know about problems with childcare, all sorts of things. But if you've never done it before, it's quite different. The key is to make sure your decision is educated and intentional, not reactionary and spur of the moment. If sending people home, you feel competent, everything can still get done and there's no cost to it. Well, that's an easy decision. Wouldn't be asking. But for those of you maybe in a law firm or CPA organization, an architecture firm or all these places where maybe you've always worked together in a service based business and you're thinking, "How do I do this at home?" It's time to figure that out. For those of you who do much more in depth work,...
Today, we're talking about a new guidance that came from the FLSA that explains how to handle a lump-sum bonus, a little bit more in depth than we've had in the past. I really am excited about this because it answers some questions that have been pending for 60 years. Before we go too deep though, I want to ask you to please subscribe to our podcast. It makes a huge difference to us. You can find us on iTunes, Google podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, pretty much any pod catcher of your choice. You can also subscribe @peopleprocesses.com, which will give you access to some exclusive subscriber only content. Department of Labor regulations provide that the bonus amount is added to the employees other earnings for the week. Total earnings are divided by the total hours worked to arrive at the regular rate. So they make 1000 bucks. They worked, well, let me do it easier. They made for a hundred bucks. They work 40 hours a week, they make 10 bucks an hour, you give them $100 bonus, and now they're making an extra $2 and 50 cents per hour for 1250. Right? And that's their regular rate of pay. If they work 4142 4344 hours, then that regular rate of pay is multiplied by 1.5 to give you that overtime rate of pay. But what if the bonus covers multiple work weeks? That was the issue addressed by the DOL's Wage and Hour Division and their new opinion letter. We haven't linked on our website, it's WHD Opinion Letter FLSA 2020-1. It's from January 7, 2020. Alright, so let's take a fact here. An employer informed its employees in advance that they would receive a lump-sum bonus of $3,000 if they successfully completed 10 weeks of training and agreed to continue training for an additional eight weeks. Employees did not, however, have to actually finish the additional eight weeks to receive the lump-sum bonus. For example, if an employee completed the ten weeks of training and signed up for the additional eight weeks, the employee received the bonus even if he or she only completed one week of the additional training and dropped out. In the scenario that was presented to the DOL, an employee who received the lump-sum bonus ordinarily worked 40 hours per week. However, in week 5 of the 10 week original training, the employee worked 47, and in week 9 the employee worked 48 hours. The employer asked for advice on how to count the bonus and the employee’s regular rate for the weeks that the employee worked overtime. The DOL gave a little conclusion. So in its opinion letter, the Wage and Hour Division concluded that it was appropriate for the employer to use Method #1—that is, to allocate the lump-sum bonus over three times. And equally to each week have a 10 week training period. According to the opinion letter each week of the 10 weeks counted equally and fulfilling the criteria for the bonus, since missing any week would disqualify the employee from receiving the bonus. Moreover, there were no facts being inappropriate to assume equal bonus earnings per workweek, and a court has held that dividing a bonus equally among workweeks is not unreasonable even if the employee worked more or less than 40 hours in a given week. That case link to our site as well as its Vasquez vs TVC admin. Bottom line. Assume that the employee in the scenario presented to the DOL normally earns $10 per hour straight time. Using Method 1#, the employer would allocate the $3000 bucks equally over the 10-week bonus period, adding $300 to the employee's pay for each week to be included in calculating the employee's regular rate of pay. So, for example, in the week that the employee worked 47 hours, the employee's straight-time earnings would come to$ 770 bucks. That's (47 hours x $10 bucks + $300 bucks), resulting in a regular rate of $16.38 (770 straight time /47 hours). Therefore, the employee will be entitled to an overtime pay of $24.57 (1 ½ x 16.38) for each one of the seven overtime hours, right? So 2447 times seven. By comparison...
Today we're going to talk about the SECURE Act. It changes a lot about 401k plans, so we're going to go through it in depth, make sure you're prepared, but before we go too deep, I want to ask you to please subscribe to our podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, any pod catcher of your choice. You can also subscribe @peopleprocesses.com which will give you exclusive subscriber only content. All right, let's dive into the SECURE Act. The centerpiece of the new tax legislation is the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019. The SECURE Act, it's chock full of new rules for employers that sponsor qualified retirement plans and for the employees who participate. For example, the new law expands the opportunities for groups of employers to form multiple-employer plans (MEPs). On the employee side, the new law increases the age for required mandatory retirement plan distributions from 70 ½ to 72. Now there are a lot of things going on with the SECURE act, especially around what happens after you die with a 401k. That's an individual planning topic and it's really beyond the scope of what we're gonna talk about today. Instead, we're going to talk about those that are of particular interest to employers. That's what we're focusing on. So part-timer participation, under current rules, employer-sponsored 401(k) plans can exclude an employee from participation if he or she has not worked for the employer for at least 1,000 hours in a 12-month period. Effective for plans beginning after 2020, the new law requires employers to allow long-term part-timers to make elective deferrals to a 401(k) plan if they've worked at least 500 hours in three consecutive 12-month periods. It does not require you to make matching or other employment contributions for these long-term part-timers. Key points are just focusing on this. You won't need to pour through your past payroll records to identify eligible part-timers. For purposes of counting hours under the 500-hour rule, only service performed after 2020 is required to be taken into account. Nevertheless, you need to update your payroll system to pinpoint eligible part-timers going forward. It's a new test. You got to do not just the thousand hour test, but also 500 over three years starting in 2020. Okay. That's a big change. It adds a big layer of compliance and regulation. Hopefully you have a good CPA that'll take care of that for you, but make sure to poke them. Alright. Automatic enrollment. Another big change. Employers that sponsor a 401(k) plan or a SIMPLE IRA for that matter can automatically enroll eligible employees in a plan unless the employee is locked out. The SECURE Act creates a new tax credit for employers that establish new 401(k) plans that include automatic enrollment or that convert an existing plan to an automatic enrollment design. The amount of the credit is $500 per year for each of the three tax years beginning with the first year that the employer adopts automatic enrollment feature. New tax credit applies for tax years beginning after 2019, so employers can begin to cash in on the credit this year. For a new plan, the credit applies in addition to the small employer pension plan startup credit for small employers that adopt a new qualified retirement plan. Moreover, for tax years beginning after 2019, the maximum amount of that credit is increased from $500 to as much as $5,000 per year for three years. So there's two big credits at play there. One, well, a small $500 bucks. But if you look at your cost of setting up an IRA, a retirement plan, and you put in an automatic deferral right where they can opt out, instead of doing the traditional way, you're gonna get $500 bucks from the government. Pretty cool. If you're a brand new plan, truly new, and you're not just making a change and you're a small business, you could actually get an additional tax credit on top of that. Talk to your CPA....
Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. This is Rhamy Alejeal, for the People Processes podcast. We dive deep into the tools, laws and yes processes that you need to know in order to scale and grow your organization. This is going to be a super quick episode, consider it a quick update. I just want to throw this out there. Time to change. Don't forget to change your payroll clocks. I know everyone knows about Daylight Savings Time, but a lot of people miss out on some key facts. If you are running a 24 hour operation, this can really really affect your business. So let's think about this. Daylight Savings Time begins Sunday, March 8 2020, when our clocks are going to move forward one hour at 2:00 a.m. local time. On Sunday, November 1, the clocks are going to shift again, when the clock moves back one hour. These days, technology has changed, and has lessened the chore of changing clocks. I mean, when I first got into this business, people were walking around changing their punch clocks. It's crazy. But, smartphones, appliances and many clocks are now programs to automatically adjust for the time change. However, adjusting your payroll timekeeping is not quite so automatic. Many employers simply ignore the clock changes, reasoning that an employee's pay will even out over the course of the year, that's not necessarily the case—and it's not the law. Hourly workers on duty when the clocks change on March 8 will put in one fewer hours than normal. If they worked, I don't know, 10pm to 6am, that's eight hours right? But wait, we're moving forward an hour, they're only going to work seven. For example, shift workers on an eight-hour shift are going to actually work one hour less. So I just went over, well, workers are not required to be paid for the hour that they don't work, many employers choose to ante up for that hours pay anyway, because their system doesn't track it and they don't think about it. You can totally do that. However, if they treat it like a normal hour's pay, you can run into problems and cheat yourself under the wage hour rules, an hour that is not worked does not have to be counted in determining hours worked for overtime purposes, even if the worker is paid for that hour. And the pay for the hour does not have to be included in computing the worker's regular rate of pay for the pay period. On the other hand, since the pay for the extra hour is not compensation for an hour worked, the pay cannot be credited toward any overtime pay due to the employee. So if you pay it, totally can, but don't adjust your overtime basis for that. Okay. It's like a PTO hour, it doesn't go towards their regular work hours. It's a bigger deal in the fall. I wanted to bring this up. Now on a quick episode. When the clocks change in November, shifter workers will actually put in an extra hour. That's a lot harder. Employers that pay only the normal shift rate will be cheating their employees—and they'll be breaking the law. The Department of Labor has ruled that workers must be paid for all hours worked during the time-changing shift. What's more, for overtime purposes, the additional hour must be counted in determining the total number of hours during the work week. So come into the year or November. Anyway, we got to be the other way around the long and short is check your settings, know what you're going to do. Just have a plan. Don't let this catch you off guard. If you have 24 hour shifts, your overnight shift is going to be working one hour less. It's your call on whether you pay that hour or not. But if you do, don't adjust your overtime for it. That's it. Super quick update. Thank you for tuning in. Check us out on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook/peopleprocesses. Love to hear from you. Ask us any questions you have on there. In the meantime, check us out @peopleprocesses.com. Subscribe to get some subscriber only content. Go out there. Have a great day and get your work done.
Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to the People Processes podcast, where we dive deep into the tools, laws, and yes processes that you need to know in order to scale and grow your organization. We help companies all across the United States streamline, optimize, implement, and revolutionize their HR operations. We've helped hundreds of companies and thousands of HR leaders across the world get their people processes right. Today we're going to talk about the strange case of the 27th paycheck here in 2020. Before we go too deep though, I want to ask you to please subscribe to our podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, any podcatcher of your choice. You can also subscribe @peopleprocesses.com which will give you some exclusive subscriber only content. All right, let's dive in. It happens every 11 or 12 years —and 2020 possibly 2021 is one of those years. Depending on your payday, if you pay employees on a biweekly basis, you might be cutting an extra paycheck this year. The 27th paycheck of a 26 pay periods cycle with a biweekly payroll, you normally process 26 paychecks each year. That cycle assumes there are 364 days in the year (26 x 14 days = 364 days). However, as you know, there are actually 365 days in a year and 366 in Olympia. Those extra days eventually catch up with your pay cycle, resulting in an extra 27th pay day in a single year. For example, if you pay your employees on Wednesday, your first payday of January 2020 fell on January 1 and your 26th pay date will fall on December 16 —with an extra 27th paycheck due on December 30, suppose. Similarly, if you pay on Thursday, that's January 2 and the final 27th payroll will be December 31. And then for many, many, many of you you pay on Friday. For you, it's going to be a normal 26 payday year —but that 27th paycheck is going to show up in 2021, with the first paycheck due January 1 and the 27th on December 31. For hourly workers whose wages are calculated on a paycheck-by-paycheck basis. This is no problem. The 27th paycheck doesn't mean anything for salaried workers whose annual pay is prorated over the number of paydays in a year, it's a different story. According to numerous surveys, the majority of employers, something like 80% take a pay as usual approach to the set 27th paycheck. For example, if an employee's annual salary is $52 grand, his or her gross income or gross pay comes to $2000 bucks per paycheck in that normal 26-paycheck year. So, with the pay-as-usual approach, the employee is going to get an extra 27th paycheck with an extra $2000 bucks of gross pay. So that's kind of cool. You're gonna wind up paying $54,000 for that person. On the other hand, you (or your payroll software) may have already recalculated the employee’s per-paycheck amount to be based on 27 paydays for the rest of the year. So, for an example, an employee earning $52,000 will receive 27 paychecks based on $1,926 approximately of gross pay instead of $2000, kind of depends on what kind of system you're using. Employers —especially those who have not planned ahead—may be tempted to simply skip the 27th paycheck per salaried employee. That's not legal. It's going to almost always run afoul of federal or at least state wage-hour laws—and it's probably not going to make your employees too happy. We'll have a four week gap between their paychecks right after Christmas, wouldn't recommend that. Whatever approach you take, that's okay, but you need to communicate with your employees. If you choose a pay-as-usual approach, employees should be alerted that the extra paycheck is a one-shot deal and that their annual wages will revert to normal levels the following year. If paychecks are prorated over 27 weeks, the drop in their biweekly pay should be carefully explained to your salaried employees. Also, this is important too. Check the payroll deductions. The extra payday will also impact payroll deductions for benefits like...
Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to the People Processes podcast, where we dive deep into the tools, laws and yes processes that you need to know in order to scale and grow your organization. My name is Rhamy Alejeal, I'm the CEO of People Processes. We help organizations all across the USA streamline, optimize, implement, and revolutionize their HR operations. We've helped hundreds of companies across the U S ,thousands of HR leaders across the world get their people processes right. Today, we're going to be diving into the Tax-Free Mileage Reimbursement Stuff for 2020. It's a little dry stick with me. It's kind of interesting. We're going to be covering the changes that came up here in 2020, make sure you're all set to go forward. In the meantime though, before we dive to date, please subscribe to the podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, any podcatcher you like. You can also subscribe at peopleprocesses.com, which will put you on our email list and send you subscriber only content. I look forward to seeing you on one of those. Now let's talk about this. The IRS has announced that the standard mileage rate for 2020 is 57.5 cents per mile. That's down from 58 cents per mile for 2019. If your company reimburses employees for business use of employees’ own cars, the expenses are deemed substantial in 2020 as long as it does not exceed 57.5 cents per business mile, regardless of the employee's actual cost. I said substantial. It’s substantiated. A reimbursement is free of employment taxes as long as the employee provides your company with a record of the time, place, business purpose, and number of miles traveled. The employee is not required to provide a record of actual expenses or receipts. Instead, they provide you a log and as long as you are paying at 57.5 cents, you're good. However, if you give more than this year, let's say you didn't update your payroll, now you're paying 58 cents. You do not. You have to actually produce a supporting record of actual expenses. The excess under beyond that is treated as a “non-accountable plan" and it actually gets taxed as wages. On the other hand, you're not required to pay the 57.5 cents. If you go the standard route, expenses are deemed substantiated as long as the employee reimbursement rate does not exceed 57.5 so you could do 50, you can do 45, but you can't do more than 57.5 unless you're actually accounting for every penny of the employees. Depreciation on their vehicle mileage, your share of their oil changes, it's a very complex reminder. In the past, the business standard mileage rate could be used by an employees to claim a miscellaneous itemized deduction (subject to a 2% deduction floor) for unreimbursed business travel expenses. So if you didn't reimburse them, they used to be able to write this off themselves. However, the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCGA), suspended such miscellaneous itemized deductions for 2018 through 2025, that's I.R.C. Section 67, link on our website at peopleprocesses.com if you want to read about it. Therefore, the business standard mileage rate cannot be used to claim a deduction for unreimbursed employee travel expenses. Similarly, under prior law, an employee could claim a miscellaneous itemized deduction for the amount by which his or her actual expenses for driving exceeded the amount reimbursed by an employer, as well as for expenses such as parking and tolls that were not covered by an employer-provided mileage allowance. These deductions are also disallowed in any year during the suspension period 2018 to 2025. So if you don't reimburse your employees for mileage used to be, they could write it off on their taxes. Now they can't. Okay. So if you reimburse, it needs to be under 57.5. If you don't reimburse, you're kind of screwing your employees. This is a great way to send them some tax-free money. There are other ways of doing this. This also talks about, what's called...
Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to the People Processes podcast, where we dive deep into the tools, laws and yes processes that you need to know in order to scale and grow your organization. My name is Rhamy Alejeal, I'm the CEO of People Processes and I'm excited to have you here. We help organizations all across the United States streamline, optimize, implement, and revolutionize their HR operations. We've helped hundreds of companies and thousands of HR leaders across the world get their people processes right. Today we're doing a little update on what the heck is going on with the Affordable Care Act. Things are changing. Before we go, I want to take a quick second to ask you to please subscribe to our podcast. It makes a huge difference. You can find us on iTunes, Google podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, any podcast or you like. You can also subscribe on peopleprocesses.com which gives you some subscriber-only content exclusive updates. We really appreciate that. So let's dive into this battle over the Affordable Care Act. The fate of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obamacare", including the many provisions affecting employers, such as the employer Mandate to provide health coverage - remains in limbo. A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a 2018 district court decision that the law's individual responsibility provision, the individual mandate, requiring individuals to maintain health coverage violates the U S Constitution. However, unlike the lower court, the Fifth Court did not automatically stripe down the remainder of the law. In a 2012 decision, the U S Supreme Court held that the ACA’s individual mandate was a constitutional exercise of Congress's power to levy and collect taxes. This was a big deal. It was huge news. It's a National Foundation of Independent Businesses versus Sabellius. If you ever want to look up the case exactly.I have a link on our website, peopleprocesses.com. However, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the Trump Tax Plan from 2017, effectively eliminated the individual mandate. It reduced the penalty for failure to maintain health coverage to zero beginning in 2019. That made a huge difference because now based on that change, Texas district court concluded that the individual mandate is no longer part of a tax. It no longer represents an exercise of Congress's taxing powers and is therefore unconstitutional. Remember, it was only approved under their ability to tax. The court held that the individual mandate is “essential to” and “inseverable” from the other provisions of the ACA rendering those provisions unconstitutional as well. The district court did not issue an injunction barring enforcement of the ACA. Instead, they stayed its ruling pending a decision by an appeal of the Fiscal Fifth Circuit Court. So this is important to understand. The court found that the law is not going to work, but they didn't issue an injunction. So that means that if you are an employer, it's February, you need to do your 1095s, 1094s. The ACA mandate is still in effect. It went up to the Fifth Circuit Court and in their new decision, they agreed that the individual mandate is unconstitutional because “it can no longer be read as a tax and there is no other constitutional provision that justifies this exercise of congressional power.” However, the Appeals Court did not accept the district court's decision. That the demise of that one part of the law of the individual mandate rendered the entire law invalid. Instead, the Appeals Court sent the case back to the district court to “explain with precision” how the remaining provisions of the ACA “rise or fall on the constitutionality of the individual mandate.” “It may still be”, said the court, “that none of the ACA is severable from the individual mandate even after this inquiry is concluded. It may be that all of the ACA is severable from the individual mandate. It may also be that some of the...
Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to the People Processes podcast, where we dive deep into the tools, laws and processes that you need to know in order to scale and grow your organization. We help organizations all across the USA, streamline, awfulize, implement, and revolutionize their HR operations. We've helped hundreds of companies, thousands of HR leaders across the world get their people processes right. Today we're going to be interviewing Jacqueline Throop Robinson. Did I get that name right? Jacqueline? The Thoop Robinson? That is correct. Awesome. And she is the founder and CEO of Spark Engagement. A Spark Engagement is a Global Analytics Company in human resources. They focus on employee engagement and passion. So we're going to be talking all about that today and we can't wait. Before we do, I want to give you a quick reminder to subscribe to us on your favorite podcatcher of your choice, whether that's iTunes or Google play. Check us out on our social media. We'll have links to Jacqueline's social media on the website peopleprocesses.com and we can't wait to see you there. So Jacqueline, here we are. Got the interview together. Yes. Wonderful. Thank you. I'm excited to have you here today. Now, I always ask this question because we're in kind of an interesting field because HR world of ours, not many little girls and boys dress up as HR people as children. So I have to know, how did you wind up where you are, how'd you get to running a company that's focusing on this analytics and engagement for your clients? Well, you're exactly right. It is not what I thought I would be doing when I started to get my master's in English literature. But however, interestingly, I ended up working for a very, very large corporation in my mid twenties and I had absolutely no HR background and yet I found, I just gravitated toward it. So I think because I was given a fairly senior position at a very young age. I didn't have any baggage. So I really had to rely on the people who were reporting to me to do their jobs, to do it well. I could not give them advice from a technical point of view. I'm only in one small facet of what we were doing and they had the expertise elsewhere. So it really led me to nurturing the relationships and ensuring that I removed obstacles for them and to really enable them to do their job to the best of their ability. And seeing the magic of that is what started to lead me to look more into formal HR processes and education. And so I really went from being a senior manager in a field operations into a head office position in human resources. So it really just naturally evolved. That's really cool. You know, a lot wind up in HR one way or the other. And it's so fun to kind of see the through lines. And I've heard that many times that the reason we're here is because we were put in a position where you were forced to realize that your people are the most important thing. It's not about how much you personally know skilled wise, but to really grow an organization, it's about the quality, the talent the abilities, and passion of the people you bring on. Yeah. So it does and it's just so interesting because really I was recruited because the manager felt I would learn quickly and I would have a different perspective, but I really didn't have the formal training. And it's so funny when I think about it, I just kept listening to my parents' voices and saying, "Trust people, just trust the people you're with." And I let that guide my decision making and it's really quite amazing to see how that mantra has just kind of evolved into this whole employee engagement business and really looking at passion at work and just how much those two ideas connect. Really a world-class career. I mean, you have clients, not just in North America, but I mean in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, all over the world. Yes. Do you get to travel to meet with them? Are you out there or are you more
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the People Processes podcast. I'm Rhamy Alejeal and today I am so excited to bring you Sue Salvemini. She is an author, speaker, and executive leadership coach. She helps leaders and teams align their work with their core values for maximum impact and fulfillment. She is also the founder and president of Focal Point Consulting Group. She founded it in 2016 and she is passionate about helping individuals connect with their authentic leadership style and love the work they do. She wrote a book, it came out in May, 2018. It's called “Leadership by Choice,” seven keys for maximizing your impact and influence in the workplace right where you are and it draws on her over 25 years of experience in the corporate world and in the military to give those great lessons. Sue, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks Rhamy. It's great to be here today. Well, Sue, I always start with this. Not many people dress up as eight year olds, as business consultants or advisors. It's just not something they think they're going to be when they grow up. So how on earth did you go from your start in this career up to where you are now? What's your journey like? Oh, it's a great question. It's been such a great journey and it's still very much a journey. But you know, I was in the military. So right out of college, I was in the army as an officer and in leadership roles at a very early age from the military. I then had the great privilege to work in medical device sales, working in operating rooms. And over the years was through Johnson and Johnson. Gradually moved from sales representative to manager, to leader and led teams and whatnot. And fast forward, a few iterations and companies moving from the big corporate company right down to the ground level startup company. I came to a crossroad when my startup company was being acquired and I had to pause and say, “okay, so what do you want to be when you grow up?” Now that you're about 20 plus, we go 20 plus, we never say anything over plus 20 plus years in. And I could very easily have stayed in this amazing world of medical device technology and startup companies, which I loved. But I just sat down and got real with myself and I did. What I did was I became very prayerful. I gave myself a real month to just really dig deep and get real with what my strengths were, what my passions were, what my vision for myself, my family, and a greater vision for the world was. And it all bubbled down to, I've always loved people leading and working with people and leading and working with leaders. And I love speaking, training and coaching. And it was really literally one morning at like 6:00 AM after days of lots of thought and reflection that it came to me. Follow your dream, follow your heart and go work to help people be exceptional at what they do. And the vision for focal point was formed. And I got goosebumps that morning. I get goosebumps as I'm telling you right now. And it was just crystal clear that my passion and my heart and my God given talents were around working with individuals and teams. Helping them realize how great they are and how great they can be and go out and help make that happen. And so I wanted to do that. That's really where it started. You know, someone's in the right job when they talk about it, you feel like they have the coolest job like that. How lucky you are to have that job. Of course it was a heck of a journey to get there. But like when you talk about what you do, it's like, man, I want to be like that when I grow up too. That's exactly the best job in the world for me. I have to tell you. So now you're in this position, you've got a focal point, you're advising clients, you're well-established. But I know along the way there had to be some pretty low lows. And a lot of our clients, a lot of our listeners are starting off their companies and they're just getting into this world of scaling and growing teams. Some of them are in the...
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the People Processes podcast. I'm your host, Rhamy Alejeal, and I am really excited today to bring you Thomas Veeman. The co-founder of Conversari Global. They upgrade people for the future of work. Thomas has worked in the United States, Germany, Switzerland, India, and Thailand. He's lived in Mexico City since 2012. He draws on his international background to teach executive courses on emotional and cultural intelligence. Thomas is especially passionate about using experiential and narrative methods to help teams bridge cultural and communication divides. I'm excited to have you on here, Thomas. The pleasure is mine as well, Rhamy. Well, Thomas, the first question I ask all of our guests, you know, not everybody dresses up as a kid for as an HR person or a business owner. It's not the most common life choices that get us here. How did you wind up where you are now? How did you get into this crazy world? Well, that's a great question and it's a long story. As a kid, I certainly never thought I would do anything related to business. Actually, I grew up moving back and forth between Switzerland and the United States. My mom's Swiss and my father's an American. And I think it's kind of like that was the era before you had cell phones. But if we imagine it in today's world, it's kind of like every year I had to switch the SIM card in my brain to work with a different set of values, a different set of rules for how to behave. That was just normal to me. I learned later on and even growing up that's not necessarily normal for everyone else. If I fast forward, I thought i was going to be a pilot because pilots, they travel a lot and that would allow me to do that. Yeah. I didn't become a pilot. If I fast forward, several years, later on after college where I studied in the U S. I Had been going to Switzerland and I studied in Thailand as well. My first real job in which I got to see a way to apply more of myself than just a job working the forests of Oregon. And later as in wilderness therapy in Arizona. And through that work when I really got to see was the beauty of it. Of people learning not only something that they can do to make themselves more effective, because the whole job and being effective as a job wasn't very compelling to me as something to do with your life growing up. But when I saw him here, these were practical lessons that you learned. You've figured out, if we use this kind of plant in this way. If you use your effort to make this tool, then you get these skills that make your life happier and getting to be part of that and seeing that within people kind of switch to chip for me and said, “you know what, that's something I need to find a way to do with my life.” Wow. What an interesting background. Just to start with, but then to have those experiences after college. And so you said, all right, this kind of work moves me. It's something I could see myself doing. There is great value in it. How did you go from that to co-founding an incredibly successful company? Yeah, the road was interesting. From working in wilderness therapy, I realized, if I'm going to take this step forward in my career, what could I do if I had a family or to be able to buy a house and afford a life. I gotta pay those bills, right? Meet the practical requirements of life. Well, the next step was either go into the therapeutic side. So to be a therapist, a masters in psychology now at the time, life is complicated. So I was dating a woman in Monterrey, Mexico. And through that long distance relationship we had to figure out well to keep this relationship a chance, where do I go? She worked for the United Nations here in Mexico City, so she couldn't move. I had to come here. So I thought, well, what am I going to do that's relevant? Professionally, if I come to Mexico City. And I found this great program, Masters in Counseling Psychology that I could do here, that brought me here. Now studying
Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to the People Processes podcast. My name is Rhamy Alejeal, and today we are interviewing Linda Brown. Linda is awesome. She is a Master Certified Profit First Professional. She's a Certified Preventive Growth coach and she's the founder of Spire Business Inc. Linda supports entrepreneurs in demystifying their business finances and providing guidance to increase business profits so that they can bring more money home. She's often referred to as the Voice of Reasons by her clients, Linda Equis, business owners with the tools, strategies and skills they need in order to create sustainable growth in their business and profit. We're excited to have you on, Linda. Thank you so much for having me. It's a wonderful opportunity. Well, we're glad you're here. So my first question is, and I have to ask this for our people in our field, most kids don't dress up as CPAs and accountants and bookkeepers when they're kids. How did you wind up in the field and doing what you do today? By accident, but most people kind of fell into that one. I was actually in corporate America for about 14 years where I was a securities analyst for mutual fund companies. I didn't have enough people interaction, so I went there to make a profit. Let's just say I worked on a lot of estate plans. But what I realized is that, all entrepreneurs , when they were having their estate plans done, they didn't actually know how much money they were making or how they would bring it into their business. Interestingly enough. At the same time I was a financial planning, I also had started a boat dealership with my husband. So I literally went out on maternity leave and within six weeks, my CPA came up to me and said, "Hey, you know, QuickBooks? I have a couple of clients that need some help. Would you please help them sell for the first five years?" I actually did this for free. They didn't charge it all. I charged nothing. I went home on maternity leave. I said, "Hey, this is really cool." I didn't go back to work. I just helped a couple of clients that the CPA sent to me. Yeah. It was, will you work for free? The answer is yes, I did. I helped businesses grow tremendously and then all of a sudden saying, Hey, I'm helping all these businesses grow and I'm not making any money. There's something that's not right here. So then I started actually creating the business. So if you were one of those lucky clients between 2002 and 2007 and there was no charge. Well, that's it. That's tuition, right? That's you. You got to really learn and do the real life work. That's a great journey. Well, having back in 2002 you've been doing this a while now. A lot of our listeners are CPAs and bookkeepers. Most of them though are entrepreneurs or HR leaders who are in charge of the staffing and organization inside their company when they're listening. A lot of our guests are very successful people like yourself. I try to bring that back because the biggest learning doesn't come from talking to somebody who knows everything. A lot of times it comes from the big mistakes and the problems. So I'm hoping Linda, you will take us to your greatest entrepreneurial failure mistake bad day. And tell us that story, how you got there and what happened. My bad day is actually digging out of the hole right now. To be honest, as most entrepreneurs, I was really good with numbers and business and could run my business really well. And most entrepreneurs start their business for whatever reason they start their business. Yours is HR, someone else might be interior design or engineering, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we know all the aspects of business to run our business. So mine was the numbers. I was really good at the numbers, but the marketing, not so much. I grew for the first 14 years by word of mouth. It was really good. I had enough time to do my stay-at-home mom’s stuff and I had enough time to do business stuff. But when I decided,...
Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen. This is Rhamy Alejeal, your host of People Processes. We're so excited to have you tune in today. Today we are interviewing Lee Caraher. She is the founder and CEO of double forte PR, did a double forte PR and digital marketing. She is the author of “Millennials and Management: The Essential Guide To Making it Work at Work.” She based the book on her experience with epically failing and then succeeding at retaining millennials in her business. Her second book, “The Boomerang Principle, Inspire Lifetime Loyalty From Employees” was published in 2017. It's a pragmatic and actionable guide to creating high performing work cultures ready for the future. And we are so excited to have her on. Lee, are you there? I'm here, Rhamy. Thank you so much for having me. Well, I'm ecstatic to have you. I want to start with figuring out how you got into your current business, doing PR and really writing a lot about HR work. So I started my PR career after college. I graduated from Carleton College in Minnesota with a degree in medieval history. Very helpful. I did not know what I was going to do when my friend Ramona and I were talking and she said, you should really check out this PR thing. I think you'd do well in it. And so I checked it out and here I am almost a little more than 30 years later having been in the public relations career and communications career my whole career. 30 years, man, you must start it at I guess what age, age to age, three rolled right out of college. Sorry. You know, I'm very enhanced. Sure. Well, in 30 years of doing this, I know you've had some crazy highs and some probably pretty rough lows. So what I love to do is start with our guests talking about their toughest time, because I think our listeners learn more from the failures in our guests stories and they do from the successes. So why don't you take us really to that time, maybe even like a specific day you realized you had a problem, what happened and tell us that story. Then we can talk about maybe some of the things that our listeners could learn. Sure. So I started my company with a co-founder, a very good friend who we'd worked together many years before we started the company. In four years he said, I really don't wanna do this PR thing anymore, Lee. He left the company and actually he came back and then he left again. Which is about my second book, boomerang. But well, going forward, a few years ago I was thinking about what is next for the company. The company needs to transcend my tenure there and who would take over for me. There really wasn't anybody in the company who either wanted to or could become the CEO of the entity. So I was intent on bringing somebody in. I did that. I brought someone I knew pretty well. I thought of the company and some cultural things were a bit different as you always will. You know, everything is not static. But my gut, I was very intent on finding this person and getting that person in place which I did. After a couple of years, that thing happened, it was like, Oh well, it's just him. He's just different than me, etc. And then one day or one week, he lost four clients all at the same time, really for the same reason. Not for our performance, but really about him. And I was like, okay, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I go, you have to listen to your gut. So, we parted ways and I wished him well. But it takes a long time to recover from that. You know, you don't just like one day have a succession plan and the next day, get rid of that person and say, okay, everything's okay. You really have to read it. Right. The cascading. Yeah. We had a guest not too long ago, in a very similar situation. Brought on a COO with the idea of this person eventually taking over in the the investment and transition time to getting them up and then, that person not working out. It's a morale hit, if nothing else, not to mention operational hits your bottom line as well. Right. So, yeah. Not...
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the people processes podcast. I'm your host, Rhamy Alejeal and I am excited today to welcome Jake Baddsgaard. He is an amazing entrepreneur. After growing one of his first pay-per-click clients from 25 to 250 employees, Jake realized that he had a gift for using Pay-per-Click marketing to drive dramatic business results. To help more companies succeed online. Jake found a disrupted IV advertising, PPC and CRO management agency that has helped hundreds of companies realize unprecedented growth and profitability from online advertising. Of course, as an HR channel, though we're more interested in that. In the last six years since its founding, disruptive advertising has grown from two employees working in Jake's basement to a flourishing agency with more than 160 employees and a run rate of over 20 million, puts it at number 145 on the 2017 inc 500 list and is listed as one of USA today's best places to work in Salt Lake City in 2019. So we're ecstatic to have you here, Jake. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me, Rhamy. Well Jake, on a lot of kids don't necessarily dress up as marketing guys and business owners when they're eight years old, you got to tell me, how did you wind up getting into this industry? You know, you're right. I never did dress up as a marketing agent, right? Well, and how many of our businesses were even around when we were kids, right? Like, this is a whole new world. It's interesting that you asked that question because there's probably a trillion things that happened that ultimately led to where I'm at today. And I look back from the first job I had when I was eight years old. The first business idea I tried to execute on at a young age. Ultimately I would probably almost pin it down to the moment that I experienced in my corporate career. Before going down this entrepreneurial path, which I kind of just had realized, that moment in an annual performance review where I realized I will no longer have the growth as a person. Professionally or financially that I'm looking for from here. It was my moment of either choosing to settle or choosing to move on and, and to create that environment for myself. I would say, that was probably more of the real moment that kind of catapulted me down the path that I'm on. I was realizing that I wasn't gonna find the fulfillment I was looking for in life if I didn't take that chance. Unfortunately, my wife was supportive in that decision. Yup. A good partner is everything, isn't it? Yeah. Well, you've been in business a while and of course you've grown to a very successful company with a great revenue and good employees. But a lot of our listeners are in an earlier phase of their company. They're still about maybe bridging out on their own or they're part of a larger organization. I think a lot of them kind of get caught up in thinking about what success looks like. But it's the failures along the way that teach us the most. So I always ask my guests to share with us their largest entrepreneurial mistake, failure, really, really, really bad day. And tell us that actual story, like what happened and how'd you feel and how did it come about? And then we'll talk a little bit about what our listeners can learn from it. Yeah. Well, you know, when you asked that question, I imagined myself holding a scroll with all of the failures that I've had as an entrepreneur and like opening that up, letting it drop to the floor, and it just keeps rolling. Right? It's the hardest thing for every entrepreneur I ask. Yeah. It's hard. It's a journey of ups and downs, but, I want you to think of your worst one. Well, let's just go ahead and get personal on this one. A lot of this becomes more in focus with a little bit of hindsight in perspective. And what I realized at what probably the biggest failure that I had, and I'll relate this to a specific experience that I went through. The illusion that finding success as an entrepreneur would fill...
Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to the people processes podcast where we dive deep into the tools, laws, and yes processes that you need to scale and grow your people processes. I'm your host, Rhamy Alejeal, and I'm the CEO of People Processes. My company helps organizations all across the United States streamline, optimize, implement, and revolutionize their HR operations. We've helped hundreds of companies and thousands of HR leaders across the world get their people processes right. Today, we're going to be answering some questions that have been submitted either by our clients or through our social media. Please check us out over at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. You can find the links at peopleprocesses.com where you can ask any questions like these that are going to come up in our Q&A today. Specifically, we're gonna be talking about FMLA and workers' compensation. We're going to be talking about required religious holidays and a few more topics. Before we dive too deep, though, I want to ask you, please subscribe to our podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, pretty much any pod catcher of your choice. You can also subscribe at peopleprocesses.com which will give you exclusive subscriber only content. Now let's dive in. Okay. First question. Are employers required to grant employees time off from work for religious holidays? That's a good question. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. It says that covered employers must make a reasonable accommodations for employees religious observances. So if you fall under title 7, which generally applies to employers with 15 or more employees, though many state laws create similar obligations for smaller employers. But at a federal level, 15 or more, you fall under the title 7 of the CRA. The act clearly States that, an accommodation for an employee's religion must be made. The only way you're out of that is, if the employer can demonstrate that they are unable to reasonably accommodate the religious observance without undue hardship. So that means upon request, you would open a file, you would look at it, you would say, this is the request, this is the burden on the company. We cannot support that burden. That burden is undue. According to the EEOC, an accommodation may cause undue hardship if it is costly compromises workplace safety, decreases workplace efficiency, infringes on the rights of other employees or requires other employees to do more than their fair share of more than their share, no fair of potentially hazardous or burdensome work. So the way I would do it if you're a smaller company and you're worried about this. Request, wants religious holiday, employee name, date of request, who was requested to a manager name or whatever. And then the HR or a small company business owner stick this definition right there at the top. EEOC says this and then determination. This would or would not cause undue burden. And then resolution granted leave. One thing to know. Federal law does not require employers to compensate employees at all for time taken off in observance of a religious holiday practice or belief. So if you don't have a PTO policy or something like that, you can let them off unpaid. However, an employer must offer the same options for religious holiday requests as it does for other time off requests. So you have to let them use their PTO if they're going to use that, whether it's vacation or personal leave, those sorts of things. Hope that answers your question. Again, start a file. Do your EOC check on undue burden. Make your determination. You do have to check it though. Okay. Next question. Can an employer require its employees to use their accrued PTO during an employer-required lay-off or time-off or furlough? And If salaried exempt employees worked during the furlough, how is pay calculated for these employees? Okay, those are good questions. An employer can require employees to use PTO...
Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to the People Processes podcast where we dive deep into the tools, laws and yes policies and processes that you need to scale and grow your people processes. I'm your host, Rhamy Alejeal and I'm the CEO of People Processes. My company helps organizations all across the USA streamline, optimize, implement, and revolutionize their HR operations. We've helped hundreds of companies and thousands of HR leaders across the world get their people processes right. Today, we're going to take a look at a new study that's come out. A survey that says, the pervasive use of short term incentives among private employers is now at 99%. We are talking about what that is, why it's important and why if you are one of the smaller private companies, you need to be taking a look at it too. Before we go deep, I want to ask you to please subscribe to our podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, pretty much any podcast or of your choice. You can also subscribe at peopleprocesses.com which will give you exclusive subscriber only content. Okay. Let's dive right in. Short term incentives is this, the use of it across almost every larger size private employer shows the desire to reward employee performance and compete for talent in a tight labor market. Even nonprofits and government organizations, 68% of them make use of short-term incentives. These are the two of the primary findings caption. The 2019 incentive pay practices, privately held companies and 2019 incentive pay practices, nonprofit government organizations which were conducted by worldwide work in partnership with compensation advisory partners. These surveys go all the way back to 2007 and have now run every year. Some of the key findings in this report is that spending on STI reflect 6.5% of all operating profit at median up from 6% or down from 6% in 2017 and up from 5% in prior years. So 6.5% of operating profit at medium, up from 6% in 2017 and 5% in prior years. Got my columns off wrong. Companies are allocating more to reward, attract and retain talent. Let's talk for a second about what an STI is. A short term incentive. That's basically a bonus tied very tightly to a specific project, a KPI, a weekly, monthly, quarterly project. It's not an annual bonus or it may be an annual bonus but it's not something based on like long-term company profitability like equity. Like large companies a lot of times offer stock options. Those are example of a long-term incentive. Short term incentives are, Hey look, we've been this year or this quarter or this month you've got this project done, this job, we're going to do a bonus. And if you look across larger privately held organizations, now 99% some method of that short term incentive and end the nonprofits 68% and small government are using it is blowing me away. Annual incentive plans are the most common type of STI. Those are at 86% compared to spot awards. Project bonuses as firms seem to be consolidating their STI spending unstructure. Structured annual incentive plans that can incorporate company-wide financial metrics and other objectives rather than it being that more project-based. There is an uptake in long-term incentive plan, 62% versus 54% in 2017 which means that they are as a lot more people who are offering equity or profit sharing match over the long-term, those kinds of things. One of the most compelling takeaways of the 2019 survey is the increased use of LTI plans by private companies said Sue Holloway, CCP CCP director of an executive compensation strategy world at work. She went on to say private companies realize they need this total rewards component to up their game to compete with public companies for top management talent. Regarding the nonprofit sector, three out of four, 76% nonprofits use STIs in some way or another. For these organizations, STI spending is around 2% of operating budget at meeting median. So take all of your operations...
Rhamy Alejeal: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the people processes podcast. I'm your host, Rhamy Alejeal and I am excited today to bring you Dr. Angela Lauria. Dr. Angela is the founder of the author incubator and creator of different processes for writing a book that matters. In 2018, The Author Incubator was ranked #275 on the Inc. 500 fastest growing companies and #87 on Entrepreneur Magazine’s Entrepreneur 360. Angela is an expert when it comes to building teams and scaling businesses and we are ecstatic to have her on the show. Welcome Angela. Dr. Lauria: Thanks. I'm so excited to be here. Rhamy Alejeal: Great. Well you got to start telling me how you got into what you do now. It's a very cool niche and I know you've got a great story on how you got there. Dr. Lauria: It is super cool. And I actually was recruited when I was in college to start working for an espionage author. He was a New York times bestselling author and wrote spy stories. I'm in Washington DC so I got my career tracking spies around Northern Virginia and helping journalists write books about them. And I know I was really lucky. And from there, I had an accidental freelance business. I spent 19 years as a ghost writer, proofreader, editor, blurb writer, publicist, anything in the book industry. I was doing it and my family would always ask me, when are you going to get a real job? And I sort of wondered that myself. So I was like, maybe I'll go to law school, maybe I'll get an MBA. And all of a sudden a couple of decades had passed and I still hadn't figured out what I was going to do when I grew up. And all the work that I did with books I was generating. I'm often for businesses upwards of 2000, leads a month from books that I'd done with them. And they were generating millions of dollars in revenue. But I sort of thought of it like pet sitting or babysitting dog walking. It didn't feel like a real job cause I got it in college and I just charged hourly. And I didn't even have a website. I didn't have a company name. I was just like a girl who helped people with books. And suddenly I was a mom with a two year old who helped people with books. And I was like, I gotta figure out who I want to be when I grow up. And I found this book called finding your own North star. What I searched for on Amazon was books, like what color is your parachute? And I want to take a quiz that said like, you should be a personal injury attorney. And then I would like go do that. And what this book said was, you should do what you lose track of time doing. And for me that was reading personal development books and reading and writing and editing the personal development business, books, nonfiction, like that was always my sweet spot. And I ended up hiring this woman as a life coach to help me figure out what I could make, how can I make money doing this? Cause all the books I had done were in a completely different genre and helped me. She actually trained me as a life coach. Her name is Martha Beck and I got trained as a life coach and she's like, you can work with life coaches on their books. And I didn't, I couldn't see the money. I couldn't see the revenue. I couldn't see myself as a business owner. I sort of saw myself as a freelancer and I read about probably seven years, not quite seven years, six years really working on myself. And then in 2013, I started the author incubator and we help life coaches write books just like that one Martha Beck wrote and I hired her. So I read her book, I hired her, I went to a three day workshop that was like $3,000 and then I spent another 7,000 7,500 doing life coach training with her. So within about a year of finding her book, I spent $10,000 with her and now I help other life coaches generate clients that are worth about $10,000 each. Generally our authors write books that generate between 25 and 50 clients in a year from their book....
Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to the people processes podcast where we dive deep into the tools, laws and processes that you need to scale and grow your people processes. I'm your host, Rhamy Alejeal and I'm the CEO of people processes. My company helps organizations all across the United States streamline, optimize, implement, and revolutionize their HR operations. We've helped hundreds of companies, thousands of HR leaders across the world get their people processes right. Today, I'm excited to dive in a little bit into a new Trump department of labor health and human services regulation that talks about insurance regulation, how fun, how sexy, how crazy, but this insurance regulations a little different. It says that insurance companies are going to have to disclose how much you will pay for a service before you get it. Whoa. Before we dive too deep, I just want to ask you to please subscribe to our podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, pretty much any pod catcher you like. We're there. You can also subscribe to peopleprocesses.com which is what I love because we give you exclusive subscriber only content in there, like our new on-boarding checklist for 2020 with updated information about the four pretty cool setup. Check it out at peopleprocesses.com. All right, let's dive right into this thing. So what is Trump doing? Okay. On November 27th, 2019 the U S department of labor, health and human services and the treasury jointly issued a proposed rule. That rule is actually linked on the peopleprocesses.com website if you want to read it in depth yourself. That rule is going to require group health plans and health insurance issuers in the individual and group markets to disclose price and call sharing information upon request to participants, beneficiaries and enrollees or their authorized representatives. So that means your actual plan participants, your employees, their spouses and their kids, if they ask the proposal would give consumers real time personalized access to call sharing information including an estimate of their call sharing liability for all covered healthcare items and services through an online tool that most group health plans and health insurance issuers would be required to make available to all of their members and even in paper form at the consumer's request. Good Lord, I can't even imagine. Maybe that'd be a two week process to get a letter in the mail or something. This is going to help consumers compare costs between specific providers before receiving care. So imagine you know you need a knee surgery rather than knowing your deductible and your out-of-pocket and assuming, all right, well this is gonna max it out or maybe it will be less or Hey, my doc said it'd probably be around three grand and then trying to figure out what that would mean. You could use the online tool, look up specific pre-negotiated rates with specific carriers or with your insurance carrier, with specific providers and get an actual estimate of what you would pay given your deductible spend so far, your max deductible, your max out of pocket, your co-insurance rate and their negotiated rate with that provider. It would allow you to shop providers. This could be huge. Together the agencies concluded that the additional price transparency efforts are necessary to empower a more price conscious and responsible healthcare consumer, promote competition in the healthcare industry and lower the overall rate of growth in healthcare spending. Look, I don't care what your politics are. Healthcare spending has gone crazy for a long time. Really since the mid 2000's before Obamacare. Though Obamacare really added some costs in there too. It's been a roughing and one of the reasons is that employees and just consumers in general can't shop you. It's like you went to best buy and you had to just trust the best. And he's like, I want a TV. And then he goes and picks it for you. And...
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the people processes podcast where we dive deep into the tools, your laws and processes that you need to scale and grow your people processes. I'm your host, Rhamy Alejeal and I'm the CEO of people processes. My company helps organizations all across the USA streamline, optimize, implement, and revolutionize their HR operations. We've helped hundreds of companies and thousands of HR leaders across the world get their people processes right. Today, we are going to look into the new form W4 for 2020. We're going to talk about when it's used, how it's used, a little bit of the history of it, and we're going to actually open it up and walk through it together, but before we go that deep, I want to ask you to please subscribe to our podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, pretty much any podcatcher of your choice. You can also subscribe at peopleprocesses.com which will give you exclusive subscriber only content and I'd love to see you there. Now let's dive right in. A little bit of history. In May 2019, not too long ago, the IRS issued a first draft of the 2020 form W4 employees withholding allowance certificate. This new form will help employees improve withholding accuracy and fully reflect the changes including in the TCG JA the tax cut and jobs act of 2017 which contained major revisions affecting taxpayer withholding. Since then, we've had to use the old form still and it doesn't provide as much information as is needed, and some irrelevant information based on the new law. The redesigned W4 no longer uses the concept of withholding allowances, which was previously tied to the amount of the personal exemption due to changes in the law. Personal exemptions are currently not a central feature of the tax code. The primary goals of the new design are to provide simplicity, accuracy, and privacy for employees while minimizing the burden for employers and payroll processors like us, at least according to the IRS. So what happened in August, 2019, the IRS released a second draft of the form. The title of the W4 was changed to employee's withholding certificate. Removing the word allowance from an entirely the computation of withholding did not change from the first draft at all. Employees who have submitted a form W4 in any year before 2020 will not be required to submit a new form merely because of the redesign. They made that clear in the instructions in the second draft, employers can continue to re compete withholding based on the information from the employees. Most recently submitted W4. So when do you start using this? You start using this on new hires starting in 2020. Also, if someone wants to make a change to their withholding in 2020, you use the new W4, not the old one, but you don't need to worry about blasting this out to all of your employees and getting new documents all for January. Just recently, December 4, 12 days before this recording, the IRS issued the final form W4 for 2020 changes since the last draft include basically minor edits to the verbiage. Also on page two under your privacy, more language was added to help the taxpayer understand exactly what went, what checking the box in step 2 may do to withholding. We'll talk about that in a second. Basically they gave a little bit more information. The IRS encourages all tax professionals to become familiar with the new forms so that they can help tax payers with proper withholding in 2020 so let's get into that form A. All right, so if you look at the W4, by the way, the link to the new W4 along with publication 15-T which is the third draft, it's not the final version, but it's the instructions for the form and it's in its third draft along with an FAQ provided by the IRS are all available and peopleprocesses.com. So if you're listening to this on iTunes or somewhere else, go on over there, subscribe while you're at it and get our newsletter and you can get direct links
Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to the people processes podcast where we dive deep into the tools, laws and policies that you need to scale and grow your people processes. I'm your host, Rhamy Alejeal and I'm the CEO of people processes. My company helps organizations all across the USA streamline, optimize, implement, and revolutionize their HR operations. We've helped hundreds of companies and thousands of HR leaders across the world get their people processes right. Today, we're going to take a look at the FLSA requirements coming in 2020. Specifically, we're going to talk about how some of the States are reacting, especially Washington and California. Before we go too deep though, I want to ask you to please subscribe to our podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Google podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, pretty much any podcaster of your choice. You can also subscribe at peopleprocesses.com which gives you subscriber exclusive content, like our on-boarding checklists, our peopleprocesses guides, and a special episode every now and then. Now let's dive in first to some rules that Washington has put in place. Washington state that, adjust the salary threshold and job duties tests for white collar workers. Now I know we're talking about the FLSA on a federal level, so don't tune out if you're not in Washington, but this is a great example of how some of the States are taking it even a step further. So the Washington state department of labor and industries has adopted a rule change to restore overtime protections to tens of thousands of workers and create a fair minimum salary level for workers who do not receive overtime pay, at least according to the Washington state department of labor. The rules affect executive administrative and professional workers as well as outside sales people and computer professionals. That's the white collar workers defined by the FLSA exemptions. The adopted rule changes Amend Washington state legislature code called chapter 296 128 you can look it up on our website. We have some links to it directly. If you want to read it yourself. The new rules use a formula based on the state minimum wage to determine the minimum salary. A worker must be exempt from overtime rather than just a flat dollar figure. That's important because their minimum wage, as you may hear back in one of our seasons, two episodes, is slated to increase every year, I believe until 2028 so it's a heck of a thing. They're going to start July 1, 2020 so coming up in about six months and will be fully implemented by January of 2028 .Starting July 1, 2020 the state minimum salary threshold will increase to 675 week. That's 35,100 a year for all businesses, which is 1.25 times the state's minimum wage. The threshold will increase incrementally until 2028 which is when it will reach approximately $1,603 a week. That's $83,356 a year. For those of you paying attention for an overtime exempt worker, which is 2.5 times the minimum wage. So that's a really high one. By 2028. Now, next year's in July, that $535,100 a year interestingly is lower than the FLSA age changes. The white collar employees generally working in management professional capacity that are paid a set salary have had a change to the FLSA. They exempt levels that go into effect all across the nation starting in 2020 coming right up. Initially Washington employers will be required to follow the federal overtime laws because the updated federal threshold is 684 a week. That's $35,568 a year. Now, if you're in any state in the nation and your paying less than $35,568 a year to an employee starting 2020, they are not FLSA exempt. Now, we talk a lot about FLSA around here because that controls whether you're required to track their hours so that you know you have paid overtime. If they work more than 40 hours in a week federally, then you owe time and a half, and that line federally is 35,005.68 a year, which is actually a little bit higher than Washington's until...
Rhamy Alejeal Interviews Thomas Keenan, Author of UnF*ck Your Business.
Tomas is the CEO at Top Class Installations where he is responsible for setting the vision, managing finances, and building the team. Everyday he is focused on improving efficiency and providing an exceptional customer experience for his clients. Tomas is also the author of Unf*ck Your Business: Stop Business Self-sabotage by Getting Clear on Your Core Values NOW.
In 2017 The Top Class team installed 5,000+ tracking devices onto buses for the New York City Board of Education, a project that had a tremendous level of impact for the safety of the children now riding those buses daily; filling Tomas and his team with a deep sense of purpose.
Find Tomas Here:
https://www.facebook.com/tom.keenan.988 (https://www.facebook.com/tom.keenan.988)
https://www.instagram.com/tomas_keenan/ (https://www.instagram.com/tomas_keenan/)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomas-keenan/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomas-keenan/)
https://tomaskeenan.com/ (https://tomaskeenan.com/)
https://topclassinstallations.com/ (https://topclassinstallations.com/)
Eliminating surprise medical bills, improving transparency in prices, as well as revealing how prices are negotiated were the focus, but details about how information must be provided was left to the regulations, in an Executive Order signed by President Trump on June 24, 2019.
Policy statement. The Executive Order states that the federal government aims to:
eliminate unnecessary barriers to price and quality transparency;
increase the availability of meaningful price and quality information for patients;
enhance patients’ control over their own health care resources, including through tax-preferred medical accounts; and
protect patients from surprise medical bills.
Hospital regulation coming. Under the Executive Order, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) must propose a regulation to require hospitals to publicly post standard charge information. The information must include charges based on negotiated rates and information on common or shoppable items and services. The text must be in an easy-to-understand, consumer-friendly, and machine-readable format that informs a patient’s decision-making process, and allows patients to compare prices across hospitals. In addition, the regulation should require hospitals to post standard charge information for services, supplies or fees. The regulation must be proposed within 60 days of the Executive Order.
Report on impediments. The Secretary of HHS must issue a report describing how the federal government and/or the private sector are impeding health care price and quality transparency for patients. The report must also give recommendations for eliminating the impediments found, in a way that promotes competition. Specifically, the report should describe why lower-cost providers generally avoid health care advertising.
Guidance on high-deductible plans. The Secretary of the Treasury must issue guidance to expand the ability of patients to select high-deductible health plans. The plans must be able to be used with a health savings account and must cover low-cost preventive care (before the deductible) for medical care that helps individuals with chronic conditions. Regulations to treat expenses related to certain types of arrangements, potentially including direct primary care arrangements and health care sharing ministries, must also be proposed.
Surprise medical bills. The Secretary of HHS is also required to submit a report to President Trump on more steps that can be taken by his administration to implement the principles on surprise medical billing announced on May 9, 2019.
SOURCE: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-improving-price-quality-transparency-american-healthcare-put-patients-first/
Is your business prepared for a minimum wage increase? A quick update from http://poplarfinancial.com (poplarfinancial.com)!
Many states across the country have recently raised the minimum wage, and more changes are on the horizon.
Even an increase of $.75 an hour for 20 employees can mean an annual payroll increase of more than $20,000. Seemingly small increases can leave you wondering how to manage this new expense.
There are several steps you can take to adjust to recent state legislative changes or to prepare for upcoming payroll increases that are rolling out in the months ahead. (See the table below to determine if your business operates in one of the affected states.)
What can you do to stay ahead?
- Evaluate expenses and revisit your budget Once you determine if and how new minimum wage legislation will affect your business, it’s time to look at the big picture. New payroll costs may have implications for how you manage other expenses like utilities, inventory, supplies, and out-sourced work or third-party relationships.
By listing and evaluating existing or anticipated expenses you can create a comprehensive budget and determine what, if any, cuts or changes you’ll need to make.
-
Don’t forget payroll taxes Higher minimum wage rates also mean higher taxes. As you budget for your new payroll obligation, it’s important to account for increases in Social Security and Medicare expenses as well as taxes on things like disability and unemployment insurance.
-
Make strategic cost cuts Many business owners assume the way to address payroll increases is to make staffing changes or pass costs off to customers. But before you cut employee hours or raise prices, determine if there are any other cost-saving measures you can take.
For example, can you work with suppliers or vendors to negotiate better costs? Are you paying for services that you no longer need or are cheaper elsewhere? Of course, “cheaper” isn’t always better. Before making drastic cuts or going with the cheaper option, make sure it can accommodate your needs without jeopardizing the customer experience or operational efficiency.
Is your state on the list?
According to the Fair Labor Standards Act https://www.dol.gov/whd/minimumwage.htm ((FLSA)) of 2009, all employers are required to pay employees the federal minimum wage, which is $7.25. However, many states also have their own minimum wage laws.
More than twenty states and jurisdictions have already taken steps to adjust minimum wage in 2019, with some implementing immediate changes and others using a gradual approach that will take place over the next several years.
Minimum Wage Rate Increases by State1
Alaska
$9.89
Indexed annual increases based on consumer price index (CPI)
Arizona
$11
$12.00 by Jan 1, 2020
Arkansas
$9.25
$10.00 by Jan 1, 2020
$11.00 by Jan 1, 2021
California
$12
$13.00 by Jan 1, 2020
$14.00 by Jan 1, 2021
$15.00 by Jan 1, 2022
Colorado
$11.10
$12.00 by Jan 1, 2020
Delaware
$8.75
$9.25 by Oct 1, 2019
D.C.
$13.25
$14 by July 1, 2019
$15 by July 1, 2020
Florida
$8.46
Indexed annual increases based on consumer price index (CPI)
Illinois
$8.25
$9.25 by Jan 1, 2020
$10 by July 1, 2020
$11 by Jan 1, 2021
$12 by Jan 1, 2022
$13 by Jan 1, 2023
$14 by Jan 1, 2024
$15 by Jan 1, 2025
Maine
$11
$12 by Jan 1, 2020
Annual CPI increases starting Jan 1, 2021
Maryland
$10.10
$11 by Jan 1, 2020
$11.75 by Jan 1, 2021
$12.50 by Jan 1, 2022
$13.25 by Jan 1, 2023
$14 by Jan 1, 2024
$15 by Jan 1, 2025
Massachusetts
$12.00
$12.75 by Jan 1, 2020
$13.50 by Jan 1, 2021
$14.25 by Jan 1, 2022
$15 by Jan 1, 2023
Michigan
$9.25
$9.45 by March 29, 2019
$9.65 by Jan 1, 2020
$9.87 by Jan 1, 2021
$10.10 by Jan 1, 2022
$10.33 by Jan...
Who are we interviewing: Alison Colley – Solicitor and Founder of Real Employment Law Advice and host of the podcast ‘The Employment Law and HR Podcast’
How did she get here? I qualified as a Solicitor (known as lawyer in the US) in the UK in 2006 and worked for traditional lawyers’ firms, where I specialised in employment law and providing legal advice to employers and employees.
After becoming disillusioned with the traditional career path, stuffy slow pace of change and presenteeism required in the profession I found the ‘4 hour work week’ by Tim Ferris whilst wondering around bored on my lunchbreak and from this I was led into the world of entrepreneurship, passive income and taking control of my destiny.
For several months after reading the 4 hour work week I came up with a vast number of hairbrained schemes completely unrelated to the legal profession, not having the confidence to consider that I could start my own legal firm. Eventually, realising I was not quite ready to give up on my profession and passion for helping to solve problems I set about starting my own legal practice.
In November 2013 I started Real Employment Law Advice as a Sole Practitioner completely from scratch with no client base and no investment or capital.
I started the firm with the objective of providing a new service to my local community and with the vision of starting something different to the traditional Solicitors brand.
My objective was (and remains) to provide legal services in a new way, disrupting the market by utilizing technology to deliver service and provide information on a variety of platforms throughout the UK.
I now have a team of 4 staff, including two other Solicitors and we work with clients throughout the UK on everything from contracts to HR best practice through to representation in the Employment Tribunal and Courts.
Podcasting Few Solicitors in the UK are podcasting, and I was a relatively early adopter (August 2014), and have maintained consistency throughout this time. The podcast now regularly gets between 7,000- 8,00 downloads per month from all over the world and I focus on the law, HR and best practice for employers, managers and HR professionals.
As a result of the success of the podcast I was interviewed by the Guardian for an article on their website about podcasting for business.
Contact Info Check her out at http://alisoncolley.co.uk/ or connect to her company: https://www.linkedin.com/company/real-employment-law-advice/
Nathan Hirsch is a 29 year old long time entrepreneur and expert in remote hiring and eCommerce.
He started his first eCommerce business out of his college dorm room and has sold over $30 million online. He is now the co-founder and CEO of FreeeUp.com, a marketplace that connects businesses with pre-vetted virtual assistants, freelancers and agencies in eCommerce, digital marketing, and much more. He regularly appears on leading podcasts, such as Entrepreneur on Fire, and speaks at live events about online hiring tactics.
International leadership trainer, certified mediator and communications expert, Alicia Dunams, has coached tens of thousands of leaders, executives, and industry experts to share their message with the world through her signature process and acclaimed Bestseller in a Weekend® and other professional development trainings.
In her new book, I Get To: How Using The Right Words Can Radically Transform Your Life, Relationships & Business, Dunams empowers readers and leaders in all ages and stages of their career and life to harness the power of intentional communication for transformational results.
As a corporate trainer and executive coach, Alicia bridges conflicts in the workplace and beyond through the power of mastering healthy conversations and storytelling. Alicia has been featured on Good Morning America, KTLA, and The Steve Harvey Show.
Proposed joint employer rule includes 4-factor test: hiring and firing, supervision and control, payment, and recordkeeping Noting it has not meaningfully revised its joint employer regulation since 1958, the Labor Department has announced via press release a https://www.dol.gov/whd/flsa/jointemployment2019/joint-employment_NPRM.pdf (proposed rule) to revise and clarify the responsibilities of employers and joint employers.
The FLSA allows joint employer situations where an employer and a joint employer are jointly responsible for the employee’s wages. DOL proposes a four-factor test to consider whether the potential joint employer actually exercises the power to:
Hire or fire the employee;
Supervise and control the employee’s work schedules or conditions of employment;
Determine the employee’s rate and method of payment; and
Maintain the employee’s employment records.
The proposal would ensure employers and joint employers clearly understand their responsibilities to pay at least the federal minimum wage for all hours worked and overtime for all hours worked over 40 in a workweek, the agency said.
Reduce uncertainty. “This proposal will reduce uncertainty over joint employer status and clarify for workers who is responsible for their employment protections,” said Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta. “Providing public notice and comment is the best way to move forward with another significant deregulatory proposal.”
In June 2017, the DOL https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/opa/opa20170607 (withdrew) the previous administration’s sub-regulatory guidance regarding joint employer status, which did not go through the rulemaking process that includes public notice and comment.
DOL examples for comment. The proposal also includes a set of joint employment examples for comment that would further assist in clarifying joint employer status, notably in the franchise industry. DOL’s examples include:
(1) Example (nationwide restaurant franchise): An individual works 30 hours per week as a cook at one restaurant establishment, and 15 hours per week as a cook at a different restaurant establishment affiliated with the same nationwide franchise. These establishments are locally owned and managed by different franchisees that do not coordinate in any way with respect to the employee. Are they joint employers of the cook?
Application: Under these facts, the restaurant establishments are not joint employers of the cook because they are not associated in any meaningful way with respect to the cook’s employment. The similarity of the cook’s work at each restaurant, and the fact that both restaurants are part of the same nationwide franchise, are not relevant to the joint employer analysis, because those facts have no bearing on the question whether the restaurants are acting directly or indirectly in each other’s interest in relation to the cook.
(2) Example (same owner, multiple restaurants): An individual works 30 hours per week as a cook at one restaurant establishment, and 15 hours per week as a cook at a different restaurant establishment owned by the same person. Each week, the restaurants coordinate and set the cook’s schedule of hours at each location, and the cook works interchangeably at both restaurants. The restaurants decided together to pay the cook the same hourly rate. Are they joint employers of the cook?
Application: Under these facts, the restaurant establishments are joint employers of the cook because they share common ownership, coordinate the cook’s schedule of hours at the restaurants, and jointly decide the cook’s terms and conditions of employment, such as the pay rate. Because the restaurants are sufficiently associated with respect to the cook’s employment, they must aggregate the cook’s hours worked across the two restaurants for purposes of complying with the act.
(3) Example (janitorial services): An office park company hires a janitorial services company to clean...
Survey reveals employees’ major financial stressors, millennials’ interest in gig work MetLife’s 17th Annual US Employee Benefit Trends Study 2019 reveals that we are now seeing additional trends redefining why we work and what work means to people. According to the study, “[a]s employees leverage work to gain more fulfillment, pursue their goals, and align their values and experiences more authentically, they’re looking to employers to help them manage this new work-life world.”
The study revealed that employees’ number one source of stress is personal finances. “Regardless of age or life-stage, a focus on finances tops the list as the biggest concern employees have day to day.”
Some of employees’ stress about finances stems from short-term concerns, like staying on top of bills or paying for urgent health needs. Others stem from long-term goals — in fact, 3 of employees’ top 5 financial concerns directly relate to retirement, even among those who are relatively confident in their finances.
What are employees’ top 5 sources of financial stress?
Being able to afford the cost of healthcare in retirement – 72%
Outliving my retirement savings – 68%
Having money to pay bills if someone loses their job – 67%
Having money to cover out-of-pocket medical costs – 67%
Ability to rely on Social Security/Medicare in retirement – 66%
Employees say that solutions that help address financial stress are what they need most to thrive in the workplace and at home. Nearly 6 in 10 employees say an appropriate salary is one of the most important elements to successfully navigating and thriving in the workplace, the study states.
“Yet, a moderate salary increase can only help so much when dealing with an unexpected expense, whether it’s a broken bone or a flooded basement. That’s why financial support in the form of financial wellness programs, retirement plans, and a broad set of benefits can play such a crucial role in helping employees manage the unexpected and plan for the future. And employees realize this too — roughly 5 in 10 employees say better benefits are key to thriving.”
The gig economy can be a challenge and an opportunity for employers
The same technologies and evolving expectations that have driven flexibility and the need for new skills have also driven the ability to blend work and life. For instance, the evolution of mobile infrastructure has made part-time work accessible at the tap of a finger. These technologies are introducing an entirely new way of working: the gig economy, characterized by work that is often based on a fixed-term contract or paid per project via a third party or online marketplace.
As employees shift their expectations and needs for fulfillment inside and outside of work, the gig economy offers a unique solution, as it provides employees a useful outlet to gain more short- and long-term flexibility, control their schedules and projects, and earn extra cash.
While interest in the gig economy tends to skew towards younger generations, it’s appealing to older workers, as well. 1 in 2 Gen Z or Millennials, 3 in 10 Gen X, and almost 1 in 4 Boomers are interested in gig work. And gig work is appealing to workers for a variety of reasons.
What are the top 3 reasons full-time workers are interested in gig work? 1) flexible schedule – 31%; 2) ability to work where they want – 29%; and 3) ability to take on multiple different projects – 22%
But ultimately, employees want to ensure that joining the gig workforce doesn’t come at a loss of financial stability — their primary source of stress.
The Study states that employers can use unique levers to cater to employees’ desires for financial security and stability. “Certainly, this means considering salary increases, but also creating benefits packages that most gig opportunities simply can’t compete with. Additionally, creating policies and experiences...
CMS Extends Small Group Transitional Relief Policies through 2020
On Mar 25, 2019, CMS issued a https://www.cms.gov/CCIIO/Resources/Regulations-and-Guidance/Downloads/Limited-Non-Enforcement-Policy-Extension-Through-CY2020.pdf (new one year extension) of its transitional policy for non-grandfathered small group plans that are not compliant with the ACA.
Policyholders will be allowed to renew their transitional plan coverage (commonly referred to as ‘grandmothered plans’) through Oct 1, 2020 as long as the coverage does not extend beyond Dec 31, 2020. If CMS does not issue another extension next year, all non-compliant policies must become compliant by Jan 1, 2021. Any policy renewed during the 2020 calendar year after Jan 1 must have a short plan year in order to terminate by Dec 31. CMS believes that requiring transitional policies terminate immediately before Jan 1, 2021 will “facilitate changing from non-compliant coverage to Affordable Care Act-compliant coverage, which requires a calendar year policy year in the individual market.”
As specified in prior extensions, carriers that renew coverage under the extended transitional relief policy must provide a notice to affected individuals and small businesses about the limitations of non-compliant coverage for each policy year.
We have confirmed with most of the state DOL’s and Departments of Insurance that they will allow grand”mothered” plans to continue, provide policyholders the freedom to change their anniversary dates, and allow carriers to offer short plan renewal options within CMS guidelines.
This is the fifth extension of the transitional relief policy and third under the Trump Administration. While the scope of this extension is again limited to one year, the context of the announcement indicates a longer term commitment to relief continuation. CMS Administrator Seema Verma explains: “Not extending the grandmothered plan policy would cancel plans that are meeting people’s needs today and, as a result, force people to decide between buying coverage they cannot afford on the individual market or going uninsured. By extending the grandmothered plan policy, we are following through on our commitment to protect those left behind by Obamacare.” The https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-issues-2019-exchange-open-enrollment-period-final-report (CMS press release) cites this transitional relief extension and recent actions to expand access to association health plans and short-term health plans as examples of the Trump Administration’s commitment to providing more affordable coverage options to Americans “left behind by the PPACA.”
Background In response to public pressure, CMS first announced transitional relief for small groups and individuals allowing them renew the coverage they had in place on Oct 1, 2013 even though that coverage did not comply with various ACA market reforms including community rating, essential health benefits, and metallic benefit levels. Timeline of related guidance:
https://www.cms.gov/CCIIO/Resources/Letters/Downloads/commissioner-letter-11-14-2013.PDF (Nov 14, 2013) – The original transitional policy. Available to policy years beginning Jan 1 – Oct 1, 2014. All non-compliant policies would terminate by Sep 30, 2015.
https://www.cms.gov/CCIIO/Resources/Regulations-and-Guidance/Downloads/transition-to-compliant-policies-03-06-2015.pdf (Mar 5, 2014) – Extension 1. Available to policy years beginning Jan 1, 2014 – Oct 1, 2016. All non-compliant policies would terminate by Sep 30, 2017.
https://www.cms.gov/CCIIO/Resources/Regulations-and-Guidance/Downloads/final-transition-bulletin-2-29-16.pdf (Feb 29, 2016) – Extension 2. Available to policy years beginning Jan 1, 2014 – Oct 1, 2017. All non-compliant policies must terminate by Dec 31, 2017.
https://www.cms.gov/CCIIO/Resources/Regulations-and-Guidance/Downloads/Extension-Transitional-Policy-CY2018.pdf (Feb 23, 2017) – Extension 3. Available to...
Issue: You would like to implement an adoption assistance program for your company. In order for the financial assistance to be nontaxable, does the program need to be in writing?
Answer: Yes. Adoption assistance programs are governed under Internal Revenue Code Sec. 137, which specifies that an adoption assistance program must be a separate written plan of the employer that meets certain requirements.
Under an employer-provided program, Sec. 137 excludes from an employee’s gross income amounts furnished by the employer for adoption assistance purposes. Sec. 137 allows an employer to provide up to $14,080 in 2019 per child on an aggregate, not annual, basis for “qualified adoption expenses.” Adoptive parents’ adjusted gross income (AGI) determines the amount of the adoption expense limit that applies to them. In 2019, the credit begins to phase out at an AGI of $211,160 and is completely phased out at $251,160.
While Sec. 137 requires a written plan, it does not specify that the plan follows a particular format. At a minimum, the written plan should define the group of employees eligible to receive benefits, and describe the specific benefits offered under the program and any applicable limitations. Participation in the plan may be limited to a classification of employees determined by the employer, but the plan may not discriminate in favor of officers, shareholders, or the highly compensated or their dependents. Finally, reasonable notification of the terms and conditions of the plan must be provided to eligible employees.
Source: Internal Revenue Code Sec. 137.
Issue: Katy, a long-time sales clerk, applied for the position of assistant store manager. Even though Katy was the best qualified applicant, the store owner decided to promote another employee after learning that Katy doesn’t have a driver’s license because of her epilepsy. The store owner told Katy that she was not promoted because she was unable to drive the store receipts to the bank. Is this a valid reason for not promoting her?
Answer: Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), employers are required to provide reasonable accommodations (adjustments or modifications) to enable applicants and employees with disabilities to enjoy equal employment opportunities unless doing so would be an undue hardship (a significant difficulty or expense). An employer must provide a reasonable accommodation that is needed because of the epilepsy itself, the effects of medication, or both.
In this instance, depositing the store receipts in a safe and timely manner, not driving the store receipts to the bank, is an actual function of the job. Before deciding not to promote her, the store owner should have determined whether driving was an essential job function or whether Katy could have done the job with a reasonable accommodation (for example, having another employee drive her or paying for her to take a taxi). Because driving was not an essential function of an assistant store manager, the fact that Katy was an individual with epilepsy who did not have a driver’s license cannot be used to deny her an employment opportunity.
Source: EEOC Publication: Revised Questions and Answers about Epilepsy in the Workplace and the Americans with Disabilities Act, http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/epilepsy.cfm (http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/epilepsy.cfm), reported in Employment Practices Guide, New Developments
Issue: Rick, a salesman, invited Bob, a business contact, to a baseball game. Rick purchased tickets for them to attend the game. While at the game, Rick bought hot dogs and drinks for both himself and Bob. Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), which amended the rules regarding deductions for entertainment expenses, can Rick deduct the game tickets, hot dogs, or drinks?
Answer: Based on examples provided in IRS Notice 2018-76, the baseball game is entertainment as defined in IRS Reg. Sec. 1.274-2(b)(1)(i) and, thus, the cost of the game tickets is an entertainment expense and is not deductible by Rick.
The cost of the hot dogs and drinks, which are purchased separately from the game tickets, is not an entertainment expense and is not subject to the Internal Revenue Code Sec. 274(a)(1) disallowance. Therefore, Rick may deduct 50 percent of the expenses associated with the hot dogs and drinks purchased at the game.
Guidance after new law. The TCJA amended Internal Revenue Code Sec. 274 to generally disallow a deduction for expenses with respect to entertainment, amusement, and recreation. However, the TCJA does not specifically address the deductibility of expenses for business meals. In Notice 2018-76, the IRS announced its intention to publish proposed regulations that will include guidance on the deductibility of expenses for certain business meals. Until the proposed regulations become effective, taxpayers may rely on the guidance in Notice 2018-76 for the treatment of certain business meals.
Meal expenses. Under Sec. 274(k), a deduction is not allowed for food or beverages unless: (1) the expense is not lavish or extravagant under the circumstances; and (2) the taxpayer (or an employee of the taxpayer) is present at the furnishing of such food or beverages. Under Sec. 274(n)(1), the amount that can be deducted for any such expense for food or beverages cannot exceed 50 percent of the expense that otherwise would be allowable.
Entertainment expenses. Under law prior to the enactment of the TCJA, taxpayers could deduct 50 percent of meal expenses and could also deduct 50 percent of entertainment expenses that were directly related to the active conduct of the taxpayer’s trade or business, or preceded or followed a substantial and bona fide business discussion associated with the active conduct of the taxpayer’s trade or business. The TCJA repealed the 50-percent deduction for entertainment expenses, so entertainment expenses are no longer deductible at all.
Clarification of 50-percent limitation. The IRS has clarified that otherwise allowable meal expenses remain deductible, subject to the 50-percent limitation in Sec. 274(n)(1) and guidance under Notice 2018-76. According to the IRS, taxpayers may deduct 50 percent of an otherwise allowable business meal expense if:
1.
The expense is an ordinary and necessary expense under Internal Revenue Code Sec. 162(a) paid or incurred during the taxable year in carrying on any trade or business;
2.
The expense is not lavish or extravagant under the circumstances;
3.
The taxpayer, or an employee of the taxpayer, is present at the furnishing of the food or beverages;
4.
The food and beverages are provided to a current or potential business customer, client, consultant, or similar business contact; and
5.
In the case of food and beverages provided during dining or at an entertainment activity, the food and beverages are purchased separately from the entertainment, or the cost of the food and beverages is stated separately from the cost of the entertainment on one or more bills, invoices, or receipts. The entertainment disallowance rule may not be circumvented through inflating the amount charged for food and beverages.
Source: IRS Notice 2018-76, Expenses for Business Meals Under § 274 of the Internal Revenue Code, I.R.B 2018-42, October 15, 2018; https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-18-76.pdf...
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Paid family leave. A new law in New Jersey will expand the state’s paid family leave program in a number of ways, including doubling the number of weeks for family leave insurance and temporary disability insurance; raising the weekly benefit; increasing the amount of intermittent leave; allowing leave to care for additional family members; barring discrimination and retaliation against employees who take family leave; and permitting leave related to domestic and sexual violence.
Employer CHIP notice. Employers sponsoring group health plans in states that provide premium assistance under Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) must furnish employees with an annual, written notice informing them of potential opportunities for premium assistance available in the states in which they reside. The sample notice requirement is available at https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/ebsa/laws-and-regulations/laws/chipra/model-notice.doc
Minimum wages. A new law in Illinois will increase the state’s minimum wage rate from $8.25 per hour to $9.25 per hour on January 1, 2020; to $10.00 per hour on July 1, 2020; to $11.00 per hour on January 1, 2021; to $12.00 per hour on January 1, 2022; to $13.00 per hour on January 1, 2023; to $14.00 per hour on January 1, 2024; and to $15.00 per hour on and after January 1, 2025. The hourly minimum wage for individuals under age 18 (who have not worked more than 650 hours for the employer) also will rise but at a slower pace. Tipped workers receive 60 percent of the minimum wage and the rest in tips or are supplemented by their employer; accordingly, the tipped wage will increase to $9.00 per hour by 2025. Tax credits to help small businesses and non-profit organizations offset the increased wages are included as well.
Daylight-saving time. This year, daylight-saving time begins on Sunday, March 10 at 2:00 a.m., when clocks will be set forward one hour. Shift workers who are on duty at that time will likely work one hour less, and paying them for a full shift may raise questions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). An additional hour of pay provided to an employee who works less than a full shift does not need to be included in calculating the worker’s regular rate of pay when considering any overtime for that week. At the same time, the extra hour of pay may not be credited toward any overtime pay that may be due.
Workplace violence. The fatal shooting of five Henry Pratt workers (including an HR manager and an HR intern) in Aurora, Illinois, is a sad reminder that it may be time for employers to review their workplace violence prevention programs. Relevant resources — including expert guidance, checklists, policies, and tips — are available on Poplar’s LiveHR help platform. Our thoughts go out to all those affected.
Question: Is the common flu considered a serious health condition under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)?
Answer: Most cases of the common flu do not meet the definition of “serious health condition” and would not be eligible for Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave.
Some cases of the flu, however, are severe or result in complications, and these have the potential to meet the FMLA definition of “serious health condition.” This is defined as an illness, injury, impairment, or physical or mental condition that involves inpatient care or continuing treatment by a healthcare provider. Continuing treatment means:
The employee has been incapacitated for a period of more than three full days; and
Consults with a doctor two or more times within 30 days, or
Has one consult with a doctor and a regimen of continuing treatment.
If an employee is out sick with the flu for more than three days, consider whether the need for FMLA leave may exist. This doesn’t mean that you need to go through the whole FMLA process to determine eligibility for each flu absence; just that you shouldn’t automatically reject FMLA requests for the flu either.
Review each case based on the facts, keep the “serious health condition” definition in mind, and if the illness is severe, ask the employee to submit certification from a health care provider to support their need for leave protection under the FMLA.
Learn about decision-making and some ideas about how to do it with one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the hair industry, who is also an ex-Israeli special forces trainer, Ronit Enos.
In particular, learn why decision making can be difficult and how to overcome these problems. Hear for yourselves how this brave woman became BIG.
Today we interview Erin Longmoon, CEO of Zephyr Recruiting. We talk cover her journey in creating her company, and get some great insights on the processes around attracting the best talent!
The minimum wage will increase in 20 states on or before January 1 Twenty states will see increases in the minimum wage in the new year—one, New York, actually beginning on December 31.
The minimum wage increases are scheduled as follows:
Alaska. The minimum wage in Alaska will increase from $9.84 per hour to $9.89 per hour on January 1, 2019.
Alaska’s minimum wage is adjusted annually based on inflation. The change for 2019 reflects a 0.5% increase in the cost of living.
Arizona. The minimum wage in Arizona is scheduled to increase to $11 per hour on January 1, 2019.
Arkansas. The minimum wage in Arkansas increases to $9.25 per hour on January 1 per voter approval of Ballot Issue No. 5 in the November 6, 2018, General Election.
California. The minimum wage in California is scheduled to increase on January 1 as follows: $12 per hour for large employers with 26 or more employees; $11 per hour for smaller employers with 25 or fewer employees.
Colorado. The Colorado minimum wage is scheduled to increase to $11.10 per hour on January 1, as part of a scheduled increase.
Delaware. The minimum wage increases to $8.75 per hour on January 1, as part of a scheduled increase.
In addition, there will be a training wage for those over the age of 18 for the first 90 days of employment and a youth wage for those under the age of 18 at rates of not more than 50 cents less than the minimum wage.
Florida. The minimum wage in Florida will increase from $8.21 per hour to $8.46 per hour on January 1.
Florida’s minimum wage is adjusted annually based on inflation. The change for 2019 reflects a 2.59% increase in the cost of living (CPI South Region).
Maine. The minimum wage in Maine is scheduled to increase from $10 per hour to $11 per hour on January 1.
Massachusetts. The minimum wage in Massachusetts is scheduled to increase from $11 per hour to $12 per hour on January 1.
Michigan. The minimum wage will increase to $9.45 in 2019, under the “Improved Workforce Opportunity Wage Act” (P.A. 337), as amended by Public Act 368 (S.B. 1171). Although S.B. 1171 has this increase scheduled for January 1, the effective date of the measures are on the 91st day after adjournment of the state legislature. This would possibly delay the increase until a tentative date of around March 21, 2019.
Minnesota. The minimum wage in Minnesota will increase from $9.65 per hour to $9.86 per hour for employees of large employers with gross revenues of $500,000 or more.
For employees of smaller employers, the minimum wage will increase from $7.87 per hour to $8.04 per hour. The Minnesota minimum wage is adjusted annually based on the rate of inflation. The change for 2019 reflects a 2.16% increase in the cost of living. However, a higher rate applies in the City of Minneapolis, where the minimum wage rate in is $11.25 per hour for employees of large employers with more than 100 employees and $10.25 per hour for employees of smaller employers with 100 or fewer employees, as of July 1.
Missouri. The minimum wage in Missouri increases to $8.60 per hour on January 1, per voter approval of Proposition B in the November 6, 2018, General Election. All private businesses are required to pay, at minimum, the $8.60 hourly rate, except retail and service businesses whose annual gross sales are less than $500,000.
Montana. The minimum wage will increase from $8.30 per hour to $8.50 per hour on January 1, 2019.
New Jersey. The minimum wage in New Jersey will increase from $8.60 per hour to $8.85 per hour on January 1, 2019.
The minimum wage in New Jersey is adjusted annually based on inflation. The change for 2019 reflects a 2.88% increase in the cost of living.
New York. The minimum wage rates in New York are scheduled to increase on December 31, 2018, as follows: In New York City, $15 per hour for businesses with 11 or more employees and $13.50 per hour for businesses with 10 or fewer employees; in Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties,...
How to Have a Productive Exit Interview
It’s never an ideal situation when an employee leaves your organization.Whether it’s a voluntarily or involuntarily move, there’s paperwork to be completed, a new hire to be made, and an exit interview to conduct.
If you skip the exit interview, you’re missing a golden opportunity to improve your organization. Even if the employee was fired, there’s insight to be gained.
An exit interview is a unique and powerful time to gather perspective. When else will you get the unvarnished truth from your employees about what your organization is doing wrong without any fear of retaliation or making someone unhappy?
If an employee is leaving voluntarily, your HR team should take that opportunity to look closely at what the departure means for your organization.
Employees leave voluntarily for many reasons: pursuing dreams, better pay, other career interests, or because of problems with the organization itself.
Whatever the case, take the time to do an in-depth exit interview. Perhaps you will gain information that can help the organization succeed in the future.
Once you’ve gathered feedback, make it actionable by asking the following questions:
How did the employee get all the way to quitting?
Did the employee not feel they could come to HR with their concerns?
If so, where did the relationship break down and affect communication?
What is missing from our processes that contributed to this departure and prevented the employee from communicating concerns earlier on?
When employees choose to leave, reflect on what processes you can change or add so the next employee doesn’t face the same difficulties or roadblocks.
Treat offboarding as you would if you were losing a client after six months. With the client, you’d look back over the six-month period and investigate the source of the problem. Was it in implementation? Was there a problem with service?
The same types of questions apply to departing employees. If you hired an employee who stayed for a year before going to work for your competitor, what did you do wrong?
What did you promise that you couldn’t deliver? When you brought them on, did you fail to instill enough trust in your organization? Did the employee believe this was a place he could grow and achieve his career goals and then found he couldn’t?
These are the kinds of questions you want to answer during an exit interview.
But what about if the employee was fired? How does the exit interview work then?
Put Involuntary Exits to Work If an employee leaves involuntarily, you should still conduct an exit interview.
In these situations, it’s less about learning and more about minimizing damage. You want to complete paperwork and get back company equipment while making the exchange as pleasant as possible and minimizing the chance of a lawsuit.
Negotiation is the key to involuntary terminations. You want to soften the blow by making sure the employee is taken care of and your organization is protected.
While you may think your organization doesn’t really deal in severance agreements, the most common severance agreement involves PTO or vacation pay.
Many organizations will offer to pay any remaining PTO the employee has accrued if they agree to give two weeks’ notice. That’s a severance agreement.
With an involuntary termination, you have more legal risk than a voluntary.
Lay out exactly what your organization needs to protect itself and negotiate with the departing employee to get the proper documents signed.
Remember, contracts must have consideration for all sides, so the employee has to get something for signing any severance papers beyond a grim farewell!
Who Should Conduct the Exit Interview? Whether an employee’s parting is voluntary or involuntary, choose someone separate from the employee’s direct supervisor to conduct the exit interview.
Generally, your HR team will be called in to conduct exit interviews.
In...
Do You Have Mixed Emotions about Open Enrollment?
It’s typical to have mixed feelings about the annual benefits open enrollment period. Dread for the additional administrative workload and potential benefits cost increases… Anticipation of newer, more attractive, and easier to administer plans… It makes for a fall season that causes many HR professionals and benefits brokers to drown their misery in pumpkin spice lattes.
Better Benefits Attract and Retain Talent A high-quality employee benefits package is one of the best tools in your arsenal to attract the right talent, enhance employee engagement, and retain your most valuable employees. According to a May 2018 Harris Poll/Glassdoor https://www.glassdoor.com/press/job-seeker-preferences/ (survey), nearly half (48 percent) of U.S. workers cited attractive company benefits and perks as key factors in their likelihood to apply for a job, and other surveys have found that excellent benefits play a role in retaining employees.
Employees today expect their employers to be creative, consider employee needs, make benefits easy to use, and offer them choices to help manage their lifestyles. Besides health insurance, benefits protecting their incomes, such as disability insurance, financial planning, and retirement plans are important. In addition, consider that employees are tech savvy and expect to have online tools and calculators, along with complete communications, to assist them in making decisions regarding their benefit options.
5 Steps for Success To prepare for this year’s open enrollment, focus your efforts on designing the best benefits and communications program. Make the most of marketing your benefits programs to your employees by:
Reviewing workforce demographics and benefits usage to get a better understanding of employees’ stages in the lifecycle. Knowing your audience and targeting benefits communications to meet those lifecycle needs makes the benefits more personal and relevant. Employees with young families, older workers preparing for retirement, empty nesters, and young singles all have distinctly different benefits needs and interests.
Packaging benefits by target group with messaging that speaks to each group’s needs while consistently reinforcing the overall benefits strategy and company branding in the messaging. Different communications delivery systems may also be important to different employee groups.
Starting the messaging with why the benefits are structured as they are and what the company’s overall benefits strategy is designed to accomplish. Don’t sugarcoat any bad news about changes in the benefits program. Employees will see through it and resent attempts to hide changes that may be perceived as negative. This is a good time to highlight the important value of their benefits programs, promote wellness, encourage retirement savings, and encourage cost-effective usage of benefits programs.
Keeping the messaging straightforward. Provide clear information, checklists, and decision support tools that are easy to follow. Have the details available but keep the key messages and “what you need to do for enrollment” information central to the enrollment materials.
Bringing company managers and supervisors into the discussions prior to launch. Give them a heads up regarding the upcoming benefits changes and enlist their help in the process.
4 More Things to Consider The next step is to tackle the “how” of the benefits communications and enrollment program, including:
Communications delivery methods. Electronic communications? Mobile apps? Webinars? In-person company meetings? Text messages? Packages mailed to home addresses to involve the family? Use of social media? Intranet messaging? Gaming techniques? Frequent emails or instant messaging? Live hotline for questions and concerns? Combination of all methods?
Enrollment methods. Online? Manual? Mobile? Make it as administratively simple as possible for both employees and the...
Automation can make HR processes run smoother, saving organizations time and money, and helping them avoid costly mistakes.
However, it’s important to note that an automated HR system doesn’t replace the human element of HR. Rather, the goal is to unify all the employee life cycle events and components so your HR staff can focus on nurturing the people in your organization.
You know, the human part of human resources.
Automated systems have obvious tech aptitudes, like automatically flagging missing social security numbers on insurance forms, but they can also benefit attitudes.
Employee motivation levels change every day. Furthermore, motivation is not achieved by giving out a bonus or throwing a party at the end of the year. It has to be nurtured every day through consistent, positive interactions with all team members.
Automation helps keep processes consistent, allowing your HR team to focus on improving the employee experience around life cycle events and HR systems.
In addition, employees are more apt to be motivated to perform in the workplace if they don’t feel bogged down by tedious, time-consuming, and often confusing HR tasks.
With an automated system in place to remove the drudgework, HR staff can spend their time communicating and maintaining a consistently motivated workforce.
Building an HR System That Works If your organization wants to implement an automated HR system, one of the main questions you’ll want to answer is: What makes for a good system?
HR systems that fuel a productive and satisfied workforce have four components: efficiency, scalability, reliability, and compliance. Let’s look at each one.
Efficiency Whether the system is payroll, benefits, reporting, compliance, or timekeeping, it needs to be effective. The goal of most HR systems is to generate action.
In a compliance system, for example, you’re trying to teach employees something specific. In a benefits and compensation system, you want to communic ate that the employee is appreciated and well compensated for their work.
Scalability It’s imperative to scale your system to match organizational needs.
In other words, HR processes need to grow with your organization in a way that doesn’t cause undue burden to any party or add time to employee life cycle events.
Improving scalability by putting more time and effort into how something is done allows a higher return in the form of a productive and dedicated staff.
Reliability In addition to effectiveness and scale, HR systems must be consistent.
Typically, managers will see things differently than employees, but it is critical for every manager to see, learn, or react in a similar way to the same situation.
If the way employees interact with HR, and the organization, is unreliable, information will be disseminated by tribal stories or word of mouth—not a good scenario.
Compliance HR systems must also be compliant and include only accurate information.
To ensure this, modern HR systems have compliance checks to guarantee employees receive all necessary information related to policy and compliance changes. Those transmissions and specific details, then, are properly recorded.
The Statistics Tell the Story Automating your HR system—and building one that works—contributes to your ultimate goal: you’ll be able to devote time to your company’s human capital and leverage employees’ workplace satisfaction into a competitive advantage.
As most business owners know, it’s costly to replace an employee. What you may not realize is just how much this process can cost your organization. Take a look:
It costs 16% of annual salary for high-turnover, low-paying jobs (earning under $30,000 a year), meaning it costs $3,328 to replace a $10/hour retail employee.
It costs 20% of annual salary for midrange positions ($30-50,000 a year). That means the cost to replace a $40k manager would be $8,000.
It costs up to 213% of annual salary for highly educated executive...
Question:
We have found pornography on an employee’s computer. How should we handle this? And, is an employee’s addiction to pornography protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)?
Answer:
An addiction to pornography is not protected because under the ADA, it is not defined as a disability. According to ADA, the term disability does not include:
Transvestism, transsexualism, pedophilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism, gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments, or other sexual behavior disorders;
Compulsive gambling, kleptomania, or pyromania; or
Psychoactive substance use disorders resulting from current illegal use of drugs.
However, even if pornography qualified as a disability under ADA, an employer is not prevented from disciplining an employee with a disability for a violation of a company-established conduct rule. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), if the conduct rule is job-related and consistent with business necessity, then all employees – with and without disabilities – are held to the same standard.
As long as your conduct rules are consistent with both EEOC and ADA requirements, your policy is enforceable regardless of an employee’s disability. Therefore, if your company’s policy was violated, it would be appropriate to follow your company’s corrective action policy.
Starting a new job might be cause for nerves, but it shouldn’t induce headaches.
Organizations that understand this fact will ensure their onboarding process is smooth for the new employee and seamless for the HR staff.
Yet many organizations still struggle with onboarding. Their process is too slow, not efficient, or lacks the personal touch that puts new hires at ease.
In this article, we’ll look at five common onboarding issues that arise in broken systems. Then we’ll wrap things up with a solution that can help you avoid all these pitfalls.
1: A Lack of Orientation
Onboarding serves two basic purposes:
Gather and audit new employee information.
Introduce your company’s mission, culture, and values to your new hire.
The first problem with an ineffective process is that too much of the information a new hire needs is communicated in a disjointed, tribal manner. For example, a supervisor in the marketing department might answer the same question differently than a manager from accounting. When this occurs, it’s difficult to create a unified experience.
Many new employees are hesitant to ask questions in the first place, and if they get different answers, it can totally shut them down to finding the answers they need.
In addition to orientation issues, onboarding often feels like a data dump.
Handing a new hire like a stack of paper and expecting them to learn and digest it on their own isn’t a warm welcome or an efficient use of time.
Organizations wouldn’t spend months and thousands of dollars attracting a client, then send them 800 pages of onboarding paperwork with the instructions, “Fill everything out, sign the legal document, and let us know if you have any questions.”
Why should employees be treated any different than clients?
2: Colleagues Must Answer Questions
Many times, once a new hire is finally finished completing the paperwork, they go to work with substantial knowledge gaps and are unsure how to fill those gaps.
For example, when the employee is two months into work and wants to take a three-day vacation, they don’t remember (or worse, never learned) how to handle it.
Rather than bugging a supervisor (or get mixed message again), the employee might ask a colleague what the procedure is to request time off.
Now both employees are being pulled away from their job duties, and on a deeper level, the response to this inquiry leads to inconsistent processes among departments.
It might not seem like a big deal, but consistent knowledge gaps set companies up for cascading failure from both a resource and a personnel perspective.
3: Knowledge Gaps Slow Things Down
When onboarding isn’t done well, there are knowledge gaps on the HR side too.
If a new hire’s paperwork goes to the wrong desk, for instance, HR might not know about that employee until pay day arrives and the new hire isn’t paid.
This situation—and many others like it—makes HR feels like a transactional department rather than a resource that helps your company and your employees.
If you think such a snafu is uncommon, think again.
My organization, Poplar Financial, works with companies to streamline their processes. I can’t tell you the number of times HR departments didn’t know someone was hired.
Or worse, sometimes HR is the only office to handle hiring, meaning they’re consistently overwhelmed and not always matching new hires to the right supervisor.
4: Delays in Getting Insurance
Many HR processes are time sensitive, and delays and missing information can cause more than simply logistical issues. Consider this scenario:
An HR associate picks up a new employee’s information sheet and tries to enter the information into the retirement portal. The HR associate has the new hire’s hourly rate but does not know how many hours she worked or is expected to work.
In addition, the employee was hired for a part-time position, but the HR associate isn’t sure they work enough hours to be eligible for a...
Question:
We conduct hearing tests on employees and record any discovered hearing loss on our OSHA 300 log. Are we required to conduct tests on temporary workers we hire through an agency, and if so, should we report those hearing losses differently?
Answer:
Temporary workers hired and paid by a staffing agency and supplied to a host employer to perform work on a temporary basis are entitled to the same protections under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) as all other covered workers. This means that – to answer the first part of your question – you are required to conduct the same testing on temporary workers as you do with your regular employees.
OSHA will generally consider the staffing agency and host employer to be “joint employers” of the worker in this situation. Joint employment is a legal concept recognizing that, in some situations, the key attributes of the traditional employer-employee relationship are shared by two or more employers in such a manner that they each bear responsibility for compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements. For example, the staffing agency often controls a worker’s paycheck and selects the host employer location where the worker will be sent. The host employer, in turn, assigns the particular work to be done each day and controls operations in the physical workplace.
To answer the second part of your question about OSHA 300 reporting, injuries and illnesses should only be recorded on one employer’s log. Which employer is responsible for injury and illness recordkeeping is determined by supervision. Supervision occurs when “in addition to specifying the output, product, or result to be accomplished by the person’s work, the employer supervises the details, means, methods, and processes by which the work is to be accomplished.” An employer is performing day-to-day supervision when it controls conditions presenting potential hazards and directs the workers’ activities around, and exposure to, those hazards.
In most cases, the host employer provides this day-to-day supervision and is therefore responsible for recording the injuries and illnesses of temporary workers.
OSHA’s https://www.osha.gov/temp_workers/OSHA_TWI_Bulletin.pdf (Temporary Worker Initiative bulletin) addresses how to identify who is responsible for recording work-related injuries and illnesses of temporary workers on the OSHA 300 log.
For the important role they play within every type of organization or business, HR departments too often lack that… human touch.
This isn’t their fault, however, as countless talented HR professionals are buried under cumbersome tasks and receive zero help from their outdated HR systems.
If this describes your organization, it’s likely you view HR as an unproductive time suck or a necessary evil to be avoided at all costs. This problem is compounded every time you invest in human capital by hiring employees within your organization without truly investing in a system to properly onboard, manage, and engage staff.
The result is unmotivated employees, unchanged processes, and expensive turnover.
In many cases, HR departments are a mess due to misaligned priorities.
Consider, for example, the amount of time and resources your company invests in client acquisition and product/service delivery. Now, compare that to the amount of time and resources you invest in onboarding, training, and retaining employees.
If the discrepancy between the two is large, you likely have an HR problem.
If an unhappy client leaves, alarm bells are set off and questions start flying:
“What did we do wrong? What did we promise that we didn’t deliver? Where did we fall short? Why was our competition able to steal them away from us?”
When an employee leaves, there aren’t alarm bells or questions. Managers chalk up the loss to a flaw with that employee, a bad fit, or a symptom of the industry.
Leaders Have the Wrong Focus The truth is if you want to deliver on the promises you make to your clients, your people are the vehicle by which you follow through on those commitments. If you’re struggling to motivate them and not batting an eye when they leave, you’re missing something.
This disconnect in HR often occurs because management spends too much time on repetitive tasks and paperwork instead of on the company’s people and its mission.
Outdated systems have such a high labor requirement that business leaders spend way too much time reviewing paperwork and signing off on employee requests. Managers in this situation often feel like their plates are too full to take on anything extra.
Their “time investment” in “HR” is already huge, so they can’t imagine doing more work on this costly time suck called HR that seems to just drag the organization down.
Leaders bogged down with routine tasks are too busy working in the organization rather than on it—and that’s a problem. Luckily, there is a solution.
Shifting the Focus to People Out of touch HR departments should aim to make HR about people again. The way to retain top talent is by communicating value via systems and employee benefits.
If you’re a CEO, executive director, HR manager, or other leader struggling with antiquated HR systems, high turnover, or other stagnation in your organization, it’s time to examine your people processes to ensure they’re working for you.
If you don’t have HR systems, you need to implement. If your systems are outdated, it’s time to look at automation as a key to solving your HR woes. You want to remove the daily drudge work and get back to the business of leading. Then, you can focus on growing, training, and mentoring your people—your true competitive advantage.
When you properly develop and manage your people, you’ll have more confidence acquiring, servicing, and maintaining clients; accomplishing your organizational mission; and delivering on your promises to your team and your customers.
This may sound like a lofty goal, and that’s because it is. However, automated HR systems are designed to make the complicated uncomplicated, so don’t fret.
Look at your systems and processes, see where improvement is needed, and then seek out vendors that can provide or build the type of system you need to move forward.
Question:
Are we were required by law to have a dedicated compliance officer, who cannot be the same individual who handles HR?
Answer:
No. In general, companies are not required by law to have a dedicated compliance officer. However, some sectors have specific guidelines in place for compliance officers.
For example, in the financial sector, compliance officers are subject to regulations and enforcement by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and the Department of Justice (DOJ). Each agency looks at the compliance officer’s supervision in both legal and compliance matters, and the DOJ also looks at individual accountability in compliance matters.
In the healthcare sector, the U.S. Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued compliance guidelines specific to hospitals. While not mandated by law, the OIG strongly recommends that hospitals develop a compliance program and have a compliance officer available to ensure that hospital standards and ethics are upheld. The OIG guidelines state that each hospital should designate a high-level official to serve as compliance officer. Depending on the size and resources of the hospital, the compliance officer may be an HR professional, in-house counsel, or another designated appointee. Some hospitals may choose to hire a full-time compliance officer.
Therefore, while companies are not required to have dedicated compliance officers, in heavily regulated industries such as finance and healthcare, compliance officers are recommended and even held individually liable in some instances. To determine whether a dedicated compliance officer is necessary for your organization, it is best to consult with your counsel.
The forty-hour work week came about in 1938 as a result of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which also established that hourly workers had to be paid a minimum wage and overtime. Hourly workers are required to use timekeeping systems to track their hours, whereas in many organizations, full-time salaried employees don’t track their time.
Is that the right choice? Should full-time salaried employees use timekeeping systems?
There’s an argument to be made that timekeeping is critical for every employee, even those exempt from the FLSA law. To illustrate this point, let’s look at an example.
Imagine a small, nonprofit organization that does community outreach support for women. Because nearly everyone in the organization is salaried, they’re technically FLSA exempt. As a result, staff initially didn’t clock in and out at all.
Most of the staff in this nonprofit were paid the same, but Lisa felt as though she constantly picked up the slack for her coworkers. She felt she continually came in early, did more, and even worked evenings from home to pick up slack.
The bosses knew Lisa was a good employee, but they had no way to verify whether or not she was covering for other people until they implemented a timekeeping system.
When the organization required everyone to track their hours (even salaried folks), they were able to see that Lisa truly was doing more than her fair share.
Tracking your employees’ hours, even if they’re FLSA exempt, provides information that allows you to judge whether they’re pulling their weight or are overworked.
Tracking the Overworked Employee Timekeeping addresses the need to make the employee or systems more efficient. If the employee is overworked, perhaps the position should be split between two people.
If an employee is doing great work but is putting in sixty or seventy hours a week to get it done, without a timekeeping system in place, you may not notice how overworked she is until she leaves your organization. Timekeeping provides insight into labor costs for hourly employees and work production related to time for salaried employees.
In an HR role, this information allows you to determine if you need to add staff or if a particular employee needs to take some time off. Often, it’s the HR team members themselves who could benefit from this type of insight into their work routines.
HR staff are usually overwhelmed with work, care deeply about the company, and work far too many hours in stressful, deadline-driven environments.
Since they’re often FLSA exempt, their long hours aren’t always obvious to executives. Attempting to keep that pace up can eventually breed resentment and unrest.
Finding the Underworked Employee It’s just as possible to find an underworked employee as it is to find an overworked one. If one of your employees earns a salary but comes in late, takes long lunches, and leaves early, that’s actionable information you want to know about.
Even if you don’t care about hours as long as the job gets done, timekeeping reveals his job is one that can be done quickly. This information is useful when determining the employee’s compensation and advertising for future positions.
Timekeeping can also be useful to identify trends in your market or organization, which is another helpful bit of information relating to forecasting and future planning.
If your organization has a huge amount of work flow in around December and January, without timekeeping in place, you may have trouble quantifying this trend and just think you’re working all day, every day, forever—which can be what it feels like!
However, if you utilize a timekeeping system, you can understand and plan for the time and labor commitment you’ll need to handle future busy seasons.
Company-Wide Timekeeping Might Not Be Popular Convincing everyone to clock in is a hard sell, but it sets a strong example.
Employees working hourly often wonder if the salaried personnel put in as many hours as they...
Question:
How do we handle overtime pay calculations for hourly employees when they receive nondiscretionary bonuses?
Answer:
A nondiscretionary bonus is a bonus based on an employee meeting criteria such as production, sales, quality, efficiency, or other performance standards. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires that overtime pay be calculated based on an hourly employee’s regular rate of pay, which includes commissions and nondiscretionary bonuses.
Under the FLSA, nondiscretionary bonuses must be apportioned back to the workweeks covered by the bonus period. If the hourly employee who earned the bonus also worked overtime during any workweek of a period covered by the bonus, you must recalculate the regular rate to determine the appropriate overtime rate.
For example, suppose your hourly employee’s regular hourly rate is $10. Assume the nondiscretionary bonus is $100 per month, but the pay period is weekly. Now assume the employee worked 50 hours each week and the work month was exactly four weeks. The following steps show how to calculate this employee’s weekly pay:
50 (total hours worked) x $10 (regular rate) = $500
$500 (weekly pay) + $25 (weekly nondiscretionary bonus) = $525
$525 (total pay) ÷ 50 (total hours worked) = $10.50 (regular rate)
$10.50 (regular rate) x 1½ (overtime multiplier) = $15.75 (overtime rate)
40 (straight time hours) x $10.50 (regular rate) = $420 (straight time earnings)
10 (overtime hours) x $15.75 (overtime rate) = $157.50 (overtime earnings)
$420 (straight time earnings) + $157.50 (overtime earnings) = $577.50 total weekly pay
If you cannot identify the specific weeks in which the bonus was earned, then the bonus must be allocated across the entire bonus period. If the bonus was earned over a calendar year, you must:
Divide the bonus by 52.
Add that sum to the wages earned during the workweek.
Recalculate the regular rate.
Pay additional time-and-a-half based on the regular rate for all hours worked over 40.
For example, if an hourly employee is given a year-end nondiscretionary bonus of $1,000, $19.23 ($1,000 ÷ 52) must be added to the wages in any workweek in which the employee worked more than 40 hours. You must then recalculate the regular rate (and corresponding overtime premiums) for each week, incorporating these revised numbers.
Note that California requires employers to use a different overtime calculation method when including bonus or commissions. https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/DLSEManual/dlse_enfcmanual.pdf (The California rules) calculate the overtime rate using the employee’s non-overtime hours only, plus bonus or commission, where the FLSA uses all hours worked by the employee.
It’s never an ideal situation when an employee leaves your organization.
Whether it’s a voluntarily or involuntarily move, there’s paperwork to be completed, a new hire to be made, and an exit interview to conduct.
If you skip the exit interview, you’re missing a golden opportunity to improve your organization. Even if the employee was fired, there’s insight to be gained.
An exit interview is a unique and powerful time to gather perspective. When else will you get the unvarnished truth from your employees about what your organization is doing wrong without any fear of retaliation or making someone unhappy?
If an employee is leaving voluntarily, your HR team should take that opportunity to look closely enough at what the departure means for your organization.
Employees leave voluntarily for many reasons: pursuing dreams, better pay, other career interests, or because of problems with the organization itself.
Whatever the case, take the time to do an in-depth exit interview. Perhaps you will gain information that can help the organization succeed in the future.
Once you’ve gathered feedback, make it actionable by asking the following questions:
How did the employee get all the way to quitting?
Did the employee not feel they could come to HR with their concerns?
If so, where did the relationship break down and affect communication?
What is missing from our processes that contributed to this de parture and prevented the employee from communicating concerns earlier on?
When employees choose to leave, reflect on what processes you can change or add so the next employee doesn’t face the same difficulties or roadblocks.
Treat offboarding as you would if you were losing a client after six months. With the client, you’d look back over the six-month period and investigate the source of the problem. Was it in implementation? Was there a problem with service?
The same types of questions apply to departing employees. If you hired an employee who stayed for a year before going to work for your competitor, what did you do wrong?
What did you promise that you couldn’t deliver? When you brought them on, did you fail to instill enough trust in your organization? Did the employee believe this was a place he could grow and achieve his career goals and then found he couldn’t?
These are the kinds of questions you want to answer during an exit interview.
But what about if the employee was fired? How does the exit interview work then?
Put Involuntary Exits to Work If an employee leaves involuntarily, you should still conduct an exit interview.
In these situations, it’s less about learning and more about minimizing damage. You want to complete paperwork and get back company equipment while making the exchange as pleasant as possible and minimizing the chance of a lawsuit.
Negotiation is the key to involuntary terminations. You want to soften the blow by making sure the employee is taken care of and your organization is protected.
While you may think your organization doesn’t really deal in severance agreements, the most common severance agreement involves PTO or vacation pay.
Many organizations will offer to pay any remaining PTO the employee has accrued if they agree to give two weeks’ notice. That’s a severance agreement.
With an involuntary termination, however, you have more legal risk.
Lay out exactly what your organization needs to protect itself and negotiate with the departing employee to get the proper documents signed.
Remember, contracts must have consideration for all sides, so the employee has to get something for signing any severance papers beyond a grim farewell!
Who Should Conduct the Exit Interview? Whether an employee’s parting is voluntary or involuntary, choose someone separate from the employee’s direct supervisor to conduct the exit interview.
Generally, your HR team will be called in to conduct exit interviews.
In especially sticky situations, however, get assistance...
Q&A: Does a pregnant worker denied starting a job, when baby is due, have a plausible claim of discrimination? Issue: Lucy, a part-time employee who works remotely, applied for a full-time position with her employer. During the second round of interviews, which included a discussion about the available position and its start date, Lucy told the interviewer that she was pregnant. The interviewer asked when her baby was due and how much time she planned to take for maternity leave. After hearing her response, the interviewer explained that while start dates could be flexible, Lucy’s due date and planned time off interfered with the planned start date so she would not be hired for the available position. The interviewer also told Lucy that the hiring committee would be informed that she would be unable to perform in the position. The available position was filled by a nonpregnant person. Two months later, after having filed an EEOC charge, Lucy applied for another full-time position and was again rejected. Does she have enough to support a discrimination claim?
Answer: Based on these facts, a federal district court in New Hampshire concluded that the employee’s allegations were sufficient to make her claims of pregnancy discrimination plausible. The employee alleged that the interviewer made statements during her job interview that showed her pregnancy was viewed in a negative light and interfered with her starting a new position. The interviewer also stated that exceptions had been made in the past regarding start dates for positions, but not this time.
A court also could find that the employee’s allegations were sufficient to permit a claim of retaliation to proceed because such a short amount of time had passed between her complaint and her employer’s rejection of her application for a full-time position. Such close temporal proximity, and the allegation that the employer knew of her complaint, was enough to show a causal link at the motion-to-dismiss stage.
Source: Fireside v. College for America, Southern New Hampshire University (DNH 2018) 102 EPD ¶45,992
While Americans have mixed views of unions, public sector organizing suffers setback The decline in the number of Americans represented by labor unions is seen more negatively than positively by U.S. adults, according to a new http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/06/05/more-americans-view-long-term-decline-in-union-membership-negatively-than-positively/ (survey) released by the Pew Research Center. Fifty-five percent of Americans have a favorable impression of unions, with a similar number—53 percent—viewing business corporations favorably.
Decreasing unionization. In 2017, only 10.7 percent of wage and salaried workers in the United States were labor union members, down from 20.1 percent in 1983, the first year for which comparable data are available, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unionization in the U.S. peaked http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/27/union-membership/ (at more than 34% in 1954), according to the Congressional Research Service.
Partisanship. Fifty-one percent of Americans say the large reduction in union representation has been mostly bad for working people in the U.S., while 35 percent say it has been mostly good, the survey found. Partisanship, which has long been a major factor in public attitudes about labor unions, was also apparent in the new survey, which revealed that 68 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say the reduction in union membership has been mostly bad for working people, compared to half as many Republicans and Republican leaners, with 34 percent saying the same.
Race, age, and education. The survey also found racial, age, and educational differences in assessments of the reduction in union representation:
By about two-to-one, blacks are more likely to say the decline in union representation has been mostly bad for working people than that it has been mostly good (65 percent vs. 29 percent). Smaller shares of whites (49 percent) or Hispanics (52 percent) say it has been mostly bad.
Adults younger than 30 are the only age group in which a majority (56 percent) says the reduction in union membership has been mostly bad for working people. Among adults 30 and older, half (50 percent) express this view.
While 61 percent of adults with postgraduate degrees say the decline in union membership has been mostly bad for working people, fewer of those with less education (50 percent) view this trend negatively.
Other differences. The survey broke the numbers down by several other factors such as age, education, and differences among those with similar political affiliations:
Young adults continue to be more likely than older people to express a favorable opinion of labor unions. A 68 percent majority of those ages 18 to 29 hold a positive view of unions, compared with only about 51 percent of those 50 and older.
Adults younger than 30 also are somewhat less likely to view businesses favorably, with fewer than half (46 percent) holding a favorable opinion of business corporations, while 47 percent hold an unfavorable view.
Older Americans are more likely to be positive than negative in their views of businesses, with adults under 30 being the only age group in which a larger share has a favorable view of labor unions than of business corporations.
Among educational groups, postgraduates stand out for having a more favorable opinion of labor unions (65 percent) than corporations (53 percent). Among those with less education, comparable shares express favorable views of both unions and corporations.
Among Republicans and Republican leaners, nearly two-to-one (65 percent to 33 percent) of those with at least a four-year college degree hold unfavorable opinions of labor unions. By contrast, opinion is divided among Republicans who do not have a college degree (45 percent unfavorable, 42 percent favorable).
Among Democrats, there are only modest demographic differences in views of labor unions,
CareerBuilder’s midyear job forecast shows tough hiring environment for employers is paying off for job seekers As employers grapple with a highly competitive hiring environment that is causing prolonged job vacancies across the U.S., workers are reaping the benefits. According to CareerBuilder’s Midyear Job Forecast, 63 percent of U.S. employers plan to hire full-time, permanent workers in the second half of 2018, up from 60 percent last year. A substantial percentage of employers hiring in the second half of 2018 are expecting to offer higher salaries and various perks — such as signing bonuses, extra paid time off, free lunches and the ability to work remotely — to attract and keep the talent they need.
“Low unemployment and increasing skills gaps continue to plague employers who are struggling to fill roles at all levels within their organizations,” said Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder. “Fifty percent of U.S. employers reported that it is taking them longer to fill jobs today compared to any other period of time — a trend that is ultimately giving job seekers more leverage.”
The national surveys, which were conducted online by The Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder from June 21 to July 15, 2018, included representative samples of 1,023 hiring managers and human resource managers and 1,014 full-time U.S. workers across industries and company sizes in the private sector.
Compensation to increase across job levels. Employers expect to provide a greater financial incentive to new workers and existing staff. Forty-five percent plan to increase starting salaries on new job offers in the back half of 2018; 23 percent of all employers plan to increase starting salaries by 5 percent or more. Fifty-eight percent of employers will increase compensation for current employees before year end, with 24 percent of all employers planning an increase of 5 percent or more on average.
The study shows that compensation increases aren’t limited to high-skill positions. Looking at a subset of human resource managers, 71 percent believe they have to pay entry-level workers more money because of tight talent pools.
Additional trends to watch for. In an effort to draw in more applicants and, ultimately hires, employers hiring in the second half of 2018 said they would be highlighting different perks in their job offers:
Casual dress code—36 percent;
Employee discounts—31 percent;
Ability to work remotely—25 percent;
Extra paid time off—22 percent;
Signing bonus—21 percent;
Free lunches—14 percent;
Gym memberships—12 percent;
Work from home Fridays—10 percent; and
Daycare—8 percent.
Sixty-nine percent of employers said every job is essentially a tech job because every job has some technical component to it today. That sentiment is reflected in how employers recruit and interview for different roles.
Source: CareerBuilder.
Temecula nail salon cited $1.2 million for misclassification and wage theft of 36 workers The California Labor Commissioner’s Office issued more than $1.2 million in wage theft citations to a Temecula nail salon for misclassifying and failing to properly pay 36 workers. An investigation found that the workers at Young’s Nail Spa were not paid an hourly rate and not paid overtime despite working up to 50 hours a week.
“Using misclassification as a business model not only denies workers of their rightful pay, but also gives the employer an unfair advantage over law-abiding businesses,” said Labor Commissioner Julie A. Su. “California law is clear that if employers pay less than the minimum wage, when they are caught they will be responsible for paying not just the wages owed, but an equivalent amount in liquidated damages plus interest.”
The Labor Commissioner’s Office launched its investigation when the Labor and Workforce Development Agency referred the case following notification of a complaint filed through the Private Attorneys General Act. Investigators audited the business records over a 40-month period and determined that 36 workers employed at the salon were paid for each salon service performed instead of the total hours worked. Shifts averaged 9.5 to 10 hours per day but workers were not properly paid for overtime, nor provided proper meal and rest breaks. Young’s Nail Spa also failed to carry valid workers’ compensation insurance coverage during the last three years.
The $1,242,227 citation amount includes $670,040 payable to workers and $572,187 in civil penalties. Of the total due to workers, $126,702 is for minimum wage violations plus $17,375 in interest, $144,076 for liquidated damages, $118,825 for failure to pay overtime, $92,492 for not providing final paychecks as required by law, $87,155 for improperly paid rest periods, $65,312 for not providing proper itemized wage statements, and $18,103 for meal period violations.
The civil penalties include $207,887 for failure to maintain valid workers’ compensation insurance, $160,000 for misclassifying workers as independent contractors, $104,000 for not providing proper wage statements and $100,300 for penalties associated with the wage violations.
Enforcement investigations typically include a payroll audit of the previous three years to determine minimum wage, overtime and other labor law violations, and any payments owed and penalties due are calculated. Civil penalties collected are transferred to the State’s General Fund as required by law.
Required https://www.dir.ca.gov/wpnodb.html (workplace postings) on wages, hours and working conditions must be posted an area frequented by employees where it may be easily read during the workday. Nail salons have a specific posting required for all https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/publications/Barbering%20and%20cosmetology%20posting%20notice.pdf (Barbering and Cosmetology Licensees).
Source: State of California, Department of Industrial Relations, https://www.dir.ca.gov/DIRNews/2018/2018-65.pdf (News Release No. 2016-65), July 30, 2018.
PROPOSED LEGISLATION,(Jul. 24, 2018) A group of Republican, plus two Democratic, lawmakers have teamed up to introduce and co-sponsor the “AG and Legal Workforce Act,” which would replace what sponsors called the “outdated and broken H-2A agricultural guestworker program” with a new H-2C program. The move is intended to ensure that America’s farmers and ranchers have access to a reliable workforce. Among other things, the bill would expand employer eligibility and the number of visas available, make housing and transportation provision optional, and make Affordable Care Act subsidies unavailable to guestworkers, but require them to have health insurance.
H-2C program. The bill, https://judiciary.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/AG-and-Legal-Workforce-Act.pdf (H.R. 6417), would make the H-2C agricultural guestworker program available to both seasonal and year-round agricultural employers, provide a generous visa allocation for employers to ensure labor needs are met, provide much-needed flexibility to employers to minimize disruptions in farm operations, eliminate regulatory burdens on employers, and contain effective accountability and enforcement provisions, https://judiciary.house.gov/press-release/goodlatte-peterson-smith-cuellar-newhouse-conaway-calvert-introduce-the-bipartisan-ag-and-legal-workforce-act/ (according to the lawmakers).
Eligibility and visa allocation expanded. A https://judiciary.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/071318_AG-and-E-Verify.pdf (bill summary) points to several key features that would expand the agricultural sectors eligible for the program, as well as the number of visas available:
In addition to meeting seasonal agricultural labor needs, the H-2C program would be available to year-round agricultural employers, such as aquaculture operations, dairies, raw food processors, and others.
The total number of visas available each year would include 40,000 visas for workers employed in meat and poultry processing, and 410,000 for all other agricultural workers.
Returning H-2A and H-2B workers, and previously unauthorized farmworkers who participate legally in H-2C, would not count toward the annual visa cap on non-meat and poultry processing workers.
The bill would include an automatic escalator to increase the cap on non-meat and poultry processing visas should the allocation be reached in a given year and limited discretion for the Secretary of Agriculture to allocate additional visas in the event of a labor shortage.
Unauthorized workers get path to certification. H.R. 6417 would permit experienced farmworkers who are currently illegally present in the United States to get pre-certified to join the H-2C program, and after leaving the U.S. briefly, begin working legally.
Visa term lengths and touchback requirements. The bill would also include flexible visa term lengths and certain touchback requirements. All H-2C workers would be eligible for a three-year visa. Workers would be able to meet their touchback requirement by accruing time through multiple periods of absence from the U.S. Specifically, a worker would be required to accrue 60 days, or a time period equal to 1/12th of their stay, whichever is less, before becoming eligible for a subsequent visa.
Wages and regulatory burdens. The bill would require that workers receive “reasonable wages” and would put an end to “excessive regulatory burdens,” according to sponsors. To that end, the proposed legislation would include these provisions:
Employers would be required to pay H-2C workers not less than the state or local minimum wage, 115 percent of the federal minimum wage (150 percent in the case of meat or poultry processing jobs), or the actual wage level paid by the employer to similarly situated workers in the same job, whichever is greatest.
Employers would have the option of providing housing and transportation for their workers, but...
U.S. employers eye improvements to compensation programs Growing pressure to improve their pay-for-performance programs and ensure fair pay throughout the workplace is sparking changes to corporate America’s employee compensation and performance management programs, according to Willis Towers Watson’s https://www.willistowerswatson.com/en/insights/2018/06/2018-getting-compensation-right-survey-global-findings-report (2018 Getting Compensation Right Survey).
The survey revealed several factors are prompting employers to make or consider changes to their programs, including cost (71 percent), manager feedback (63 percent), changing marketplace (61 percent) and feedback from employees (59 percent).
Changes respondents are planning to make this year, or considering over the next three years, include:
Base pay and annual incentive plans: The changing nature of work and new skills requirements are fueling employers to reassess these programs. Forty-five percent are planning on or considering redesigning annual incentive plans; 37 percent are planning on or considering changing criteria for salary increases. Among employers not redesigning their programs, most are making changes to the importance of the factors used to set base pay increases.
Heightened pay decision transparency: More than half of respondents (53 percent) are planning on or considering increasing the level of transparency around pay decisions, a challenging task given the growing complexity of pay decisions.
New technology: Employers are recognizing the need for new technology to support pay decisions. Currently, fewer than half of employers (45 percent) are using some software beyond spreadsheets to implement their pay programs. Just over half (52 percent) are planning on or considering introducing new technology.
Refocused performance management: Employers are taking a more future-focused approach to managing performance. Forty percent are planning on or considering changing the focus of performance management to include future potential and possession of skills needed to drive the business in the future. Interestingly, few organizations are planning to scrap performance ratings. While 13 percent have already done so, only 4 percent plan to do so this year.
Recognition programs: These programs are appealing to employers with limited budgets and offer a way to provide on-the-spot personalized rewards. More than half (53 percent) are planning on or considering adding a recognition program.
High marks for fair pay. The survey found that a majority of U.S. employers give themselves high marks when it comes to having formal processes in place to prevent bias or inconsistency in their hiring and pay decisions. Nearly two-thirds of respondents have established formal processes across a range of areas, including annual incentives (64 percent), hiring decisions, (63 percent), starting salaries (62 percent) and base pay increases (62 percent).
Despite high marks, 60 percent of U.S. employers are planning to take some action this year to prevent bias in hiring and pay decisions. Several areas are targeted for greater focus. More than four in 10 are planning on or considering reevaluating their recruitment and promotion processes (44 percent), conducting a gender pay or pay equity diagnostic (42 percent), and increasing communication of policies and benefits that promote an inclusive culture (33 percent). To support creating an inclusive and diverse workforce, companies are also looking to other types of programs. Nearly half have established or support internal networks (45 percent) and improved flexible work arrangements (44 percent).
Pay equity review. “Employers contending with fair pay and gender gap issues should conduct a gender pay equity review, which can help them better understand whether they have fair pay issues, where they exist, and their underlying causes,” said Mark Reid, global leader,...
According to commenters, certain populations with specific needs, such as those with disabilities, could be disproportionately affected if their coverage does not include a robust level of benefits. Some of these commenters suggested that to mitigate these effects, the DOL should require AHPs to provide EHBs or some other minimum level of benefits, or require them to provide “minimum value” within the meaning of Code Sec. 36B(c)(2)(C)(ii) and Reg. §1.36B-6.
Proponents of the rule, however, while acknowledging concerns that AHPs may provide inadequate benefits, did not believe that “legitimate” membership organizations would risk their goodwill and reputation by offering such health plans. Instead, they argued that economies of scale would enable AHPs to offer more comprehensive coverage to their members than they would be able to purchase on their own. One commenter noted that even though self-insured plans and large group market policies are not required to provide EHBs, most do, in fact, provide comprehensive coverage.
The DOL decided not to make the provision of EHBs in an AHP a condition for a group or association to qualify as bona fide. Such a mandate would run contrary to the goal of leveling the playing field between small employers in AHPs, on the one hand, and large employers, on the other, who generally are not subject to the EHB requirements, according to the DOL. Moreover, such a mandate could reduce AHPs’ flexibility to tailor coverage to the particular needs of the members of the group or association offering the benefits, and thereby reduce access to AHPs by making them less attractive options. Thus, the DOL also decided that the final rule would not require the provision of “minimum value” coverage as a condition for a group or association to qualify as bona fide.
The ability to design AHP benefit packages and set cost-sharing requirements without the burden of certain federal restrictions is critical to enabling AHPs to provide an additional, more affordable coverage option to small businesses and working owners who may otherwise have been unable or unwilling to obtain higher-priced coverage, the DOL said. The department also believes that concerns about adverse selection as result of AHPs not providing comprehensive coverage are “overstated.” The DOL sided with those commenters who asserted that AHPs are not likely to offer relatively low levels and scope of benefits, which could jeopardize their relationship with their members.
Other protections that would apply. The DOL also said that other federal and state coverage requirements mayapply to AHPs, say for example, that AHPs must provide coverage for certain recommended preventive services without the imposition of cost-sharing. These services include:
Evidence-based items or services that have in effect a rating of A or B in the current recommendations of the United States Preventive Services Task Force (Task Force) with respect to the individual involved;
Immunizations for routine use in children, adolescents, and adults that have in effect a recommendation from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Advisory Committee) with respect to the individual involved. A recommendation of the Advisory Committee is considered to be “in effect” after it has been adopted by the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A recommendation is considered to be for routine use if it appears on the Immunization Schedules of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;
With respect to infants, children, and adolescents, evidence-informed preventive care and screenings provided for in the comprehensive guidelines supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA); and
With respect to women, evidence-informed preventive care and screening provided for in comprehensive guidelines...
EEOC—Fifty years after the ADEA, agency reports on the state of older workers and bias Even though the ADEA took effect 50 years ago in June 1968, age discrimination remains too common and too accepted as outdated assumptions about older workers and ability persist, according to a report released June 26 by Victoria A. Lipnic, Acting EEOC Chair, on the https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/history/adea50th/report.cfm (State of Older Workers and Age Discrimination 50 Years After the Age Discrimination in Employment Act).
“Open secret.” The ADEA was an important part of 1960s civil rights legislation that was intended to ensure equal opportunity for older workers. Today’s experienced workers are more diverse, better educated, and working longer than previous generations, yet the report finds “many similarities between age discrimination and harassment,” explained Lipnic. “Like harassment, everyone knows it happens every day to workers in all kinds of jobs, but few speak up. It’s an open secret.”
Worse for women, minorities. The report points out the prevalent perception that age discrimination exists in our workplaces: More than 6 in 10 workers age 45 and older say they have seen or experienced age discrimination in the workplace; of those, 90 percent say it is somewhat or very common, according to a 2017 survey. African Americans/Blacks report much higher rates of having experienced age discrimination or knowing someone who had, at 77 percent, compared to 61 percent for Hispanics/Latinos and 59 percent for Whites. More women than men also say older workers face age discrimination.
And in the tech industry. Older workers in the technology industry report significantly high rates of age discrimination, with 70 percent of those on IT staffs reporting they had witnessed or experienced age discrimination. In fact, the report states that more than 40 percent of older tech workers are worried about losing their jobs because of age or consider their age to be a liability to their career.
Who files charges? The demographics of older workers who file ADEA charges have changed markedly since 1967, most significantly as to gender. In 1990, almost twice as many ADEA charges were filed by men than were filed by women. In 2010, the number of women filing age charges surpassed the number of men filing age charges for the first time, a trend that continues today.
In 1990, workers in the age 40-54 age cohort filed the majority of ADEA charges and workers in the age 65+ cohort filed relatively few. But by 2017, more charges were filed by workers ages 55-64 than the younger age cohort. Moreover, by 2017, the percentage of charges filed by workers age 65 and older was double what it was in 1990.
Impact. According to the EEOC report, the financial and emotional harm of age discrimination on older workers and their families is significant. Once an older worker loses a job, she will likely endure the longest period of unemployment compared to other age groups and will likely take a significant pay cut if she becomes re-employed. Plus, job loss has serious long-term financial consequences: Older workers often must draw down their retirement savings while unemployed and are likely to suffer substantial losses in income if they become re-employed.
“Fissuring of the ADEA’s ties to Title VII.” Importantly, the report stressed that experts have expressed concerns about Supreme Court decisions in the past 15 years “that have severed the ADEA from its ties to Title VII, by relying on textual differences between the ADEA and Title VII, rather than their shared purposes and prohibitions.” The most significant ADEA case in this regard is Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc., which held that older workers could no longer use the motivating factor framework derived from the same Title VII prohibition shared by the ADEA to prove unlawful age discrimination. Instead, the Supreme...
BENEFITS—SHRM survey finds uptick in health and wellness offerings As a tight job market continues to help drive increases in employee benefits offered by organizations, health and wellness along with employee programs and services are the benefits most likely to be increased, according to the results of the https://shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/research-and-surveys/Pages/2018-Employee-Benefits.aspx?_ga=2.109490181.167073314.1529332789-1390505139.1493823220 (2018 Employee Benefits Survey) released June 19 by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). The survey results indicated that more than one-third (34 percent) of organizations increased their overall benefits in the last 12 months. When employers added offerings, they were most likely to increase health-related benefits (51 percent) and wellness benefits (44 percent).
Recruiting and retention tool. Retention (cited by 72 percent of respondents) and recruiting (58 percent) were the top reasons reported for increasing benefits. “With unemployment at an 18-year low, employers view benefits as a strategic tool for recruiting and retention,” said Trent Burner, SHRM’s vice president of research. “Strategic organizations adjust their benefits year-to-year, depending upon their use by employees, cost and effectiveness in helping an organization stand out in the competition for talent.”
Wellness. Wellness benefits are popular offerings. Three-quarters (75 percent) of employers offer wellness resources and information and/or a general wellness program.
Fitness and first aid. Over the last year, substantial increases were seen in company-organized fitness competitions/challenges (from 28 percent in 2017 to 38 percent in 2018). The prevalence of CPR/first aid training increased 7 percentage points (47 percent to 54 percent) and standing desks increased from 44 percent to 53 percent.
Paid leave. The availability of paid parental leave increased significantly between 2016 and 2018 for every type of parental leave surveyed. Paid maternity leave increased from 26 percent in 2016 to 35 percent in 2018. Paid paternity (21 percent to 29 percent), adoption (20 percent to 28 percent), foster child (13 percent to 21 percent) and surrogacy (6 percent to 12 percent) leave also increased from 2016.
Other benefits offerings. In top offerings not related to health, employee programs and service benefits increased by 39 percent at organizations that increased benefits offerings in the past 12 months.
For instance, 50 percent of organizations allow casual dress every day, up 6 percentage points since last year. Several other benefits increased over the last five years, including free coffee, company-provided snacks and annual company outings.
Other key findings. SHRM’s annual survey of U.S. employers examines more than 300 benefits that organizations offer their employees. Other key findings include:
Preventive programs specifically targeting employees with chronic health conditions fell by 8 percentage points (from 33 percent in 2017 to 25 percent in 2018).
A substantial increase was seen for life insurance for dependents with over two-thirds of organizations (70 percent) offering this benefit in 2018, an increase of 13 percent since 2017.
Sixty-three percent of organizations give service anniversary awards, an increase of 9 percentage points from 2017.
More than two-thirds (70 percent) of organizations offer some type of telecommuting, up from 62 percent last year.
School’s out! Summer is here, and it’s the time of year when working parents have questions about using their Dependent Care Spending Accounts (DCSAs). Are summer camp expenses eligible? What about day versus overnight camps? Employers and benefit advisors want to be ready with answers about this valuable benefit program.
The following are the top summertime questions about DCSAs and reimbursable expenses:
- What are the basic rules for reimbursable expenses? Dependent care expenses, such as babysitting and daycare center costs, must be work-related to qualify for reimbursement. Work-related means the expenses are for the care of the employee’s child under age 13 to allow the employee to work. If the employee is married and filing jointly, the employee’s spouse also must be gainfully employed or looking for work (unless disabled or a full-time student).
In some cases, expenses to care for a disabled dependent, regardless of age, may be reimbursable. This article focuses on expenses for children under 13 since those are by far the most common type of DCSA reimbursement.
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One of our employees and his family are taking a two-week vacation this summer, but his children’s daycare center will charge its regular fee. Are the expenses reimbursable even if the employee and spouse are off work? Yes. In most cases, expenses are not eligible unless the dependent care services are necessary for the parents to work, but some exceptions apply. The IRS rules for DCSAs provide that expenses during short, temporary absences are eligible if the employee has to pay the child’s care provider. Absences of up to two weeks are automatically considered short, temporary absences. Depending on the circumstances, longer absences also may qualify.
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During the school year, our employee uses her DCSA for her 10-year old’s after-school daycare center expenses. This summer, the child’s daycare will be provided by her 20-year old sister. If the older daughter bills for her services, are the costs eligible for reimbursement? The answer depends on whether the employee or spouse can claim the older daughter as a tax dependent. If the older daughter can be claimed as a dependent, whether or not the employee actually claims her, she is not a qualifying dependent care provider under the DCSA rules.
If the older daughter cannot be claimed as a tax dependent, her charges for providing care are eligible expenses. The specific rule is that a child of the employee, whom the employee cannot claim as a dependent, may be a qualifying provider if the child is age 19 or older by the end of the year.
Note that the employee’s spouse or the child’s parent is never a qualifying provider.
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One of our employees has to pay an application fee and deposit before her child starts attending a daycare center this summer. Are those expenses eligible for reimbursement? Prepaid expenses are eligible for DCSA reimbursement, provided the costs are required in order for the child to receive care. In this case, after the daycare center begins providing care, the employee can be reimbursed for the application fee and deposit she paid. On the other hand, if the employee cancels and her child does not attend, then the application fee and deposit are not eligible expenses.
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An employee will pay day camp expenses for his 8-year-old son and overnight camp expenses for his 12-year-old daughter this summer. Are both types of expenses eligible for reimbursement? The day camp expenses generally are reimbursable. Expenses for overnight camp, however, are not eligible since overnight care is not work-related.
Under the IRS rules for DCSAs, expenses for food, lodging, clothing, education, and entertainment are not reimbursable. If, however, such expenses are small, incidental expenses that cannot be separated from the cost of caring for the child, they may be included for reimbursement. For instance, the day camp may include lunch, snacks, and some sports activities in its...
Too few managers believe key performance indicators align with organization’s strategic objectives — MIT SLOAN A new global study on the state of key performance indicators, released by MIT Sloan Management Review(SMR), suggests that a high number of executives underutilize KPIs as a leadership tool. Despite having access to magnitudes more information, nearly 30 percent of surveyed leaders don’t use KPIs to drive change in their organizations. The study, https://mitsmr.com/2syjWyu (“Leading with Next-Generation Key Performance Indicators,”) delves into why some business leaders are rethinking how they use KPIs to lead and manage the enterprise.
“KPIs should be the most important data and analytics that an organization has,” said Michael Schrage, a research fellow at the MIT Sloan School’s Center for Digital Business and a coauthor of the report. “But our research indicates that KPIs are mismanaged and undervalued.”
There is one notable exception to the reported misuse of KPIs: The study finds that many companies are using KPIs to understand customers in a more holistic way. Over 70 percent of respondents report that their organizations currently have functional KPIs for customer segmentation, and 63 percent of respondents agree that they are using KPIs to develop a single, integrated view of the customer. Several of those business leaders interviewed for the report discussed their efforts to use KPIs to understand “the customer journey,” encompassing the many touchpoints through which customers interact with brands today.
“Using KPIs to create an integrated view of the customer requires a huge adjustment in how organizations collaborate, and the kinds of data they collect and use,” said David Kiron, executive editor at MIT SMR and a coauthor of the report.
The study also identified several pivotal principles used by those companies that have been successful at creating alignment around a shared set of KPIs. The researchers created an index built on the idea of KPI alignment, and found that the best aligned — Measurement Leaders — shared several key characteristics. They:
Use KPIs to lead, as well as manage, the enterprise.
Pursue a holistic, integrated view of the customer. More than 80 percent of Measurement Leaders affirm that their functional KPIs help their function develop a single, integrated view of their target customer. That figure drops to slightly below 25 percent for Measurement Challenged organizations.
See KPIs as data sets for machine learning. Both survey results and interviews suggest that KPIs are now being thought of as data inputs for machine learning, not just as analytic outputs for performance review and planning.
Insist on the ability to digitally drill down to KPI components. Rating their agreement with the statement, “I can easily drill down to see the underlying data or analytic components that are aggregated into my KPIs,” more than 80% of Measurement Leaders strongly agreed or agreed with that statement; the percentage was close to 45 percent for the Measurement Capable organization, and dropped to below 10 percent for the Measurement Challenged group.
Share trusted KPI data. Measurement Leaders are twice as likely as the Measurement Challenged to monitor or have access to other C-suite or functional leadership KPIs.
Aim for “KPI parsimony.” When asked how many of the KPIs they oversee demand most of their attention, a majority of survey respondents chose either the top two or three, or the top 20 percent.
The research indicates that KPIs are strategically, culturally, and operationally entwined with how leaders of data-driven organizations define success. This is especially true for organizations intent on being measurably customer focused and/or customer-centric. As companies hone their data and analytics capabilities, KPIs will become even more...
TOP TALENT—Whole benefits package crucial in competitive labor market With low unemployment hovering at 4 percent, many companies face the recurring question of how to attract and retain top talent in a candidate-driven landscape. In order to remain competitive, it is essential for companies to focus on what they can do to raise wages or reevaluate their benefits packages to adequately compensate employees. This is according to a new survey from https://www.adeccousa.com/employers/ (Adecco USA), which surveyed over 1,000 employed adults to provide insight on what companies can do to be an ideal employer.
“While unemployment rates have continued to steadily decline, we have yet to see that same kind of positive and progressive movement on wages, which could be why we are seeing an uptick in workers having more than one job to pay the bills,” said Federico Vione, CEO of Adecco, North America, UK and Ireland. “There is much evidence to suggest that companies need to start paying more attention to the benefits packages they are offering, including wages, if they want to be deemed a desirable place to work and remain competitive in this tight labor market.”
Nearly 25 percent of employees feel they are paid below industry average and nearly one third (29 percent) of temporary employees quit their last job due to poor wages. What’s more, most employed adults (70 percent) believe minimum wage should be raised (39 percent believe “minimally” and 31 percent feel it should be raise “significantly”). Apart from monetary compensation, alternative benefits like growth opportunities and flexible work arrangements also prove to be important to employees.
Key findings about benefits include:
More than half of respondents (58 percent) said a pay raise would encourage them to stay at a job they were considering leaving;
Almost half of those surveyed from the ages of 18 to 44 (45 percent), ranked professional development as “extremely important” in determining their happiness;
Nearly one fifth (16 percent) of respondents left their job in 2017 due to a lack of growth opportunities; and
Work life balance (20 percent) and positive workplace culture and working relationships with coworkers (a combined 24 percent) also topped the benefits lists.
Career satisfaction and professional growth. In addition to the compensation discussion, companies are falling behind when it comes to keeping their current employees happy. The https://www.adeccousa.com/employers/resources/us-workforce-attraction-and-retention-report/ (2018 US Workforce Report) revealed that nearly one fourth (24 percent) of both male and female employees do not believe their current employer takes active steps to improve their happiness on-the-job.
“With waves of hiring surges bringing competition back to the job market, we continue to see employees change jobs for better benefits, career satisfaction and happiness,” said Joyce Russell, president, Adecco USA. “Employers must regularly take a hard look at their hiring process and what their current employees and future candidates are looking for in a job.”
Russell added, “In addition to fair pay as a key part of securing today’s ambitious workforce, it’s no surprise that over a quarter of workers also say opportunities for professional development are important to them. Top employers are realizing that providing opportunities for growth not only benefit their employees directly, but can also result in an upskilled workforce.”
Opportunities in new talent pools. The survey also suggests that employees who have been out of the labor pool for some time are interested in returning to work. According to the survey, 20 percent of workers returned to work during the past four years, after a period of not working for one year or more. Other non-traditional candidate pools include employees...
CPI for all items rises 0.2% in April The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.2 percent in April on a seasonally adjusted basis after falling 0.1 percent in March, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm (reported) May 10. Over the last 12 months, the all items index rose 2.5 percent before seasonal adjustment.
The indexes for gasoline and shelter were the largest factors in the seasonally adjusted increase in the all items index, although the food index increased as well. The gasoline index increased 3.0 percent, more than offsetting declines in other energy component indexes and led to a 1.4-percent rise in the energy index. The food index rose 0.3 percent, with the food at home index rising 0.3 percent and the index for food away from home increasing 0.2 percent.
The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.1 percent in April. The shelter index rose 0.3 percent, with other indexes mixed. The indexes for household furnishings and operations, personal care, tobacco, medical care, and apparel all increased in April, while those for used cars and trucks, new vehicles, recreation, and airline fares all declined.
The all items index rose 2.5 percent for the 12 months ending April; this figure has been mostly trending upward since it was 1.6 percent for the period ending June 2017. The index for all items less food and energy rose 2.1 percent for the 12 months ending April. The food index increased 1.4 percent, and the energy index rose 7.9 percent.
Real average hourly earnings are unchanged in April Real average hourly earnings for all employees were unchanged from March to April, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.nr0.htm (reported) May 10. This result stems from a 0.1-percent increase in average hourly earnings being offset by a 0.2-percent increase in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U).
Real average weekly earnings decreased 0.1 percent over the month due to no change in both real average hourly earnings and the average workweek. Real average hourly earnings increased 0.2 percent, seasonally adjusted, from April 2017 to April 2018. The increase in real average hourly earnings combined with a 0.3-percent increase in the average workweek resulted in a 0.4-percent increase in real average weekly earnings over this period.
Unemployment rate edges down to 3.9% in April Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 164,000 in April, and the unemployment rate edged down to 3.9 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm (reported) May 4. This follows 6 months at 4.1 percent. The number of unemployed persons, at 6.3 million, also edged down over the month. Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult women decreased to 3.5 percent in April. The jobless rates for adult men (3.7 percent), teenagers (12.9 percent), Whites (3.6 percent), Blacks (6.6 percent), Asians (2.8 percent), and Hispanics (4.8 percent) showed little or no change over the month.
Job gains occurred in professional and business services (+54,000), manufacturing (+24,000), health care (+24,000), and mining (+8,000). Employment changed little over the month in other major industries, including construction, wholesale trade, retail trade, transportation and warehousing, information, financial activities, leisure and hospitality, and government.
FORM I-9—Increased federal enforcement requires proactive measures The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is stepping up enforcement efforts of unauthorized workers by tripling its number of officers and quintupling the number of enforcement actions in 2018. As a result, employers need to be proactive and ensure that they are hiring authorized workers and that their Form I-9 practices are in compliance, says a new XpertHR https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flink.rm0004.net%2Fgo%2FSnzhdqY-HDXE8EQsxIIUxw2%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cheidi.henson%40wolterskluwer.com%7Cba81c70d73d648d4b2e208d5bcb6ef8d%7C8ac76c91e7f141ffa89c3553b2da2c17%7C1%7C0%7C636622416251610934&sdata=XqMGE0oppPi%2BOmGVEBH8rv5ljQEwFdW1MLCNbJd10iY%3D&reserved=0 (report). Otherwise, employers may be ICE’s next target.
Under the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), if an employer knowingly hires or continues to employ an unauthorized worker, it can be exposed to civil and criminal penalties. The IRCA applies to all entities, large and small, corporate and individual, regardless of the number of employees in the employer’s workforce. Limited exceptions to the I-9 rule include individuals hired for domestic employment that is sporadic, irregular, or intermittent; independent contractors authorized to work in the US; B-1 domestic servants; B-1 trainees on short term training programs; employees hired before November 7, 1986 and continuously employed; and individuals who are not working physically in the US.
“While it may seem daunting to stay current with the form’s evolving technical requirements, the failure to do so may expose an employer to audits, fines and/or criminal prosecutions, which could include prison time,” says Melissa A. Silver, Legal Editor, XpertHR.
DACA. One employment eligibility issue facing many employers is related to employees who are beneficiaries under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Keeping up with the legal developments regarding DACA is a challenge and employers need to ensure that they stay up to date on this continually evolving issue when verifying employment eligibility and authorization of new hires.
Avoiding discrimination. Another potential trap for employers is ensuring that they employ an authorized workforce, while avoiding engaging in discrimination during the Form I-9 process. In order to ensure compliance employers should take various actions, including the following:
Closely follow the directions mandated on the Form I-9. Do not request any additional information or documents beyond what is mandated on the Form I-9.
Allow employees to choose which of the approved documents the employee will use in completing the Form I-9. Do not mandate that any particular document be presented by the employee.
Wait until after the prospective employee has accepted the employment offer before verifying the new hire’s eligibility for work or requesting completion of the Form I-9.
Train employees involved in the Form I-9 process not to refuse to hire a prospective employee because he or she presented documentation with a future expiration date.
Avoid making hiring, retention, or termination decisions on the basis of actual or perceived citizenship status, national origin, or the employee’s native language.
Ensuring compliance. In order to ensure compliance with the IRCA and the Form I-9 requirements, employers should establish uniform policies such as the following:
Whether to copy supporting documents;
Storage of I-9 forms;
Addressing credible reports of suspected unlawful employment and/or fraudulent identity; and
Retention and purging.
“With increased scrutiny on employers’ hiring practices, especially those of non-US citizens, employers need to ensure that they verify the employment authorization and identity of new hires,” explains Silver....
You are an applicable large employer if you averaged at least 50 full-time employees, including full-time equivalent employees, during the prior calendar year. ALEs are subject to information reporting and the employer shared responsibility provisions.
Steps to determine your status as an ALE 1.Determine how many full-time employees you had each month of the prior calendar year. Under the ACA, a full-time employee for any calendar month is one who has, on average, at least 30 hours of service per week, or at least 130 hours per calendar month. There are exceptions for seasonal workers and employees with medical coverage under TRICARE or the Department of Veterans Affairs. 2.Determine how many full-time equivalent employees you had each month of the prior calendar year. Todo this, combine the number of hours of service of all non-full-time employees for the month –and divide that total by 120. Make sure you do not include more than 120 hours of service per employee. The same exceptions above for seasonal workers and workers with coverage under TRICARE or the Department of Veterans Affairs apply when determining the number of full-time equivalent employees. 3.For each calendar month, add your full-time and full-time equivalent employees for a monthly total. Add the monthly totals. Divide the sum of the monthly totals by 12. If the result is 50 or more employees, you are an ALE.
The law treats employers in an aggregated group as a single employer for determining ALE status. You are part of an aggregated group if you have a certain level of common ownership or are otherwise related to other employers. These employers must add together all full-time employees of the aggregated group, including full-time equivalent employees, to determine the status of the combined group of employers as an ALE. Generally each individual ALE member is responsible for its own employer shared responsibility payment.
Responsibilities for applicable large employers ALEs are subject to information reporting requirements and generally use Forms 1094-C and Forms 1095-C to report information to the IRS and their employees about the coverage offered. Employers that sponsor self-insured group health plans have additional information reporting requirements as a coverage provider.
ALEs also are subject to the employer shared responsibility payment provisions. You may have to make a shared responsibility payment if at least one full-time employee receives the premium tax credit for purchasing individual coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace and you:
• failed to offer coverage to at least 95 percent of full-time employees and their dependents, or • offered coverage to at least 95 percent of full-time employees but not to the particular full-time employee receiving the credit (one of the 5 percent), or •offered coverage that was not affordable, •offered coverage that did not provide a minimum level of coverage.
The Shared Responsibility payment amount vary from about $3,000 per employee who got a credit on the exchange, to $2500 for each and every employee you did not offer coverage to who should have been offered.
Majority of working parents claim they are able to ‘have it all’ — SURVEY RESULTS According to the majority of workers with children at home (78 percent) who participated in a CareerBuilder survey, it is possible to be successful at work and at home. The national survey was conducted online by The Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder from April 4 to May 1, 2018, and included a representative sample of 1,012 full-time workers in the private sector across industries and company sizes.
“Work-life balance is certainly a struggle for all professionals, but we see workers moving past the idea that they have to give something up and that the sacrifice of either a career or parenting must be made,” said Jennifer Grasz, vice president of corporate communications for CareerBuilder. “Promoting a balance should be important to employers, too. When employees feel a greater sense of control and ownership over their own lives, they tend to have better relationships with coworkers, be more productive and are able to leave work issues at work and home issues at home.”
While more than half of workers with a child in the household (51 percent) say they feel equally successful in their role at work and as a parent, more than half of working dads (56 percent) feel this way, compared to only 47 percent of working moms. Further, while 33 percent of working moms say they feel more successful as a parent, only 22 percent of working dads say the same.
When it comes to bringing home the bacon, both parents are responsible—less than a third (32 percent) of workers who are parents say they are the sole financial provider in their household. But when working parents are asked how likely they are to leave their job if their spouse or significant other made enough money for their family to live comfortably, only a quarter (25 percent) say they are likely. Similarly, 65 percent of employees with a child in the household said they are not willing to take a decrease in pay to spend more time with their kids—a similar feeling in working dads (65 percent) and moms (66 percent).
While the majority of working parents (66 percent) spend at least three hours a day with their kids each day, more than a third (38 percent) have missed a significant event in their child’s life due to work in the last year—more than 1 in 5 (21 percent) have missed three or more events. Parents’ absence is noted by their kids. Nearly a quarter of working parents (24 percent) say their children have asked them to work less, and a similar proportion (23 percent) say work is negatively impacting their relationship with their children. Eighteen percent of working parents say work is negatively impacting their relationship with their spouse or significant other, most common for workers in health care (24 percent).
Parenting’s impact on career. Half of workers who are parents (46 percent) have not taken advantage of flexible work arrangements, but of those who have (54 percent), 37 percent say it has not affected their career progress and 12 percent said it has positively impacted it. Nearly 1 in 10 workers who have kids (7 percent) have included their parent skills/experience on their resume or cover letter.
Source: CareerBuilder.
Benchmark: Employer Costs for Employee Compensation https://i1.wp.com/peopleprocesses.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/BLS-table.png?ssl=1 ()
Employee compensation packages usually contain at least two components:
base salary or hourly wage; and
group benefits.
Base salary depends on competitive considerations such as the available talent pool, the role of bonuses, and the company’s stated philosophy to pay at a specified percentile of the market salary.
Group benefits may be in the form of protective benefits — health care or prepaid legal services — or in the form of profit-sharing or gainsharing.
Regardless of the particular benefits that comprise a compensation package, a big concern for most employers is paying for it. Although some employees are required to contribute to the cost of various benefits, the bulk of the compensation package is often provided by the employer.
BLS survey. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes a quarterly Employer Costs for Employee Compensation survey. The survey measures the average cost per employee hour worked that employers pay for wages, salaries, and benefits. Data is collected for the pay period including the 12th day of the survey months of March, June, September and December. Results are issued approximately three months after the month of reference.
Quarterly results for March 2018 are as follows:
Survey description
Survey is conducted quarterly by the BLS. The payroll period that includes March 12, 2018, is the reference period.
Survey release date: June 8, 2018.
Data from both private industry and state and local government is included. Self-employed, farm, household, and federal government workers are not included.
Cost levels are based on a sample of approximately 27,300 occupations within approximately 6,600 private-industry establishments and about 8,000 occupations within approximately 1,400 state and local government establishments.
Summary of survey results
Compensation costs for civilian workers
In March 2018, employer costs for employee compensation for civilian workers (private industry and state and local government) in the United States averaged $36.32 per hour worked. Wages and salaries, which averaged $24.77 per hour, accounted for 68.2 percent of these costs, while benefits, which averaged $11.55 per hour, accounted for the remaining 31.8 percent.
Legally required benefits ( e.g., Social Security, Medicare, workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance) averaged $2.66 per hour (7.3 percent of total compensation). Other benefit categories and their average cost per hour worked were:
life, health and disability insurance: $3.18 (8.8 percent of total compensation);
paid leave: $2.58 (7.1 percent of total compensation);
retirement and savings: $1.92 (5.3 percent of total compensation); and
supplemental pay: $1.20 (3.3 percent of total compensation).
Compensation costs in private industry
Private-industry employers spent an average of $34.17 per hour worked for total employee compensation. Wages and salaries, which averaged $23.76 per hour, accounted for 69.5 percent of these costs, while benefits, which averaged $10.41 per hour, accounted for the remaining 30.5 percent.
Legally required benefits averaged $2.65 per hour (7.8 percent of total compensation). Other benefit categories and their average cost per hour worked were:
life, health and disability insurance: $2.74 (8.0 percent of total compensation);
paid leave: $2.40 (7.0 percent of total compensation);
retirement and savings: $1.30 (3.8 percent of total compensation); and
supplemental pay: $1.32 (3.9 percent of total compensation).
Compensation costs in state and local government
State and local government employers spent an average of $49.40 per hour worked for total employee compensation. Wages and salaries, which averaged $30.91 per hour, accounted for 62.6...
Legal analysis of alternative dispute resolution What are the issues that arise when considering whether or not to offer alternative dispute resolution (ADR) to employees in the hope that they will use ADR in lieu of litigation? An employer wants to be sure this process will be:
fair and objective;
cost effective;
capable of protecting the employer’s interests;
reliable;
binding on all parties; and
a mechanism to provide closure.
Arbitration
Many employers are requiring, as a condition of employment, that applicants and employees give up their rights to pursue employment discrimination claims in court and agree to resolve disputes through binding arbitration. The agreements to arbitrate may be contained in an employment contract, employee handbook, or employment application. The use of such agreements can be found in various sectors of the workforce, including the securities industry, retail, restaurant and hotel chains, health care, broadcasting, and security services.
Enforceability. The enforceability of mandatory arbitration of statutorily protected employee rights, such as the right to be free of discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, age or disability, has been debated. In two decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court, the controversy was essentially put to rest. In 1991, the Court ruled in Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp. that a claim subject to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act could be subject to compulsory arbitration as required by an agreement ( https://answersnow.cch.com/?refUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fmy.coloniallife.com%2Fproducers%2FSearch%2520Results%3Fq%3Dcch%26page%3D1&P=collife&cpid=WKUS-REX-HRLP#09013e2c875871d0-footdocd2812e1fn27 (5)). Then, in 2001, the Court ruled in Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams that arbitration clauses in most contracts of employment (excluding employment contracts for transportation workers) are enforceable under the FAA ( https://answersnow.cch.com/?refUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fmy.coloniallife.com%2Fproducers%2FSearch%2520Results%3Fq%3Dcch%26page%3D1&P=collife&cpid=WKUS-REX-HRLP#09013e2c875871d0-footdocd2812e1fn32 (10)). The rulings give employers broad authority to require employees to arbitrate employment disputes.
Agreements to arbitrate often contain two relevant provisions: one providing for arbitration of all disputes arising out of the employment relationship, and one giving the arbitrator exclusive authority to resolve the “gateway”question of enforceability (the delegation provision). Where an agreement to arbitrate includes a delegation provision, it is for the district court to consider a specific challenge to the enforceability of that particular agreement. But if a party challenges the enforceability of the agreement as a whole, the challenge is for the arbitrator. This is the result of a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Rent-A-Center, West, Inc. v. Antonio Jackson, where it was decided that where an agreement to arbitrate employment disputes gives the arbitrator exclusive authority to resolve the “gateway” question of enforceability, and where that party challenges specifically the enforceability of that particular agreement, the district court considers the challenge, but if a party challenges the enforceability of the agreement as a whole, the challenge is for the arbitrator to decide ( https://answersnow.cch.com/?refUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fmy.coloniallife.com%2Fproducers%2FSearch%2520Results%3Fq%3Dcch%26page%3D1&P=collife&cpid=WKUS-REX-HRLP#09013e2c875871d0-footdocd2812e1fn40 (15)).
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has maintained a different position. It has strongly supported voluntary alternative dispute resolution programs entered into after a dispute arises. The EEOC has asserted that mandatory binding arbitration of discrimination claims as a condition of employment is contrary to the fundamental principles of...
New NLRB memo talks permissible vs. impermissible handbook rules in light of Boeing In the aftermath of its December 2017 The Boeing Company decision, the National Labor Relations Board has issued new guidance on handbook rules. The June 7 General Counsel memorandum provides general guidance for Regions about the placement of various types of rules into the three categories set out in Boeing, as well as the Section 7 interests, business justifications, and other considerations that Regions should take into account in arguing to the Board that specific Category 2 rules are unlawful.
Rules categories. The memo provides instruction as to each of the three categories of rules set forth in Boeing:
Category 1: Rules that are generally lawful to maintain
Category 2: Rules warranting individualized scrutiny
Category 3: Rules that are unlawful to maintain
Category 1: The types of rules in this category are generally lawful, either because the rule, when reasonably interpreted, does not prohibit or interfere with the exercise of rights guaranteed by the National Labor Relations Act, or because the potential adverse impact on protected rights is “outweighed by the business justifications” associated with the rule, according to the memo. Charge allegations alleging that rules in this category are facially unlawful should be dismissed, absent withdrawal.
However, if a Region believes that special circumstances render a normally lawful rule under Category 1 to be unlawful, for example, due to a unique industrial setting, the history of the rule’s application, or direct evidence of employee chill, the Region should submit the case to the Division of Advice. Notably, merely maintaining a facially lawful rule does not determine whether the rule was applied lawfully.
The memo provides examples of Category 1 rules that in include several general types and specific examples of what is deemed acceptable. The following types of rules fall into this category:
Civility rules
No-photography and no-recording rules
Rules against insubordination
Non-cooperation, or on-the-job conduct that adversely affects operations rules
Disruptive behavior rules
Rules protecting confidential, proprietary, and customer information or documents
Rules against defamation or misrepresentation
Rules against using employer logos or intellectual property
Rules requiring authorization to speak for the company
Rules banning disloyalty, nepotism, or self-enrichment
Category 2 rule. The rules in this category are not obviously lawful or unlawful, and must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to determine whether the rule would interfere with rights guaranteed by the NLRA, and if so, whether any adverse impact on those rights is outweighed by legitimate justifications. In the absence of any Board jurisprudence applying Boeing to a Category 2 rule, Regions should submit all Category 2 rules to Advice.
Examples of possible Category 2 rules include:
Broad conflict-of-interest rules that do not specifically target fraud and self-enrichment and do not restrict membership in, or voting for, a union.
Confidentiality rules broadly encompassing “employer business” or “employee information” (as opposed to confidentiality rules regarding customer or proprietary information, or confidentiality rules more specifically directed at employee wages, terms of employment, or working conditions).
Rules regarding disparagement or criticism of the employer (as opposed to civility rules regarding disparagement of employees).
Rules regulating use of the employer’s name (as opposed to rules regulating use of the employer’s logo/trademark).
Rules generally restricting speaking to the media or third parties (as opposed to rules restricting speaking to the media on the employer’s behalf).
Rules banning off-duty conduct that might harm the...
Standard mileage rates updated to reflect elimination of miscellaneous itemized deductions In Notice 2018-42, the IRS has updated Notice 2018-3, to reflect changes to the tax law made by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA; P.L. 115-97). Changes impacting Notice 2018-3 include:
the suspension of the deduction for un-reimbursed employee expenses;
the suspension of the deduction for move related expenses; and
the increase of depreciation limits for passenger vehicles.
Un-reimbursed employee expenses. Notice 2018-3 stated that taxpayers, including those deducting unreimbursed employee travel expenses, could use the standard mileage rate of 54.5 cents per mile. The TCJA suspends all miscellaneous itemized deductions that are subject to the 2 percent of adjusted gross income floor until January 1, 2026. This includes unreimbursed employee travel expenses. Therefore, Notice 2018-3 cannot be used to claim a deduction for such expenses. There are certain taxpayers who may continue to deduct itemized unreimbursed employee travel expenses. These include:
members of a reserve component of the U.S. Armed Forces;
state or local government officials paid on a fee basis; and
certain performing artists.
Thus, Notice 2018-3 will continue to apply to those above listed taxpayers claiming deductions for unreimbursed employee travel expenses.
Move related expenses. Notice 2018-3 also provided a standard mileage rate of 18 cents per mile for moving expenses pursuant to Code Sec. 217. TCJA suspends the deduction for moving expenses until January 1, 2026. This suspension does not apply to members of U.S. Armed Forces on active duty who move pursuant to a military order under Code Sec. 217(g). Thus, the standard mileage rate for moving expenses listed in Notice 2018-3 is not applicable to taxpayers, unless Code Sec. 217(g) applies.
Increase of depreciation limits for passenger vehicles. Notice 2018-3 stated that the maximum depreciation limitations for passenger automobiles placed in service after Dec. 31, 2017, for purposes of computing the allowance under a fixed and variable rate. The stated maximum for standard automobile cost was $27,300 for passenger automobiles and $31,000 for trucks and vans. TCJA increases the depreciation limitations for passenger automobiles placed in service after December 31, 2017. Under the law, the maximum standard automobile cost may not exceed $50,000 for passenger automobiles, trucks and vans placed in service after Dec. 31, 2017.
The standard mileage rate of 54.5 cents per mile cannot be used for taxpayers claiming unreimbursed employee travel expenses, with limited exceptions. Members of a reserve component of the U.S. Armed Forces, state or local government officials paid on a fee basis, and certain performing artists may still use the standard mileage rate to calculate unreimbursed employee travel expenses. The standard mileage rate of 18 cents per mile for moving expenses is no longer applicable unless Code Sec. 217(g) applies to the taxpayer. Finally, for purposes of computing the allowance under an FAVR plan, the standard automobile cost may not exceed $50,000 (increased from $27,900 for standard automobiles and $31,300 for trucks and vans).
SOURCE: Notice 2018-42, I.R.B. 2018-24, June 11, 2018.
Law amended — TENNESSEE — Unemployment Insurance,(Jun. 1, 2018) Electronic filing requirement. Except as otherwise provided in the Law, beginning January 1, 2019, and each quarter afterwards, every employer, and every person or organization who reports wages for employees on behalf of one or more subject employers, must file their wage and premium reports electronically, in a format prescribed by the commissioner.
If the electronic filing requirement, however, creates a hardship for the employer, person, or organization subject to it, the employer, person, or organization may submit an affidavit to the commissioner containing a statement made under the penalty of perjury that the employer, person, or organization would suffer an undue hardship by filing the wage and premium reports electronically, and the commissioner may allow the employer, person, or organization to file the wage and premium reports in a paper format. Any employer, person, or organization that does not have prior approval to file in a paper format, and that is required to file the reports electronically but neglects or refuses to do so, will be considered to have filed an incomplete wage and premium report and will be assessed a penalty.
Note that the required affidavit must be submitted within the first quarter, beginning January 1, 2019, and annually thereafter (Tenn. ¶4236).
Private equity firm to pay over $550,000 in back wages and penalties over misclassifying employees as interns — MASSACHUSETTS — Employee misclassification A Boston private equity firm will pay more than half a million dollars in penalties and wages to 174 current and former employees in a settlement with the AG’s Office over the employer’s improper classification of employees as interns and its failure to pay those employees minimum wage and to keep proper employment records, according to Attorney General Maura Healey in a recent announcement.
Search Fund Accelerator (SFA), its President Timothy Bovard and Treasurer Jeremy Silverman were issued two citations totaling $550,187 in restitution and penalties for violating the state’s wage and hour laws.
“This private equity firm should have paid its employees, but instead treated them like unpaid interns,” said AG Healey. “I commend the employees at SFA for speaking up for themselves and their co-workers. We encourage all others who believe they are part of an illegal internship program to contact my office so we can ensure these workers know their rights.”
The AG’s Fair Labor Division began an investigation after receiving an anonymous complaint from a current SFA employee alleging he and other employees were in an improper, unpaid internship program. A review of SFA’s payroll records over the 22-month period of July 2015 to May 2017 showed SFA hired a disproportionate number of employees as unpaid interns—more than 180, compared to 12 known paid employees—and many “interns” worked more than 30 hours per week, regularly performed duties similar to those performed by paid employees, and did not receive school credit for their work.
Under Massachusetts’ Minimum Wage Law, unpaid internship programs must align with the Massachusetts Department of Labor Standards’ six-part test and be sufficiently associated with an educational institution in order to be defined as a “training program” exempt from minimum wage. The six-part test requires the training interns receive through an internship:
1.
Is similar to that which would be given in an educational environment, even though it includes actual operation of the employer’s facilities;
2.
Is for the benefit of the intern;
3.
Does not displace regular employees, but the intern works under close supervision of existing staff;
4.
Provides the employer with no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;
5.
Does not entitle the intern to a job at the conclusion of the training period; and
6.
Is based on a mutual understanding between the employer and the intern that the trainee is not entitled to wages for the time spent in training.
The investigation found that SFA’s “interns” worked as employees and should have been paid a minimum wage of $9 per hour in 2015, $10 per hour in 2016, and $11 per hour in 2017 during the time period in question. Additionally, SFA did not maintain true and accurate timekeeping records for its employees as required by law.
Individuals may volunteer their services for nonprofit organizations and government agencies, so long as certain conditions are met. In general, the activity should be less than full-time, should not displace regular employees, and must be offered freely without pressure or coercion.
SFA has cooperated with the AG Office’s investigation, and agreed to make changes to its internship program as part of the settlement. Former and current employees will receive between $20 and $13,341, with the average worker receiving just over $2,100 in restitution as a result of the settlement.
AG Healey’s Fair Labor Division is responsible for enforcing state laws regulating the payment of wages, including prevailing wage, minimum wage, earned sick time and overtime laws. This matter was handled by Assistant Attorney General Drew Cahill and Investigator Huong Phan, both of AG Healey’s Fair...
Law firm’s pay equity guidance points to trends — PRACTICE TIP Acknowledging Equal Pay Day on April 10, Seyfarth Shaw’s Pay Equity Group released a pair of reference guides on pay equity that are aimed at enhancing employers’ compliance efforts: the http://www.seyfarth.com/dir_docs/publications/Trends_PayEquityLitigation_April2018.pdf (2018 Trends and Developments in Pay Equity Litigation Report) and the http://www.seyfarth.com/dir_docs/publications/PayEquity_50State.pdf (2nd Annual 50-State Pay Equity Desktop Reference). From https://bit.ly/2Lc38po (XPERT HR (full report):)
The law firm practice group also http://www.seyfarth.com/publications/MA041118-LE (pointed) to several emerging trends:
Amped-up pay laws: While California, New York, and Massachusetts led the way in adopting stricter state pay equity laws, other states, including Maryland and Oregon, soon followed suit. The trend continues into 2018 with New Jersey and Washington passing similarly onerous laws in recent weeks. Laws banning employers from asking candidates for employment about prior salary is another trend. Laws have been enacted in nine jurisdictions, and several other states are considering similar salary history bans.
Litigation uptick: Not surprisingly, concurrent with these new laws and developments, the Seyfarth Pay Equity Group has seen an increased interest by the plaintiff’s bar in litigation under the federal Equal Pay Act and analogous state laws. The primary targets for this new wave of litigation have been firms in the legal and tech industries. Those cases are already generating new and intriguing law that has the potential to reshape the landscape of pay equity litigation, including whether and how those claims can be maintained as collective or class actions.
Federal circuit split on pay factors: Recent cases demonstrate that http://www.seyfarth.com/publications/OMM050417-LE (Federal circuit courts are split) on whether prior salary can be used as a factor that justifies differences in pay under the federal Equal Pay Act. On April 9, the http://hr.cch.com/eld/RizoYovino040918.pdf (Ninth Circuit changed course) in an en banc decision and held that an employee’s prior salary does not constitute a “factor other than sex” upon which a wage differential may be based under the statutory “catchall” exception in the federal Equal Pay Act (Rizo v. Yovino). Stay tuned to see this in the Supreme Court.
Push towards greater transparency and more structure: The benefit to having more defined pay structures and being more transparent about pay is that it often helps demystify what has long been thought to be a taboo topic. Structure also provides an opportunity to reassure employees about their pay and if they are paid in line with their peers, and helps employers identify any concerns that may have been unintentionally overlooked. Lastly, employers are weighing https://www.laborandemploymentlawcounsel.com/2016/04/pay-equity-communications-aka-what-do-i-say/ (voluntary) or mandatory http://www.seyfarth.com/publications/PEG020817 ((like in the U.K.)) disclosures about pay. This raises additional concerns and, at the same time, provides additional opportunities. Seyfarth notes that it expects this trend to continue.
Report identifies best practices for I-9 compliance — PRACTICE TIP The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is stepping up enforcement efforts of unauthorized workers by tripling its number of officers and quintupling the number of enforcement actions in 2018. As a result, employers need to be proactive and ensure that they are hiring authorized workers and that their Form I-9 practices are in compliance. Otherwise, employers may be ICE’s next target.
Under the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), if an employer knowingly hires or continues to employ an unauthorized worker, it can be exposed to civil and criminal penalties. The IRCA applies to all entities, large...
Employers found to be accelerating adoption of benefits technology — SURVEY RESULTS Since 2012, investors have steered more than $14 billion into human capital management (HCM) software and platforms. A new study by The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America® (Guardian) confirms that human resources technology is top of mind for many employers seeking greater efficiencies and workforce engagement. The study reveals most employers have increased their spending on benefits-related technology in the past five years, with approximately 50 percent expecting further increases in the next three years. The latest set of findings come from https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=2139271-1&h=2539129855&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.guardiananytime.com%2F&a=Guardian+Workplace+Benefits+StudySM (The Fifth Annual Guardian Workplace Benefits StudySM, Game-Changer: The Digitalization of Employee Benefits Delivery).
Workplace demographic shifts, particularly millennials, whose share of the workforce continues to expand, are influencing how employers manage human resources and employee benefit functions. Millennials prefer a more intuitive, personalized and engaging benefits experience from their companies. The study finds employers are beginning to improve the end-to-end user experience with 75 percent focused on improving effectiveness of self-service platforms, compared to 61 percent in 2014. When asked about helping employees make better benefits solutions, 73 percent of employers said this was “highly important” compared to 47 percent in 2014.
“Our lives increasingly revolve around new technologies and digitalization, and this study confirms that benefits technology is reshaping how employers think about their benefits strategy,” said Marc Costantini, executive vice president, Commercial and Government Markets, at Guardian. “A multi-generational workforce along with mounting pressures on employers to contain costs, simplify their benefits, and stay compliant are prompting employers to make this a priority.”
Benefits technology is a strategic imperative. C-suite executives are also turning their focus on digital HCM functions for cost-savings and more efficient strategies. More than 40 percent of all employers say that expanding their use of technology will be among their top benefit strategies in the next five years.
The rise of SaaS models has enabled businesses of all sizes to gain more access to affordable cloud-based applications for handling HCM. The study finds one-third of smaller businesses (i.e. 5 to 24 employees) plan to introduce changes by 2020.
Employers need help navigating their options. The study also reinforced that most employers need expert advice when it comes to benefits technology options. The wide range of selections creates confusion about which vendor to go with and what capabilities will best fit their needs. This was prevalent among small companies (5 to 24 employees) with nearly 40 percent saying that developing a benefits technology strategy is a significant challenge. However, for employers who use brokers, two in five indicate they have not spoken to a broker about their benefit technology needs.
Other key findings in the study include:
Three in four millennials wish it were easier to learn about and access their workplace benefits;
Forty two percent of young millennials use artificial intelligence to find answers for benefits of health-related questions compared to 26 percent of baby boomers;
Fifty eight percent of employers say managing their employee benefits has become increasingly complex (up from 52 percent in 2015); and
Sixty seven percent of highly digital employers said enrolling employees is “very efficient” compared to 44 percent of paper-based employers.
Source: The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America.
Research shows increasing number of professionals can’t unplug on vacation — SURVEY RESULTS...
How should intermittent FMLA leave be calculated when an employee moves from full- to part-time status? Issue: Six months ago, one of your full-time employees (working 40 hours per week) was granted intermittent leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). He has taken three weeks (or 120 hours) of leave. Last month, he transferred to a part-time position, working 20 hours per week, and he continues to need FMLA leave. How should you calculate the intermittent leave? Should it be based on his former full-time hours or his current part-time hours?
Answer: Under the FMLA regulations, if an employer has made a permanent or long-term change in the employee’s schedule (for reasons other than the FMLA and prior to the notice of need of FMLA leave), the hours worked under the new schedule are to be used for making this calculation.
In this situation, the employee has nine weeks of FMLA leave remaining in his FMLA year. Going forward, you should use his part-time schedule to calculate any intermittent FMLA leave. Thus, he would have 180 hours of FMLA leave remaining for the year.
Keep in mind that the U.S. Department of Labor requires FMLA leave to be calculated in workweeks. For instance, if an employee is scheduled for 20 hours per week and takes intermittent leave for a total of 10 hours that week, he has used one-half of a workweek for FMLA purposes. Generally speaking, employers should look at the hours scheduled for the employee for that particular week and determine the FMLA usage accordingly.
Source: 29 CFR §825.205(b)(2).
FMLA leave generally not available following pet’s death Q Earlier this year, one of our employees wanted to take Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave because he was suffering from insomnia and emotional distress after the passing of his beloved pet. Is this allowed under the FMLA rules?
A Insomnia caused by emotional distress over the passing of a pet is not considered a serious health condition under the FMLA, at least according to the U.S. District Court of Eastern Wisconsin in a decision handed down in late 2017.
In the case, the employee requested a vacation day for his next scheduled shift because he was upset about having to put his dog of 13 years to sleep. The employer approved this request for leave. The next day, the employee called his supervisor again and allegedly explained that he had not slept since the loss of his dog and would not be able to work the next day. This day off was documented as an unexcused absence. Even though the employee did seek treatment for his condition and was diagnosed with “situational insomnia,” the absence remained unexcused. Over the next several months, the employee accumulated several other unexcused absences that resulted in his termination. He filed suit against his employer, alleging interference of his FMLA rights.
In granting summary judgment in favor of the employer, the district court rejected the employee’s claim that his employer interfered with his rights under the FMLA. The court held that while inability to sleep caused by the passing of a pet could arguably constitute a “serious health condition,” the employee in this case failed to show that his condition qualified under the FMLA.
SOURCE: Buck v. Mercury Marine Corp., (E.D. Wis.), No. 16-cv-1013-pp, December 22, 2017.
Garnishment of Lump-Sum Payments Q We have garnishment orders on file for a few employees, do we have to garnish their wages in the case of bonuses, or other lump sum payments? Or just their regular pay?
Garnishment of lump-sum payments. The https://www.dol.gov/whd/opinion/CCPA/2018/2018_04_12_1NA_CPPA.pdf (third letter) on a recent DOL release addresses the question of whether certain lump-sum payments from employers to employees are considered earnings for the purpose of garnishment under Title III of the Consumer Credit Protection Act (CCPA).
The opinion letter states that in assessing whether certain lump-sum payments are earnings and...
Workers value sense of community in the workplace About half (47 percent) of part- or full-time employees value a community atmosphere in the place where they work, according to a new https://clutch.co/hr/resources/future-of-work-how-workspaces-meet-worker-needs (survey) by Clutch, a B2B research, ratings and reviews company. The number increases to 55 percent for millennial workers aged 18-34. These findings suggest that workspaces, including traditional offices, coworking spaces, coffee shops, and other public work areas, benefit from finding ways to bring their young employees together.
While Generation X and baby boomers also value community, they don’t prioritize it at the same level as their younger coworkers. This is likely because millennials are the first generation to grow up with the internet, says Laurel Cummings, a makerspace researcher and member of Building Momentum, a science and engineering consulting company.
Cummings says that the internet is a connective tool that allows people to create projects of previously unimaginable scale and reach. “The internet has brought this idea of multi-disciplinary work to a whole new level.”
Kfir Shaked, senior architect lead at WeWork, a coworking network, agrees that making workspaces that encourage community-building interactions, such as stopping to chat, collaborating on projects, or teaching new skills, is key. “When designing the community spaces, I’m thinking about these spontaneous conversations that might happen,” Shaked said. Putting community building at the forefront of workspace design is critical.
The top quality that employees want in their physical surroundings is a pleasant, comfortable workspace. More than 3 out of 5 office workers (61 percent) want their workspaces to look and feel good. When workers have access to space they find agreeable and cozy, they’re able to concentrate better and think more positively about the work they do.
Source: Clutch.
Short-term incentives no longer just for executives Short-term, cash incentives continue to dominate the incentive-pay landscape at both private companies and nonprofit/government organizations according to research released on May 8 by WorldatWork in partnership with Vivient Consulting. “Spending on short-term incentives (STIs) increased modestly at private companies from 2015 to 2017, which reflects the tight labor market and competition for talent,” said Bonnie Schindler, partner and co-founder of Vivient Consulting.
On the nonprofit side: “U.S. nonprofit organizations continue to make significant use of short-term cash incentives to motivate and reward employees. Long-term incentive (LTI) use is still a little-used compensation element, but prevalence increased modestly in 2017 and may signal an emerging trend,” Schindler said.
As for private companies, the https://www.worldatwork.org/docs/surveys/Survey%20Brief%20-%202017%20Incentive%20Pay%20Practices-%20Privately%20Held%20Compaies.pdf?language_id=1 (research) reveals:
Spending on STIs increased to 6 percent of operating profit at median, from 5 percent in prior years.
The prevalence of exempt, salaried employees and nonexempt (salaried or hourly) employees included in annual incentive plans increased in 2017. The biggest jump occurred for nonexempt employees. Approximately two-thirds of nonexempt employees are eligible for annual incentives, up from half in 2015.
The majority of respondents consider their annual incentive plans to be only moderately effective, with plan communication, the level of discretion, goal setting and the risk-reward trade-off noted as areas for improvement.
And non-profit/government https://www.worldatwork.org/docs/surveys/Survey%20Brief-%202017%20Incentive%20Pay%20Practices-%20Nonprofit%20and%20Government%20Companies.pdf?language_id=1 (findings) reveal:
Nonprofit and government organizations favor simplicity by offering a limited number...
EBSA issues array of guidance on mental health parity EBSA has released an array of guidance on the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA), including proposed Frequently Asked Questions, an enforcement fact sheet, a self-compliance tool, and a revised draft disclosure template. In addition, the DOL has released a report to Congress that outlines its current implementation and enforcement actions in furtherance of the MHPAEA.
Background. In general, MHPAEA requires that the financial requirements (such as coinsurance and copays) and treatment limitations (such as visit limits) imposed on mental health or substance use disorder (MH/SUD) benefits cannot be more restrictive than the predominant financial requirements and treatment limitations that apply to substantially all medical/surgical benefits in a classification.
With regard to any nonquantitative treatment limitation (NQTL), the MHPAEA final regulations provide that a group health plan or health insurance issuer may not impose an NQTL with respect to MH/SUD benefits in any classification unless, under the terms of the plan (or health insurance coverage) as written and in operation, any processes, strategies, evidentiary standards, or other factors used in applying the NQTL to MH/SUD benefits in the classification are comparable to, and are applied no more stringently than the processes, strategies, evidentiary standards, or other factors used in applying the limitation to medical/surgical benefits in the same classification. MHPAEA also imposes certain disclosure requirements on group health plans and health insurance issuers.
FAQs on NQTL. The proposed FAQs, which were prepared jointly by the Departments of Labor (DOL), Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Treasury (Departments), were developed consistent with Section 13001(b) of the 21st Century Cures Act. Section 13001(b) requires that the Departments issue clarifying information and illustrative examples of methods that a plan or issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage can use to disclose information in compliance with MHPAEA. Section 13001(b) also directs the Departments to issue clarifying information and illustrative examples of methods, processes, strategies, evidentiary standards, and other factors that plans and issuers may use regarding the development and application of NQTLs.
Experimental treatment. The FAQs first address whether it is permissible for a plan to deny claims for Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) therapy to treat children with Autism Spectrum Disorder under the rationale that the treatment is experimental or investigative. With respect to medical/surgical conditions, the plan approved treatment when supported by one or more professionally recognized treatment guidelines and two or more controlled randomized trials.
A medical management standard limiting or excluding benefits based on whether a treatment is experimental or investigative is an NQTL under MHPAEA. Although the plan as written purports to exclude experimental or investigative treatment for both MH/SUD and medical/surgical benefits using the same standards, in practice, it imposes this exclusion more stringently on MH/SUD benefits, as the plan denies all claims for ABA therapy, despite the fact that professionally recognized treatment guidelines and the requisite number of randomized controlled trials support the use of ABA therapy to treat children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Accordingly, because the plan applies the NQTL more stringently to mental health benefits than to medical/surgical benefits, the plan’s exclusion of ABA therapy as experimental does not comply with MHPAEA.
Likewise, a plan does not comply with the MHPAEA where it defines experimental or investigative treatments as those with a rating below “B” in the Hayes Medical Technology Directory, but the plan reviews and covers certain treatments for medical/surgical conditions that have a rating of “C” on a...
NY Assembly again passes Gender Non-discrimination Act — NEW YORK The New York State Assembly has again passed the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie announced on May 7. The legislation would prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression in considerations of employment, education and in consumer credit and housing. The bill would also add offenses motivated by gender identity or expression to the hate crimes statute (A.3358, Gottfried).
“The Assembly Majority believes that everyone has the right to live free of harassment and discrimination,” said Speaker Heastie. “This legislation extends clear legal protections to individuals who have been left vulnerable for far too long.”
“Transgender people—whose gender identity, appearance, behavior or expression differs from their genetic sex at birth—face discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations and other areas of life, and they are particularly vulnerable to hate crimes,” said Assembly Member Richard N. Gottfried, Assembly sponsor of GENDA. “It’s an embarrassment to New Yorkers that 19 states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws barring discrimination on the basis of gender expression or identity while GENDA can’t even get a vote in our State Senate. Adding gender expression and identity to the human rights and penal laws will give the community proper recognition, protection against repeal of the regulations, and add protection under the State’s Hate Crimes Law.”
Nineteen states, the District of Columbia and at least 157 cities and counties in the United States, including the cities of Albany, Buffalo, Ithaca, Rochester, Syracuse and New York, and the counties of Albany, Suffolk, Tompkins and Westchester have passed gender-inclusive civil rights legislation. Today’s legislation would ensure that all transgender New Yorkers have secure, lasting protections against discrimination.
Since 2008, the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act has passed the Assembly 10 times.
“Today’s legislation would close a gap that has left many New Yorkers vulnerable for far too long,” said Assemblymember Deborah Glick. “Cities and counties all across the state have stepped up and recognized the importance of protecting transgender individuals from discrimination, and it is long overdue that the state guarantees these basic human rights for all transgender New Yorkers.”
Although not specifically stated in the statutes, effective January 20, 2016, the New York State Division of Human Rights adopted a regulation—9 NYCRR 466.13—prohibiting discrimination and harassment against transgender individuals. The regulation clarifies how gender identity may constitute either sex discrimination or disability discrimination under the New York Human Rights Law (New York Executive Law, Article 15, Sections 290 through 301). The regulation specifies that discrimination on the basis of gender identity is sex discrimination. The term “sex” when used in the Human Rights Law includes gender identity and the status of being transgender. Prohibitions contained in the Human Rights Law against discrimination on the basis of “sex,” in all areas of jurisdiction where sex is a protected category, also prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity or the status of being transgender. Harassment on the basis of a person’s gender identity or the status of being transgender is “sexual harassment.”
Assembly Bill 3358 proposes to amend the New York Executive Law, the Civil Rights Law and the Education Law to specifically prohibit discrimination based on a person’s “gender identity or expression.” It would also amend the Penal Law and Criminal Procedure Law to include offenses regarding gender identity or expression within the text of offenses subject to or treated as hate crimes. “Gender identity or expression” would be defined to mean a person’s actual or perceived gender-related...
Six tips to head off hiring headaches Issue>>: You work for an advertising agency and are having trouble filling several creative positions at your organization. While many resumes look promising, candidates are not living up to expectations when interviewed. How can you attract and hire employees who will bring maximum value to your creative team?
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How can organizations help prepare employees for a timely retirement? Issue: Your workers are anxious about saving enough money for retirement, according to results from your organization’s latest employee opinion survey. What strategies can you employ to support your employees’ retirement planning?
Answer: Employers have a variety of strategies available to support their employees’ retirement planning, For today’s multi-generational workforce, Sibson recommends the following:
1.
Targeted education. Opening the channels of communication and customizing the messages are pivotal factors in helping employees improve their retirement readiness. “One-size-fits-all” is a misnomer; with a few rare instances, it should be “one-size-fits-few,”. Communications should be easy to understand and delivered on a regular basis, beginning well before retirement age. Organizations can isolate and target numerous attributes for an employee’s personal communications, including:
Demographics (age, gender, education, income, type of work, cultural, and geographic region);
Attitudes/Beliefs/Behaviors (extrinsic v. intrinsic motivation, optimistic, fearful/suspicious, skeptical, cost-conscious, risk tolerance, and compliant);
Communication Expectations (familiarity, access, time, face-to-face, technology, social); and
Work/Life Stage (new hire, mid-career, late-career, Medicare-eligible, single, married, children, life events).
2.
Auto-savings arrangements. While targeted education is designed to combat inertia, auto-savings arrangements in defined contribution plans can help ensure that employees are saving at an appropriate rate and in suitable asset classes. While auto-savings arrangements can help employees overcome their own natural biases against saving, note that their “one-size-fits-all” solution can be a drawback as they don’t consider the relative financial wellness of individual employees. For example, they may not increase savings quickly enough for a mid-career employee with a low account balance.
3.
Creative match formulas. Employees who find it difficult to overcome savings inertia may benefit from a contribution formula that incentivizes significant deferrals and provides a larger profit-sharing contribution, explained Sibson. A deeper dive into plan data can help plan sponsors analyze changes in staffing based on growth, delayed retirements, unexpected early retirements and aging workforce populations to inform plan design improvements. While all these strategies can work, each organization is unique, and a customized workforce analysis can identify the right answers to meet specific needs.
If an employee’s appearance dramatically changes, may an employer explain to coworkers that the employee has cancer? Issue>>: Donny, a hairstylist, has been unable to eat regularly because he is undergoing chemotherapy for melanoma. Due to a 30-pound weight loss, his appearance has changed drastically. His coworkers and other clients have been gossiping about whether he has AIDS. Can the salon owner tell everyone Donny has cancer, not AIDS?
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With limited exceptions, an employer must keep confidential...
May 7 Compliance Update
Health savings accounts. The limit on deductible health savings account (HSA) contributions for 2018 is now back to $6,900 for individuals with family coverage under a high deductible health plan (HDHP). In March, this amount was reduced by $50 (to $6,850) due to a change in the inflation adjustment calculations enacted under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. However, after receiving complaints that the reduction would impose administrative and financial burdens on stakeholders, the IRS determined that it is in the best interest of sound and efficient tax administration to revert back to the original amount of $6,900. According to the latest guidance, an individual who receives a distribution from an HSA of an excess contribution (with earnings) based on the $6,850 deduction limit may repay the distribution to the HSA and treat the distribution as the result of a mistake of fact due to reasonable cause. Alternatively, an individual who does not repay the distribution to the HSA may treat it as an excess contribution returned before the due date of the return.
Health care reform. The IRS is providing relief that helps employers that first claim the Small Business Health Care Tax Credit for all or part of 2016 (or a later taxable year) for coverage offered through a Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) marketplace, but don’t have SHOP plans to offer employees for all or part of the remainder of the credit period because the counties where the employers are located have no SHOP marketplace plans. The relief, allows these employers to claim the credit for health insurance coverage provided outside of a SHOP marketplace for the remainder of the credit period if that coverage would have qualified under the rules that applied before January 1, 2014.
Mental health benefits. The U.S. Departments of Labor (DOL), Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Treasury have issued proposed frequently asked questions (FAQs) regarding nonquantitative treatment limitations (NQTLs) and disclosure requirements in connection with the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (MHPAEA). The guidance was developed pursuant to Sec. 13001(b) of the 21st Century Cures Act.
Also released was a revised draft model form that participants, enrollees, or their authorized representatives could — but would not be required to — use to request information from their health plan or issuer regarding NQTLs that may affect their mental health/substance use disorder benefits, or to obtain documentation after an adverse benefit determination to support an appeal. The revision incorporates feedback received on the original draft form, which was issued last June.
Additionally, a self-compliance tool was released that can help group health plans, plan sponsors, plan administrators, group and individual market health insurance issuers, state regulators, and other parties determine whether a group health plan or health insurance issuer complies with the MHPAEA and related requirements applicable to ERISA group health plans.
Paid sick leave. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has signed expansive legislation that will allow employees to accrue one hour of earned sick leave for every 30 hours worked, up to 40 hours each year. The law, which takes effect on October 29, 2018, allows paid sick leave to be used for the following reasons:
Diagnosis, treatment, or recovery from a mental or physical illness or injury, or preventive care, for the employee or a family member;
Obtaining services if the employee or a family member is a victim of domestic or sexual violence;
Circumstances arising from a public health emergency; and
A school-related meeting or event with regard to the employee’s child.
New Jersey was added to the list of states that mandate paid sick leave.
Employment costs. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Employment Cost Index for...
Noncompetition Agreements and Trade Secrets Introduction Whenever an employer hires a new employee, the employer provides that person with access to the organization’s most valuable assets: its people, its customers, and its way of doing business. Given that the average American will change jobs seven times over a work life, chances are high that some of that information will eventually find its way to a competitor. More frequently than ever, companies are trying to protect themselves and their assets from the damage that can result when employees depart to work for a competing business or set up a competing enterprise.
An employer should require employees to sign employment agreements wherein they agree to maintain the secrecy for all of the organization’s trade secrets. In addition, an employer may consider a covenant not to compete that has geographic, scope, and duration limitations. Such terms should be included in an initial employment agreement entered into at the start of the employment relationship. While it may not be easy to go back and add these terms, because there must be adequate consideration in exchange for these post-employment obligations, if an employer will be paying the employee anything more than absolutely legally owed, the employer may be able to condition the bonus on having signed an agreement to maintain the trade secret as confidential and to provide the employer with written assurances that the employee no longer has any proprietary or trade secret material.
Please note, however, that state law governs restrictive covenants, trade secrets, and other noncompetition agreements. While many of the general legal principles set forth here apply universally, there can be significant differences among states. The most obvious distinction is that some states, notably California, prohibit restrictive covenants that inhibit an employee’s ability to find new employment. Other distinctions among the laws of various states may be less dramatic, but under certain circumstances, no less important. Such differences are particularly critical if the agreement is intended to apply to employees who may be located in different states, such as a sales force. The substance of individual state laws is beyond the scope of this discussion, which is intended to offer a general understanding of the concepts involved. Individual state laws should be reviewed before any agreement discussed in this material is drafted.
General Protections Employers have certain limited protections — recognized by the law under a variety of theories — against unfair competition, disloyal employees, and overreaching competitors. Turning legal theory into meaningful remedies requires attention to detail and an appreciation for conflicting public policies.
The Duty of Loyalty An organization’s current employees are under a “duty of loyalty” to the organization. Each state defines that duty a bit differently. In general, employees are not permitted to induce current customers, suppliers, or other employees to leave the organization, nor are they allowed to operate a competing business while still employed by the organization. When that duty is breached, the employer may be entitled to collect lost profits, punitive damages, and out-of-pocket costs incurred to train replacements. Offending employees may be forced to forfeit their salaries and to give up any profits they made as a result of the disloyal conduct. In addition, courts may issue injunctions forbidding the employees to engage in similar conduct for a specified period. Under the duty of loyalty, the law generally prevents an individual from using trade secrets or proprietary information of a current or former employer to the detriment of that employer.
An employer need not do anything special to create this duty, and the employee need not sign any agreement to be covered by it. The law recognizes the duty of loyalty and the value of proprietary information. When wrongful conduct
Question:
Can we require that employees exhaust their vacation and sick time at the beginning of an approved medical leave of absence?
Answer:
Generally, an employer may require employees to exhaust their paid time off when a medical leave, such as that under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), is unpaid. When not required, employees may choose to use their paid time off, vacation, or sick pay benefits to maintain income for part of their leave. Whether using paid leave or not, leave taken for an FMLA-qualified reason is job-protected.
If an employee is receiving any wage replacement benefits (such as benefits paid under a disability plan or workers’ compensation) during an FMLA leave, the employee generally may not use, and the employer may not require the employee to use, any accrued or accumulated paid benefit time. There are exceptions in some states, where employees may be allowed to combine workers’ compensation or disability plan benefits with paid time off benefits to further supplement income while on leave.
Exhaustion of paid leave is usually allowed where employers extend leave as an accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or comparable state laws.
As paid sick leave laws continue to be mandated in states and localities, be sure to check your state and local laws before drafting policies that require employees to use their paid leave. In all cases, your policies regarding use of paid time during medical leaves of absence should be clear and understandable. A best practice is to have all policies regarding leave in your employee handbook and available to all employees.
Question:
What events must employers report to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)?
Answer:
All employers are required to notify OSHA when an employee is killed on the job or suffers a work-related hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye as follows:
Employers must report work-related fatalities within eight hours of finding out about the fatality.
For any inpatient hospitalization, amputation, or eye loss, employers must report the incident within 24 hours of learning about the incident.
Only fatalities occurring within 30 days of the work-related incident must be reported to OSHA. Further, for an inpatient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye, incidents must be reported to OSHA only if they occur within 24 hours of the work-related incident.
Importantly, starting in 2017, many employers are required to electronically submit their summary of injuries and illnesses to OSHA. Read more on the following websites about required electronic reporting:
https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping/finalrule/index.html (Information about electronic submission of injury and illness records).
https://www.osha.gov/injuryreporting/index.html (Injury Tracking Application).
https://www.osha.gov/pls/ser/serform.html (OSHA serious event online reporting website).
However, employers do not have to report an event if it:
Resulted from a motor vehicle accident on a public street or highway (except in a construction work zone).
Occurred on a commercial or public transportation system such as an airplane or bus.
Involved hospitalization for diagnostic testing or observation only.
Reporting requirements may be more stringent in states with OSHA-approved state plans, so check your state’s reporting rules in addition to the federal OSHA regulations to avoid state citations and penalties.
Question:
What benefits are subject to ERISA?
Answer:
Whether a benefit offered by an employer is subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) will depend upon whether the benefit is an “employee welfare benefit plan” pursuant to § 3(1) of ERISA. Employee welfare benefit plans include, but are not limited to, any plan, fund, or program established or maintained by an employer, employee organization, or both, that is maintained for the purpose of...
Human Resources: Issues and Answers,Can employers still reimburse employees for meals?, Issue: Your company reimburses employees for meals when they work late or on weekends. You heard that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 changed the tax treatment of such meals. What are the revised rules?
Answer: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) revised the limits on meals provided to employees, as well as the limits on other company meals and entertainment expenses.
Prior to January 1, 2018, subject to other requirements and limitations under the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) that applied to the deduction of business expenses, employers were generally permitted to:
Deduct up to 50 percent of the cost of the face value of tickets to non-charitable events and up to 100 percent of the cost of tickets for charitable events as client entertainment expenses;
Deduct up to 50 percent of the cost of meals and other food and beverages provided while entertaining clients or while traveling on company business;
Deduct up to 100 percent of the cost of meals and other food and beverages provided for the convenience of the employer on the company’s premises (such as in the employer’s cafeteria or delivered to the company’s office), to the extent that such expenses were excludible from the employee’s gross income under the de minimis fringe benefit provisions of the IRC; and
Deduct up to 100 percent of the cost of company holiday parties and picnics and similar events.
Effective for amounts paid or incurred after December 31, 2017, subject to other requirements and limitations under the IRC that apply to the deduction of business expenses, the TCJA:
Eliminates the employer deduction for tickets to both non-charitable and charitable events as client entertainment expenses;
Continues to impose a limit of 50 percent on an employer’s deduction for meals and other food and beverages provided while entertaining clients or while traveling on company business;
Imposes a reduced limit of 50 percent on the deduction for meals and other food and beverages provided for the convenience of the employer on the company’s premises. Unless further extended, after 2025, the employer’s deduction for meals and food and beverages provided for the convenience of the employer on the employer’s premises will be eliminated altogether; and
Continues to permit employers to deduct up to 100 percent of the cost of company holiday parties and picnics.
Source: Sec. 13304 of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (P.L. 115-97, 131 Stat. 2054), signed by the president on December 22, 2017.
This is a cultural communication issue. Make sure that your plans, if you choose to, to cut your employee catering budget is communicated well, and give employees time to adjust prior to making changes that could affect them!
Employment inquiries. A new law in Michigan prohibits local governments in the state from adopting ordinances that regulate the information a current or potential employer may request, require, or exclude on job applications or during the interview process. This includes local prohibitions on salary history inquiries, as well as local “ban-the-box” requirements. Notably, the law does not bar criminal background check requirements in connection with the receipt of a license or permit from a local governmental body.
Minimum wages. Nevada’s minimum wage is adjusted each year based on increases in the federal minimum wage or, if greater, the cumulative increase in the cost of living. According to the Office of the Labor Commission, the rates, effective July 1, 2018, will remain unchanged — $7.25 per hour with an offer of qualifying health benefits or $8.25 per hour without such an offer. The rate for daily overtime also stays the same because the minimum wage rate is not changing.
Tipped workers. Under the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018, an employer may not keep tips received by employees for any purpose, including allowing managers or supervisors to keep any portion of employees’ tips, regardless of whether or not the employer takes a tip credit. In response to the new law, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division released Field Assistance Bulletin 2018-3, which clarifies its approach going forward — until new regulations are proposed — on tips and the tip credit. The bulletin confirms that employers that pay the full federal minimum wage may now allow nontraditionally tipped workers, such as cooks and dishwashers, to participate in tip pools. It also states that the agency will immediately begin using new enforcement tools to protect workers’ tips — including by recovering all tips unlawfully kept by employers, and imposing liquidated damages and civil monetary penalties as appropriate.
Sexual harassment. Companies are increasing their focus on sexual harassment policies and training due to the #MeToo movement, according to a recent XpertHR survey. Most employers (92 percent) have a formal sexual harassment policy, and over a third (38 percent) plan to update theirs this year. Overall, employers seem secure in their ability to combat and prevent sexual harassment. Sixty-eight percent of survey respondents believe their workplace culture is inclusive and provides equal opportunities for women, while 71 percent are confident that their employees feel safe to report sexual harassment.
Labor turnover rates, February 2018. The BLS defines the separation rate as the number of separations during the entire month as a percent of total employment. The following separation rates were reported for February 2018 for private industry and government. They are compared with the separation rates for February 2017.
Total nonfarm employment (private industry and government): 2.9 (2018); 2.8 (2017)
Total private employment: 3.2 (2018); 3.2 (2017)
Mining and logging: 4.1 (2018); 4.4 (2017)
Construction: 3.7 (2018); 4.3 (2017)
Manufacturing: 2.4 (2018); 1.9 (2017)
Trade, transportation and public utilities: 3.1 (2018); 3.3 (2017)
Information: 2.8 (2018); 2.4 (2017)
Financial activities: 1.9 (2018); 1.8 (2017)
Professional and business services: 4.6 (2018); 4.4 (2017)
Education and health services: 2.2 (2018); 1.9 (2017)
Leisure and hospitality: 4.9 (2018); 4.7 (2017)
Other services: 2.2 (2018); 2.9 (2017)
Government: 0.9 (2018); 1.0 (2017)
Another Step Toward Equal Pay
On April 9, 2018, in http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2018/04/09/16-15372.pdf (Rizo v. Yovino), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that under the federal https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/epa.cfm (Equal Pay Act) an employer cannot justify a wage differential between male and female employees by relying on prior salary. The EPA prohibits sex-based wage discrimination between men and women, in the same establishment, who perform jobs that require substantially equal skill, effort, and responsibility under similar working conditions.
According to the court’s opinion, “[w]e now hold that prior salary alone or in combination with other factors cannot justify a wage differential. To hold otherwise – to allow employers to capitalize on the persistence of the wage gap and perpetuate that gap [endlessly] – would be contrary to the text and history of the EPA and would vitiate the very purpose for which the act stands.”
In plain language, An employee’s prior salary does not constitute a “factor other than sex” upon which a wage differential may be based under the “catchall” exception of the Equal Pay Act (EPA). This is true regardless of whether past salary was considered alone or in conjunction with other factors. Based on the history and statutory text, “any other factor other than sex” is limited to legitimate, job-related factors such as a prospective employee’s experience, education, or ability. Consequently, a county employer that relied on prior salary to set a female employee’s starting salary failed to set forth an affirmative defense, and the denial of its motion for summary judgment against the employee’s EPA claim was affirmed.
What Happened in Rizo In this case, after Rizo was hired she learned that male colleagues in the same job were being hired at a higher salary than her. However, the only rationale the employer offered for this wage disparity was that Rizo’s salary was lower at a prior job. The court held, “[that] this scenario provides a textbook violation of the “equal pay for equal work” mantra of the EPA . . . because [p]rior salary level created the only differential between Rizo and her male colleagues. Thus, requiring that the “any-other-factor-other-than-sex” defense must be limited to legitimate, job-related factors.”
Through this decision, the Ninth Circuit (covering employers in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington) joins the Second, Sixth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits that have likewise interpreted the “any-factor-other-than-sex” defense is limited in its application.
What Now? The impact of the Rizo decision reinforces federal and state equal pay rights and highlights https://www.pay-equity.org/day.html (National Equal Pay Day) because the decision was filed April 9, 2018, the day before 2018’s Equal Pay Day. Equal Pay Day was originated by the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) as a public awareness event illustrating the gap between men’s and women’s wages and is commemorated around the nation and the world. When created, the NCPE decided to select a Tuesday in April as Equal Pay Day. A Tuesday was selected to represent how far into the next work week women must work to earn what men earned the previous week.
As the fight for equal pay continues, Rizo may be reviewed by the Supreme Court, although there are no current indications the employer is pursuing review. So, what now? Employers should take steps to review their policies and eliminate any hiring policy that relies on a job applicant’s prior salary in determining their starting pay. Additionally, employers should review applicable state laws related to hiring practices and prior salaries to ensure compliance and avoid liability.
However, according to the NCPE, because on average women earn less than men, they must work significantly longer for the same amount of pay. So . . . maybe the better answer to “What now?” is that...
IRS guidance on tax credit for paid family and medical leave On April 9, 2018, the IRS issued a set of https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/section-45s-employer-credit-for-paid-family-and-medical-leave-faqs (frequently asked questions) (FAQs) that address the employer credit under Internal Revenue Code Sec. 45S for paid family and medical leave ( https://answersnow.cch.com/?refUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fmy.coloniallife.com%2Fproducers%2FSearch%2520Results%3Fq%3Dcch%26page%3D1&P=collife&cpid=WKUS-REX-HRLP#2f6612ec7cfd10009ce1d8d385ad169401-footdocd341255e1fn8 (5)). The credit, which was enacted under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, is generally effective for wages paid in taxable years of the employer beginning after December 31, 2017 ( https://answersnow.cch.com/?refUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fmy.coloniallife.com%2Fproducers%2FSearch%2520Results%3Fq%3Dcch%26page%3D1&P=collife&cpid=WKUS-REX-HRLP#2f6612ec7cfd10009ce1d8d385ad169401-footdocd341255e1fn13 (10)). It is not available for wages paid in taxable years beginning after December 31, 2019.
Claiming the credit. The credit is a general business credit employers may claim, based on wages paid to qualifying employees while they are on family and medical leave, subject to certain conditions. An employer must reduce its deduction for wages or salaries paid or incurred by the amount determined as a credit. Also, any wages taken into account in determining any other general business credit may not be used in determining this credit.
To claim the credit, employers must have a written policy in place that meets certain requirements, including:
provision of at least two weeks of paid family and medical leave (annually) to all qualifying employees who work full time (prorated for employees who work part time); and
the paid leave is not less than 50 percent of the wages normally paid to the employee.
Calculating the credit. The FAQs indicate that the credit is a percentage of the amount of wages paid to a qualifying employee while on family and medical leave for up to 12 weeks per taxable year. The minimum percentage is 12.5 percent and is increased by 0.25 percent for each percentage point by which the amount paid to a qualifying employee exceeds 50 percent of the employee’s wages, with a maximum of 25 percent. In certain cases, an additional limit may apply.
Qualifying employee. A qualifying employee is any employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) who has been employed by the employer for one year or more and who, for the preceding year, had compensation of not more than a certain amount. For an employer claiming a credit for wages paid to an employee in 2018, the employee must not have earned more than $72,000 in 2017.
Reasons for leave. For purposes of the credit, “family and medical leave” is leave for one or more of the following reasons:
birth of an employee’s child and to care for the child;
placement of a child with the employee for adoption or foster care;
to care for the employee’s spouse, child, or parent who has a serious health condition;
a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the functions of his or her position;
any qualifying exigency due to an employee’s spouse, child, or parent being on covered active duty (or having been notified of an impending call or order to covered active duty) in the Armed Forces;
to care for a service member who is the employee’s spouse, child, parent, or next of kin.
The FAQs clarify that if an employer provides paid vacation leave, personal leave, or medical or sick leave (other than leave specifically for one or more of the purposes stated above), that paid leave is not considered family and medical leave. In addition, any leave paid by a state or local government or required by state or local law will not be taken into account in determining the amount of employer-provided paid family and medical leave.
Additional information....
Question:
We recently made some changes to our handbook policies regarding benefits offered to employees and have a disclaimer stating, “The Company reserves the exclusive right to change or terminate any benefits or related policy at any time in accordance with applicable law.” Are we required to have employees sign a new acknowledgement of the handbook because of these recent changes?
Answer:
Yes, employees should be required to sign an acknowledgement noting that they are aware of any new policies or changes to existing policies.
Any new or changed policy should be provided to employees through the distribution of a new handbook accompanied by a brief memo directing the employees to the locations of the changes and requesting an updated acknowledgement signature. Without distributing and getting proof of receipt, the changed policies may be difficult to point to when correcting, disciplining, or terminating an employee. Most employers update their handbooks every one to two years. If there is a major change to an integral policy, that may be distributed separately and added to the handbook as an addendum until the next revision.
While not required, handbooks are a best practice in order to minimize risk. Clearly articulated and distributed handbooks can supplement a defense against many compliance issues such as, but not limited to, claims of sexual harassment, wrongful termination, and discrimination.
Handbooks are a general overview of policies and procedures. Key handbook policies include:
Definitions of commonly used terms.
Explanation of to whom the handbook and its policies apply.
At-will employment policy.
Disclaimer that handbook is not a contract and the right to change policies without notice.
Antiharassment policy.
Equal employment opportunity/discrimination/accommodation policies.
Leave of absence and family and medical leave policy (if applicable).
Maternity leave policy.
Drug free workplace policy.
Standards of conduct.
Timekeeping and overtime.
Paid time off/vacation/sick leave policies.
Lastly, because a handbook is not legally mandatory, it may contain whatever information an employer wishes to impart to its employees. In addition, handbooks are traditionally separate from benefits summaries and other health and welfare plan materials, although the handbook may discuss employee status (full time, part time, etc.) and may refer employees to benefit plan materials. Further, handbooks do not need to outline company job positions or titles; this can be maintained separately in the job descriptions.
As a best practice, we recommend reviewing new or modified policies with counsel prior to implementation.
Question: We are looking at our handbook, and wanted to just double check our table of contents to make sure we werent missing any important topics to cover. Could you provide a list of Handbook Topics?
Answer:
Sure! We did just finish doing an exhaustive self audit that I recommend you go through, but here is a quick list of topics every handbook, at a minimum, should address. There could be more depending on your state of course! I recommend checking with a labor lawyer or HR professional for a more in depth check.
Listing of Employee Handbook Topics
Welcome:
Purpose of the employee handbook.
Corporate vision and mission.
Employment-at-will statement.
“This Handbook is not a contract statement.”
Reservation or rights statement.
Key Employment Policies:
Initial period of employment.
Statement of equal employment opportunity.
General antiharassment policy, including ADA statement.
Sexual harassment policy.
Drug- and alcohol-free workplace.
Smoking policy.
No solicitation/no distribution policy.
Safety and health.
Open door policy.
Compliant procedures.
General Working Policies:
Confidential information.
Personal appearance/dress code.
Standards of conduct and code of ethics.
Business expense...
Introduction part 2 Most employment relations experts agree that employee handbooks are an essential part, if not the foundation, of effective human resources (HR) management and positive employee relations. Handbooks can also play a critical role in demonstrating employment law compliance. Properly used, employee handbooks:
Communicate policies and procedures.
Play a key role in the orientation process for new employees.
Serve as a valuable employee relations vehicle for educating current and prospective employees.
Contribute to uniform and consistent application, interpretation, and enforcement of company policies.
Protect against claims of improper employer conduct.
While carefully drafted employee handbooks can be an important part of employee relations media, handbooks that are unskillfully or improperly drafted can create organizational and legal headaches. Courts increasingly view employee handbooks as binding contracts subject to judicial enforcement. Accordingly, employers must carefully review every policy and procedure contained in a handbook to minimize potential contract claims and be prepared to update them periodically. The questions in this self-audit are designed to determine whether a handbook:
Includes positive employee relations provisions that will improve employee morale and create a positive image of an organization.
Educates employees regarding an organization’s origin, history, and employee relations philosophy.
Provides a mechanism for two-way communications.
Contains the necessary protective language to minimize the threat of litigation and/or employee complaints to governmental agencies.
Handbooks that are properly drafted and tailored to an organization’s needs can serve as the cornerstone of human resource management. However, improperly drafted, they can be a disruption that causes serious harm to the future well being of an organization. The questions that follow are designed to help an employer highlight the positive and negative features of an employee handbook.
No Yes Is the employee handbook Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant?
No Yes Do some employees telecommute?
Is the employee handbook regularly reviewed to determine the following:
No Yes If the target audience for the handbook has changed?
No Yes If changes in the organizational structure, locations, or operations have altered the handbook’s purpose, scope, or method of distribution?
No Yes If the information and material in the handbook is still current?
No Yes If the information and material in the handbook is still relevant?
No Yes If the information and material in the handbook is still responsive to the needs of employees and other interested parties?
No Yes If the information and material in the handbook is complete, i.e., does it cover all the issues that need to be addressed?
No Yes If the information and material in the handbook comply with federal, state, and local laws and HR management best practices?
No Yes Does the employee handbook anticipate future organizational and employment issues?
No Yes Does the employee handbook contain a brief history of the organization?
No Yes Does the employee handbook contain a statement of the organization’s employee relations philosophy?
No Yes Is the employee handbook clear, concise, and easy-to-read?
No Yes Is the employee handbook written with a positive, personalized, upbeat tone?
Does the employee handbook use the following terms or phrases:
No Yes “Probationary periods”?
No Yes“ Permanent” employee or employment?
No Yes Explicit or implied language that an employee will only be fired for “cause,” “just cause,” or similar terminology?
No Yes “Promising future”?
No Yes “Unlimited advancement”?
No Yes Are all employees required to sign a receipt of employee handbook acknowledgement form and are these forms kept in employees’ personnel files?
Does the...
Employee Handbook Self-Audit Introduction Most employment relations experts agree that employee handbooks are an essential part, if not the foundation, of effective human resources (HR) management and positive employee relations. Handbooks can also play a critical role in demonstrating employment law compliance. Properly used, employee handbooks:
Communicate policies and procedures.
Play a key role in the orientation process for new employees.
Serve as a valuable employee relations vehicle for educating current and prospective employees.
Contribute to uniform and consistent application, interpretation, and enforcement of company policies.
Protect against claims of improper employer conduct.
While carefully drafted employee handbooks can be an important part of employee relations media, handbooks that are unskillfully or improperly drafted can create organizational and legal headaches. Courts increasingly view employee handbooks as binding contracts subject to judicial enforcement. Accordingly, employers must carefully review every policy and procedure contained in a handbook to minimize potential contract claims and be prepared to update them periodically. The questions in this self-audit are designed to determine whether a handbook:
Includes positive employee relations provisions that will improve employee morale and create a positive image of an organization.
Educates employees regarding an organization’s origin, history, and employee relations philosophy.
Provides a mechanism for two-way communications.
Contains the necessary protective language to minimize the threat of litigation and/or employee complaints to governmental agencies.
Handbooks that are properly drafted and tailored to an organization’s needs can serve as the cornerstone of human resource management. However, improperly drafted, they can be a disruption that causes serious harm to the future well being of an organization. The questions that follow are designed to help an employer highlight the positive and negative features of an employee handbook.
Questions
Has the organization developed policies and procedures dealing with the following:
No Yes Wages?
No Yes Benefits?
No Yes Employee relations?
No Yes Day-to-day operations and administration?
No Yes HR management?
How are these policies and practices communicated to employees?
No Yes Orally and by having the employee observe how an organization operates?
No Yes In written memos and documents given to employees and placed on bulletin boards (including intranet bulletin boards)?
No Yes Through the use of a written employee handbook?
No Yes By posting an electronic version of the handbook on an intranet?
If the organization has promulgated an employee handbook, what are the purposes of a handbook?
No Yes To help answer the employee question: “Why should I work (or continue to work) here?”
No Yes To help answer routine employee questions about employment with the organization?
No Yes To help create positive employee relations?
No Yes To communicate important information to employees?
No Yes To contribute to organizational orderliness?
No Yes To comply with legal obligations and requirements?
No Yes To delineate the organization’s employment-related prerogatives?
No Yes Other?
No Yes Has the organization assessed the employee handbook’s success at meeting these objectives?
No Yes Does the employee handbook include a discussion of both the written and unwritten policies and practices of the organization?
No Yes Does the interviewer monitor comments made during the applicant interviewing process to determine if they are consistent with statements made in the employee handbook?
No Yes Have statements made on job application forms, offer letters, and other personnel action forms been reviewed to determine if they are consistent with statements made in the employee handbook?
No...
Question:
Our vacation policy allows employees to “borrow” up to 40 vacation hours before earning them. Employees who leave our employment but have not repaid their hours are deducted those hours on their final paycheck. Is this permissible?
Answer:
According to an http://www.dol.gov/whd/opinion/FLSANA/2004/2004_10_06_17FLSA_NA_unearned_vacation.htm (Opinion Letter) from the U.S. Wage and Hour Division, Office of Enforcement Policy, employees must be informed in advance of the unearned vacation time policy and that the employer will deduct from their pay the cost of such vacation time if they leave the company prior to earning sufficient vacation time to eliminate the vacation deficit. So long as such notice is in place, the amount of wages advanced as paid vacation time falls into the same category as a bona fide loan or cash advance to which the employee has voluntarily agreed. As such, the employer may deduct the amount advanced for the vacation hours from the employee’s final paycheck, regardless of whether overtime hours were worked in the final week or whether the deduction brings the employee’s pay below the applicable minimum wage.
However, employers may not make any assessment for administrative costs or charge any interest payment that brings the employee below the minimum wage. Moreover, the hourly rate of pay deducted from the final paycheck must be the rate the employee was paid at the time of the advanced paid vacation, rather than a higher rate of pay the employee may earn at the time he or she leaves employment.
Importantly, employers must review state law applicable to their company and employees because there may be state statutes under which such a deduction would not be permitted.
Question:
When employers provide employees with time off from work for religious holidays, are employers also required to pay employees during this leave of absence?
Answer:
Federal law does not require employers to compensate employees for time taken off in observance of a religious holiday, practice, or belief. However, the requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. § 201, et seq., must be followed. Under the FLSA, an employer is not required to pay nonexempt employees for time off on a holiday, but must pay only for time actually worked. Alternatively, exempt employees who are given the day off must be paid their full weekly salary if they work any hours during the week in which the holiday falls. Employees may be allowed to use accrued paid time off or vacation for their absences due to religious holidays.
Question:
Our employees are paid a daily production rate of $13 per hour for anything over 55,000 pounds. If the employee fails to meet the 55,000 pounds quota, then he or she is paid at a base pay rate of $12 per hour. If an employee works Monday through Friday, but more than eight hours per day, do we compensate him on a weighted average for overtime work or do we just continue with the production rate?
Answer:
Where an employee in a single workweek works at different rates, the regular rate for that week is the weighted average. The weighted average (which is the rate used to determine overtime compensation) is determined by dividing the total hours worked for the work week by the total earnings for the work week (at both rates). The sum is the hourly rate for overtime calculations (1.5 times an employee’s regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of 40 per workweek). Importantly, the regular rate of pay cannot be less than the minimum wage.
For example, your employee worked 26 hours at $12 per hour and 17 hours at $13 per hour in one workweek, which would be calculated as follows:
26 hours at $12 per hour = $312 and 17 hours at $13 per hour = $221
$312 + $221 = $533
$533 ÷ 43 hours worked = $12.39; $12.39 is his regular rate for that workweek
$12.39 x .5 = $6.19 overtime half-time pay rate
$6.19 x 3 hours of total overtime worked =...
Question:
What does “discretion and independent judgment” mean when applying the duties tests?
Answer:
The Department of Labor defines the use of discretion and independent judgment as more than the use of skill in applying well-established techniques, procedures, or specific standards described in manuals or other sources. The use of discretion and independent judgment implies that one has authority to make an independent choice, free from immediate direction or supervision. However, discretion and independent judgment can be used even if the decision or recommendation is reviewed by higher authority in the organization. Discretion and independent judgment does not require that the decisions being made have to be final or free from review. The fact that one’s decisions may be subject to review and that upon occasion the decisions are revised or reversed after review does not mean that one is not using discretion and independent judgment.
The phrase “discretion and independent judgment” must be applied in the light of all the facts involved in the particular situation in which the question arises. Factors include, but are not limited to:
Whether the employee has authority to formulate, affect, interpret, or implement management policies or operating practices;
Whether the employee carries out major assignments in conducting the operations of the business;
Whether the employee performs work that affects business operations to a substantial degree, even if the employee’s assignments are related to operation of a particular segment of the business;
Whether the employee has authority to commit the employer in matters that have significant financial impact;
Whether the employee has authority to waive or deviate from established policies and procedures without prior approval;
Whether the employee has authority to negotiate and bind the company on significant matters;
Whether the employee provides consultation or expert advice to management;
Whether the employee is involved in planning long- or short-term business objectives;
Whether the employee investigates and resolves matters of significance on behalf of management; and
Whether the employee represents the company in handling complaints, arbitrating disputes or resolving grievances.
Discretion and independent judgment does not include:
Applying well-established techniques, procedures, or specific standards described in manuals or other sources;
Clerical or secretarial work;
Recording or tabulating data; or
Performing mechanical, repetitive, recurrent, or routine work.
Question:
If two or more employees work the same job duties that meet the administrative exemption job duties test, but earn different rates of pay, can some of them be classified as exempt and others classified as nonexempt?
Answer:
Yes. The “white collar” exemption requires an employee to be paid on a salary basis that is at least the minimum salary threshold ($913 per week) and meets the job duties test. If the employee meets these requirements, the employee may be classified as exempt. If the employee fails to meet any part of the criteria, the employee would not meet the exemption status and must be classified as nonexempt. The exemption is applied on an employee by employee basis, not by a particular job class or department.
Question:
What are the penalties if an employer misclassifies an employee?
Answer:
There is no fixed dollar amount for penalty for misclassification. However, the financial burden may be costly to employers. Costs will include back pay plus interest (up to three years); liquidated damages equal to the amount of unpaid wages and more in some states; attorney’s fees and court costs; and willful violation penalties — up to $10k in fines and up to six months in prison.
Question:
Can we pay our nonexempt employees a salary?
Answer:
Yes. Nonexempt employees may be paid an hourly wage, salary, commission or fee as...
Question:
I have an exempt employee who would like to earn extra money working in another department in a nonexempt role. She works 40 hours per week in the exempt role, and would work 15 to 20 hours per week in a nonexempt role. Would she automatically receive the overtime rate for each hour of nonexempt work if she works 40 hours in her exempt role?
Answer:
The primary issue is not how to calculate overtime, but rather whether you may have an employee classified as both exempt and nonexempt. Your employee may perform more than one job for you, but under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regulations an employee must be classified as either exempt or nonexempt, but not both.
Your employee’s exemption status requires an analysis of both positions to determine her primary duty (see http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=adf470eb9c70b71cb066c1f3a1e2df35&mc=true&node=se29.3.541_1700&rgn=div8 (29 C.F.R. 541.700)). The term “primary duty” means the principal, main, major, or most important duty that the employee performs. In your situation, the employee would remain classified as an exempt employee because her primary job duties are that of an exempt employee. Subsequently, you are not obligated by law to pay the employee any additional wages for her performance of the additional duties because she is earning a fixed weekly salary as an exempt employee, regardless of the number of hours per week she works.
However, you may pay the employee additional compensation for the additional work she performs without causing her to lose the exemption. The additional compensation may be in the form of additional salary, a flat sum, an hourly rate of pay, or another form of compensation as a reward for her additional time (see http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=e6327663c157b32b3aaccdfb1a725f5c&mc=true&node=20160523y1.26 (29 C.F.R. 541.604)).
Question:
Is minimum wage calculated on hours worked or hours worked plus performance-based earnings, thus subject to change each pay period? For instance, a nonexempt employee is paid $320 for 40 hours worked with $60 added for performance goals, totaling $380. Which amount is used to determine the employee’s minimum wage; $320 or $380? The minimum wage in our state is $8.50.
Answer:
The amount used to determine the employee’s minimum wage would be $320 because, under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), employers must pay nonexempt employees at least the applicable minimum wage for all hours worked up to 40 in the work week and the calculation of the minimum wage cannot include commissions or bonus/incentive pay. Certain credits may be permissible that would allow the rate of pay to fall below the minimum wage, but those credits are limited to tip credits and credits for food and lodging.
Therefore, in your example, if your employee is earning $320 per week for 40 hours of work, the rate of pay is $8 per hour. In your state, your minimum wage is $8.50 per hour. You would need to increase the rate of pay for hours worked by $.50 per hour so that the employee earns the effective rate of pay. The incentive payment will be in addition to the applicable minimum wage.
While employers must include commissions and nondiscretionary bonus payments in the calculation of overtime, commissions and any bonus or incentive payments are not included in the calculation of minimum wage.
Question:
I have an employee who is FLSA exempt. We have a PTO plan, but she took time off beyond that plan, which was unpaid (in full days). We agreed to that. Since she has exhausted her PTO balance for the year, if she takes any more days off, we are planning to not pay her. The employee recently came to us questioning not getting overtime pay, since sometimes she works more than 40 hours, so she can “catch up” on the work she missed on the days the took off without pay. Are we able to dock her pay when she missed a full day after she has...
Sometimes, you have to let someone go. It sucks, its sad, and its also a legal minefield. This episode addresses the checklist needed when you let someone go. We are not going to really get into why you should fire someone, but rather we are going to dive into the steps you need to go through once the decision is made.
Involuntary Termination Checklist
First, as a reminder, discuss termination with management and your qualified legal counsel to ensure the termination is warranted and http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/retal.html#IIpartD (legally compliant). (on our show notes, we have a link to the EEOC policy’s to review prior to letting someone go.)
Prepare the final pay check according to http://www.dol.gov/whd/contacts/state_of.htm (state requirements) and confirm that the final wages will be ready for the employee, as applicable by state law.
Prepare the appropriate separation forms:
State Unemployment forms/ pamphlets
Termination letter
http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/qanda_severance-agreements.html#II (Severance Agreement/Release of Claims), if applicableHere is a quick sidenote. We are going to jump off and discuss what employees have the right to do when they receive a severance agreement:
Employee Checklist: What to Do When Your Employer Offers You a Severance Agreement:
Make sure that you understand the agreement
Read the agreement to see if it is clear and specific, or if it is confusing because it contains terms you do not understand.
If you are 40 or older, inform your employer that the law requires your agreement to be written in a manner that makes it easy to understand. Usually this means that your agreement should not contain technical jargon or long, complex sentences.
Check for deadlines and act promptly
The moment you are given a severance agreement, check to see if your employer gave you a deadline for accepting, or declining, the agreement. If you are 40 years old or older, federal law requires the employer to give you at least 21 days to review the agreement and make up your mind.
If your employer has not given you a reasonable amount of time, or rushes your decision, this is a red flag. An employer who is fair will understand that you cannot review or make decisions about an important document on a moment’s notice.
If you are being rushed, ask for more time. Put your request in writing. If you are 40 or older and your employer is asking you for a decision in fewer than 21 days, remind the employer that the law requires you to be provided at least 21 days. (If you and at least one other person are being laid off in a reduction in force (RIF) at the same time, you must be given 45 days to consider the agreement.)
Consider having an attorney review the severance agreement
Even if you are parting amicably with your employer, you may want to ask for advice about whether you should sign it, whether the terms are reasonable, and whether you should ask your employer to change any of the terms.
If you decide that you want an attorney to review the agreement, promptly make an appointment. Do not wait until the last day before the deadline to review the severance agreement.
If you are at least 40 years old, the agreement must advise you to consult with an attorney.
Make sure you understand what you are giving up in exchange for severance pay or benefits
The main benefit to signing an agreement is that you will receive a cash payment or benefits in exchange for signing away your right to bring certain legal claims against your employer.
Make sure that the agreement offers you something of value to which you are not already entitled.
If you think you have been wrongfully terminated because of age, race, sex, religion, or some other discriminatory reason, you may want to think twice about signing. The benefits of signing a severance agreement should be carefully weighed against claims you might have against your employer, the likelihood of winning a...
2 Person Group Insurance Question: Is a small owner-only business eligible for group medical insurance? At this time, our company is comprised of the owner and his wife. There are no other employees yet, but we plan to hire employees in the future. Can we buy a group policy now or do we have to wait until we have other employees?
Answer: The question of whether a “mom and pop” business can purchase medical coverage as a group often comes up. Each state’s insurance laws control the type of policies that can be sold in that state and also defines who is a “group.” Insurance laws vary from state to state, but generally a husband/wife business does not qualify as a group if there are no other employees. There must be at least one W-2 employee who is not an owner or business partner (or spouse of an owner or partner). In the meantime, the owner may apply for an individual policy to cover himself and spouse (and eligible children, if any).
Lastly, there is a small handful of states that continue to allow mom and pop businesses meeting certain criteria to qualify as a group. Carriers and brokers licensed in the state can provide specific information about the respective state’s rules.
Health Care Benefits and “Emergency Services”
Question: The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires our medical plan to cover out-of-network emergency services at the in-network benefit level. Does that apply just to the emergency room charges, or also to follow-up care?
Answer: According to the ACA regulations, the definition of emergency services includes:
The initial evaluation or treatment in the emergency room or similar setting;
Related ancillary services; and
Further treatment if needed to stabilize the condition.
The plan cannot impose a time limit during which the emergency services are provided.
For instance, if the patient was treated in the emergency room and from there admitted to the hospital for surgery, it appears the emergency room services, hospitalization, and surgery are all within the ACA’s definition of emergency services.
Extra Comp for FLSA Exempt Employees
Question: May I provide an exempt employee with additional compensation for working longer hours on a time-sensitive project without losing the exemption?
Answer: Yes. If you have a position that is classified as exempt—meaning the position is exempt from minimum wage requirements and overtime pay as determined by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)—that does not prevent you from providing that employee with additional compensation to express appreciation when the employee works more hours than expected.
Goodbye Papercut Monster. Hello Electronic Personnel Files.
Previously, we discussed records retention and how long employers need to hang on to all things having to do with hiring and retaining employees. As promised, we’ll now delve into best practices for storing that same information electronically. Take that, papercut monster!
Know the Basics It likely goes without saying that your electronic records should be stored in a safe and accessible place and in such a way that they can be easily examined (by auditors or employees, if permissible in your state). The electronic files need to be convertible into readable paper copies to satisfy reporting and disclosure requirements.
Make Security as Tight as Fort Knox Arguably the most important consideration when storing personnel records is security. You wouldn’t leave sensitive documents in an unlocked file cabinet and should follow the same thought process when storing documents electronically. Secure computers, documents, servers and networks are all crucial. Because employee records contain sensitive information such as health history, employee addresses, and Social Security account information, a breach can be catastrophic and have long-term effects on employees and your business. A best practice when setting up a secure electronic storage solution is to work with your IT team or an outside technology expert with a proven track record. Finally, ensure that the servers where personnel records are stored are routinely backed up to prevent data loss.
Divide to Conquer Just as you would with hard copies, you should keep electronic files separated as follows:
Personnel file — employment application, resume, job description, offer letter, status change forms, acknowledgement of company handbook, code of conduct and other policies, emergency contacts, address change forms, disciplinary action, evaluations, certifications, course completions, and accommodations.
Benefits file — enrollment/waiver forms, enrollment change forms, medical forms, workers’ compensation information.
Reference checks and pre-employment screening — reference checks, verifications of employment requests, drug tests and background checks.
Payroll file— compensation changes, W-4 and state tax withholding forms, direct deposit forms.
I-9 file with right to work in the U.S. verification documents.
In addition, you may need to create additional files and keep them separate from personnel, payroll, and benefits files. These may include:
Wage garnishment file.
FMLA file and/or ADA accommodations file.
A good rule of thumb is to begin with the end in mind. Think about someone wanting access to your personnel files. What would they need to see? For example, if your company were the subject of an ICE audit, you would be required to produce I-9s for your employees (remember, you need to keep I-9s for three years after the date of hire or one year after the date of termination, whichever is longer). The auditors should not have access to other personnel documents that might contain pay, benefits, medical, leave, or other sensitive information. Having I-9s separated from other documents means you could provide access to those documents alone.
Bring on the Shredder The most common question businesses have when converting to electronic recordkeeping is what to do with the paper records. After you have securely transferred paper records to an electronic storage system, dispose of the paper copies by shredding them.
The one caveat to the shredding advice is if there is an investigation or lawsuit pending against your company (or you suspect one may be coming). In that case, documents should be kept in their original format until the legal issues are resolved.
Stay Current Once you convert your records to electronic storage, it’s important to keep on top of technology and new solutions that may arise. The last thing you’d want is for your records to be trapped in obsolete technology. Your
Health savings accounts. The limit on health savings account (HSA) contributions for 2018 is now $6,850 for family coverage, as updated by the IRS to reflect changes under the recent tax reform law.
Medical savings accounts. The 2018 deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses required for health plans to qualify as “high deductible” plans under the medical savings account (MSA) rules have been modified due to changes enacted under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
FLSA compliance. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) will be launching a pilot — the Payroll Audit Independent Determination (PAID) program — to facilitate the resolution of potential Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) overtime and minimum wage violations. The program will allow employers to self-report potential wage violations that they uncover during a compensation practices self-audit. Employers must pay all back wages due but will not have to pay liquidated damages or civil monetary penalties when they choose to participate in the program and proactively work with the WHD to fix any compensation practices at issue. The goal of the PAID program is to resolve overtime and minimum wage claims expeditiously and without litigation, to improve employers’ compliance with overtime and minimum wage obligations, and to ensure that more employees receive the back wages they are owed more quickly, according to the WHD. The program will be implemented nationwide for approximately six months. At the end of the pilot period, the agency will evaluate the program’s effectiveness, potential modifications, and whether to make the program permanent.
Payroll tax withholding. The IRS’s online withholding calculator can help employees determine the appropriate amount of federal tax withholding for purposes of updating their W-4 forms. A “withholding checkup” using the calculator can prevent employees from having too little or too much tax withheld. The calculator, as well as planning steps for employees and a new set of frequently asked questions, can be found on the IRS website or via the link in the show notes on peopleprocesses.com (https://www.irs.gov/individuals/irs-withholding-calculator)
Gender identity discrimination. In a case brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Sixth Circuit has held that discrimination against employees — either because of their failure to conform to sex stereotypes or because of their transgender and transitioning status — is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The case involved a funeral home that fired a transgender funeral director because she would not conform to its sex-specific dress code. The owner of the funeral home believed he would be violating God’s commands if he were to allow a biologically male-born employee to wear a skirt while at work because he would be directly involved in supporting the idea that sex is a changeable social construct rather than an immutable God-given gift. According to the appeals court, the unrefuted facts showed that the director was fired because she refused to abide by the employer’s stereotypical conception of her sex. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) did not provide the owner with any relief, as continuing to employ the funeral director would not, as a matter of law, substantially burden his religious exercise. Even if it did, enforcing Title VII was the least restrictive means of furthering the compelling government interest in combating and eradicating sex discrimination. The case, for further research, is EEOC v. R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc.
Question: Our company is considering adopting a paid family leave program for employees. I think I read something indicating paid family leave was addressed in the tax bill that passed late last year. Is that true?
Answer: First of all, kudos to you. Paid family and medical leave policies are a great benefit for employers to adopt to stay competitive in the current market and have become a necessity in the several states that have adopted paid family leave laws or regulations.
To answer your question, you are correct. The federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act enacted in late 2017 creates § 45S of the IRS Code to provide certain employers a tax credit for offering paid family and medical leave to employees. To be eligible for the credit, the employer’s paid family and medical leave policy must:
Be voluntarily implemented by the employer (i.e., the employer cannot be in a state or locality that requires employers to provide paid family and medical leave). Additionally, leave paid by a state or local government does not count.
Be adopted in writing.
Provide pay for at least two weeks of a full-time employee’s family and medical leave. Part-time employees must also be offered a commensurate amount of paid leave on a pro rata basis, taking into account the number of hours a part-time employee is expected to work each week compared to an equivalent full-time employee. The credit maxes out at 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave.
Provide that employees will be paid at least 50 percent of their normal pay while on leave.
The amount of the credit an eligible employer receives depends on the level of pay provided to employees. Employers who choose to pay employees at the 50 percent threshold will receive a 12.5 percent tax credit; the credit increases by 0.25 percent (capping at 25 percent overall) for each percentage point above 50 percent of normal pay the employer pays employees on leave. For example, if an eligible employer chooses to pay employees on paid family and medical leave 60 percent of their normal pay, then an eligible employer’s tax credit would be 15 percent.
The tax law defines qualifying employees as those who meet the definition of employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 USC § 203(e)), who have worked for the employer for at least one year and, for the preceding year, had compensation of 60 percent or less of the compensation threshold for highly compensated employees. Paid family and medical leave is leave that is protected under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). If the employee’s leave is paid vacation leave, personal leave, or other medical or sick leave, then that is not eligible family and medical leave for purposes of the tax credit.
Employers that are not subject to the FMLA may also receive tax credits for paid family and medical leave if they otherwise provide employees the same protections under the FMLA and meet the other requirements discussed above, such as having a written policy. The policy must ensure that the employer will not interfere with, restrain, or deny an employee the ability to take leave pursuant to the policy or retaliate against any employee for exercising their rights under the policy.
This tax credit is not currently a long-term benefit for employers. Instead, it is in effect for two years and sunsets on December 31, 2019 unless re-enacted by Congress.
If you choose to voluntarily implement a paid family and medical leave policy, we recommend you consult with counsel to ensure your written policy meets all technical requirements of the new tax law.
Marijuana regulations are rapidly changing, keeping both employers and lawmakers on their toes. With expanding legislation legalizing medical and recreational marijuana spreading across the country, what used to be a clear workplace policy enforced by HR and safety managers — zero tolerance — is becoming hazier.
A recent http://news.gallup.com/poll/221018/record-high-support-legalizing-marijuana.aspx (Gallup poll) reported that 64 percent of Americans support legalization. Legal marijuana sales were predicted to reach $9.7 billion in North America last year, marking a 33 percent increase over 2016, according to cannabis industry analyst https://arcviewgroup.com/research/ (Arcview Market Research). This report also predicts that the legal cannabis market will grow 28 percent annually by 2021 as more states legalize marijuana for recreational use and today’s markets mature, as long as the federal government doesn’t crack down on state-legal cannabis. The Legal Climate
Nine states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for recreational use: Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. Twenty-nine other states have legalized medical marijuana. Federal laws still maintain that marijuana is an illegal Schedule 1 drug, and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) supports consistent testing and regulation of the drug in the workplace.
Businesses have a duty to protect employees and customers by providing a safe and healthy work environment. Historically, this meant that employers could develop and administer a zero tolerance policy against substance abuse in the workplace with the right to test for the presence of those substances. Multi-state employers may find it confusing to apply the policy consistently across the organization with operations in states that have different laws about marijuana. Are they still able to use a consistent policy across the organization or does it need modification based upon the differing state laws?
What about testing for cannabis intoxication based on reasonable suspicion? Edible products, oils, and vape devices delivering concentrated THC in effect eliminate the tell-tale odor once associated with the drug. Further, tests for marijuana could yield positive results even if the drug hasn’t been used recently. One development is that there are new oral swab tests on the market that can detect actual impairment through saliva with a shorter detection window that contrasts with urine tests that don’t necessarily correspond to current impairment levels. Where Employers Stand Now
For states without marijuana laws, employers can keep the current zero tolerance policy. Federal contractors subject to the Drug-Free Workplace Act can continue to follow the requirements under the law to maintain eligibility for those contracts.
In states where medical marijuana is allowed, however, employers may have a duty to accommodate its usage, like accommodations for other prescription drugs. The accommodations might include moving the employee to a less safety-sensitive position, changes in work hours, or other accommodations that would be considered reasonable and not cause undue hardship to the business. Employers should consult with legal counsel if these situations arise.
While the situation is still hazy, for employers in states with legalized recreational marijuana, most experts believe that employers can continue enforcing policies restricting marijuana use on the job.
For now, review your current drug and alcohol policy. Seek legal counsel if operating in areas where marijuana is legal to ensure that any court interpretations are considered in drafting or refining the policy. Next steps should include the following:
Define what is considered substance abuse and what types of substances are covered under the policy.
Outline the process the company will take for determining reasonable suspicion for...
Question: We are in the process of revising our employee handbook. Are there any anticipated new laws that will require policy changes in early 2018? If so, we will probably wait for those new policies before finalizing the handbook.
Answer: It is not easy to predict changes to laws or regulations, particularly when there has been a lot of activity in the courts and in Washington recently. With that said, in mid- to late December 2017, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was active in overruling several decisions that significantly impact employers. One decision, http://links.govdelivery.com/track?type=click&enid=ZWFzPTEmbXNpZD0mYXVpZD0mbWFpbGluZ2lkPTIwMTcxMjE0LjgyNDk0NjIxJm1lc3NhZ2VpZD1NREItUFJELUJVTC0yMDE3MTIxNC44MjQ5NDYyMSZkYXRhYmFzZWlkPTEwMDEmc2VyaWFsPTE2OTcyNDU4JmVtYWlsaWQ9bnF1aW5uZ2F0b0B0aGlua2hyLmNvbSZ1c2VyaWQ9bnF1aW5uZ2F0b0B0aGlua2hyLmNvbSZ0YXJnZXRpZD0mZmw9JmV4dHJhPU11bHRpdmFyaWF0ZUlkPSYmJg==&&&100&&&https://go.usa.gov/xnnp9 (Boeing Company and Society of Professional Employees in Aerospace, IFPTE Local 2001 [download]), overruled previous NLRB precedents that, in recent years, resulted in successful challenges to employer policies, workplace rules, and handbook provisions for the indirect impact they had on protected concerted activity. In previous cases, some of those challenges related to something other than activities that are protected under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). For example, in one case, the policy in question required nurses and doctors in a hospital to foster “harmonious interactions and relationships.”
As you can imagine, cases using the standard adopted in prior NLRB decisions caused a lot of confusion and uncertainty for employers, as it was unclear how they could create a safe and harmonious workplace without being challenged with labor law violations. The NLRB’s December 14, 2017 decision created more predictability for employers by establishing a new standard for evaluating company rules that consider the extent of potential impact on NLRA rights and the business justification for creating those rules. To help employers make sense of the new standards, the NLRB established three categories of rules (providing examples of each) and how they will be analyzed or interpreted by the NLRB in future case.
This decision may provide a good opportunity to re-evaluate your handbook provisions and other employer policies and make updates. We recommend you work with counsel to help analyze any new provisions using the standards established in the case.
Gender Reporting and EEO-1 Survey
Question: How do we record a gender-neutral employee for EEO-1 reporting?
Answer: Until the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) addresses another gender or “nonbinary” option, employers are required to report all employees as either male or female, even when an employee chooses not to identify as one of the two genders. EEO-1 reporting for calendar year 2017 must be filed by March 31, 2018, and must include information on each employee’s race, gender, and job category. In general, companies that must report EEO-1 data are those that are:
Subject to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, with 100 or more employees; or
Subject to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, with fewer than 100 employees if the company is owned by or corporately affiliated with another company and the entire enterprise employs a total of 100 or more employees; or
Federal government prime contractors or first-tier subcontractors subject to Executive Order 11246, as amended, with 50 or more employees and a prime contract or first-tier subcontract amounting to $50,000 or more.
Self-identification is the preferred method of identifying the gender information necessary for the https://www.eeoc.gov/employers/eeo1survey/faq.cfm (EEO-1 report), and employees should be reported as the sex with which they identify. If the employee...
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Welcome to People Processes Podcast. This episode has an introduction to the structure of the podcast, what information you can expect to gain, and a quick story of on of our business leaders who helped turn her organization around