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

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

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

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

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

• 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 Alejeal today!

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

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

✅ 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

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

📢 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

🎯 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 Activities NOW!

📅 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

✅ 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

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

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

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

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

🎙 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.

👉 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

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.com for insights and support.

To find out more about Ron, visit here.

For Ron’s Facebook page, click here.

https://youtu.be/bGjdlo5rCzs

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

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

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

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

💡 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

🚨 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

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

👍 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

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

🌟 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.

👉 Hit like, subscribe, and share your thoughts in the comments below!



https://youtu.be/rxVj1UxqGL4

• Key Requirements of a WVPP

1. Written Plan

2. Employee Training

3. Inspections

4. 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

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

https://youtu.be/8E2UPrKa5Po

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

#salaryincrease #compensationstrategy #hrinsights #SalaryPlanning #peopleprocesses

https://youtu.be/J4-JvpS8zcU

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/bjiInaNCSE8

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/Rn56we1S56A

🌐 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://youtu.be/fBYO_79ADOw

🤯 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! 💼

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! 🔒💼

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

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

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.

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.

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! 🏆💪❤️

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...]]>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 revealed no statutory violations. Consequently, the court granted the employer’s motion for summary judgment concerning all employees who had failed to file written consent within the two-year limitations period.

Noting that several courts have held that the turned hours pay compensation plan utilized by the employer in the instant case constitutes a bona fide commission rate for purposes of Section 7(i), the court nevertheless characterized the compensation plan as a "hybrid plan" because at times the employer utilized a "straight commission without advances" compensation method that is a bona fide commission rate and at other times the company utilized a "straight hourly rate" compensation method that was not a bona fide commission rate. Looking at the commission rate as a whole, it passed the "smell test," the court determined, reiterating that the employer’s corporate counsel had worked with the DOL during an investigation of its compensation plan and that an audit had revealed no violations of the FLSA.

This plan passed almost all the requirements, and most of the individual claimants’ complain were dismissed in summary judgment. However, there is still a question concerning those employees who rarely made more than the “guaranteed rate” or draw. If you have a situation like this, and an employee is not exceeding their draw, you cannot just let that continue. The employees allege that they did other things that didn’t generate turned hours, and that is why they didn’t exceed the guaranteed rate. Work such as more administrative duties may or may not be why they didn’t exceed the guaranteed rate.

Do not let, out of your 30 employees, if five consistently miss their quota, not make enough so that the commission plan kicks in. If you continue to pay them the guaranteed minimum hourly rate, you will get in trouble. In Tire Kingdom’s example, they allowed their employees to remain for a long enough period not making enough turned hours, effectively making $11.02 an hour, flat, without overtime. Their plan passed, benefiting some employees but negatively impacting others who have worked long hours.

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.
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, and respond to potentially violent situations.
• Do report perceived threats or acts of violence to your manager or supervisor, following any existing policies that may be in place.
• To remain aware of and support coworkers and customers if a threatening or violent situation occurs.



Basic “don’ts” for employees to prevent workplace violence include:

• Don’t argue with a customer if they make threats or become violent. If needed, go to a safe area (ideally, a room that locks from the inside, has a second exit route, and has a phone or silent alarm).
• Don’t attempt to force anyone who appears upset or violent to follow COVID-19 prevention policies or other policies or practices related to COVID-19 (e.g. limits on the number of household or food products).

]]>6035f6a2-ff8c-46d9-9392-3069d4209c9cFri, 11 Sep 2020 07:45:00 -050008:59falsefull4294294Rhamy AlejealDo I have to reimburse my employees for personal auto use?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).

]]>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).

]]>06a6c479-30c8-4e7e-af19-a928a6df763fThu, 10 Sep 2020 07:45:00 -050018:56falsefull4284284Rhamy AlejealCan I Pay My Commercial Drivers Commission Only?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. ]]>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. ]]>c904e4f5-b4a6-4245-ad42-833625d37b87Wed, 09 Sep 2020 07:45:00 -050013:24falsefull4274274Rhamy AlejealHow Should Employers Deal with Employees Suffering from Opioid Addiction?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.]]>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.]]>bc043cd4-76c7-411a-bcdb-d7050d08784fTue, 08 Sep 2020 07:45:00 -050015:35falsefull4264264Rhamy AlejealTracking hours from Home - FLSA GuidanceEmployees 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).

]]>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).

]]>876e76c3-2658-4301-886e-e3d6e20f862aFri, 04 Sep 2020 07:45:00 -050012:02falsefull4254254Rhamy AlejealWhen and Why to use a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan)?[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=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.

]]>60ad736f-0439-4227-a666-0a743a5f78f3Thu, 03 Sep 2020 07:45:00 -050013:02falsefull4244244Rhamy AlejealCan My Employer Keep Me Past City Curfew?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]

]]>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]

]]>dce96e0f-4d8c-4f33-90d8-6b9ae7bc13b6Wed, 02 Sep 2020 07:45:00 -050008:57falsefull4234234Rhamy AlejealASK HR - COVID Has Caused My Wife's Company to Issue a Non-competeIn 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...]]>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.
  
  ]]>4a612299-410d-424b-a480-4964d1b6d24eTue, 01 Sep 2020 08:00:00 -050016:44falsefull4224224Rhamy AlejealPost Accident Drug Testing, and Why Handbooks are HARD!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:

   
  1. 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;
  2. Abnormal conduct or erratic behavior while at work or a significant deterioration in work performance;
  3. A report of substance abuse provided by a reliable and credible source;
  4. Evidence that an individual has tampered with any substance abuse test during his or her employment with this company;
  5. Information that an employee has caused or contributed to an accident while at work;
  6. 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
  7. 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...]]>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:

   
  1. 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;
  2. Abnormal conduct or erratic behavior while at work or a significant deterioration in work performance;
  3. A report of substance abuse provided by a reliable and credible source;
  4. Evidence that an individual has tampered with any substance abuse test during his or her employment with this company;
  5. Information that an employee has caused or contributed to an accident while at work;
  6. 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
  7. 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!

  ]]>2ef06440-6997-4e35-8fad-dd80a7a97048Mon, 31 Aug 2020 09:00:00 -050011:24falsefull4214214Rhamy AlejealWhat Are the Law Updates for Employers in August 2020? Part 3This 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...]]>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.
    
    ]]>b4835172-2cab-4c3e-bdf1-a962d53ccb87Fri, 28 Aug 2020 07:45:00 -050010:48falsefull4204204Rhamy AlejealWhat Are the Law Updates for Employers in August 2020? Part 2This 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...]]>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.
      
      ]]>10f0014a-2691-4b6d-8ba2-4d6d1e0110f1Thu, 27 Aug 2020 07:45:00 -050011:05falsefull4194194Rhamy AlejealWhat Are the Law Updates for Employers in August 2020? Part 1This 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.
      
      ]]>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.
      
      ]]>cfc4fbee-723c-4447-8051-0c4dab36c289Wed, 26 Aug 2020 07:45:00 -050009:05falsefull4184184Rhamy AlejealWhat Do Employers Need to Know About COVID-19 Liability?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.]]>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.]]>9c694d89-492f-4c01-9e8d-b97c2965a0d0Tue, 25 Aug 2020 07:45:00 -050010:46falsefull4174174Rhamy AlejealHow Many Businesses Were Prosecuted by the DOL Last Month for Primary Violations?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.

      ]]>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.

      ]]>d2ce0bfe-c706-4d98-9c32-92e972b6e98eMon, 24 Aug 2020 07:45:00 -050011:19falsefull4164164Rhamy AlejealTennessee Valley Authority Prompts Trump ATTACK and Executive OrderOn 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...]]>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.]]>8abcaa03-4a54-446d-a2a4-afe5f2ef0be8Fri, 21 Aug 2020 07:45:00 -050011:59falsefull4154154Rhamy AlejealHow many people will work from home in 2021? When will we end the layoffs?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...]]>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).
        
        ]]>fd215863-e5e6-49c2-9705-43da95274fe0Thu, 20 Aug 2020 07:45:00 -050008:36falsefull4144144Rhamy AlejealCalifornia SUES Uber and Lyft for Wage Theft!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. ]]>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. ]]>17527b79-0907-422d-aee8-2e731c102893Wed, 19 Aug 2020 07:45:00 -050008:07falsefull4134134Rhamy AlejealDoes the Trump executive order mean I can stop withholding employee tax payments?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. ]]>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. ]]>91551afc-3d3e-4b83-8770-77e99b151ce4Tue, 18 Aug 2020 08:00:00 -050011:52falsefull4124124Rhamy AlejealQ&A: Harrassment[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=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.]]>76f36e28-f255-422a-9a2c-ac7c71c50e8bMon, 17 Aug 2020 09:00:00 -050017:07falsefull4114114Rhamy AlejealHow Do You Determine Whether an Employee Qualifies for Exemption?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.

        ]]>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.

        ]]>5ca70e99-7aa1-42ea-8678-3fab590d61d1Fri, 14 Aug 2020 07:45:00 -050014:35falsefull4104104Rhamy AlejealHow Do You Qualify for the Computer Employee, Outside Sales Employee, or Highly-Compensated Worker 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:
        
        
        1. The application of systems analysis techniques and procedures, including consulting with users, to determine hardware, software, or system functional specifications.
        2. 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.
        3. The design, documentation, testing, creation, or modification of computer programs related to machine operating systems.
        4. 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.

        [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:
        
        
        1. The application of systems analysis techniques and procedures, including consulting with users, to determine hardware, software, or system functional specifications.
        2. 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.
        3. The design, documentation, testing, creation, or modification of computer programs related to machine operating systems.
        4. 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.

        ]]>c2c9bd68-607c-465b-88a1-10868d214294Thu, 13 Aug 2020 07:45:00 -050016:39falsefull49494Rhamy AlejealHow Do You Qualify for the Professional Employee Exemption?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.

        ]]>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.

        ]]>e43a416c-d056-432f-9a4b-e1c5d74f37f3Wed, 12 Aug 2020 07:45:00 -050015:29falsefull48484Rhamy AlejealHow Do You Qualify for the Administrative Employee 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=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.

        ]]>69fd55da-b09c-4219-bdf1-18df4e78d844Tue, 11 Aug 2020 07:45:00 -050017:24falsefull47474Rhamy AlejealHow Should I Decide Whether to Pay a Salary or an Hourly Wage?[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,...]]>[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.

        ]]>e5e63df2-6f4b-4919-9a1f-ad764f6e5202Mon, 10 Aug 2020 07:45:00 -050015:11falsefull46464Rhamy AlejealHow Can You Tell Whether a Worker is an Employee or an Independent Contractor?[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...]]>[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.]]>d3a29b4c-66a0-4f82-9bc5-db9576bbbb36Fri, 07 Aug 2020 07:45:00 -050016:48falsefull45454Rhamy AlejealWhat is in the New Q&A Released by the Department of Labor on COVID-19?[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? [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 employer cannot be required to pay for or reimburse the employee for items that fall under business expenses if doing so reduces the employee’s earnings below required minimum wage or overtime. QUESTION #9: I am a salaried exempt employee from the minimum wage and overtime requirements under Section 13A1 of the FLSA as a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional employee. Can my employer reduce my salary during the COVID-19 pandemic or an economic slowdown? Would I lose my exempt status if my employer does so? As long as your employer changes your salary going forward, then this is not a problem. It will not result in you losing your exempt status. Any such reduction has to be predetermined rather than an after-the-fact reduction from your salary. Also, the salary change must be what is called “bona fide”, meaning that the change is not an attempt to evade the salary basis requirement and is actually due to the economic slowdown/COVID-19 situation as opposed to the quality or quantity of the work you perform.]]>0a0dcd48-a372-4be7-b6d1-ccaa422731f1Thu, 06 Aug 2020 07:45:00 -050017:44falsefull44444Rhamy AlejealWhat Are the Changes to the Affordable Care Act in 2020?[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 HealthCare.gov.]]>[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 HealthCare.gov.]]>c5d6502e-36e3-47d4-a946-7164abc526cdWed, 05 Aug 2020 07:45:00 -050011:35falsefull43434Rhamy Alejeal1099 NEC - What is it, and why is the 1099Misc Dead?[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.]]>[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.]]>d4ab9641-f39e-469c-9724-9cdde20ccd4aTue, 04 Aug 2020 07:45:00 -050010:15falsefull42424Rhamy AlejealIndependent Contractor vs EE Part 1In 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.

          ]]>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.

          ]]>a4655340-f952-4780-8216-a45bbe0dc473Mon, 03 Aug 2020 07:45:00 -050014:49falsefull41414Rhamy AlejealPeople Processes Interviews: How to Set and Measure Short and Long-Term Company Goals in Times of Uncertainty with Kathy AtkinsEvery 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]]>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 experience is like working at the company, what they think the company’s strengths and weaknesses are, where they think the company is going, and what they would change if they had the authority to do so.

          We require the company to commit to working with us for a year, which will include monthly check-ins. We also remind them that they, as the leaders of their business, have to lead the charge and keep their people accountable. If you have lukewarm engagement, you’re going to get lukewarm execution.

          We then determine who will be on the strategic planning team. These are the people across the business who are thought, leaders, and change agents. It’s a smaller team but we still want to have a good cross-section.

          Finally, we then give them prep work, which is a two-day process. They will evaluate existing and potential products and services in terms of profitability. Same thing with regards to markets, systems, and processes. We also do an internal SWOT analysis. Basically, we’re using templates to collect data, which we then bring to the team, who will discuss that data, turning these observations into goals, and translating these goals into actions in the form of modules that contribute to the five-year plan, which will be adjusted as needed.

          4) What would be your advice to small businesses with limited resources?

          There are a couple of things. If they can’t afford third-party resources, I suggest they look to free resources in the form of small business centers at local universities and mentorship via SCORE. Secondly, as a small company, if you do a really good internal SWOT analysis, you would probably surface the two or three biggest things you need to be working on because your business is not that complex with a ton of moving parts (even if it feels that way). You don’t have to have a fancy project management software, either. I don’t care if you put it on an Excel spreadsheet. Just write it down and have routine meetings where you’re looking at these things and seeing how you’re doing. Anybody can do that if they’re willing to exercise the discipline to do it.

          5) What are some of the accountability steps that smaller companies need to take when putting their plans into action?

          The owners and leaders of the business have to regularly reinforce these focus areas with their people. They should go to each individual department or even team member and follow-up on progress and offer help to those who may need it. In a small business, it’s what a leader does and expects that happens.

          6) What KPIs should companies be measuring?

          As a former CFO, I only considered the bottom line. But for most companies, we need to come up with a very small set of company-wide KPIs that everyone can relate to. Not everyone can relate to IBIDA or net income or some other audacious goal. If you can break it down into a few key areas that everyone can relate to, such as subsets of that net income, your team members can point to these things and confidently say that they understand what these factors are and what they’re doing to contribute to making them happen. Everything that’s worth doing can be measured, whether directly or indirectly.

          Utilize the Law of Gracious Plenty, which does not concern itself with exactness for exactness’ sake (i.e. we need to spend 10.75 hours on this goal). This will kill a lot of your team’s capacity for flexibility and adaptation as you proceed through your six-month plans.

          7) Who is your ideal client at The Lattitude Group?

          We have a clearly defined ideal client profile. On the strategy side, we are looking for healthy $25 million to $250 million in companies that are privately held with owners who have an articulated purpose for their business. Those businesses have very little red tape and we have a lot of potentials to make really great relationships to the point these types of clients stay with us for up to four-and-a-half years. On the people development side, we do executive coaching. That’s the one area where we target larger corporations.

          8) Why would people want to check out your free download on go.lattitudegroup.com?

          I think that this download can help a lot of business owners of different sizes. This guide contains ten questions that business owners need to be asking themselves in terms of preparing for their future and solidifying their goals. They will also be able to schedule a free one-hour consultation with us to discuss the most important things that they need to focus on.

          9) What was your worst experience as an entrepreneur and what lessons came out of it?

          Anyone who’s been in business for as long as I have has had a bad patch. When the Great Recession hit in 2008, we were impacted by that. We didn’t lose clients since we formed great relationships, but they certainly contracted. The volume of the business was reduced significantly. So we did what a lot of businesses did, which was to look at how long this would last and what our run-rate would be. We didn’t lay any people off, but we made some big changes. We also sat down with our clients and let them know that we had their best interests at heart, which was a big reason they stayed.

          For me, I was always a big thinker and risk-taker. That experience definitely impacted my thinking. While I haven’t gone completely the opposite way, I do strive ahead with some reserves behind me now.

          Conclusion

          Realize that every company’s five-year plan at the start of 2020 is now outdated. If you’re a small business owner, focus on your six-month plan. If you’re a larger company that wishes to scale, create a new five-year plan, then break it down into six-month increments.

          Before attempting to define and measure KPIs, get every team member from bottom to top on the same page with regards to your company’s vision, then form a strategic planning team and perform prep work to begin setting goals. When it comes to what kinds of KPIs to focus on, just remember that in all strategic decisions, there must be something that you can measure as a result. Part of that will involve income, but leaders should look at other factors beyond dollars that relate to the rest of the team.

          Homework: Now that you know how to break five-year plans down to six-month segments and how to define, track, and measure important metrics, which three to five company-wide KPIs do your strategic planning team agree to relate to your whole team and are worth focusing on?

          

          Learn more about Kathy Bowman Atkins here:

          Website: https://lattitudegroup.com/

          Twitter: https://twitter.com/LattitudeGroup

          Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/organization-guest/company/the-lattitude-group

          ]]>9129be39-bb48-4cb1-b2d3-3e4309128b95Tue, 21 Jul 2020 07:45:00 -050055:08falsefull3483483Rhamy AlejealPeople Processes Interviews: How to Prevent Bad Moments from Turning Into a Bad Day with Michael O'BrienEverything 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 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 set my intentions for the day by asking myself three questions: 1) How do I wish to be today; 2) What do I wish to do (i.e. priorities); 3) What do I want to have more of at the end of the day?

          4) If someone who is in charge of the scaling, growth, and efficiency of staff sits down with you, what advice would you give them to begin improving the resiliency of the company’s employees on a corporate level?

          We should consider the health crisis brought about by COVID-19, as well as its impact on the economy. We’re now working through equity and equality issues. We have a lot to face as HR professionals and corporate leaders.

          At a corporate level, if leaders can role model the right behaviors and show up with a more resilient mindset, it allows the company to become more agile. My definition of resilience is: “Fall down seven times, get back up eight times.” This will help us to adapt to future challenges. Who’s to say what the future holds? All we know is that things will continue to move faster as time goes on.

          To reframe tough situations, I do what I call “grabbing a PBR”, which I developed when I was in the hospital. PBR stands for “Pause, Breathe, and Reflect”. We slow it down so that we can go faster and be better, taking breaths so that we can think things through before replying or reacting too soon.

          Another thing is to work on our relationships. Resilient people have a “strong peloton”, which is a group of cyclists in a bike race like the Tour de France: They’re all on different teams and they all come from different departments, but they all need each other to go down the road as fast as possible. We all need strong peloton. It’s my metaphor for a tribe at work.

          Finally, take small steps and get back to the priorities that really matter. Have gratitude. As a corporate leader, you can weave in gratitude for the current moment. Highlight both the small and big wins. Negative news travels the fastest and we forget about our small victories. Leaders at the top should ask what the team is grateful for. “Grateful” doesn’t mean “satisfied”. It doesn’t mean that we’re done. It just means that we recognize that we’re making progress, and we can use those moments of progress or accomplishment to build into tomorrow and begin to gain momentum.

          5) How do you communicate sensitive issues across your company?

          Every company should have a good copy editor and a good corporate communications department. When a company statement is needed in particular moments, highlight how the moment is front-and-center for everyone. There is more awareness among the team. They can see more frames of this movie. They can be thankful for the awareness, but not necessarily joyful or excited about it. Instead, it’s an opportunity to address what should have been addressed long ago. When you look at the nation today with the issues of COVID-19 and inequity and inequality, we should look at it all as an opportunity to write a new script—a new story—if we want to make this a “last bad day” moment for our country. We can’t be satisfied with an external memo and a few social media posts. The real brass tax of it all is how we can change and do things within our company.

          Businesses will continue to evolve their brand by asking themselves how they want the world around them to see their company. A tire-changing business doesn’t just “change tires”—they’re providing safety and security. The key is to define the purpose of your work, and the mission and branding of your company. It’s ultimately all about the soul of your business. What do you stand for? What kind of impact do you want to make? What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?

          6) What book would you recommend to those looking to better their outlook on life?

          I often recommend The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho.

          7) If you can go back and warn your past self against making a certain decision, what would that decision be?

          I used to compare my beginning with other people’s middle. I wasted a lot of time playing the comparison game. Just do you. Be you. Speak to your people. Let them do them, and you’ll be very happy.

          8) Is there anything taking place within the next six months that you’re most excited about?

          In the next three weeks, on July 11, I’ll be celebrating 19 years since my last bad day. To celebrate life, I’ll be riding my bike inside for 19 hours for 19 charities supporting others during this moment in time. It’s going to be physically and mentally draining. Some people have called me crazy; but what’s really crazy is the racism, sexism, poverty, and hunger that is being felt all over the world right now. Riding for 19 hours doesn’t even begin to compare to that.

          9) How can people reach you, and is there anyone who wouldn’t be a good fit to be your client?

          Anyone can reach me through my website, which is www.michaelobrienshift.com. There, they can grab my free A Better Life workbook which will help them build resilience and manage their energy.

          As far as the fit, the people that I gravitate towards are those who want to create a better tomorrow. If you’re happy with how it’s always been, and you don’t see any way to grow and develop, you’re probably not a good fit. It doesn’t mean I’m judging you. I’d still be open to a conversation because I just like connecting with people. And anyway, those conversations can still lead to issues that you might have overlooked.

          I’ve been given a second shot at all this. For me, I’m doing what I believe I’m meant to do. If I can help people shift their perspective on things to step fully into this wonderful life that we have, to change things from a corporate or business perspective, or even just from their own living rooms, I’m all about it. It brings me a lot of joy. It brings me a lot of happiness. I’m excited to do it.

          Conclusion

          2020 brought with it a plethora of world-shaking challenges. From the effects of COVID-19 to increased awareness around issues of racial equality, all manner of businesses is forced to adapt in more ways than one. It is the corporate leader’s responsibility to be a role model to their people in demonstrating how to navigate the many obstacles they currently face.

          It all starts with displaying resiliency. By incorporating simple practices such as “grabbing a PBR” and highlighting what deserves gratitude, leaders allow the soul of their business to shine brighter, which will lead to stronger pelotons and team members who are able to move forward in the face of uncertainty with greater confidence.

          Homework: Now that you know what makes for a company culture defined by resilience, what foundational priorities can you as a corporate leader highlight which you can then translate into bite-sized, actionable steps that you and your people can take to improve the company today?

          

          Learn more about Michael O'Brien here:

          Website: https://www.michaelobrienshift.com/

          Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/pelotoncoaching

          Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelobrienpelotoncoaching

          Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michaelobrienshift/

          ]]>84f44f57-e3ae-4078-8180-32a4c0173dfaWed, 15 Jul 2020 07:45:00 -050053:30falsefull3473473Rhamy AlejealPeople Process Interviews: How to Find the Right Team Members for Your Organization Amid Trying Times with Ira WolfeTurbulent 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...]]>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 LinkedIn.)

          Once people hear about your opening, they want to be Engaged. Your job description should not be “copy-paste” quality. Tell a story about your company illustrating why people love working for you.

          At this point, the applicant will (hopefully) click to Apply. This means collecting metrics to find out where your most successful candidates come from. Beyond applicants, focus on the origin of your best hires. HR has been notorious for not tracking this pivotal information. Aside from measuring data, look at the actual application. The average abandonment rate of people who start applying is 50%. Determine whether your application is too long and whether it’s in an appropriate format while keeping in mind that 90% of the population starts a job search on a mobile device. You can’t fill out a PDF application on a cellphone. Have a relatively short, responsive, and mobile-friendly application.

          After they apply, you have to Communicate. Responding quickly and often throughout the process is key. Keep your applicant updated on their status.

          Finally, Hire. Hiring doesn’t stop at the job offer. You need a good onboarding process that closely evaluates their first day on the job.

          5) What should you invest in with regards to recruitment marketing?

          You should definitely use video to communicate because it’s the most engaging medium. Content is the defining factor. Giving a tour of your office and interviewing the CEO is too corporate. What applicants really want to know is, “What’s it like for me?” They may never see the CEO. What I suggest is, do a selfie of yourself interviewing an employee or two. Have them talk candidly yet professionally for a minute or two on what it’s been like working for the company. Transparency and authenticity are the two biggest traits that people are looking for in an employer, and it’s something that they feel, not something you declare. So get your culture in order first before communicating it. You can’t put your marketing plan into action and begin communicating with applicants if your culture sucks. Of course, this also goes hand-in-hand with making the application process efficient and effective, as I described above using the REACH acronym.

          6) What are you most excited about right now?

          I see so much opportunity. This is sort of a reboot time in the world. We’re launching a learning platform that can help people gain new skills from home. I’m doing a lot of speaking at virtual events. There’s a lot of work to be done. I’m still passionate about the candidate experience. There are good companies out there offering good jobs, good places to work, good lifestyles, good opportunities. They just can’t get the message out there. So, I’m excited to extend a helping hand to those who are looking to navigate these challenging times.

          Conclusion

          Drop your fixed mindset and replace it with a growth mindset by embracing VUCA, and respond to Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity with VUCA Prime: Vision, Understanding, Clarity, and Agility.

          Just because the economy is in dire straits and many live in an environment of fear and isolation doesn’t mean all is lost for your company. If anything, now is the time to double down on your brand building and recruitment marketing efforts. Make use of every virtual resource that can help you communicate better with potential new employees, and turn your search for new talent into an invitation to join an organization that cares, encourages, and leads the way forward. 10x your application process with REACH.

          Homework: Now that you know the importance of VUCA Prime and using this time to improve upon your recruitment marketing strategy, how can you use REACH to streamline your application and evaluation process? Brainstorm ideas for a transparent and authentic video that showcases your company culture without being too formal and add it to your job listing.

          Learn more about Ira Wolfe here:

          Website: https://www.irawolfe.com/

          Twitter: https://twitter.com/hireauthority

          Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/SuccessPerformanceSolutions/

          Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/irawolfe

          ]]>3a6ca5aa-79d3-4907-a17a-e3b7716c70f3Fri, 10 Jul 2020 07:45:00 -050057:06falsefull3463463Rhamy AlejealPeople Processes Interview: How to Become a Better Leader by Being Inwardly Sound and Others-Focused with Time SpikerFocus 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 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 dangerous statement, and I probably wouldn’t get ahead of myself if I were giving someone advice. But I’d just say, “Be eyes wide open. Just understand the situation that you’re currently in. That leader can change. But they may not.”

          Some of the best advice that I got as I struggled for those two years was from my counselor, Gary Hansen, who said, “This sounds like a toxic person, Tim. How do you treat toxicity? You don’t try to improve or rehabilitate toxicity. You try to manage it so it doesn’t do more damage.” A light bulb went off in my head, and I realized that I was trying to create an ideal situation with this leader, but I was working with a toxic person. Ultimately, for sanity, I shifted to thinking about toxicity and it really changed everything, including my relationship with my boss. I quit aiming for what would be great, and I started aiming for what would be best to survive the moment.

          Long-term, I would never recommend that anybody do that because you end up stagnant. But for a season, a time period, for the sake of not going crazy, it is okay to look at something for what it is. So, don’t try to rehabilitate toxicity. Manage it so that you can survive, and then figure out what you want to do longer-term. Most people can’t just quit a job and move on. If that’s the case, then minimizing the damage of toxicity is a far wiser path than trying to improve or rehabilitate it. It’s going to keep everybody sane, including the toxic person that you’re working with.

          6) What does it mean to be “others-focused”?

          Who are you showing up for every day? Is this really all about you? There are very few people who want to admit that they’re living like that. Ultimately, is this leadership role that you have only about what you receive and your upward mobility and vocation in life? Or is it about other people: the followers that you are investing in and helping to grow? Others-focused leaders get more out of those that are following them. We all want to be seen and we all want to matter. Others-focused leaders bring that to the table in a big way.

          Being others-focused requires you to be attentive, curious, empathic, humble, emotionally mature, and an embodiment of agape (giving unconditional love). Curiosity in particular will give you the information you need to do a better job at what you do, and to forge stronger relationships with your teammates.

          7) What actions can a small business owner take to become a better leader?

          Be more curious, not just about facts, but about people. Also, be more empathic. If I know that my leader is connected to me and my reality emotionally, I’m going to receive that much different than if we were totally disconnected. If we’re disconnected, I’ll be defensive when offered criticism and will end up having to work through that before even beginning to talk about the issues at hand. Empathy humanizes leadership.

          To increase your level of empathy, try utilizing the 300 Second Pause. This means that, before heading into a discussion or a meeting that has the potential to become emotional, takes 300 seconds (five minutes) to think about what it would be like to be in other people’s shoes. When I walk through the door and see those people, I’ll be interacting with a much more thoughtful connection with where they’re coming into the day. It’s not just about knowing how they feel at the moment, but also about knowing how you want them to feel at the end of the day.

          8) What does it mean to be “inwardly sound”?

          It means being secured and settled, self-aware, principled, holistically healthy, purposeful, and (again) emotionally mature. I want to zero-in on “self-aware”. If you’re a courageous leader (or just want to get more courageous), one of the things you can do, regardless of how big your organization is, is to open up a dialogue with the people you are leading on a one-on-one basis.

          Give them these two questions—directed at you, their leader—to ponder over before you actually meet with them: 1) “What can I be doing differently or better?”; 2) “What do I need to keep doing that’s really making a difference for you or our organization?”

          When I’m more inwardly sound, I’m more trustworthy. When I’m more trustworthy, I get greater engagement from my followers. Engagement leads to better performance and better results.

          9) How would you respond to people that these actionable steps are just time sinks?

          I’m an electrical engineer by education and I ended up in the leadership space, which means that I brought my love for numbers and statistics into that space. The reason we talk about “inwardly sound” and “others-focused” is because that’s where the data points are. Because of the data—not the anecdotal stories which are all over the place—if somebody says, “This sounds like a big-time sink. I just don’t have time for that,” then I tell them with as much understanding and compassion as I can is, “Then you don’t have time to be a good leader.” These two principles make all those other activities and efficiencies that they’re after work that much better.

          10) How can HR professionals incorporate these principles into their existing feedback process?

          It has to be a part of the conversation—not all at once, but over time. If you look at the systems and processes that you have from an HR perspective, in the development of leaders, if you’re never having a conversation about who, then you’re leaving three-quarters of the conversation out. If you want to have world-class leaders, you have to have world-class conversations about leadership. If you leave out 77% of leadership, you’re not going to be able to do that.

          Conclusion

          Leadership development is essentially about making people more well-developed human beings in order to create better bottom-line results.

          Since 77% of leadership comes from who a leader is, and not what they do, turn your attention as a leader to becoming inwardly sound through curiosity, and others-focused through self-awareness.

          Getting your team and HR department to adopt this new way of thinking and adjusting their processes, as a result, is a gradual process. Just keep in mind that the data speaks for itself. If you “don’t have the time” to work on becoming more inwardly sound and others-focused, then you don’t have the time to become a better leader.

          Homework: Now that you know the importance of becoming more inwardly sound and others-focused as a leader, in what ways can you encourage more open and candid dialogue between you and your followers in order to help you improve your relationship with your team?

          Learn more about Tim Spiker here:

          Website: https://www.theaperio.com/

          Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timspiker/

          Twitter: https://twitter.com/TimSpiker

          ]]>ee1303ea-3d2d-43b5-83fa-5ae4d849695cTue, 07 Jul 2020 07:45:00 -050059:11falsefull3453453Rhamy AlejealPeople Processes Interviews: How One-On-Ones Managed via a CRM Exponentially Increases ProductivitySpend 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...]]>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 well as for me to come to them with problems. It creates a space where nothing is personal. It takes away the temptation to send emails saying, “By the way, it drives me crazy when you do this…” I know I can be honest during the one-on-ones because you’re in this headspace to receive feedback.

          As a business owner, I’m always setting goals for the company; but my team is not always setting goals. So, having this regular meeting creates a space that incentivizes us to think and speak openly about the same topics and issues. I’ve seen the quality of my team’s work transform overnight as a result of implementing one-on-ones.

          6) What software do you use to manage your one-on-ones?

          Currently, we have a Google Doc, but as we get more sophisticated with our meetings, I actually want to move it into our CRM, so that instead of our notes being in different places, the team can now access them from the same source.

          If you really want to bring out the best from your employees, you need to realize that not everybody is motivated and incentivized the same way you are. These one-on-ones are a really great way to figure out what you need to do to reach each individual in your team. It’s like the 5 Love Languages—everyone feels appreciation in their own, unique ways. Having your one-on-ones tied to an automated software system is a very clear and easy way to create process improvement.

          7) What sorts of individuals or businesses do you typically work with?

          We work with businesses that are already in growth mode and are looking to “cut the struggle curve” (as opposed to “cut the learning curve”). I focus on the energy advantage: Why would you waste your energy struggling?

          We also do a lot of events—both online and live. We do some business consulting, primarily in the marketing and sales arena; but we want to bring you to the event that is the right fit for you. Our events are application-focused and they work best with those in growth mode. We can try speaking with stagnant businesses, but we have the most fun with and create the most impact for growing companies.

          8) What are the first steps a small business has to consider when looking to scale?

          The great thing is, if you’re growing by referral, you are the quality control; but you need to put together a system to grow beyond the hours you physically put into the work. You can build a really solid marketing plan that really emphasizes and brings out that referral tendency. Wouldn’t it be phenomenal if you could generate ten times as many referrals because you’re doing it intentionally?

          You need a really strong marketing message. You need to know who you’re targeting (Hint: It’s not “everybody”). Your message needs to get beyond your tagline. Your message is, “What are you sharing with people?”

          Conclusion

          Your most valuable resource is neither your time nor your money. It’s your energy. Whatever you can minimize or outright remove from your process by incorporating repeatable systems will allow you to continue doing what you love without your energy getting sapped by, say, administration, and other minutiae. When we’re faced with things that we don’t love to do, we are tempted to put it off and may end up taking twice the time we needed to carry out the task. What’s more, at that point, we’re exhausted.

          Do the things you love, and automate or outsource the rest of it. You’ll be amazed at how your entire business or department will thrive. Conducting one-on-ones and documenting your sessions via a CRM will do wonders for productivity and make business growth enjoyable for every member of your team.

          Homework: Now that you know the importance of conducting one-on-ones and managing them via your company’s CRM, what are the first few areas you plan to cover with your team in order to encourage growth? How can you improve your marketing plan by defining your message more strongly?

          Learn more about Stephanie Scheller here:

          Website: http://www.growdisrupt.com/ or https://www.thestephaniescheller.com/

          Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/SuccessSteph

          Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuccessSteph

          Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/successsteph/

          ]]>92df3fd2-725c-4005-a2b1-4062819b7c4aFri, 03 Jul 2020 07:45:00 -050048:48falsefull3443443Rhamy AlejealPPP Forgiveness New App WalkthroughPPP Forgiveness New App Walkthrough from People Processes on 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.

          PPP Loan Forgiveness Application Form 3508EZ

          PPP Forgiveness Application 3508EZ ( Revised 06.16.2020)

          PPP-Loan-Forgiveness-Application-Form-EZ-Instructions

          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...]]>PPP Forgiveness New App Walkthrough from People Processes on 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.

          PPP Loan Forgiveness Application Form 3508EZ

          PPP Forgiveness Application 3508EZ ( Revised 06.16.2020)

          PPP-Loan-Forgiveness-Application-Form-EZ-Instructions

          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 name, how many employees you had at the time of the loan application it's on your loan application, the number of times that you forgive at the forgiveness application whenever you have now, it's all there. 

          These are the two sections that have changed significantly covered period vs alternative covered period. Let's talk about the covered period first. The covered period now has two options. There it is. If you received your loan before June 5th, 2020, you may elect to use an 8-week covered period. So if you got this back in April, like many people, and you were working under the assumption that it's an 8-week repayment period, fine, you can continue to do that. However, the new option is there is a 24-week period beginning on the PPP loan disbursement date. So if the bar is using a 24-week covered period and receive the proceeds on April 20th, then the first day of the covered period is April 20th and the last day of the covered period is Sunday, October 4th. In no event may the covered period extend beyond December 31, 2020. So, it won't matter right now, but some people, later on, this year we're going to have some trouble with that.

          There is a slight alternative to that if you are bi-weekly or weekly, you can elect to start the covered period instead of the disbursement date. Okay. So you have the 8-week or the 24-week option. But instead, you would start the period that begins on the first day of the first pay period following their loan disbursement date. The pay period is not payday. It's a pay period. It's the days you're paying people for, so on a bi-weekly, let's say you run Monday through Sunday, Monday through Sunday, and then you pay the next Friday. If along the way you get your PPP loan, you're going to be able to wait until the next pay period starts to start counting your 8 or 24 weeks. So, loan disbursement day, you can use that day or you can go to the first day of the first pay period that starts after that. Okay. 

          So, those are the key terms you need to know let's go through the EZ application. So this is the 3508EZ, Name, DBA, Business Address, Primary Contact, Loan Number, Lender Number, Amount of Loan, the day you had a dispersed, Number of Employees you had at the time of the application, Number of employees you have now. If you got an EIDL, you have to put that in there but most of you didn't. Payroll schedule, let's say you're a bi-weekly, you now put in the covered period, this is going to be either the 8 or 24-week period. If you're twice a month or monthly starting on the day that you got the money. You got it on April 20th. It went into your bank on April 20th starts April 20th. Remember that if you got the dispersion on a Wednesday, for example, a week runs until the following Tuesday, not the following Wednesday. Okay. That would be a week and a day. So when you look at your calendar, you want to go from the next, you want to go from Wednesday to the next Tuesday, that's one week and then count Tuesdays, all the way through 8 weeks or 24 weeks to get this date. 

          Your alternative covered payroll period, if that applies to you as a bi-weekly or weekly person, you can wait to start the period on the first day of the following pay period. You still have to put in the covered period, you have to put both of them in. If you receive more than 2 million checks those are the audit me later box. Okay. All right. Payroll costs. This is super easy. You put in the sum of your payroll costs that include your major medical, your employer contributions to benefits, your employer contributions to retirement, and your employer contributions to state taxes. Along with the gross pay of your employees, normally subtracting out any 1099 payments. So that all goes right here on payroll costs, mortgage interest, rent or lease and utilities, you just put them there. Add the lines together here on line five, and then on line six, put in your loan amount, okay? Line seven, it says payroll cost 60% requirement, divide line one by .6. Okay, so if this is 100,000, it's not saying multiply by .6, divided by .6, it's going to make a bigger number, it's going to give you a total. So that’s a piece of it. Okay? So don't worry if you look at that, and it feels a little weird. Whichever one of these five numbers is the smallest, that's how much you get forgiven either the loan amount, the amount of all your expenses which could exceed that, or the payroll cost requirement will limit you one of those, but that number there, number eight, you've done all your maths. Pretty cool. 

          Then you have to go and sign all these things, you have to promise that these were used for eligible forgiveness payroll cost issues, the funds were not knowing for unauthorized purposes, you didn't reduce salaries by wages more than 25%. This is one of those requirements to use the EZ form. That you verified those things, that you gave your lender copies of everything, that you've provided all the supporting documents, that they're correct. You're going to go to jail or get a major lawsuit, a civil penalty if you don't. The tax documents you're going to use to justify these are going to be the same as you submit to the IRS. The SBA can request additional information. And again, because this is the EZ form, you did not reduce the number of employees or the average paid hours of employees between January 1 and into the covered period, or you were unable to operate between February 15th and the end of the covered period at the same level of business activity is before February 15th due to compliance issues. Okay. Signature, print, date, title, give to your banker. Then there's a question if you'd like to fill out think about the demographics on the bar. Okay. 

          That is the EZ form. The complicated form, called the Calculation Form, same info up top. If you notice this first page, exactly the same as the EZ form, same pieces here only you're not having to certify certain things about 25% of you not reducing wages more than 25%, not laying off staff, because you're using the complicated form if you did. If so, what you have to do is fill out the Schedule A, you're first going to look at Schedule A here is salary or hourly wage reduction, we're going to look to see if we've wound up reducing the average pay rate. Okay. Then we're going to do a table two, which is going to look to determine if your average now the number of employees has gone down, the number of full-time equivalents. Then you're going to look at non-cash compensation. These are the ones that the employee health insurance, the employee retirement plans, those go in there. And then you're going to look at the compensation owners and put them all together.

          The way they do that is they give you this worksheet, they have you do it by an employee, Employee Name, Employee ID, Cash Compensation, Average full-time equivalency, full time, or less. And if they had any sort of reduction, do all the math, come out there and do it, Now if you're one of our clients in our People Processes system we have a data export called a PPP, data export PPP forgiveness, export, I believe. And in it, it will lay all of these out in this exact same rows so you can just pull it all in, does your thing. You set the dates of your covered period or your alternative covered period and it will do all your limiters like up to 100,000 and you will In compensation, and give you these totals. 

          The bottom line is that as you follow these instructions, it's going to help you determine how much you've reduced by a percentage, the wages of your employees, or the hours of your employees or the number of your employees. Each one of those things is the things you're going to go through. Once you have all that information down here, when you fill out the actual application, it's going to wind up with this line seven. reduction, quote, potions, salary, hourly wage reductions, it will lower the amount you can be forgiven because you've lowered the amount you're paying by more than 25%, which is part of the law. So that's the two different forms. But this one is more complicated. You just have to follow the instructions. The main thing is getting the data. Again, if you're one of our clients, we have it all for you. I'm sure if you're with another payroll company, they probably can generate something that will give you that information. Okay, I'm going to put both of the instruction pages along with the EZ and the complex forgiveness application and you'll probably be seeing this through email or link through social media. So we should have those linked on our site, in our COVID resources page.

          I hope you found this helpful. I know it was a little long-winded but I tried to cover some detail but not too much. If you have any questions, please contact us at peopleprocesses.com. Reach out to us on social media. I'd love to help and I hope this video was helpful to you. Good luck with you and have a great day.

          PPP Loan Forgiveness Application Form 3508EZ

          PPP Forgiveness Application 3508EZ ( Revised 06.16.2020)

          PPP-Loan-Forgiveness-Application-Form-EZ-Instructions

          PPP-Loan-Forgiveness-Application-Instructions_1_0.pdf

          ]]>a9b5d667-23a3-4df9-bc79-cd1a55fc1ff6Tue, 30 Jun 2020 07:45:00 -050014:56falsefull3433433Rhamy AlejealTransgender Rights, ACA Section 1557We'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...]]>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 the family of the deceased decided to transition after working there for 4 years. So he became she or she was always, she will work on how these words work in the future. Please don't be angry at me. But that transitioning the company argued, "Hey, look, this is interfering with our business interests. I can't have this transgender person out front, it ruins funerals," whatever was a major problem. And so they terminated them. That was one of the many cases that went into this. And the Supreme Court has ruled that NO, that is a protected class. Just like 50 years ago, maybe someone said, "Hey, I can't have a black woman or a black guy greet my people at the funeral home. It causes distress and upsets them."That same argument has now been outlawed for transgender and gay, for that matter. So you cannot terminate people in those.

          Now, I've read the entirety of the case and I do not know. I'm sure we'll get questions from this from our churches, that our clients, as a rule, most of the time, some of these sorts of pieces are exempted from religious institutions. Having to said that, there's nothing in the case about that. So we will see what happens. And we will take a close look at them. Now, there will be administrative law that comes out after this. 

          Ladies and Gentlemen, I hope this was interesting to you. So, two recaps. One, Section 1557 of the ACA that went into effect on the 12th. Basically, ignore it. Although we don't know. I'm sure there will be an update coming out there. I'm sure many of you took action in the medical profession over this. Nothing you need to do at this point, I think you need to just hang on and wait for some updates. And the Supreme Court ruling has changed a lot of employment law. It's very important now. Just like if you need to terminate somebody or you're taking disciplinary action, gay and transgender is a protected class, you have to make sure that what you're doing does not have a disparate impact on those classes, and that what you're doing is not because someone is a member of one of those classes. 

          Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for tuning in today. I will see you in the next one.

          ]]>668fc3f5-1fbb-471d-902d-1504805292aeFri, 26 Jun 2020 07:45:00 -050008:42falsefull3423423Rhamy AlejealOSHA Strikes Back[vimeo 422432919 w=640 h=360]

          People Processes Podcast: OSHA Strikes Back from People Processes on 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...]]>[vimeo 422432919 w=640 h=360]

          People Processes Podcast: OSHA Strikes Back from People Processes on 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 you're exempt if you have fewer than 10 employees. You do not need to keep OSHA injury and illness records unless OSHA tells you otherwise. But it doesn't matter your size. You must report to OSHA any work-related incidents that result in a fatality or the inpatient hospitalization of one or more employees, amputation, or the loss of an eye. So you don't have to keep track of every illness. But if someone gets hospitalized inpatient because of that one, you do have to since Coronavirus has at times lead to inpatient hospitalization. This is why I'm bringing this up even for those of you who have two employees. If you had more than 10 employees at any given time, you must keep an OSHA injury and illness record all the time. Unless you're part of the partially exempt industry list under 1904.2, we'll get to that at the end. But most or many companies, you have to record every injury but if you have more than 10 employees, unless, you're on that partially exempt list, we'll come to that in a second. As a reminder, you have to do this if anyone's hospitalized.

          So let's recap. OSHA has updated its new enforcement guidance. It's worth the read if you want to know what they're going to do when they come to check out your organization. If you have an employee who gets Coronavirus and they allege or you determine that it's a workplace injury, that they got it from coming to work, you have to record it. You have to report it to OSHA. If you have more than 10 employees and are not on the partially exempt list, or no matter your company size or industry, if it results in a hospitalization you have to keep an injury log and report it. This is different. Coronavirus fell under an exemption similar to the cold and the flu that you didn't have to report this stuff. But starting on May 26, that's tomorrow the day after Memorial Day this went into effect. So take a close look and if you don't know anything about how to do an OSHA report, it may be worth taking a little bit of time to reach out to us. There are actually places in our software for People Processes where you can automatically record these things if you have already HR suite. Of course, you can do this on paper and keep an OSHA log. But this will likely be the first time that small employers or any size employers who are on that partially exempt list that they feel like they're going to have to do some OSHA reporting. Okay. So I want to bring it up, I wanted you to have the opportunity to kind of know what's coming and go ahead and get ahead of it. It's really not that bad. Many companies do OSHA reporting. If you've never done one before, it's a little scary, but it's not too bad.

          When you're looking at this, the primary question is going to be, "Did the employee contract this illness at work?" So if you are doing daily temperature scans, or you're in a high-risk industry, let me rephrase that. If you're in a high-risk industry like if you're a home healthcare worker, hospice care, long-term care, anything medical, the preponderance of the evidence is going to be that they got it at work. Their likelihood of exposure is that they got it at work and you need to just rock with this. Previously, until this came out on the 19th, you guys were exempt from the OSHA side of this, because you were too busy. They've decided you're not. So if you're a healthcare professional and one of your employees says they have COVID, you pretty much have to assume they got it from you, and record it and report it.

          If you're not in healthcare, if you're in a lower risk industry, or there's actually a very high risk, and then there's what's called high risk. High risk or things with a high propensity to contact with other members of the general public. Common examples are things like schools, right, they fall under this. You also pretty much fall under the likelihood that they got it from you. Right? So if you're a school teacher or a daycare and you're interacting with lots and lots of children every day, the likelihood is if an employee comes to you and says they have COVID or you discover they have COVID, you have to assume they got from work Again, OSHA reportable now. Lower risk, if you're a CPA firm and you don't have much thought, in the way of employee interaction, most employees work from home. The assumption would not necessarily be that they got it. You just need to use your common sense. Of course, provide whatever required leave is there under the FFCRA, those sorts of things but you do not necessarily have to consider it a reportable injury.

          Ladies and Gentlemen, that's it for today. I hope you found this helpful. I hope you found some interesting items. Please check out peopleprocesses.com. Again, on our website, we have information about all these. Going back, we do have our list of partially exempt organizations, if you ever need to look those over, they're on the link on this podcast site, on the website under this episode. So it's a worthwhile read to double-check. Make sure you're on that list. You probably are. If you don't already know about OSHA reporting, you're probably on this list. Thank you for tuning in. My name is Rhamy Alejeal, I'm the CEO of People Processes and I appreciate your time. Now it's time for you to go out there. Have a great day and get your work done.

          ]]>7fb1be9f-f582-4f00-b955-401ef06212d5Tue, 23 Jun 2020 07:45:00 -050010:12falsefull3413413Rhamy AlejealNew PPP "EZ" Forgiveness Application[vimeo 430717492 w=640 h=360] PPP Forgiveness New App Walkthrough from People Processes on Vimeo. FA$TRAK BORROWER INFORMATION FORM PPP Forgiveness Application 3508EZ ( Revised 06.16.2020) PPP-Loan-Forgiveness-Application-Form-EZ-Instructions PPP-Loan-Forgiveness-Application-Instructions_1_0]]>[vimeo 430717492 w=640 h=360] PPP Forgiveness New App Walkthrough from People Processes on Vimeo. FA$TRAK BORROWER INFORMATION FORM PPP Forgiveness Application 3508EZ ( Revised 06.16.2020) PPP-Loan-Forgiveness-Application-Form-EZ-Instructions PPP-Loan-Forgiveness-Application-Instructions_1_0]]>3e4d55f1-cf68-4d87-b2c5-27f27292ab5cFri, 19 Jun 2020 09:00:00 -050013:34falsefull3403403Rhamy AlejealPeople Processes Interviews: John JonasThe 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.

          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 responsibilities (they might even all be related to each other), you might get someone who sees one or two responsibilities that they can’t do, and may end up not applying altogether as a result. Post a job with two or three primary responsibilities and, as you interview, you can disclose more details. Understand as well that some skills can be taught down the line.

          At the same time, don’t just list a single responsibility, because you might end up getting 200 applications and have a difficult time digging through that number to find the few that you want to interview.

          5) Do you recommend more formal or informal language on your job listing?

          I think that more formal language works in the Philippines. However, I’m very conversational, and I’ve never posted a formal job post. Be you so that applicants know what to expect from their employer, culturally speaking. In short, reflect your company culture on your listing.

          6) How different should the interview process be for VAs compared to traditional in-person interviews?

          With Filipinos in particular, I recommend that people start the interview via email. Skype interviews should happen later in the process. Ask lots of questions on a few emails over a couple of days. You’ll discover their command of English and their unique personality this way. The reason is, if you go for a video interview first, out of 10 applicants, five may disappear immediately. Of the other five who remain, three may not show up for the scheduled interview because it’s just too scary for them. There’s no guarantee that the last two candidates are the strongest among the original ten. The key to having a healthy professional relationship with a Filipino is to build trust, and conducting your interview via email first helps enormously with that.

          7) What are the key steps to onboarding a VA?

          If you want to use an employment contract, go for it. Different people are driven differently. By this point, you will have negotiated their working hours per week, and how you intend to pay them (hourly, contract, etc.). I have 26 people who I pay between $400 to $1700 for full-time work (40-hour workweek); but the thing is, they all get paid a salary. If you pay hourly, you stop caring if they run out of things to do. With salaried employees, you do care if they run out of things to do, and you force yourself to create processes that make your employee’s work worth the time and money.

          When all that is settled and the first day of work comes, you give the new employee a task. You can establish trust by giving them training and feedback. I tell them, “I know you’re going to get stuck on this first task. When that happens, try to figure out a solution by yourself. When you’re stuck and you feel like you’re not making progress, I need you to come to me so that I can help you solve your problems.” The number one problem you’ll get from a Filipino VA is that they tend to disappear if they’re afraid that they’ll let you down. By giving them autonomy to solve their problems, but at the same time assure them that you’re there to help as well (without yelling at them), it becomes easy to avoid this problem.

          8) How do you make sure that your VA is using their time wisely?

          Firstly, keep the person busy. If you don’t feel like they’re busy, they’re going to go get another job. Secondly, remind yourself that different people have different personalities. I personally gauge productivity based on “feel”. I have the VA give me a daily report to help me keep track of things. Look for inconsistencies or drops in productivity from one week to the next. I don’t want to think and remember what they’re working on. I’m not responsible for the tasks that I assigned them. Assigning them a daily report gives you peace of mind.

          Conclusion

          Don’t be afraid to outsource. All it really takes is a paradigm shift and a willingness to learn new processes.

          Treat your VA the same as you would an in-house employee. Even though the cost and risk may be lower, your investment in any of your employees and the processes around them pay the same dividend: a smart trusted team member who can do the jobs they are assigned and know how to make decisions without you there.

          Measuring productivity works similarly with both in-house employees and VAs. In today’s world, you should know, pretty much daily, whether your employees are getting the job done and what challenges they may have. Larger companies use CRMs to track these things. Smaller businesses would benefit from a daily report, with which you can monitor performance and provide feedback on a one-on-one basis.

          Homework: Now that you know the basic process for scouting for, interviewing, hiring, and managing Filipino VAs, take note of which tasks you can outsource. Once you know what you’re looking for, browse through 20 to 30 profiles on OnlineJobs.ph and open your mind to potentially hiring a VA or two to help you save more time and money, which will allow you to focus on more important considerations as a small business owner.

          Learn more about John Jonas here:

          Instagram: https://instagram.com/thejohnjonas

          Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/pg/johnjonasofficial

          ]]>6b3eba55-f850-457c-b9b0-a72ced9619aaWed, 17 Jun 2020 07:45:00 -050001:01:39falsefull3393393Rhamy AlejealMany states have made laws that PRESUME COVID-19 happened at workToday, 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 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. 

          1. Establish a COVID-19 workplace health and safety policy that complies with OSHA and any applicable state or city health and safety mandates. 
          2. 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. 
          3. Implement workplace safety features, such as requiring frequent hand washing, face]]>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 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. 

             1. Establish a COVID-19 workplace health and safety policy that complies with OSHA and any applicable state or city health and safety mandates. 
             2. 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. 
             3. Implement workplace safety features, such as requiring frequent hand washing, face coverings when interacting with other employees or customers, and social distancing. 
             4. Provide employees with personal protective equipment, such as masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer. 
             5. Require daily temperature checks and reporting of symptoms. 
             6. Prohibit any individual who demonstrates symptoms or tests positive for COVID-19 from entering the workplace. 
             7. Required daily inquiries of employees regarding exposure to individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19, such as family members, friends, or neighbors.
             8. 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 COVID-19 exposure by an employee.
             
             

             I would add to the misspelled nurse list. The key measure is to be able to tell where people worked and when. So that in the case of someone being exposed, you need to be able to do what's called contact tracing. So you need to know when they came into the office when they left, and approximately what they did there. You want to do things like close communal areas, like company kitchens, you want to limit the ability of deliveries to come into the building. These sorts of things will limit your exposure. 

             Now, these laws, these regulations, create the presumption that if someone has COVID-19 they got it working for you. And in the States, it's going to be difficult to argue. In those areas, it's going to be the exception to say no, no, no, my workers' comp is not covering their COVID-19.

             Well, I'm not going to get into politics. But the long and short is that they are the law of the land in these states and many more to come. These states, Utah, Arkansas, Florida, these are not necessarily democratic. They're not necessarily republican states. This is just how the states have decided to react to make sure there's someone to pay at the end. So, by law, you're required to have workers' compensation. If an employee gets COVID-19. The presumption is that they got it from work, if they didn't, if you want to claim they didn't, you need to have your ducks in a row, which means having the 8 previous things that we discussed, and even taking it further. As I mentioned, closing common areas. I recommend staggering if you're going to open up and you're in a high infection area or probably a best practice in general, you want to stagger workplaces, you want to stagger shifts if you were previously open from eight to five, or nine to five, consider opening from 7 to 3, and then other parts of your staff coming in later. Trying to keep the number of people in the office at any given time. You want to limit the number of places you open at the same time. Try it with one department, maybe one that's best suited to working in person. You still want to maintain even as things reopen, you want to maintain all of the social distancing, all of the precautions you would take for now. It's very important because now that the states have opened, if you choose to reopen, and you likely will, you need to make sure that you're doing everything you can to combat a claim that an employee got COVID-19 at work. 

             So, on our website, peopleprocesses.com we have these items listed out in the article, please go on there, download, check it off. Some alternatives you can do will be also linking the New York State Bar Association, gave some great kind of layouts for law firms that are opening in New York. That's much more strict than what was covered by this piece. I'll have a link to that on the website as well. Those sorts of things are perhaps more necessary somewhere like Manhattan than the rest of the world, but also worthy of reading.

             Ladies and Gentlemen, that's it for today. Thank you so much for tuning in. Check us out on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter at People Processes. Go to peopleprocesses.com, subscribe, and get some of our subscriber-only content. And if you got something out of this, make sure you share it with anyone you know. Thank you for tuning in. Now it's time for you to go out there. Have a great day and get your work done.

             ]]>1684588d-265f-4036-bbdc-08fd2f2b5f49Wed, 10 Jun 2020 07:45:00 -050009:04falsefull3383383Rhamy AlejealPPP Loan Forgiveness ApplicationToday 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...]]>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 or the alternative payroll cover period. However, there are a few places where it asks to the covered period only, and that would be the original one for your eight weeks afterward. And it's mainly just for there, it's so that you don't put the wrong dates in there. So you have to disclose both the normal cover period and the alternative cover period if you're going to use that. If you received loans over 2 million, you must check a special box. That's we're going to audit your box, so that's important. Okay. Now I'm going to hop on down. There's a lot of different kinds of explanations there, but I'm gonna go to the application. We're now on Page 3. It looks like a pretty straightforward form, Business Legal Name, DBA name, Business Address, ID, that kind of thing. Your Loan Number, your Lenders Loan Number, you may need to leave that blank and sent it to them. The Loan Amount and the Disbursement Date. The Employees at the Time of the Forgiveness Application, if you did an EIDL you have to put those in there. Then we mark our payroll schedule, and we put in the covered period, this is always the eight weeks following 56-days when your loan was dispersed. If you're bi-weekly or weekly, you can then select the alternative payroll covered period, going to the first pay period, starting after your disbursement. If the borrower together with affiliates received PPP loans over 2 million, you check this box now then you're adding all the pieces together. So first is Payroll Costs then Business Mortgage, Interest Payments, Business Rent, and Business Utility.  Let's talk about payroll costs. So there's a Schedule A, Line 10, which we can scroll down and it asks you, enter your cash compensation, enter your leisure hours and salaries. Hang on. Here it is, down here. So it's kind of a selection, enter your cash compensation, enter your average FTEs, the total amount paid by the borrower for employer contributions to employee health insurance. The amount paid by the borrower for employer contributions to employee retirement plans. The amount paid by the borrower for state and local taxes assessed on employee compensation. You also have to disclose separately the total amount to owner-employees or self-employed individuals, general partners. So you don't double count those. Okay? So put those together, you add it all together that gives you your total payroll costs. So going back to the original application, there are your Total Payroll Costs, plus your Business Mortgage Interest, your Rent, and your Utilities. That gives you your payroll and non-payroll costs and that is the sum of what is forgivable. You then adjust that for your full-time equivalency and salary wage reductions. Now, these are all part of Schedule A, again, they break this down. So, what you have to do is say enter the, I won't find the exact numbers for you so that we don't go here, Schedule A.  All right. So, determine if the pay was reduced by more than 25%. To do this, you enter the average annual salary or hourly wage during the covered period. You enter the average annual salary between January 1, 2020, and March 3, 2020. And you divide the values by 1.a and 1.b. If 1.c is 75% or more, enter zero otherwise proceed to Step 2. If January 1 to March 31 doesn't work, you can do the same thing. It says, enter the annual salary or hourly wages as of February 15th through April 26, 2020, and see if that happens. And it allows you to kind of go through a couple of different ways of calculating this. If the average number of workers has been lowered than you do have, you have an issue. Right? Then it's going to wind up reducing your costs. You want to multiply the amount entered in those sections by .75 to see if it's positive or negative, and that's going to be about wind up being what you subtract from your form. I know this is hard on podcast guys. You want to check out the video so that you're looking at it with us together. The bottom line is that to recap, there are your payroll expenses, which is your gross pay. Your employer taxes on State and Local taxes, your employer contributions to health insurance, your employer contributions to retirement, plus your mortgage interest rent, lease, or utility payments that gives you $1 figure that's been adjusted up or down, or I'm sorry, adjusted down only for full-time equivalency reductions and salary hourly wage reductions. So if your average salary is lower, your average hours are lower then it will lower down. Then there is when you put those together, you wind up calculating your potential forgiveness amount, and you get that forgiveness amount, which is what you will be done. Then on the next page, you certify quite a few items and these are important. You certify that the dollar amount for which forgiveness requested was used to pay the things that you say they were. You understand that if the funds were knowingly used for unauthorized purposes, the Federal Government would pursue recovery of loan amounts or criminal or civil fraud charges. The borrower has accurately verified the payments for the eligible payroll and non-payroll costs for which the borrower is requesting forgiveness that you submit to the lender the required documentation verifying those payroll costs. The existence of obligations and services that your utilities and those sorts of things, and eligible business mortgage interest payments, business rent or lease and business utility payments. So it's saying, you're going to put all those in the information provided this application is true and correct in all material respects, there's a law that will punish you by up to five years in jail, fine up to a quarter-million dollars if you're lying. The tax documents you've submitted are consistent with those the borrower has submitted and we'll submit it to the IRS and that the SBA may request additional information, gonna give that a sign and send them that signature page along with the first page. And I'm sure your bank will want you to send it and that may or may not be required.  So the supporting worksheets where you kind of figured out these sorts of things. Okay? So you have to do all of these so that you can get the full-time equivalency and figure out if you had a salary reduction and those sorts of things. When we look on here, Employee Name, Employee Identifier, Cash Comp, Average FTE, Salary Hour wage reduction. If you're on our People Processes platform, we have a report you can use to print-off and supply this. So it should take care of what you need. But for those of you who are not on our platform, you want to download this form, start taking a look and start building out, you're probably not at the end of your eight weeks yet, you probably want to take a look and build out a plan so that you're collecting this data as you process your payrolls throughout the pay period, and make adjustments. If you don't want to pay back the money, you may need to hire a few more people. If you're going to pay back the money, though, that's okay. They gave you more than they expected, then seems you needed. That's okay. You can pay it back. That's not the end of the world. I don't want listeners and business owners to get into a position where they feel like if they don't take advantage of every penny of this, they're making a mistake. I think you should take advantage of what you need to keep your business running. But don't go so far as to try and spend this money for no reason, you'll cause more problems with your employees by overpaying them for no reason than you would by just behaving appropriately and doing your best. Worst case, you give them some of the money back in them. In the meantime, you got free money from heaven. And that's awesome. So just take a deep breath. I know a lot of people are caught up on how do I get every penny of this forgiven, and I want you to get as much of it as appropriate. But, if you got too much, that's okay. You can pay some of it back, you can hang on to it and take it as a 1% interest loan for the next two years even and spend it on other stuff. You don't even have to give it back if you don't want to. You just have to pay it back after you spend it on marketing or something else like that, maybe getting everybody set up at home. These are the sort of things that you can spend this money on. I just hope that our listeners don't get too caught up in trying to get every penny of this forgiven. Ladies and Gentlemen, that's it for today. Thank you so much for tuning in. Check us out on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter at People Processes. Go to peopleprocesses.com, subscribe, and get some of our subscriber-only content. And if you got something out of this, make sure you share it with anyone you know. Thank you for tuning in. Now it's time for you to go out there. Have a great day and get your work done. Here's the link for you to download the PPP Loan Forgiveness Application Form: https://www.sba.gov/document/sba-form--paycheck-protection-program-loan-forgiveness-application]]>49105c92-217e-454a-b125-b745ffb5ee15Thu, 04 Jun 2020 07:45:00 -050014:31falsefull3373373Rhamy AlejealPeople Process Interviews: David VeechToday 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...]]>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 but to encourage it and steer it so that both the contractor and the government could benefit. 

             Interesting. Well, so after doing that you went on to become a college professor. How did that wind up? What was your journey from there to consultancy and international consultancy around these topics all over the world?

             Yeah. Well, I found out early that I love to teach. And so it was great. I asked specifically to be assigned to Wright Patterson to teach. They sent me off to an Air Force academic instructor course, that tested what I thought I knew about teaching. And as a profession, it's been one of the priorities that I've assigned to my development, is how can I be a better teacher? And of course, that informed everything else that I did. So I was doing pretty well when the University of Kentucky asked me to come and teach. We taught there. I taught graduate programs, and I taught Continuing Education at the University of Kentucky. But then my partners and I decided we wanted to kind of have a broader impact. And so we created a consulting firm and built a practice in Australia and the US, and I made 27 trips to Australia in six years. So keep me in frequent flyer miles. And we have a pretty good impact there. But it was always fun for me, it was fun. But we got into consulting around 2008-2009. And we were much more focused on keeping companies from going bankrupt. Instead of creating the kind of cultures that I know, lean systems can help organizations build and creating the kind of leaders that drive that kind of change. And so I wanted to go back into an academic environment to do a little bit more research, and to grow a little bit more and then to teach more specifically teach younger people how to think a little bit differently. And so I was asked to come to the Ohio State University and teach in the Master of Business Operational Excellence Program. And I did that, I joined the faculty in 2013. I taught undergraduate classes and graduate classes. But then I got this bug that I got to keep moving. I needed to travel more. And I had some old clients that called me back and said, "Hey, we want you to come and do this." And so I had to kind of renegotiate the deal with the Ohio State. And I only taught part-time there. And now I'm just I'm teaching just a tiny bit at Ohio State, and doing much more work with direct hands-on clients.

             Interesting. And so when a client hires you out, they're looking for lean training, lean operations training, is that primarily where they're looking?

             About half of them want some type of lean help. Right. I've got a client that is focused on enhancing their visual management systems and building their teams a little bit more effectively and teaching more problem-solving skills more directly, but the other half want leadership development. They want me to coach their team leaders coach their executives, and try to help them be more effective leaders. 

             Interesting. Okay. So now you've traveled the world. You're salt by Universities for teaching, you have outstanding clients, but I'm sure in the 20-year journey you've had between academia and entrepreneurship, you've had some pretty rough bumps as well. The most recurring email I get is that people love that I asked this coming question. It's somewhat uncomfortable for my interviewees. So I apologize for upfront. And I guess I'd say, if you've listened to a prior interview, you know what's coming. And that is, I'd like you to tell me about your worst entrepreneurial moment, the story around it, how you got there, what happened, what the results were. And this is so that our listeners can one relate and realize that even people like you got such a stellar career and are now in the catbird seat, have had some pretty low lows. But also, so they can learn from our mistakes rather than having to repeat them themselves. So David, tell me that story.

             There's a lot to choose from.

             Right? That's what I want to talk to entrepreneurs. They're like, "Well, gosh, I can't think of any of that bad." I'm like, "Okay, let me just end the interview. You haven't been doing this long enough. You should have a long list, my friend."

             Well, I've got a couple that comes to mind right away. And both of them involve me teaching new people and making the assumption that they didn't know as much as I thought they knew. And so...

             Overestimate, didn't know as much as you thought so.

             Yeah. The guys I teach in the corporate world are typically very experienced, very knowledgeable. And along with that comes some pretty good ego. And of course, I bring my ego into every situation as well. But the thing is when I tried it teach something that I just absolutely know and it's wrong. And the students tell me, it's wrong, then that kind of pierces your brain and says like, "How did you screw this up?" And so it forces me to be much more deliberate in my preparations and much more deliberate in understanding the audience that I'm addressing, and what are their real needs so that I can deliver the appropriate value. And the cool thing is, this is something I learned very early in the army is that I don't know everything and there's a whole lot of stuff I need help with. And I am not afraid to ask for help. So in a lot of the programs that we have delivered over the years, there are different perspectives and different ways to implement a lot of these tools and principles. And if you only teach one way, then that gets you in trouble because other people have made things successful with a bunch of different processes. And so if you go in and you ask them to share the way that they've done that, and many of them have had fantastic results, and they will share immediately the way that they've applied that even if it is 180 degrees from the way I was going in. And so it's been good having those kinds of audiences to kind of keep you humble, and keep you hungry, and keep you learning and keep you developing. So I relish those experiences, even though they are incredibly uncomfortable when you're going through it.

             Sure. Well, I'm just being brought in as a consultant or a trainer too. You're going to experience pushback, but your attitude is that oftentimes the people you're working with may know some portion at least better than you?

             Well, I think a lot of us especially leaders who identify themselves as servant leaders, think we shared this tendency toward the imposter syndrome, right? I've been doing this for a long time. Yeah, I'm pretty good at it. But there's an awful lot of stuff I still don't know, I still hesitate to call myself an expert in anything, although lots of other people do. And you get this feeling when you're with particular audiences like if these guys find out that, who I am, it's horrible. But fortunately, those are the things that can keep you pushing, to prepare, and to be more effective. And if you don't have those kinds of things that challenge you, then I think life gets boring very quickly.

             Absolutely. My expertise where I spend my time is in this world of HR People Processes as we call them. And we've been doing that for many years. I have an MBA focused on that, I research that, published on that. And I got an opportunity about three years ago to speak to an audience of a couple of hundred CPAs and or accountants and bookkeepers and CPAs. And I had done some public speaking, very minor, like a small group of companies or the Better Business Bureau, that kind of thing. 

             Yeah. 

             But I've never really like flown somewhere to give a talk. I'd grown organically and through marketing, and I just hadn't ever done that. And I was absolutely terrified. Not so much of the public speaking but of the audience, because I'm thinking, "Gosh, I'm going in front of a bunch of CPAs, a bunch of bookkeepers, accountants and I'm going to be talking about these structures and business processes." And these guys are experts and certified deep down, they're gonna know that I don't know the ins and outs of the tax world, as well as I, should when it comes to these things. And it did stress me, I did a lot of studying for it, I did a lot of prep, it went very, very well. And now accountants are our number one referral source. And that first group that I spoke to, even though I've had 20 or 30 keynotes since then, is still probably the tightest, highest participating public speaking group I've ever been to. So there's something about that deep down feeling of, "Oh, I'm going to get caught that impostor syndrome," I think that can make you anyway, perform at an incredibly high level.

             I agree 100%. We gotta have something that challenges our skill level. 

             Yeah. 

             Well, we don't grow.

             Exactly. So, all right, David. Well, that was a good lesson, a good story. Now, you are out there and you are consulting with other companies. And they are bringing you in partially for leadership partially for lean training. Our listeners vary, their 5 man shops to 5000 man shops and even 125,000 man companies. And I guess what I would say is if you had an hour that you could spend at random with one of those people, what would be your first steps to try and they said, "Look, I want an hour of David's time." What are we going to do that David could come in and help us figure out? Like, how would you identify a problem, a need, basic steps that every business should be doing this? If you're not doing it, this is where we should start. What would you kind of start in your diagnostics?

             Everything begins with the relationship for me. I really need to understand what it is that they do and what it is that they want to do? What do they want to get out of our engagement? I don't typically go in with, here's my assessment, we'll just check all these blocks and we'll get you this score. And then I promise after a year you do all this stuff, we'll move that needle. I really am much more focused on their process of engaging employees and developing leaders, whether they're lean, or whether their leadership clients, everything comes down to engaging their employees and developing their leaders. And the key to the research that I've done, the key to a truly excellent organization is this foundation of what I call dynamic stability. Right? So it's a concept that I've been playing with and trying to refine and understand. But what we have to have in organizations is enough stability so that processes are repeatable enough so that people working in those processes, improve their skills in those processes. Whether that's a thinking process like problem-solving, or whether that's a manufacturing process, or whether that's a human resources process. We've got to be able to understand the impact that we're having on those, we got to understand the standard and expectation that our customers and our leaders have of our performance. And we've got to be able to see very quickly when there are any deviations, which would be a problem. 

             So we spent a lot of time talking about how they measure things. We spent a lot of time talking about how leaders present themselves in the workplace. We spent a lot of time in lean talking about Gemba walks, where leaders go to the Gemba which is the real place. The place where the action is placed with value is created, and how much time leaders can spend in the Gemba. And what I've learned everywhere is that the leaders just don't spend enough time in the Gemba. And there are a few purposes for these Gemba walks. Tom Peters calls it management by walking around. But he is much more generalized about his management by walking around than we are about Gemba walks. Because we want to do a Gemba walk so we know that the system we designed is actually functioning properly. So we go and see, we go and see and when we're out there going and seeing, we are asking questions of people, not micromanaging, not directing, not solving problems. We're asking questions, and we're showing respect. So if I can get leaders to get out of their offices, and out in the Gemba more so that they can interact with people, build better relationships and see where they need to direct resources the organization to provide the support that people need, then I think they're doing good. Nobody goes out enough. That's my number one criticism of every leader, you just got to get out more. 90% of your time should be out spending time with the people who are working in your organization. And when you look at the flight schedules of most CEOs, they're gone so much.

             Right. 

             And yeah, they've got lots and lots of varied responsibilities. But the people in the organization need you for them to be more effective, and if they're more effective, that's probably going to have a bigger impact on the performance of the company and therefore the performance of the stock price. Then lots of other things that these guys are trying to do. So focus on your folks, focus on the need of your folks. And I've kind of boiled it...]]>a1bd3c7b-094d-4840-bf0b-ec5a0e2c4564Fri, 29 May 2020 07:45:00 -050058:27falsefull3363363Rhamy AlejealPeople Process Interviews: Cindy OgdenAt 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...]]>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 not lead me to make rash decisions regarding finances and the hiring and firing process.

             I would tell my younger self to make sure she had the money in the bank first and have a signed contract that the project will happen before planning ahead of the game.

             5) What advice would you give to small business owners on putting measurable systems and processes in place?

             On the training side of things, it helps to simply have documentation that employees can read so that they learn the processes put in place by the company. One-on-one, on-the-job training is also important. Then there is an online training, with which soft skills can be easily learned.

             Focus on use cases: What are the problem areas that you need to immediately address or you’re most concerned about?

             When it comes to cases involving time management, it helps to note down the amount of time you spend on certain areas and consider delegating tasks if you observe an inefficient use of your time in those specific scenarios. As a business owner, you tend to be involved in everything, and in doing so overlook things that could be remedied by implementing a new process. The goal is to start tracking where you’re spending your time and doing some analysis on what items are not adding any value to your business.

             6) How do you make sure that you’re delegating the right tasks to the right employees?

             Have someone put together formal documentation so that the task or issue that you aim to address is crystal clear. Sit-down with the employee assigned to that task and encourage them to think systematically about this potential new process (i.e. “If this, then that.”). Bring up all possible scenarios involving the issue for thorough documentation.

             It is important to test out your process by having other people, who are not yet familiar with the issue at hand, to read through the documentation, and see if they understand it as well as you do by attempting to carry out the task. If you’re not on the same page, the documentation, or even the process itself, needs to be reviewed and revised for clarity.

             Conclusion

             Communication and regularly updating solution documentation is key to continuous improvement. Whether your business is big or small, knowing which systems and processes to implement is only possible when you look at your employees like you do your customers or clients: as people with wants and needs who are in search of solutions. Even so, it can be difficult for a business owner to set aside the necessary time to narrow down potential solutions while keeping the ship afloat daily. If you find yourself in this predicament, consider reaching out to Cindy to see how her team at FUEL it can help.

             Homework: Before you decide that it’s time to invest in a third-party organization, think about what you can afford to do on your own to address your company’s issues. If you’re a small business owner, who could you interview to put together the documentation you need to start implementing a new system? If you’re a large business owner, how could you encourage wider adoption of existing processes? If you’d like to reach out to Cindy to discuss how her team of problem-solvers might benefit your specific business, set up a phone call.

             Learn more about Cindy Ogden here:

             https://www.fuelit.us/

             https://www.linkedin.com/company/fuelitmemphis

             https://www.facebook.com/fuelitmemphis/

             ]]>75b8e9c6-2064-43dc-8393-3d36fefb09b5Tue, 19 May 2020 07:45:00 -050058:55falsefull3353353Rhamy AlejealPeople Process Interviews: James SinclairJames 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,...]]>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, but only if you remain in contact. 

             Conclusion

             James Sinclair has come a long way in his 7-year journey while running EnterpriseAlumni. He advises the companies on how to maintain a good relationship with their ex-employees and stay in touch with them by establishing an excellent alumni network within the organization. One should recognize the culture and sow the seeds from before these people are hired and make their leaving process as smooth as possible. Check up on them or meet up for drinks and wish them well for the future.

             Learn more about James Sinclair here:

             https://enterprisealumni.com/

             https://web.facebook.com/james.d.sinclair

             https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdsinclair

             ]]>dc08c24e-cf2b-4d2f-ac7e-c52d477493b0Fri, 15 May 2020 07:45:00 -050059:50falsefull3343343Rhamy AlejealChecklist to get ready to reopenToday, 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,]]>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 gender, don't do race, don't do something that would wind up being that. If you've opened in new markets, and those markets are predominantly African American and your old markets are predominantly white. So you wind up opening your older stores first. And you bring back 60 or 100 employees, and they're all white. And the 40 you don't bring, they're all black. That could be bad. Don't do that. Okay. So just take a look. Take a minute to do a sanity check. Make sure what you're doing doesn't have a huge disparate impact. It's just a can of worms you don't need.

             Okay. Next up. Think about your leave policies. So, know how FFCRA affects your previous policies. First of all, if you haven't been dealing with FFCRA, it goes into effect for this whole year. Very important. So take a look at that. Consider implementing a new PTO or vacation rollover grace period, revised guidelines for usage, that kind of thing. Because people have taken a lot of time off, may have been paid, may have been unpaid, don't know. If they used FFCRA, it didn't count towards their PTO, and you may not be able to give people a whole heck of a lot of flexibility if they can work going forward. So your vacation benefits, that kind of thing. They may wind up having some rollover issues that they can't, they don't have time to use it. Your best people will be like, "Now I'm here every day, man." But they have three weeks of PTO saved to use. Revise how you're going to handle that, and now's the time to make those changes. You can say, "Look. For 2020, for now, until June of next year, we're not going to have your PTO expire, you can hang on to it. Maybe you want to do some if you've already done FFCRA rewards and do not reduce your prior rewards. But you may want to change the way things accrue. Maybe instead of being a flat rate, four hours every pay period, you work, maybe you want to go to some amount per hour you work, right? A 10th of an hour per hour you work, which would allow you to more fairly reward that for people who are working significantly more hours than others. You need to think about it if you haven't already. Sadly, you need to implement or revise your bereavement leave policies. If there's a lot of people, that could be done, and if so, we got to make sure our employees are taken care of. So think about your bereavement leave policies. And once you've got your policies in order, it's totally worth putting them all into like a leave policy lists and redistributing those. Right? Just so they all know what's going on. Make sure they have an understanding and appreciation for all the leave policies that would apply to them.

             Next up. Work from home and child care policies. Over the last few weeks, months, people have just been flying by the seat of their pants, that's okay. But it's time to start updating the paperwork. So, if you've changed why people can work from home when they can work from home, whether you give people time off to take care of children under the FFCRA, what sort of things are you doing? Document it. Update your policies, primarily around work from home and child care. You also, speaking of the policies, want to update your travel policies in light of any new orders in your state, or new practices, kind of broadly in the workforce to keep employees and customers safe. So if you have a traveling staff, you got to think about how that's going to go forward and go ahead and document it. 

             Think about and this is a big one, rehire and reinstate provisions for your benefits policies. Most of you who furloughed people, kept them on your benefits. That's outstanding. It's hard to do from a compliance perspective, but most insurers have allowed that dance to happen. Everything's going fine there. But, if you didn't do that, and you laid people off and you bring them back, when does their PTO accrual reset? What's the seniority policy here? If they were all for more than 13 weeks, does it reset? Are they a new employee? Or do you resume their old one? If you're an ACA company and you're using variable our tracking with a 12 month period, we may need to revise that. You may need to think about going down to a six month period, cover the last half of the year instead. Because no one's going to qualify if they had two months off the whole year. There's a lot of different things to think about in terms of your rehire and reinstate provisions for around benefits. And then you need to distribute all of those policies, right? So use people processes systems, put it in an email, whatever it is you need to do. Highly recommended. As people come back in, they get a chance to review all the policy changes. Take a minute, read them, here's what's going on, and have them sign a receipt. It's basically a handbook update. In fact, it probably should be a handbook update, but you want to get a receipt that they understand these new policies. Okay, so that's the policies and posting section. 

             Next up is health and safety. There's going to be some changes to how most of us operate on that. You need to have a policy around, and procedures around illness, cleaning, disinfecting, work, meetings, and travel. We talked about some of those above, but these are specifically around health. What are your expectations for educating employees on how to reduce the spread of COVID-19 at home and at work? There's a CDC prevention recommendation, there are employer materials. Look, there's a lot of talks right now about removing employer liability for COVID-19. If your employees catch it at work that has not happened yet, as of this recording, and it may not happen at all. It's a tough pill to swallow for a good half of the country. So the long and short is, you need to be doing everything you need to spend a little bit of time at least, again, compliance as a spectrum to the best you can. Don't put yourself out of work. Don't spend all 40 hours talking about COVID-19 that week, but spend some time talking about how to reduce the spread of COVID-19 at work, and what you're doing there because if nothing else, keep it from spreading more. But even more than that provides a little bit of help on a liability shield. If they're going to come into a worksite make sure they understand what's expected of them in the workplace. Do they need to wear a face mask or face covering? Will protective items and hand sanitizer be provided? By the way, that's the law in Delaware, you must provide it if you're open period. Are the workplace hours going to be different? Will you be taking employees’ temperatures each day when they arrive? Is teleworking or staggered shift work allowed, encouraged, required? That's the question you got to answer.

             You need to have a specific policy about employees who are currently ill or have contact with an ill family member that they must stay at home. If an employee becomes sick at work, you must send them home. This is important. State this in writing. It's worth saying when people start coming back on. It's going to reassure those who aren't sick. They're gonna be like, "Okay, it's safe to come back." If an employee inside your organization itself, if you can, and you should be able to, I mean, I know manufacturers who have managed to do this warehouse staff, promote safe social distancing, encourage employees to remain at least six feet away from each other. If they can do it at all, do it via email, message call, or video call rather than face to face, and to clean their computer equipment, desktop phones, and workstations often. One company has done a really cool thing. They have a little buzzer. They do it every I think it's an hour and 20. And they've put a can of like Lysol and disinfectant wipes. They're just like, "Hey, hour and 20 everybody gets up, wipe your stuff down. It's kind of cool. It's a little like there's this practice in Japan’s total side note. And I cannot remember the word for it because it's in Japanese. But they do calisthenics, like at work in the morning as a big office. It's super cool. If you ever want to google it, Google like I don't know, Japan office calisthenics. You'll see some great videos. It was just like a sea of men and women in suits, like super nice dressed up doing like basic tie bow stuff. I don't know, I think it's great and I've always wanted to do it in my office we're going to have a foot spa. My employees look at me like I'm crazy. But anyway, back to that. You can do that, you can make it fun. Get that done. Don't forget if it's the hourly effect. 

             Okay. Discourage handshaking. This is another one in that health and safety thing. It's worth mentioning, it's really hard to break if you're used to it, especially your sales team. Give them a heads up that you do not think handshaking is a good idea. Do your best not to do it. And take those recommendations from cleaning to washing your hands, social distancing put a couple of posters up at your workplace, put it in the bathrooms, put it outside the bathrooms, put it in the main areas. Just remind people by putting that up again, you're going to help stop the spread of this disease. 

             Okay. So those are our health and safety. We cover policies, procedures, health, and safety. Now, just a few broad best practices. In general, you have to be aware of the local COVID-19 health and other orders that are related to your business. I can't keep up with the entire country, every city is different, counties are different, states are different. We're keeping a list of states in our reference library, peopleprocess.com/covid19. We got all kinds of info on there, including a state's reference list. But this is really something you got to figure out, follow your mayor's office, figure out what's going on there because every city is different. And some of them are saying, "Look, you can have your store open but only at 25% or at 50%. Or in this industry, you can only have five people and you have to look at that. So figure out how that's going to get checked. If you're a grown-up company, that should be somebody's child, the first thing every day. What's the plan, what's updated, make a little briefing packet for the executive team something like that, or the executive course can follow it themselves. 

             Double-check whatever you're doing with your cleaning company. If they're up, make sure they're up to date on current methods for safely renewing COVID-19 hazards. If you're using a large company, you may want to call them and ask if they can do it. There are some really cool things like antibacterial bombs or antiviral bombs that you can do in your office every other night or something that'll just take care of this. It's like a misting system. Pretty cool. But if you're using a gal Friday, you don't have a dedicated office cleaner, whatever it is, you just need to think about how you know what their experience and provisions are related to this. In general, you need to communicate frequently and transparently with your employees. Provide timelines for recalling rehiring employees. You're not bringing everybody back. What's the plan there if you're bringing everybody back? Provide returning employees with recall or offer letters. This is important, let them know, give it to them in writing, "As of this day you're coming back." Very important, it's going to support stopping unemployment claims among other things. 

             Train managers on dealing with employees that may face increased personal challenges during this time, such as bereavement loss, childcare, school cancellation challenges, financial stress, other dependent care, and support needs. While I meant it, mentioning it, check out your EAP program. If you offer benefits, your employee assistance program has counseling around all of those topics really well. You don't have an EAP program, contact the benefits broker like us, we'd be happy to help you find one. A lot of times they can incorporate it into other benefits at a very low cost. Super cool. So you need an EAP program at this time. If you can think about how you can do whatever you used to do in a more flexible and remote way. I know that's obvious, but I'm just going to say it however you did it before may not be the way you're going to do it going forward. This is cool. Designate a workplace coordinator who will be responsible for COVID-19 issues and their impact at the workplace. It's a great person to say, "Look, this is your COVID-19 person, they're staying on top of stuff, they're going to be the ones who keep an eye out. For if you see someone being sick, sneeze in and you're worried to go talk to them. This is the person we're going to make sure is super on top things at this work location. Giving a COVID-19 kind of coordinator will help you streamline this and think about it more in a process way. Develop a plan to operate if absenteeism spikes or if another shelter in place or stay at home order occurs in the future. 

             Now that we're getting back up, I want you guys to take a minute, think about if this all happens again. You need a plan to continue your central business functions. You need a flexible work schedule and leave policy you could pull in and think about cross-training. Think about. Do it. Do cross-training on performing essential business functions so that you have more flexibility in the future. You don't have to keep a bunch of individuals who are the only people who don't cross-train your central business functions. Also, while you're at it, people are coming back, developing emergency communication plans, including a way to answer workers’ concerns. So not just a way for you to contact, but how are they going to contact. What's the process for this internal back and forth? Highly recommended. What's the emergency communication plan and communicate it to them. 

             Finally, and perhaps most importantly, communicate your appreciation and welcome the employees back to work. I highly recommend anytime you're communicating information, pure information, written materials make sense. But if you're trying to communicate sentiment, it's got to be video or in person. So take a minute if you're trying to get this out to a lot of people without your iPhone, or your Android, which we prefer, whatever. Make a video and say, "Thank you all for being part of the team during this crazy last three months. We're excited to launch out into this new world where we are going to grow and thrive. And it's because of you, you've experienced great hardship, there's more to come probably, but we want to be here for you and we appreciate you. Your actions over the last three months have helped us keep this place afloat. And now we want to grow together, make things great. Your actions over the next three months are going to help us do that. Thank you for coming back." Something]]>d2c01d7f-ff82-45dc-abb1-d7cedccfa4e5Tue, 12 May 2020 07:45:00 -050019:09falsefull3333333Rhamy Alejeal5 EE LawsuitsToday, 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...]]>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 see a lot is furloughing an exempt employee. So when you let somebody go or temporarily let them go, even if an employee works one hour during that week, they must get paid for the entire week. That's a key thing to understand, exempt people are paid by the week. Furloughing exempt employees for anything less than a full week carries a huge risk of violating that salary basis test. So if an employer furloughs an exempt employee on a Wednesday, it must pay for the full week or the employee will lose her exempt status. You may very well see a class action for all those hours you didn't pay folks during their workweek, said Kappelman. 

             So another piece of that which is quite common I'm seeing is, you furlough and exempt an employee but you're still constantly reaching out to them or heck, even doing it once a week, asking to respond to emails. "Jack, can you tell me where we kept those files? What's our usual practice of doing this thing?" In effect, Jack is on furlough. But if he's answering emails, then he's working. And therefore, again, even one hour, they are entitled to pay for the entire week, even if they only answered an hour's worth of emails and calls and that kind of stuff. That may not be a lot of money for one person. But if that's happening with a bunch of company employees, these class actions can add up quickly. So part of that, those are the primary issues around exempt. 

             The third error that we're seeing around exempt is happening primarily at retail and service establishments. It's called duties dilution. If you've been forced to furlough part of their workforce, and then you're asking your managerial staff to take on the additional tasks, let me give you an example. Let's say that you have a retail establishment and your managers are now stacking shelves, working the register, sanitizing the workplace. You have to be careful. If an exempt employee performs more non-exempt work than management work more than half, there's a danger that the employee’s primary duty is no longer managerial. And that would remove the exempt status. They're an hourly worker. So you've got to keep a close eye on that. Okay. 

             I only called that issue one, it's all-around losing the exempt status. So losing exempt status, let's recap it. You underpaid, you go under that salary floor, you reduce someone's hours by 20%. And then because of that, you're saying that they have hours, right? And that's gonna run afoul of the salary basis test as well. Or you furlough partially through a week, and you don't pay for that whole week, or you furlough and then have the employee work an hour while they're on furlough. You can't do that. That will also invalidate the week. So those are the key pieces around your exempt employees. Okay. 

             Now, for non-exempt employees. There's a lot of different things that could be a problem here, but I think one of the key ones is off the clock claims. Let me go back to this Kappelman. The largest issue for non-exempt employees is that it will take them longer to prepare to work cleaning and sanitizing the workspace, getting temperature scanned, and donning PPE. Employers may make the mistake of not paying for that time, she said. But employers employees generally must be paid for that time it takes to don and doffs protective gear or work clothes and again, unrecorded time for one person isn't too costly. But the unrecorded time for 100 or thousand can be quite a costly class-action lawsuit. So just to recap, their time to prepare the workplace cleaning them, donning protective equipment must be paid to your hourly workers.

             If you're going to have employees line-up and you're going to do temperature checks before you open, it may take only two minutes but if they had to stand in line and wait You need to compensate them for that time, they may need to spend more time sanitizing their workplace putting on face masks, cleaning the face mask, it's compensable. You must also pay non-exempt employees for the time spent getting up to speed with post COVID changes in the workplace, you're gonna wind up having training, a lot of times on this, you're gonna talk, you're gonna have a staff meeting, when they come back, that's paid time. If they need to learn new software, new equipment, that's all conferences, so that's going to be your primary issue for your non-exempt people. Little less burdensome than the exempt but a lot of companies will run afoul of that. Okay. 

             Now let's talk about what's called State Law Requirements. So this is the third thing that we're seeing a good bit here. There are a lot of state-specific problems. The most common is the meal and rest breaks. Most states, like California, are going to have a meal and rest breaks impacted by the need for social distance. Imagine you have an employee, and she says she can't take her break because she doesn't want to go into the break room and be sitting around a bunch of other people she wants to remain socially distance. Or maybe she says. "You didn't provide a place that was safe for me to eat lunch. So I'm eating my lunch at my desk. But I keep getting interrupted because people think I'm on the clock." You have to provide uninterrupted meal breaks, in many states. So if you're in California, for example, you need the employee to a test that their break was uninterrupted that kind of thing. So that's going to be a bigger problem, right? So if you have a meal and rest period requirements in your state and uninterrupted one, in particular, you need to take a close look at how you're going to comply with those even though they're going be heading out. 

             Another state-specific thing is that there are new laws governing expense reimbursement. Well, new and old. But if your state focuses on expense reimbursement, that would require an employer to reimburse anything purchased by the employees that are attended to remote work, cell phone, computer monitors, printers. For on-site employees, the cost of employees supplied at PPE would also have to be reimbursed, almost definitely. Failure to pay these previously, unanticipated expenses will invite lawsuits. So, if you're sending people to work from home and they need the stuff to work from home, most states not all states. But this is gonna check your laws, require that if you have employees work from home, you have to provide the equipment. So check that out, you may need to reimburse. Okay. 

             The final kind of state-level one is, many states have laws governing when commission agreements can be changed. So you need to take look at your commission plan and make sure that you didn't unilaterally make a change without enough notice under those state laws. So say you used to pay people when an order came in, and then under this COVID thing, like 60,70,80,90% of your orders are canceling. So you decide to tell your commission employees. "Look, we're still gonna pay commissions," but it's gonna be when they pay, right? Rather than upfront of you the money. That's a cool idea, except some states say, you got to give 60 days' notice in writing before changing a commission plan. So if you just rapidly change that plan, you could get super screwed. So keep an eye on your commission plan, review it and comply with it, Kappelman caution. Those are the key things that are state level. Again, it's not gonna apply to everybody but you need to research your state that's gonna be meals and brakes, rent expense, reimbursement, and commission policies. Alright. 

             Next up is Wage Non-Payment. This is straightforward, but I just want to throw it out there because people are messing it up. Do not pay your people if you decide you're not going to pay somebody going forward, you can do that in terms of, you're fired today, whatever today's date is. But that doesn't mean you can't give them their next paycheck, right? It's all about the pay period. What days are you compensated for? This is an obvious violation, and there is little opportunity to avoid liability. And many states have, I mean, like treble damages on this stuff, especially if it's willful, which a lot of these would be hard not to say you didn't know. So highly recommend, just make sure if you're in a cash flow situation, I understand there's a lot of problems but you got to pay your people what you already promised to pay them. Very important. All right. 

             The final one is what we call Class Action Risks. COVID-19 in the adjustments that employers have made in response to the pandemic are rife with opportunity for the plaintiff’s bar, eager to bring class claims. Those are faster, they're easy to pursue and result in quick settlements. Every industry is at risk capital and even law firms can run afoul of the exempt salary basis and duties dilation issues. And non-exempt workers in every industry will need to deal with time recording issues involved with necessary changes to meal breaks, rest breaks, and donning and doffing PPE. I expect to see retail and hospitality hit the hardest since their workforces, so public-facing and visible, Kappelman said. And the return to work issues will be very similar for these groups of employees, which will put employers at greater risk of class-wide liability. 

             So another place that she's expecting problems is independent contractor misclassification class actions. Many COVID related state and federal government orders were grouped independent contractors and employees in the same world in terms of benefits, unemployment notices, leave payments, all that many employers followed suit. They said, "Alright. Independent contractors are like employees, we're going to keep paying them even though they're not supposed to, they're not doing any work or we're going to provide them with FFCRA levy when they're not supposed to do that, or we're gonna put them on the benefits because they need insurance." If you did that, that's gonna be a problem because there's a case to be made there. One of the tests is what's called commonality. If you treat your independent contractors the same as employees, you're likely to require that they all become employees, right? So it's called Rule 23 Certification. 

             So since everyone was affected the same time by many of the same issues surrounding COVID, and many employers issued company-wide policies to address the virus to both employees and independent contractors, it could be an issue there. I haven't seen any of those suits pop up. Kappelman was highly concerned about them. There may be some good defense, arguments that come out of that, but that's the other thing we're kind of keeping an eye on, are these independent contractor reclassifications. So let me recap for you. Losing your exempt status for falling under the salary threshold, running afoul of the salary basis test, i.e. the duties assessment. Furloughing an exempt employee mid-week or working them even a little bit when they're on furlough requires full week payment. For your non-exempt employees, you got to make sure you're not screwing up their timekeeping, you got to pay him for donning and doffing time, cleaning time, training time. So that's a big change. You got to think about depending on your state expense reimbursement, you got to think about meal and rest requirements. And you've got to think about commission plan changes. And then pay your employees what you promised them. You can always make changes, but don't make them retroactively. And then just keep a close eye, especially if you're in those restaurant and hospitality areas because those can be the most likely to get hit by broad class-action suits. The wage and hour class actions are primarily going to be in my states, I would think that you can assume in California, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, because those are easy to bring on a personal basis. It's not like the state has to act. They can just be sued by anybody for those things like in Tennessee. For example, it would have to be the Tennessee Department of Labor that enforces action but in California, anybody can do it. And there are tons of attorneys trolling for it right now. So they also allow for very lucrative penalties. So if you think about it, in a lot of these states, it's like you owe that guy $10,000. Well, you're going to owe $16,006, I was going to go to the attorney now. So there's a lot of pieces to that. So those states, you just got to look very closely about how you're going to handle these. 

             I hope this was helpful to you. I know it was a lot of information on our website and People Processes. We have a great layout of this, we do a transcript of the recording. We have downloadables that can help you do checklists against this stuff. If you need anything, please let us know. We're happy to help. I hope that you guys are all doing well, staying safe, doing the best you can to keep your businesses up and running and getting prepped for the return. I can't wait until we're all back to rockin' away and growing our companies. And we'll talk about scaling and growth that way. Thank you for tuning in. My name is Rhamy Alejeal, I'm the CEO of People Processes. Now it is time for you to go out there. Get your work done and have a great day.

             ]]>19115e89-5c8b-4f68-886d-b3c8804149ecFri, 08 May 2020 07:45:00 -050018:50falsefull3323323Rhamy AlejealUnemployment Vs FurloughMany 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...]]>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 exception for furloughs during financial slowdowns. For any workweek in which no work is performed, an employer is not obligated to pay the exempt employee’s salary for that workweek. Key takeaway: That’s why you should not implement a furlough that starts mid-week. You don't want to have to pay your salary people for the whole week.

             Unemployment insurance

             The unemployment insurance rules vary from state to state, but in general, both laid-off workers and temporarily furloughed workers are eligible for unemployment benefits if they have earned a sufficient amount in wages over the previous year to qualify.

             While there is often a waiting period between when the work ends (either permanently or temporarily, in the case of a furlough) and when a worker may start to collect unemployment benefits, many states have waived these waiting periods for the duration of the COVID-19 crisis.

             Consider all options

             While layoffs and furloughs are similar, the main difference is that layoffs tend to be permanent and furloughs tend to be temporary. Depending on your business needs, either may be an appropriate response to the coronavirus crisis. Here are three things to consider:

             1.           Furloughs are generally used for fixed periods of time. So whether it’s better to implement a furlough or layoff may depend on how long your business operations will be affected, or how severely.

             2.           The federal government and many states are offering various forms of relief for small businesses during the COVID-19 crisis. If you qualify, you may be able to keep paying your workers for longer and avoid the difficult furlough vs. layoff choice. - See our episode on Unemployment VS PPP

             3.           Consider your team’s preferences. Depending on your particular workplace, it may make sense for you to speak frankly with your workers about all the options on the table before making any final decisions. Ordinarily, a business owner would make a firm decision before speaking to the team, but these are not ordinary times.  

             Consult with legal counsel, your HR advisor, and your benefits administrators as needed to weigh all of your options and make the best choice during this uncertain time. 

             ]]>431cae36-f2cd-4387-b050-a36453bdd885Mon, 04 May 2020 07:00:00 -050011:05falsefull3313313Rhamy AlejealUnemployment and the PPPToday, 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]]>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 online. 

             I know for a lot of small business owners, it's hard to imagine paying your staff when there's no work to be done, but that is what the PPP is for. It's there so that companies who would otherwise not have the revenues to keep staff, WILL keep (or rehire them.) 

             There's a fly in the ointment though: 

             There's a problem that, well, let's just call it the rule of unintended consequences. The increased subsidies to workers through the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) was part of the CARES Act, it's gonna make it harder to retain workers under the PPP: The FPUC provided an additional $600 per week across all sectors and income levels of the amount that these workers would be receiving from their state Unemployment Insurance programs. That means that for many lower-wage and even middle-wage workers, those roughly earning less than $44,000 a year in many states, they'll make more on Unemployment than they would through their employment. And isn't that a... Wow... Well, it's what they did. 

             So the result will be more money in the pockets of the lower wage and even middle-wage workers. However, it will blunt retention under the PPP. We're going to know over the next few months the extent to this trade-off. 

             But for those of you in the situation, that haircutting salon, your employees may be better off on it under unemployment rather than coming back to "work." What about the situation? How are you going to fix it? Well, you have two options. I mean, on paper the option is you hire new people, but that'd be a heck of a thing, and probably not possible. If your old employees won't come back to make less money to work rather than be unemployed, you're not gonna find new people that you want to have. And again, you can't get them to work. Or you don't need the PPP. 

             If you got funds already, you applied under this saying, "Hey, we're gonna use this to protect paychecks." You can't hire your people back because their unemployment pays better than you would. Well, it's a loan now. Set that money aside, consider it a great low-interest loan to blow out your marketing when you reopen or provide a nice easy ramp so that you can bring your people back on. So that when you reopen, you can rehire, you got plenty of money set aside. For companies in this situation. You have to understand the PPP is there to be an ALTERNATIVE to unemployment. If your people are unemployed and the unemployment is really good, well, you got a nice loan, NOT a forgivable grant. 

             I know it's hard and a lot of people kind of went into this thinking that this will be helpful. I reopen my restaurant, but it's meant to be this temporary short term thing. And if you can't spend it right now, well, it's still a lot of help. You're well-capitalized. Now, maybe you weren't before. But now you have a great loan. And if you don't want to use it, that's okay. You can just give it back to the bank and boom, you paid off your loan. So it didn't hurt you at all. You didn't have to pay an application fee, you didn't pay any points on it. So if you just decide this isn't for you, that's okay. But most of you, you want that money in the bank and the 1-4% interest rate that you're going to pay on it is cheaper than you would get on anything else. So when it's time to reopen, awesome, you're in great shape to do so. 

             Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Rhamy Alejeal, I'm the CEO of People Processes. And we help companies with software, administrative services, and HR consulting all across the people processes world. That's from onboarding to retirement and really recruiting to retirement. We can handle payroll benefits. We have been so overwhelmingly busy these last few weeks because of the CARES Act and the FCRA. But it's been amazing to see how our clients have reacted and been able to keep people on some have had to do layoffs. Some have had to just heroic measures to keep these businesses up and running. And I'm so excited to see over the next few weeks or months as the country reopens the explosion of growth that's going to come from our clients and other businesses like them across the United States. You can reach us at service at peopleprocesses.com, go to peopleprocesses.com and subscribe. I'd love to see you there. Join our community so that we can grow together, learn together, and have a great day and get your work done. Thanks For listening.

             ]]>a5adce53-11e5-48cb-ad36-6056166ff464Tue, 28 Apr 2020 07:45:00 -050009:03falsefull3303303Rhamy AlejealPeople Process Interviews: Rocky RomanellaToday 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....]]>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 responsibility. And the first thing I did was go work a day in the store because I never forgot that the thing that helped me as a new supervisor was the fact that I could unload and I did unload trailers, I was a UPS driver. And that was such a valuable lesson to me. 

             So in every job I ever got from that moment forward, the first thing I always did, especially if it was a job I didn't have experience and I went and spent the day. We purchased mailboxes, etc. I worked in a store, we purchased over 20 companies and built what's up today, UPS Supply Chain Solutions. I integrated those companies and had decided the world for UPS. Well, first thing I did was, "Let's go pick some orders. Let's go down on the floor." So I think that was a valuable lesson I learned as I grew and developed inside of UPD. And then as you said, I retired from UPS. And then I was recruited to be a CEO of a telecom company, we built cell towers, upgraded cell towers. And so every chance I got I went out to a site. I certainly wasn't qualified to climb, but I wanted to understand that firsthand and then started my own business 360 Management Services.

             So when you decided to branch out and kind of run your own company, what was the impetus there?

             Well, during my tenure at UPS and during that time when I had the MB/ UPS stores, the direct report. I met some of the most amazing entrepreneurs, some people that were just the best. I mean, they taught me so many wonderful things and I have such great respect for it. Printers and I looked at them. And I thought to myself, I don't know if I could do this job. I mean, there's nobody more all-in than an entrepreneur that a small business owner, right? I mean, at big companies, we say we have P&L responsibilities, but nobody has more P&L responsibility and a small business owner. At the end of the day, you hit the cash register to drop and pay your people, pay your vendors. What's left is what you take home for your family. And so I had such great respect and admiration for them. And so I thought if I ever had the chance, I would try but even today, I mean, I have a wonderful pension from UPS. So I mean, I'm not nearly as all-in as they are. And so I will always be that person that says, "I have great respect for that small business owner and I'm not sure I could do it." The way they've done it with taking everything they own and sliding across the table and saying, "I'm all-in." So I never kid myself that I believe I am as committed as they are. I'm committed to grow in this business and I'm excited about growing my own business but they have everything on the line.

             Rocky, you've had this great career and now you've started a very successful company you're keynoting, you're interviewed constantly. But before you got here, I know you had to have had some hard days. So I think that our listeners, they look forward to this because we always have this as a recurring segment because everyone listening has made some pretty big errors and they want to learn from other people's. So Rocky, what I want you to do is take us to the experience, tell us the story of your worst entrepreneurial or management moment and how that happened. And what the mistakes were that you made to get there. It's a hard question. And I just want to preface because what I found in terms of response and listeners and everything else is the more you can illustrate the story the more results and feedback we get from our listeners.

             Well, for me the biggest disappointment or biggest error always centers around the people side of things for me, because I think you can work through operational issues, you can work through P&L issues, but to me, the hardest and most difficult and most disappointing are the ones where you've identified an individual and I won't use their name, obviously, but it's crystal clear in my mind. We identify this individual and you believe in them so much. But the mistake was early on is that I believed in them more than they believed in themselves. I wanted more for them and they wanted it for themselves. And so what ends up happening is, you take this individual who has such promise, but is good where they are right now. And in fact, frankly, they're very happy where they are right now. And I see so much more than them. And so you're working and of course, they don't want to ever let you down. So you're talking to them about the next level promotion, taking on additional responsibility, maybe moving their family. I moved nine times with UPS and inside of UPS, everybody was moving, right. That was part of the promotion process. 

             So here's this individual that I'm almost convincing them, that they want that next level and not because it was my best intention, where to help them get to that next level. But I quickly realized that the mistake I made and a disappointment for me was we took a good employee, someone who was very, very good at what they did. And now we moved into that next level, a level that they may not want it or they may not have felt comfortable with. And eventually they ended up quitting. And the sad lesson there for me was, I wanted more for them than they wanted for themselves. And I saw more of him or her than they saw themselves and that happens sometimes. And that disconnect is a terrible disconnect. Because not only do you have an unhappy person or a person that doesn't feel fulfilled, you actually end up potentially losing a very good person in your care or in your organization. And so for me, that's the valuable lesson. It happens a lot in small businesses too. By the way, you're the owner of the business and let's face it. What's your strength as a small business owner? Nobody's more committed. Nobody knows the business better than they do. Nobody could do the job better. And what's your biggest weakness? Nobody knows. Nobody's more committed than you who knows the business, right? So you have that employee and you're not allowing them to grow and develop into that job because you want them to be you. But you forget how long it took for you to get to be you. And so I think that those expectations are sometimes difficult and when you lose that good employer, you lose that good person is probably a better way of putting it. You really look at yourself in the mirror and you say, "Boy, I really failed this one, this was not good for that individual. Certainly not good for organization. And frankly, I made a bad decision."

             Yeah. So I guess what would you have done differently if you're trying to grow an organization you've got, you need leaders, you need people who you can move up and you find someone who's outstanding at their current job. That's the normal way of figuring out who to promote, what would you have done differently with this particular employee that maybe would have helped you keep them well from them? Because maybe in two years, they would have been perfect for it. 

             Yeah, tha's true. That's true. Well, I'll tell you. So from that, you're the people process, so you have the two most important things, people and process, that you take care of which is excellent. So for me, whenever something doesn't go the way I planned it to or hoped it to, it's all about process. Well, what's the process? So out of that disappointment or out of that failure came my people process. I appreciate you allowing me to use that. So from that moment forward, I had this process. When people would bring me a person for promotion or I would identify a person for promotion, the first question I'd ask myself, well, "Do I want more for them than they want for themselves?" Or if you brought me a name of an individual ready to be promoted, I would ask you, "Hey, do you want more for them than they want for themselves?" "No, no, no, they really want this." Okay. Do you see more in them than they see in themselves?" "No, no, no." Okay. So you get past those first two, then the three next key questions come in. And I've used this through probably of my 40-year career, probably 30 of them. As I kind of grew and was more involved in those decisions. The first question I'd always ask and this one seems a little almost rude, but it's not meant to be and the first question is, "Hey, if they didn't come to work when anybody noticed and then you like, "What? Are you kidding me?" All right, well, that's good. Okay. That's the first question. 

             How about the second question? What wouldn't happen if they weren't here? So what's uniquely theirs? What's uniquely them? What processes in place? What wouldn't happen if they weren't here? And that's so important, because that starts to speak about a person beginning to be that next level before they are that next level. And then the last question I would always ask them is, and I would ask this to myself. As I identify key players, I would look at myself and say, "Okay, if we're in a room, if we got a meeting of 50 of our leadership team and the two or three of us, leaders that are running the meeting have to leave. And now somebody walks in and says, "We have a problem. We've got to take this. We've got to build a solution to this problem." Well, they're all peers. Well, Who's that? Who are the two or three informal leaders that step-up and take over? Are you that leader? Before you are the next leader and so that became my process to prevent what happened. And when I think back to that individual, he or she clearly was a great contributor and had some really great skills but they weren't the informal leader yet, they weren't the next level before they are the next level, there really wasn't a signature thing that they could call their own. They were beginning that process. And so I look back and I think, I was more excited about getting them to the next level than they were ready to get to that next level. And so I think that's where the process would have helped that situation because I would have had that conversation with him or her and said, "Listen, let's talk about your creative element. Let's talk about the next step. Let's talk about the additional responsibility." And then we would have talked about, "What's your signature element? What are the things that differentiate you from everybody else? How does your brand differ from everyone else's brand?" So I think that process is what I kind of put in after that. That difficult moment where we lost a really good individual.

             Exactly. And you hit it on the head. And you've been on operations, you've been on the sales and acquisition side, entrepreneurs, business owners, when they bring on a client and they spend a ton of time and effort getting that client, they get them through the system. They onboard them then they lose that client. They immediately understand, I've got to put something in place. At some point along the way, I don't know if it's because we marketed to the wrong person. We didn't qualify that. That potential client or sale. We didn't figure it out. We didn't onboard them, right. We didn't set our expectations. They realize there's a problem in their process, but small business owners and even larger companies, they don't think in terms of people processes. You hit it on the head, which as you went through an experience, you lost a great employee who you spent time, significant money and investment on. And then you went back and said, "Where did we mess up?" And where you've kind of identified in your people processes cycle was there at the qualification stage, "Hey, before we put people into this position, we need to have a little process in place to say, do you meet these qualifications? And for leadership, you identified ways of getting there." That's outstanding. That's exactly what needs to happen. And that's why oftentimes, losing a client or losing an employee is the most important thing, the trigger for how you improve your company. When you lose a client, it makes you go back and go, "Alright, what did I do wrong?" The same thing should happen when you lose someone who you shouldn't. And you know who that is, that person on your team where you're like, "Man, I can't believe they quit and went somewhere else. Where did we go wrong?" Going back to that process is outstanding.

             Absolutely. And if you think about true empowerment, is when people discipline themselves. And so for me, I think it starts there, the way you develop those processes is, I disciplined myself, I was more disappointed in myself. It's like, for example, at that time I was not at the most senior level, I went to the manager I work for and I'm explaining what happened. He's like, "Well, if he really wasn't ready or she wasn't really ready, we would have found that out eventually." And I'm thinking, though, it has nothing to do with that, I put them into position at the very least, we shouldn't have lost them at the level they were at. And so I appreciated them trying to be supportive of me but I was more disappointed in myself than he or she was with me. And I think exactly, I think that's the true sign. Are your people empowered to where they're disciplining themselves, where they're more disappointed in themselves? Because what ends up happening, you become the person who piles on as the leader, you become that person that helps them through that. Okay, well, what could you have done differently? But to me, it's always important when someone takes responsibility and ownership, it's okay, we make mistakes. It's okay, didn't work out. But do you own it? Do you feel as bad about that person leaving? Before you got to me, I shouldn't feel worse about that person leaving than you do as the person who put them in that position. So I think that's the thing I always look for, especially as the person making that decision. As an owner, are you more upset than that person left than the manager who was the direct report for that person?

             Exactly. And it can apply to not just people but even operations. Same thing if you're looking at a subordinate manager and they let you know, "Hey, we screwed this thing up." And you are more messed up. You're like, "Oh, my God." This is a real problem and you don't feel like the person whose responsibility directly, his is emotionally on the hook for it, then it's like you may have the wrong person there. Someone needs to own us. 

             af299e2a-0fe1-4a0e-a33a-7ad482195e1cFri, 24 Apr 2020 07:45:00 -050032:00falsefull3293293Rhamy AlejealPeople Process Interviews: Ralph PetersonToday 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...]]>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 pool. A lot of times, the biggest challenge in management, especially for new managers, is that they come to us really great at a job. And we take them; we promote those really great workers into a supervisor position, and they fail miserably. And it's always the whole caddy response. Well, just because they're good at the job doesn't mean they'd be good managers. And while that is on its face, true, it's completely lacking the real scope of things, because we don't have any other choice. We have to look to the best employee as the one we're trying to promote and grow within our organization. Nobody goes, "Hey, you know who would be really great for this management job? What's her name? She's not here today, because she called out again, and she gets her job done. But she'd be really great." Nobody ever does that. We always have to look to the person who is responsible, who smiles, who's good natured, who is smart, who is hardworking, who we don't have to constantly micromanage and be over on top of, we don't have any choice. We always have to promote the super worker into a supervisor. But of course, they don't have any idea. We all come into management, thinking that everybody works just like us. And when we got in charge, oh my god, I thought people were no longer going to have an alarm issue. I didn't think anybody was ever going to have all my power gone. I don't think anybody's gonna have it. Or a car breakdown. I thought everybody was gonna love going to work for me. Boy, was I naive, nobody worked like me. That's why I was promoted. Nobody else was. Right.

             Right. 

             I think the child care issues, the call out issues, the alarm clock issues to cart, they all increased when I got from….

             So, Ralph, so the penultimate question that I get a lot of times is you know running the HR company, I do. Should people you know, everyone talks about promoting from within they want to, rise through the ranks and bring people up. But on the other hand, that takes a lot of skills training and investment, like you mentioned in these manager protocols, right? Because just because someone's good at my business processing payroll, doesn't mean they'd be good at leading a team of payroll processors or being more. We're like an operations manager with lots of different pieces. So what would you say to those who are trying to decide between promoting internally and trying to develop the training or hope that they can turn this person into a good manager and recruiting externally, someone who's already got these management principles now?

             I would say two things. Number one, I'm a huge fan of promoting from within. I think finding somebody who already knows our business, who is already committed to our customers, who already fits, is a good fit already. I think those are wins win win win win. I think the challenge is, distance in your departments. If your company is big enough that you can promote somebody, not only up but away from their current group, there's a big success factor. But if you try to promote somebody up, they're staying in the same group yesterday, they were the employee along with everybody else, maybe a little better, but, still just like everybody else, and then you pull them up. it's very hard for the rest of the team to give them the time of the day. Give them the respect that they're trying to give them any kind of breaks if they make mistakes. I mean, we're super critical of people who work with us, and they get promoted. And we didn't all of a sudden we're super hyper focused on all the mistakes that person makes. And all we're doing is whether it's intentional or not, we're undermining. We're back talking. We're setting each other up for failure. So if there can be some distance, I think that's always better. 

             The challenge with hiring a manager is similar to an outside manager. When I went to the Marine Corps into boot camp I was not familiar with shooting weapons. However, my bunkmate grew up in Kentucky. I didn't grow up in a country setting where he did and he was very scared at shooting and we got to the shooting range. They wanted to be able to teach how Marines are supposed to shoot, which they could easily show me because I've never handled a gun. But they couldn't show my bunkmate because he knew everything already. And that is the challenge with bringing in a manager with all that experience is they're going to come in. The first thing they're going to do is going to try to change everything. So like one of my roles when I hire a new manager from outside the organization is, I swear, do not change anything. I appreciate your ideas. I appreciate your experience. I appreciate your knowledge. I want you to put it in your pocket for at least three months, run my operation exactly how I asked you to. Don't do it any other way. Just if you see a thing you want to fix. Great. Let's talk about it in three months. Yeah, but any new managers want to change right away. Yeah.

             No, no, no, you're exactly right. We have the same rule when we bring in specialists, right. Technical specialists, that kind of thing. It's like you can't come in and immediately override. how all taxes are calculated or even HR processes, these kinds of things. You have to give a couple of months to exist inside the organization to figure out what's going on.

             You have no idea why we set those up, you have no idea. You don't have the experience to see why we're doing it that way. It may seem a little odd or goofy to you from the outside, but there's probably a good reason.

             Probably. 

             Here's one thing that I think a lot of people don't highlight, especially when it comes to management, training and development is the math behind the success of new managers. And here's the math. Approximately 5 million people a year are promoted to leadership. Some of those are first time managers never been promoted to a leadership position. And some of those are transitional leadership positions. They went from the assistant to the manager, they went from the frontline manager to the district manager or the district manager to the regional. Right? Like, there's those transitions as well. Two thirds of all of those management transactions, those promotions fail in the first 90 days. In American, two thirds, 3.3 million people who got promoted today are going to get promoted. They're going to be asked, "Hey, would you be in charge? Hey, you look like you could do it. I've been watching you for a while, I think you're going to be really great at this, do you mind doing it?" And then within 90 days, they're either going to be demoted, that means they go right back to where they were, which is very painful or worse, maybe they're going to get terminated.

             Right, right.

             In 90 days. So the question then becomes, what can we do is those of us who are in Management Development, I spend all my time, "How do I recruit good people who can be managers? How do I identify good people who can grow up into the organization? And then how can I train them? How can I give them the tools they need to be successful? The last thing we want to do is find our best worker and have them quit or get fired or have to demote them in 90 days. Nobody wants to do that.

             Absolutely. What would you say? So our listeners vary in size from five man shops up to 5000 men shops and often, when I'm talking to someone like you, I try to think about the extremes. In a 5000 man company, they've already normally got some management processes. They've got strong leadership development or at least some level of leadership development. I'm sure they could improve it, but they're thinking about that. But I often think about, like the five and 10 man shop. And what I find when I see promotion of management over there, you mentioned it's normally a skilled worker, their favorite person also we're going to promote up to manager, they don't necessarily have much of the way of what the manager should do, only they should do what the boss did be in charge. And the other thing I see is, they are often promoted to management along with maintaining some portion of their labor level responsibility. So, say they are a CPA firm, and it's like this is tax season. I have a client like this. They've got what they call them, junior associates, senior associates, and then junior partners and all these different kinds of levels. But maybe this guy is in charge of 1000 tax returns and he's done 1000 tax returns, year one next year. He rocked out, he did 1200. It's now year three, and they're saying, All right, bud, I want to give you three Junior associates, you're in charge of their work. And instead of doing 1000 tax returns this year, you only got to do 600 yourself, but your whole team is going to do 3000, right? Like it seems like there's some carryover of labor a lot of times in smaller companies. What do you think about that and should it be absolutely avoided? What are your thoughts around this? 

             Well, a couple of things. I am guilty of the same thing. So I have done the same thing where we've had an opportunity for somebody. Somebody leaves or gets promoted to another position, we have an opportunity to bring somebody up. But we don't have the need for the manager right now. And I have the person I want to put in a position, but I don't have the person yet to replace the person, I want to move into the position. Right? So I'll try a hybrid. I'd be like, "Can you do both for just now and I'm going to work hard to get your position behind you so that you can do this full time." And it's very rarely worked for me. I wish I had better success with it. And I wish I could be a little dishonest and say that it wasn't me. It wasn't mine. But the truth is, it is my fault. And here's the reason it's my fault. The reason it's my fault is as soon as I get that person promoted into the leadership role, and they're doing their own job. I lose four focus on the need of replacing their job. If I just moved them out completely, then all my focus would be on that empty position that's open. I would have no choice. But as soon as I can take my eye off that ball and it always hurts the person I'm trying to promote. The second thing that I would say is, that it's my expectations that always get in the way. I should know that I am the man, the new manager. First of all, everybody who wants to be promoted to a leadership position gets the nod even if it's a semi nod. It is so hard not to go to your head. It is so hard not to take. You'll feel that pride and can't wait to tell everybody and flex your new management muscles. It's so hard not to do it. And when you're not fully in the leadership position, it just expands. It makes it even worse. You know, it's bad already.

             I'm doing my job and my new job.

             That's right and all of a sudden the cattiness creeps into their own voice. And it's very hard. I started this conversation with us, everybody expects you to be better than them. They expect you to complain less, to eat more crow, to take more garbage, to do more work, to get in earlier, to stay later. They expect it whether they say or not. They expect you to be better than everybody else.

             And replying to someone's subordinates complaints that they're stressed out or worked out, I just feel like I'm at my limit with, "Well, I do all that and 10 times more buddy. Never is great, man." Right? That never really gets you very far. 

             I'm guilty of that, too. I think I have made every poor decision.

             Yeah. We've been in business 11 years. I've been running teams and every one of these, if you're listening, you're going, "Oh, God, I promoted that person." I did that last year. All right.

             Yeah, exactly.

             There's a specialist position, and they're really good. And I want to promote up to management. And I'm like, "But I just need you to keep doing that other thing a little bit," and now it's a year later, and they're still doing both. So we've all done these things.

             It's what makes us experts. 

             Right. Right. Yeah, that's cool hard knocks. I mean, I've read a lot of books. I've got a lot, both of us have degrees in this stuff. Yeah. There was no book in my MBA course that was just like, "Hey, you know, what's gonna happen when you promote this person?" Because they can't lay it out that simply, right? It's got to be a broad framework for thinking about things. That's your education and then you go in and you actually do it and you go, "Oh, yeah, that's what that meant. I should not have done that."

             It's so true. I've been going back and I have some of my old business books, I have a degree in business and in organizational leadership, I have a Master's organizational leadership. And I go back and I'm just looking through my notes and I'm looking through some of the textbooks and the books that we're reading. And I feel like when you go back and you look at it 20 years later, in retrospect, it's not that they do a bad job. It's just so difficult to even get a student to understand the dynamics of who's in charge. It is super hard. You go ahead. I'm sorry.

             416c0bd7-6252-4d14-ae57-2f33c2e1c2b3Tue, 21 Apr 2020 08:30:00 -050051:40falsefull3283283Rhamy AlejealPeople Process Interviews: Kris PlachyToday 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...]]>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 different types of fields. So my last job in the organization I worked for was actually creating an internal performance coaching team. And I did something very different when I created that team, unlike most traditional learning and development organizations, I hired all high performing operations leaders to be my coaches on my team. And so then we ran a development program and on site performance coaching program for about 4000 leaders in this organization that I work with for. So that was my last gig in a business and then that company I was still in higher education. That was about eight years ago. That's when just the floor fell out of that industry and everybody got laid off. And so that's when I started my business. And I already had such a running start, because I've been coaching leaders for years, on how to manage, how to make decisions, how to coach, how to get out of their own way, when they have their own thoughts about their team that are affecting their ability to manage them. And I haven't looked back, I absolutely love what I do, and what I'm able to help other people do.

             Well, that sounds like an awesome journey. And now here you are, you're consulting with great companies. You're teaching them about leadership, and I want to learn more about that. But, before we do that, our listeners are entrepreneurs, some of them are an HR administrator, some of them are one man shops dreaming of their first employee and some of our listeners have five or 6000 employees they're managing.

             Right.

             The thing that universally they all learn from is not our good stuff. It's when we screw up.

             Sure.

             So what I'd love for you to do is take us to the moment in this last eight years of you running your company, or even in your corporate life, that was your worst entrepreneurial management leadership screw up and really tell us that story and how that happened. And we'll talk about what we learned from it later. But for now, I just want you to take us to that real bad time.

             Well, I think honestly, I have a few crucible moments, is what I call them. I'm a George fan who wrote the book "True North". If anyone's read it, it's an incredible book for leaders. But I have one that always is kind of that moment where I was like, "Oh, you do that?"

             Yeah. 

             And it was honestly when I was a new manager. I had someone on my team. I was very young, I was 26. And most of the people on my team or my contemporaries, or a little younger than I, had one team member in particular who was very affected with herself. And now Rhamy, I live in California, so I think Taishan talked a lot like best and her face was really dramatic. And if she wasn't happy, everybody knew it with her body language and her face and right like it was just so toxic and exhausting, as from a management perspective, I found her tedious to manage and we'll call her Rhonda. That's for anonymity sake.

             And so…

             I always call my guy Chad. I got in a lot of trouble at some point because I wound up with a longtime listener who reached out to say, "Hey, we really want to work with you." And I was meeting with him and he said, "You know my name. My name is Chad by the way. In every episode you mentioned me." And I'm like, "Oh, we'll go with Rhonda now and we'll hope that you don't have a Rhonda as a client.

             In the past, for me, it's been Lucy and I actually use that name in my book that I wrote for manager and I had somebody who emailed me and she's like, "Uhmm,"

             Alright, so here's Rhonda, there's Rhonda traumatic valid girl Rhonda.

             Hairy, dramatic, and one day after a meeting, we had Monday meetings. I had it, like she just sat in the meeting and huffed and I rolled and crossed her arms and through her pen and just, I had it and so I went into her office and closed the door. And that's about as good as it got. Because after that, I looked at her and I said, "What is up with your attitude, Rhonda?" And I'll never forget it. She stood up. She looked at me and cocked her head, you know how people do? And she crossed her arms, and very slowly raised her pointer finger and said, "I don't have an attitude. You have an attitude." And that was when I realized you don't argue with team members. Never. Because you never win. It's not. Then one of the tenants of my work is that performance is not an opinion. But all that was for me that in that moment was opinion and you can't, there is no substance to this argument when it's based on my opinion of you. Right. And so that was a powerful moment for me, where I learned I had to learn how to speak to my employees about observable behaviors and evidence and not my opinion about their behavior. Because what I've come to know is the majority of issues when it relates to employee performance are behaviors. It's not usually a skill. Every now and then, it is, right? But mostly, it's this stuff. People are late or they miss their deadlines, or they're kind of snarky, or they gossip. So that was it for me. It was very painful. It was mortifying, I was so embarrassed. I couldn't back out of it. Anyway, it was terrible.

             I think that's a great lesson to learn. Yeah. And HR 101 insight reporting and documentation. Right?

             Yeah. 

             Here's what I want to know about Kris. So you're telling me and I love that story. And by the way, everyone who's in this and going, I did that, we've all done that, right? And in years of doing this, at some point, you've said, "I don't like the way you look," right? The way you look at a person. I don't know. But I got it. Here's what I know. You've been doing this 25 years. You're talking about the 90's? 

             Yeah. 

             Your worst moment was yelling at a single employee. You are either a god-thing or you have not told us the worst moment for you. What was the hardest part? 

             I mean, you can all go through the list. I had to lay off 25 employees and rehire them. But one could only rehire I think it was like 18. And I was doing it with a colleague. So we laid them all off the day before and then told them if they wanted to reapply, we would meet them all the next day, and they got set up for half hour interviews. And I woke up that morning and I was sick to my stomach. But I thought, "No, I'm fine." And I went, and then this woman came in and pleaded to keep her job because her husband was on dialysis, and she didn't have a car and had to take the bus. And we knew we weren't going to hire her. And I proceeded to get wretchedly ill and couldn't do any of the rest of the interviews. I completely. My whole body shut down and I couldn't show up for the job.

             And so my colleague had to do it. She had to make all the decisions, which was like, mortifying to me. But I couldn't be there. I was literally retching. I couldn't sit there and listen to people beg for their job. And the thing is for me that it's been a struggle I've had always that's why I'm so inclined. I feel like to do this work is incredibly sensitive, which I think is a tough cocktail when you're in a leadership role. And I've had to work on learning how to remain me and not be too passive or give in too easily, but also not shut it all off, right,? Because it is a superpower when I use it well, but it's been hard. It was very hard on me. When I first started, the first 10 years of my job as I kept getting more and more responsibility. I would really have to work hard to muster through very difficult decisions which I'm sure is what led me to focusing on writing books about how to deal with difficult people and how to deal with difficult circumstances, like I ended up specializing in it, but it wasn't because I was great at it. At first it was because I was terrible at it. And I know the pain and shame, right? Of knowing you've got to step up and you can't, you can't do it.

             I am, early on in our company, we've been in business coming up on 11 years and I think about four years on, at some point, we had a sales staff of almost 15 people and we went down to three that I remember that week and how that went. It's one of the hardest parts of leadership. 

             Yeah. 

             That's a real story.

             Did you like that one? My first year that I made a lot of money as an entrepreneur and I didn't pay my taxes.

             Well that's for a finance podcast. Those are bad days too.

             Mistakes. Yeah. But for sure for me it's been on that human to human level when it's just the most palpable for me, but of course, the biggest learning. So now when clients call me and they tell me, "I have to lay off 27 people today," which has been happening this week, we're in the aspirants here in the States, right. "Man, I get it. I'm all in with you. But it doesn't change the decision. It has to be made."

             So in your leadership training, I mean, obviously, you focus on a lot. And we want to talk about some of the processes that you've had, that maybe our listeners on a very simple level could hear the concept of and maybe adopt for themselves a little bit. But before we do, maybe if someone right now, this podcast is going to come out in April. There is a coronavirus thing, we've had of our clients almost 800 layoffs that we've had to manage on the process level. If they're sitting there and as a business owner and going, we don't have the money coming in or I can't afford to pay this mandated sick leave or whatever it is that's going on. What would your advice be to them on how to get through that or how to evaluate the decision? What could you in five or six minutes maybe give them a little ideas on?

             Well, I actually have been, all week, I did two open coaching calls last weekend and had several hundred people come and then this week I've opened up tons of coaching hours to all of my current clients. And so I've been talking with mostly women all week about these very things. And so I'm actually putting together something for my clients about this very question and to me, I've come up, there's really four areas you've got to focus on. 

             The first one, is your own mind management. You as leaders going through this moment in time, we have all our own concerns personally about ourselves and our families and our communities. Our kids are at home, like there's so much going on. So having a place to work through your own thinking is critical. Because your brain is where all of this is going to come from. And we need your mind clean, just like you're washing your hands. You need to wash your brain. We got to flush out all of the things that are going on in it. 

             The second thing is, everyone needs at least a 90-day plan. Now, the problem is when we build a 90-day plan, it makes us look at the stuff we don't want to look at and for a lot of people right now, that's scary to look at 90-days from now. And I asked them to do a worst case scenario, you got to look at it. And then I'm here as your coach. I'm going to help you think through it, you're going to work on your brain because your brains are gonna have a tantrum. And it's not going to want to think about 90-days of no revenue. But we have to, we have to get really, really honest about what the circumstances are. And because what I'm watching a lot of people doing is, they're anticipating what could happen, but they're not planning for it. And then what happens is, if you don't have a plan, you take action in reaction mode, instead of in something you've already thought through, worked through, you already had the brain tantrum. Now you can take action you can execute. So a 90-day plan has to happen that looks at finances, looks at team and it looks at your life. You, especially for Small business owners, right? I realized the larger businesses have a lot of other factors. But if this is you and you know, 15 employees, you got to think about it all. 

             Then there's the team, what are we going to do with them? How do we want this to play out? I spend a lot of time with when in normal circumstances, we look at values and we look at expectations. That's where the way that we pay people comes from, how we decide to pay people is born out of our value system. So all my clients need to gut check. That part of who they are, what is the right decision for you and your company, not based on what everybody else is doing or the government is telling you to do. What works for you all. And that's the plan that has to get into place. And I've been]]>ee54a964-b789-4509-9bfd-6958de1fe0aeFri, 17 Apr 2020 06:45:00 -050054:11falsefull3273273Rhamy AlejealPeople Process Interviews: Amber HurdleAnd 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....]]>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 were stable and good kids and they wanted to have conversations with us around hard things that were going on and that parents were having a hard time talking to their children about. So, it was quite the fall from grace, well, just say, I was president of this, vice president of that in school and I had to give up all those leadership. I chose to because my actions weren't very leadership like for high school anyways. I guess the quick version of the story is I had to get out from behind the eight ball very quickly. And I had to figure out what people saw in me so that I could just pick up an extra shift at the Applebee's or get a better job that maybe I didn't have the education for, because I dropped out of college. I was very tuned in to what people saw in me so I can do more of that so I can find more favor and I can have more opportunities come my way. I started collecting mentors because I didn't have the same structures in place that most people had. I mean, my parents were amazing. Don't get me wrong. We'll just put them aside. But most people have professors and you know, people that kind of help guide them as they start their career. And I was just kind of free falling.

             Right.

             So as I was figuring that out, I didn't know that I was creating a personal brand that wasn't a buzzword. I mean, you had a professional reputation but that wasn't a thing back then. And I surely didn't understand what I was doing at the time. But reflecting back on it now. That's it. I just had to figure out what I was amazing at and I had to go out and show people and prove that that is, that's what they should see in me, that they should see the value that I saw in me, but I had to use people as mirrors to even figure out what that was.

             And and so you think that teen-mom experience really, I've thought about this too, my wife and I we met when we were 16, where we started dating when we were 16. We've been together our whole lives. Highschool sweethearts, started the company together 11 years ago and have certain experience. And having certain responsibilities in your life it's impossible to say like what you would have done otherwise. Right? And a lot of times when I've had similar interviews where it's like, "Well, what do you credit your success to?" It's like, "Well, when I was 18, I moved out so that I could start a family with my girlfriend," which is so weird as even at the time I was like, "There's no way this is gonna work." This is obviously silly stuff to do. And yet those choices put me in positions where my back was against the wall. We had to live on our $700 a month kind of budget, and it changed everything. So what do you think being a teen-mom taught you specifically about what you do now? The branding, the consulting side of what you do now?

             The very first thing that it blessed me with is that humility. I don't judge people, there's just not room for that. So there's always what I refer to kind of a cocci term is, there's always judgment, free awareness and in my office or on my zoom calls, or in the opposite of my clients, so anything can be admitted, worked through. You mentioned the term self awareness. That's what served me then. And so that is what we build on. Once we have that judgment, free awareness, then we can work to self awareness. And then it also helped me see where I fit into a bigger picture, right? Because I was only able to benefit from the collective like I couldn't do it on my own. I had to do it in the context of other people being involved. And so when you're looking at the personal branding, that comes from self awareness and that sort of thing. But when you talk about employer branding, you have to understand the bigger picture and you have to understand where your personal brand fits into that employer brand and the employer has to be able to understand that as well. And then, of course, just that so much was quote fixed. I'm using air quotes alone in my office right now.

             I have medically diagnosed a DD. Most people don't know that because team motherhood also forced me to really put those processes in place. I mean, that's what I love. I love your People Processes, because people forget that, to be successful in business, to scale in business, it's not just functional processes. You have to have people processes too. And so everything about my life was structured. It was organized. I did a budget like I literally had a ruled paper that I did each week on an effort at the bottom of the paper. It was like, "Okay, I'm negative this time." And dollars left, I mean, it taught me to negotiate, it taught me how to be honest and to fail forward. I mean, I called my car company all the time and I told the story from the stage and just let them know like, "Hey guys, I thought I was going to have my payment this week. But here's what's going on. I'm working at this job. I'll make this much money in cash. I'm anticipating getting my paycheck. it should be this much. And so by Friday, I can get you this dollar amount." But that's probably going to be it and to be able to just confront the brutal facts, but not just faith.

             That's a valid dragon, right? 

             Yeah. Slay the dragon.

             Under the notice. Right? 

             Yes. I could have faced it head on, call it what it is, and then come up with your solution. And they were so gracious with me. And they did not repossess my car. And as many times as they could take a payment in the end they did because I stayed in constant communication with them even though I was in the midst of failing. So I don't know, I mean, Rhamy, we could sit here all day about the things that I learned that have served me well now as a teen-mom but those are probably some big nuggets there.

             Well. Now, you are a successful entrepreneur, you have multiple businesses. And along the way, how long when was your first business startup? How long ago was that?

             Let's see here. My very first which is not in existence anymore was 2006-2007 and I rode the wave of 2008. And came out on the other side. So I ran a very successful celebrity event planning company through the worst economic downturn in US history. Because of what you said earlier, just sheer grit. Like when your back's up against the wall, you have to innovate and you have to make it work and my vendors and their families and their ability to feed their families were very dependent on me because I was oftentimes the number one client of theirs or their number one source of business.

             That only-go system.

             Yeah. And at that point I was divorced. I had two kids. I was a single mom trying to make everything work. But yeah, it was super stressful but we made it happen. And then through this whole COVID-19 situation we're in. That's just my stance. I was talking to my friend the other day, and he and I are just basically the same human, only he's male. And we both were just laughing because we said we refused to participate in 2008. And we're refusing to participate right now. I mean, I'm not ignorant and I'm not naive. I know that bad things are going on, but you can do what you can do. Instead of sitting and crying and waiting for somebody else to rescue you.

             There's an opportunity everywhere.

             Always. And usually really juicy ones in the midst of chaos.

             Absolutely. Well, we'll go into that in a minute but our listeners there, they vary, their everyone from color. Students trying to figure out what they want to do up through, CEOs with a couple thousand employees to HR managers at a local plumbing shop. And I have found, in terms of our feedback, the number one thing that I get is that they learn the most when our guests tell us about their biggest mistakes. You're rocking out now. But what I'd love for you to do is take us to the time when you had your worst entrepreneurial moment, and we'll get to maybe what you learned about it. But really, I want you to take me to the series of events that led to that worst moment and tell me a little bit about that.

             Well, I've had multiple business partners or strategic alliances throughout my career and probably dissolved a partnership that we got into without an exit strategy. And that was bumpy and disappointing and it broke the relationship. And I honestly don't regret how I managed my side of it because I think that I did it with as much integrity as I possibly could. But whether you are going into business with somebody, going into a project with somebody, or even when you take on new clients or customers is really important to have everything spelled out on the front end, and it's something that I do in my business. Now even when friends come to me and want to do business with me, I always just tell them like we're going to sign an agreement, not because I don't trust you or you don't trust me, but it just immediately builds trust and we always know what the expectations are and we always have something to go back to to make sure that you're staying the course.

             Absolutely. You're talking about support structure. I have a great family. I love them to death. But my father was a Postal Inspector. So he was a federal law enforcement. I don't know an entrepreneur in my family. I'd never spoken to someone who owned a business. But some of the lessons that came from my dad just because he was who he was. I mean, since we were 12 years old, there was a sheet of paper on top of the fridge so I couldn't get to it. Where we laid out any agreements we made. You're going to take the trash out on Fridays and mow the lawn on Saturdays. Yeah, we wrote it there. And we signed it. How do we stop doing it? I loaned you 20 bucks to go to the mall because I'm a 90's kid. It's right there, on the sheet. And I don't know, because of that, I just never had the fear of being like, no, we're writing this down. It's going. We're both signing this napkin to a grab thing. We don't put it in writing. It didn't happen. I don't know. So for you, some of your worst experiences have been around strategic partnerships and those sorts of things and their disillusion, when maybe it didn't work out, or just the environment changed.

             Yeah, I mean, I learned the hard way best, unfortunately. But when I do go through that, I do learn and I take my notes and I fail forward and turn those losses into lessons and do it better than next time. So you'll never see me get into any type of professional situation without having very clear expectations of outcomes and what happens if something goes sideways. Because it will, I mean, we're human, right? 

             Absolutely. 

             Even in a corporate environment, things go sideways, because people are involved. That's why we have people processes.

             Exactly. Actually, we're gonna go into some more standard questions in a second, but this is just a random thought that occurs to me. I get this question from small business owners quite often or their HR people. When we're entering into something like this. And even if it's not a large issue like, bringing on a new vendor, or maybe you're entering into like, a reselling agreement or a partnership, where you're going to bring on somebody as an independent contractor, do you think that it's necessary to involve a lawyer every time? Where do you think that you can figure it out on your own?

             My best friend is a lawyer.

             Ah. Cheater.

             Yeah, well, no, he's a dirt lawyer. So yeah, it's not business law, but I'm just saying he'd probably disagree with me. But I don't think that you need a lawyer every time and when you are onboarding even a new employee, you have your basic employee contract, if you will. And every state is different and how that shows up. But you're going through your onboarding process that is essentially kind of an ongoing agreement of, "Okay. Here's the job description. Here's why we hired you. Here are the expectations. Here's what we're going to do. Here's how we're going to train you, here's how we're going to integrate you. And here's how we are going to follow up on these items and measure our success." And putting those pieces in place is the unofficial agreement of, this is what we expect, this is what you expect. We're going to do regular check-ins to make sure that we're on the same page. And so it's just anytime that you want success, and you want to minimize the pain, you have to control the controllables because the uncontrollables sure are coming.

             Absolutely, absolutely. That's actually in a lot of depending on your state, as you mentioned many times it is actually a contract. 

             Yeah.

             Very legally...]]>30882b50-b746-43ed-a059-82ae6f203563Tue, 14 Apr 2020 06:45:00 -050049:02falsefull3263263Rhamy AlejealCOVID 19 Q&A PT 6: Am I liable if my employee get sicks with Coronavirus?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...]]>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 healthcare workers and first responders. I'm sorry for slurring. I have the worst allergies in my life right now. I promise it's not Coronavirus, but anyway, just sniffle and a little bit. The directive instructs the department, the one from Washington to change its policies regarding coverage for those two groups and to "provide benefits to these workers during the time that they're quarantined after being exposed to COVID-19 on the job" So states are going to change this up. They're going to primarily target first responders and healthcare workers. 

             So let's kind of take a separate question that came in. It's very similar. 

             My employee contracted COVID-19 on a business trip for my company. 

             Maybe they're traveling and they're one of those countries outside the United States where this is very more widespread. It's going to depend on whether this is a competence level workers compensation claim. While an employee contracts a disease while traveling for business may be eligible for workers' compensation in many jurisdictions, the analyst is going to be very fact-specific. In most states, the workers will still need to satisfy the test for compensability that we just went over. States often differentiate between exposures that occur while "working" during a business trip versus exposures that occur "during downtime." Some states create almost strict liability for any injury that occurs in a business trip, whether the employee is working or not, it just depends on the state. But again, to establish a claim, the employee must, at a minimum, establish that they had an exposure to coronavirus while traveling for business, not while at home. Anything like this where you're trying to find the claim is going to be exact, you need to have it examined on a case-by-case basis under advice of counsel under a lawyer. It's just not something that can be done on a broad sample level like this. 

             Next question.

             What are the likely benefits an employee will be eligible to receive if the coronavirus is found to be compensable workers' compensation? 

             Okay. The good news is, except in rare circumstances, an employee diagnosed with the virus is not going to have any long-term healthcare problems. Therefore, medical costs associated with the claim are likely to be limited to the visits to the family physician and antiviral medications. More significant cases may involve hospital stays of two to three weeks.

             The compensation costs should also be limited to the lost time associated with any recovery time. They may also be associated with loss time due to quarantine as required by the employer or local, state, or federal agencies. So that's like 14 days while they're hanging out to determine if they have it, while they're waiting on test results, even if it comes back negative, those sorts of things could be compensable. 

             There could be significant costs that are more extreme and rare situations that would normally involve complications from the virus. Those would be limited to claimants who are older or suffer from immune deficiencies,or there are cases where this has hit young people and they aren't quite sick. Workers' comp is, people don't want to make claims and that's a good thing. But the majority of workers' comp costs come from long-term costs. Even a hospital stay of two to three weeks is expensive. It's going to be covered by your workers' comp, but that's not going to have the same long-term impact on your workers' comp costs. As they say, if they had to have a long remove they can never breathe right to do their job again for the rest of their life. And that's such a small percentage, that's unlikely would have happened in your case unless you're a very large employer with a very large sample size. 

             I hope this was helpful for you. I hope it kind of gave you some insight into what sort of liability you have. The long and short is if because of their job, they're significantly exposed to the virus as a course of their work, then probably is going to be a workers' comp claim. If not, they'd have to be on them to really prove that this was the way they got it. Thank you for tuning in. Again, My name is Rhamy Alejeal. You can find me, peopleprocesses.com Please Subscribe on there. It's time for you to go out there. Have a great day and get your work done.

             COVID-19 Q&A Part I, II, III, IV & V links here:

             Part I - Should we send everyone to work from home with this Coronavirus?

             Part II - I think an employee may be sick… what do I do?

             Part III - Can an employee refuse to come to work because of fear of Coronavirus?

             Part IV - If I layoff an employee, do I have to pay this new sick leave?

             Part V - Does our group health insurance cover Coronavirus?

             ]]>b0937ab8-aae6-4638-b0ef-9565b7e040f7Tue, 07 Apr 2020 06:45:00 -050008:45falsefull3253253Rhamy AlejealCOVID 19 Q&A PT 5: Does our group health insurance cover Coronavirus?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...]]>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 cover it. If you choose to do so, each separate situation is different, depending on the insurance carrier and the relationship between the employer and the insurance carrier. It's just going to have different results. You got to talk to your insurance broker or your insurance carrier so that these needs can be individually assessed.

             In our furlough letters for subscribers that peopleprocesses.com we spell out the different scenarios to recoup that cost. One important note under the FFCRA (Families First Coronavirus Relief Act. If the employee is being paid that Emergency Paid Sick Leave (EPSL) or Emergency Paid Family Medical Leave Act (EPFMLA) and you're making that employer contribution on their behalf, the government will repay you not just the cost of the leave but also the employer contribution, super important to remember. 

             Other questions we're getting.

             Is COVID-19 testing covered by our group health plan?

             Yes. If your plan is fully insured, you want to contact your insurer to confirm coverage and call sharing parameters but like, it's not law that they have to do so. As of March 24th, all plans must cover COVID-19 testing at no cost to its members. That includes copays, deductibles, coinsurance, for whether you get the test on at your primary care, a drive through an emergency room or Urgent Care Clinic, Diagnostic testing is covered 100%. Self-funded plans to my knowledge are not required to provide that coverage, but we could see an amendment to the federal laws regulating group health plans that would change that. A self-funded plan's stop-loss carrier and TPAS should be consulted before coverage changes just to make sure your stop-loss is going to cover those issues. I think they will but they take a look at that.

             Coinsurance or copay waivers for testing can be problematic or they should have been problematic just to kind of give you a little background in people in high-deductible health plans (HDHP) with health savings accounts (HSAs). Because one fundamental requirement on an HDHP/HSA plan is that it may not provide benefits in any plan year until the deductible for that plan year is satisfied. However, the IRS provides an exception to that general rule for certain types of "preventative care." Like under the ACA, your kind of annual woman exam. On March 11, the IRS issued notice 2015, it's on our website if you wanna check it out. That clarifies that vaccines are considered preventative care. They also clarified that until further notice, health benefits medical services and item purchased in association with the treatment for or testing of COVID-19 must be provided by a health plan without a deductible, or at a reduced or no cost to participants and it would not disqualify the HDHP or covered individual for making HSA contributions. So, basically don't worry about the HSA parts of this

             Alright, one more kind of thing that comes up. 

             How can we better leverage existing group health benefits?

             So like, you guys have people now teleworking. People are calling about their health insurance a lot. What can you do? Well, first of all.

             • Telemedicine services. Telemedicine is an ideal option for people seeking medical consultations for non-emergency care. If most plans now offer telemedicine care as part of a group health plan, most companies, larger insurers are offering it for free now during this crisis. So that includes coordination of diagnosis, treatment plans, specialist referrals, they can write prescriptions. It's a very good service and they'll also be able to give you that referral needed if you need a medical diagnosis to go get a test. So highly recommended. You will often need a thermometer and a scale. These are the things you need at home to take care of those. You should send your employees out information about how they can access the telemedicine. So they'll do that. 
             • Employee Assistance Programs. You probably have an employee assistance program. If not, you should contact your broker. But those provide great benefits that are not just physical but mental health – stress management, elder care, personal finance, substance abuse consultations are just some of the commonly provided services. This is a good time to start getting people involved in that if they're at home with kids and they're getting angry. They have an employee that they're trying to tell remotely and it's giving them trouble. Those are all great reasons to call your employee assistance program. 
             • Wellness Program Services. If your employees have had a major disruption in their life working from home, wellness programs are often a rich resource of education related to disease prevention. They offer basic education on a variety of pertinent topics such as basic hygiene, traveling tips. They include a nurse phone line program, normally, that can be utilized to obtain confidential responses to various health topics if you're concerned about something. And it's a good time to talk to me about standing up at their desk and walking around and doing those sorts of things from home because a lot of them are working from home for the first time in a major thing.
             • Disease Management Programs. Some plans have what are called disease management programs. Those are tailored programs for employees or families at risk of developing chronic medical conditions, such as high blood pressure or diabetes. Individuals with those sorts of diagnosis may be more susceptible to adverse results from COVID-19. So ensure that they have the opportunity to consult with their coach or case monitor to manage their health conditions. The number one thing someone with diabetes can do to keep from having a bad result from COVID-19 is treat the diabetes. Okay. 
             • Free or Discounted Preventive Care. Flu shots and other vaccines as well as diagnostic testing are often provided at no or low cost for most group health plans and wellness programs. So it's worth checking that out. If they haven't had their flu shot, it's still worth doing. 
             
             

             In addition to what is currently available under your plan, plan sponsors may consider permitting the plan to offer a larger range of preventative care benefits. For example, last year in Notice 2019-45, the IRS and HHS expanded the types of preventative care that will not interfere with HSAs. Those are specifically for people diagnosed with asthma, heart attack and diabetes – individuals that are at a very higher risk of getting sick from the COVID-19 could fall under those things. The FFCRA also updated so that copays, er visits, and urgent care visits are not owed and do not interfere with those HSA/HDHP provisions. As we talked about before, you want to permit the plan that you have to cover those and other specified preventative care at no costs. So with the bare minimum cost sharing, if you're doing a self insured plan, this is obviously a good investment to get your people's diagnostics rather than have them hospitalized. So if you're self-insured, you have to do a little work fully insured. 

             The insurers are just all over this on our website, peopleprocesses.com. You can subscribe, get more information, we have links to the notices we talked about. I'd love to see you there. Thank you for tuning in. I hope this answered some of your questions and gave you some ideas about what you can do about your health plan here during this COVID-19 crisis. Next up, we have another episode on our last Q&A. For now, they're a little difficult to do podcasts. Take about a week for me to do them and then put them out. So they're a little outdated a lot of times by the time we get to the actual editing, so I'm trying to turn these around a lot quicker. It's really much better to subscribe on our site so you can get our newsletter with our updates that come out daily or every other day with all of our sample documents and reference material. It's better to read on some of this stuff. Nevertheless, thank you for tuning in. Thank you for subscribing. My name is Rhamy Alejeal and I hope you have a great day. Now it's time for you to go out there and get your work done.

             Reference links here:

             IRS issued Notice 2020-15, Notice 2019-45

             COVID-19 Q&A Part I, II & III links here:

             Part I - Should we send everyone to work from home with this Coronavirus?

             Part II - I think an employee may be sick… what do I do?

             Part III - Can an employee refuse to come to work because of fear of Coronavirus?

             Part IV - If I layoff an employee, do I have to pay this new sick leave?

             ]]>a31c8d0b-f15f-4be0-b96a-a4e14923ab9bFri, 03 Apr 2020 08:45:00 -050011:53falsefull3243243Rhamy AlejealCOVID 19 Q&A PT 4: If I layoff someone do I have to pay this new sick leave?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...]]>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 loans that are forgivable, basically cash payments to businesses, but only if you do not lay off a bunch of your staff. So the decision to lay off is beyond the scope of this episode. But basically, be careful if you're going to decide to do that. But if you don't have business for them to do, if you don't have work for them to do because you're shut down, then that's easy enough. You don't have work, that's a furlough or a layoff. 

             What is the difference between a furlough and a layoff? 

             That's our next question. 

             Well, note the language used when sending employees home for a period of time is less important than communicating your actual intent. Since temporary layoffs and furloughs are only used regularly in certain industries like seasonal industries, roofing like they may lay off for a snowstorm. Excuse me I have allergies by the way, not Coronavirus, but this time of year just kills me. You should not assume that employees will know what those words mean. Be sure to communicate your plans for the future even if they feel quite uncertain or only short-term. 

             So, a furlough continues the employment relationship, but reduces scheduled hours or requires a period of unpaid leave. The thought process is that having all employees incur a bit of hardship is better than some losing their jobs entirely. For example, a company may reduce hours to 20 per week for a period of time as a cost-saving measure or they may have everyone on a two week unpaid leave while the store is shot. This is typically not considered termination; however, you will still need to provide notices to the employee about the change in the relationship, and they would still be eligible for unemployment for that difference in pay. 

             If the entire company isn't going to be furloughed, but only certain employees, it's very important to be able to show that the staff selection is not being done for a discriminatory reason. Remember, you can't base this on protected classes. And you can't do it just because you think these certain people are going to take leaves. For example, don't put everyone on furlough that has kids, that would be bad. Obviously, if they're black, white, Asian, female, male, those are for religious reasons. These are not reasons to do that. But other than that, you got to want to document the nondiscriminatory reasons that support that decision to furlough certain employees and not others, such as those that perform central services, you got to have this person but not this person because of their job. Makes sense. Now, that's a furlough. 

             A layoff involves terminating the employment during a period when no work is available. This may be temporary or permanent if you close down completely, but you intend to reopen in a relatively near future or have an expected reopening date —at which time you will rehire the employees or all employees —this would be considered what's called a temporary layoff. Temporary layoffs are appropriate for relatively short-term slowdowns or closures. A layoff is generally considered permanent if there are no plans to rehire the employee or employees because the slowdown or closure is expected to be lengthy or permanent. 

             So a couple key things in here, there are some weird rules about, 

             Pay for exempt employees (those are people who are not eligible for overtime)

             FLSA exempt employees do not have to be paid if they do not work at all for an entire workweek. However, if work is not available for a partial week for an exempt employee, they must be paid their full salary for that week, regardless of the fact that they had less work. Remember salary people, FLSA exempt people, you get this exemption because you've agreed to pay them by the workweek. Whatever the amount of work they have to do is why you don't pay overtime if they work 60 hours great if they work 20 fine. If the point is to save money and of course it usually is, it's best to ensure that the layoff covers the company's established seven-day workweek for exempt employees. Make it very clear to exempt employees that they should do absolutely no work during any week you're shutdown. Exempt employees do any work during that time, they get their normal weekly salary. 

             For your non exempt employees (those who get overtime) 

             Your FLSA covers people who only need to be paid for actual hours worked, so single day or partial-week furloughs are fine without worrying about pay implications. 

             You want to maintain open communications with the affected employees before and during the furlough or temporary layoff period. We have a great episode with Kith, consulting Bill Coletti, crisis management expert. He did an outstanding job laying out the steps you can take around communication during this, and should check that out as well. 

             One other question we're getting is, 

             Is this retroactive or applicable before its effective date? 

             No. The Act goes into effect April 1, you do not get credit for things you did before April 1. They did not have the least before April 1, it is not applicable before that time. 

             The other kind of thing to think about in this is that if you are making decisions after April 1, you need to definitely take into account, make sure you're not laying off people because you think they're going to take the lead. That is specifically illegal and you don't want to do it that way. 

             I hope this was helpful for you. It's just a quick Q&A. We've been getting a lot of them. We still have parts V and VI coming up. So I hope this was helpful to you to tune in to the next one. 

             Part V. Is going to go into employer live. I'm sorry, benefits changes and how those work around the new laws and;

             Part VI. Is going to be about employer liability workers comp claims related to this coronavirus stuff. 

             We'll be continuing to post new episodes and new interviews along the way. If you haven't subscribed yet, please do so. My name is Rhamy Alejeal and I appreciate you taking the time to hang out with us and learn something this morning. Have a great day. Now it's time for you to go out there and get your work done.

             COVID-19 Q&A Part I, II & III links here:

             Part I - Should we send everyone to work from home with this Coronavirus?

             Part II - I think an employee may be sick… what do I do?

             Part III - Can an employee refuse to come to work because of fear of Coronavirus?

             ]]>7df8f697-a058-48ac-81a9-abc716afbad0Tue, 31 Mar 2020 08:45:00 -050010:10falsefull3233233Rhamy AlejealPeople Process Interviews: Bill Coletti KithToday, 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]]>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, people talking to their stakeholders. So we're in this unknown period of time in the middle, but we're starting actually doing a lot of work on planning what is coming back looks like, and how do we actually do that in a smart, rational, but also well reasoned way.

             That's what I want to focus on this interview. Because I think by the time this airs, if we're lucky, that's what companies will be considering if we're not, go ahead and take notes, maybe it'll be another month after the episode airs give you some good ideas. Before we do though, what should be the guide? What's the framework around a response strategy? If we have any listeners who are, maybe they're in that mushy time, they've already told everybody, "Look, we're still open or look, we're not open." While they're monitoring events, let's say this comes out and we're still all in lockdown. We've got no end in sight, what should they be doing on a daily or weekly basis to guide their decision making?

             Awesome. You know, most of us that do crisis communications, our first instinct is external or media relations. That's most of us that do this. That's what we think about. All of us have become internal communications or people communicators. Very, very quickly. I've always sort of viewed it as a very, very holistically. So I think in this mushy middle, which if we're all really, quite frankly, it's not about the media. It is much more about employees and your team. Two main things that we focus on. One is ABC, "Always Be Communicating." We think that companies need to tell their story to their employees and bring them on a journey. Because if they are doing layoffs, considering layoffs, considering furloughs, whatever the smart things that you advise your clients on all those various permutations, we don't know the answers to that when you and I are recording this. We don't know exactly how long this is going to play out. So cash reserves are at different places for different companies. I know some of your clients, as soon as last week, we're letting people go laying people off. There are some that are holding on to rainy day funds and cash. You got to take people on a journey. So ABC, Always Be Communicating. That's the challenge in the mushy middle. 

             The second thing is, "Listen." Your teams, it is my fundamental belief, your teams if we create venues for listening, the way we can manage those experts' dictation is by understanding those expectations. And so if we listen to our teams, get leaders, people, managers, wherever they are in the org chart, use video, use zoom, use teleconferencing. Just check in with the messages that you're communicating. Since you're always communicating, your learning, listening, and then that helps shape your next statement. So it is very much a continuous cycle. Sadly, we're seeing companies do an initial statement. Unfortunately, we're gonna have to close or unfortunately we're doing this or whatever we're doing in response. And the next messaging is, and we're laying off 3000 people or we're driving to 100 people. That's such a tragedy. And what I try to tell people in its simplest form, is that I want the employees that go on this journey. I'm a father of a new college graduate and so she's got her first job. And if she comes back to me and says, "Hey, I got laid off, or I lost my job. But they handled it in this amazing, wonderful way. They really made me feel good." If we can do that, and if we can treat everybody the way I want my daughter treated if she gets laid off. That's I think a success and the way you do that is listening, and always being communicating.

             And so, you're to kind of take that to a slightly more concrete level. Are you a promoter of basically almost radical transparency. So when you're thinking about that communication to give that journey, you almost have to explain more than. So you mentioned, "Alright, we got to close our retail locations." That's communication, one communication to four days later. "And by the way, all those people at the retail locations, you're all laid off. Here's your termination documents, talk to the unemployment company. Here's how you file unemployment." Right? 

             Yep.

             You're recommending a step in between or more communication along the ways that provides a ramp to that. Is that kind of, am I hearing that right?

             Yeah. So I think that if we believe in this philosophy of always communicating, is that we have to take our team on a journey. And I would hope that this is native for a lot of companies. I know it's not. But this shouldn't be new, we should always be communicating, even in the best of times, to set the stage for our next initiative to reinforce mission and values. But for a lot of companies, that is not exactly how they do things. They do things in a little bit of a, you know, they're not exactly buttoned up.

             Right.

              So, Arnie Sorenson is the CEO of Marriott. On Thursday the 19th, he issued a video to his employees contextualizing this challenge for Marriott and talking about it is worse than 911 and the financial crisis combined. Then on Sunday, he announced the layoff of 3000. See the headquarters staff. And so I believe that yes, radical transparency he talked about. He talked about occupancy rates. He talked about financial impacts, both contextualize relative to 911 in the financial crisis, but also specifically. So yes, I believe in transparency, radical is a little bit jarring because if a CEO hasn't done this in 2018, and 2019, it could be a little jarring to the organization. So I think it's a long term conversation. But I'm more aligned in the radical transparency group of sharing what we can share so that people understand we're good people making rational decisions for a greater cause. And I want you to understand that my team…

             So yes, I want to subscribe to that. That's the key I think, you need to lay out enough information and perhaps even more, but enough information in a teacher like fashion. In a human manner that shows that would allow the employee to go, "I guess I would have had to make the same decision if I were in that CEO role." 

             Yeah.

              Something along those lines to allow that empathy level. 

             So wait, can we do that with information?

             Right, right. 

             Share it.

             Yeah. So like, we're a law firm. We have 200 employees here. We're gonna have to cut staff by 40%. Right. I mean, again, maybe a law firm, not the perfect example. But let's say that's where they're at, because they're a law firm that's primarily interacting with the public. A personal injury attorney or something like that. And along the way they say, "Okay." The way to do this would be reassurance in the beginning. We're on top, we're looking at this, we're making plans. Step 2, informational, here's the context of the situation. Step 3, here's our decision, and why we had to make it. And then the individual communications to the employees, laying them off something along those lines. 

             Absolutely. 

             A basic framework to handle that. 

             And just two tips for people that are in this phase that might not be, you know, if you're retail, you've made dinner or restaurants, you've made a lot of these moves already. Middle, we're going to talk about coming back, but using words like for the foreseeable future, and then do exactly what you just said, sort of explaining the rationale is very valuable. And our best view, that's another phrase that we've been using a lot is our best view and the foreseeable future. And so organizations are using that transparency to sort of, "I don't believe we can soften the blow of losing your job." 

             Yeah. 

             It's a fool's errand to say that we're softening the blow. But we're at least being honest with the process and not doing it in the dark of the night and sending you on a Friday afternoon with a hatchet. That is not a good practice. And I know you're like doing that stuff when guides suggest that.

             Absolutely. And of course, we always recommend just random HR 101 things. Friday afternoons, the worst time to fire somebody. 

             Amen. 

             It actually is just random side notes for us listeners, maybe haven't heard this before. They have nothing to do Saturday or Sunday. If you can terminate someone any other day of the week, preferably the earlier in the week better, they can get their unemployment filings, they can start looking for another job, they can make business contacts. This may not apply necessarily during the COVID crisis. But as a rule while you think Friday afternoon, get them out. You know they won't infect other employees if you need to ever do a one-off termination. Earlier in the week allows you to control the narrative a lot more the next day. Your employees are going to talk to one another, they're going to talk to you, you're going to be there in the office makes a much better sense Friday afternoon very, very rarely is the right choice for layoffs.

             And if you got the last point you just made, is what particularly relevant in a COVID scenario.

             Right.

             I'm going to be there. And if I have to do this as a leader, or you have to do it as a leader and or whatever, I want to be present. And be like, "Man, this sucks. I get it that this sucks. I'm sorry. But this is just where we are. I want to be the leader that's present. And I don't want you to do it for me."

             Right and have them hanging out, you know, calling each other or slacking on Saturday and Sunday to shape that narrative. Much better to be there available. Alright, so let's say it's two weeks from now, everyone who's done layoffs is who at least done their first round if needed. If they haven't made that decision yet. They're looking at it. They'll go, "Look, we got another 30 days of runway for cash reserve," something like that. What would be there? Let's say that they're just a good example of this, we have a couple of firms that are in the more consulting space, CPAs, corporate attorneys, those kinds of things. A payroll company is a great example too, it's like, we're not hit by the front. But if 30% of our clients are shutting down, now we're that second wave, right? So what would be your kind of recommendation for the holding pattern? We don't know what's going to happen. We got 30 more days here. Do we start communicating and saying, "Look, guys, if things don't turn around, we're going to have to make some hard choices." "Hey, we need to do salary reductions to give us a longer runway". Like, how often would you recommend communication, I mean, always, but do you have any for our businesses? 

             Yeah. I think every other day, I think this is such a fast moving dynamic. It's every other day and I have the concept of a broadcast every other day. By the way, another point we should have, I should have made it the topic that we're advising all of our clients on, is that when we think about communications, we have written and spoken, are the basic tools that we have. I believe that memos and emails written documents are great for information and facts. Pick up your paycheck here, wash your hands every day, we're not going to be opened on Thursday, the cafeteria is closed. 401k benefits that's really good for writing if you're trying to share sentiment and care and concern. That is best done on a video. That is best done in a town hall zoom meeting, something like that. No, we're not having any physical meetings right now, which is unfortunate, but so I think you need to really think about the message here that I'm trying to share. A fact, a next step, or am I trying to share sentiment or care or concern and so choose your medium, most appropriately.

             Really good point. We talked about that a lot in our People Processes broadly around communicating value, not just anything that is beyond pure, you know, sometimes you need a chart, I get it, you need a piece of paper or a digital version. But if you're trying to communicate value, so this would be explaining why your 401k is important, your benefits, why you made the decisions around them. How valuable they are, you will find that video as a communication medium is significantly more powerful than any pretty document and incomparable to a black and white memo.

             And then just let me just add, what we're doing for right now with clients is they're doing a video to their employees. They're explaining this journey. They did the initial announcement. They're in the mushy middle...]]>c951fc88-7c77-4572-bf67-ce5ff52adc25Fri, 27 Mar 2020 08:45:00 -050057:58falsefull3223223Rhamy AlejealCan an employee refuse to come to work because of fear of Coronavirus?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...]]>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 circumstances in which two or more employees act together to improve their employment terms and conditions, although it's been extended to include action, expressively undertaken on behalf of coworkers. So if you got a real loud employee who is agitating on behalf of the safety of the employees. If you want to put it very negatively, that's likely a protected act. 

             So keep in mind that you don't want to be in a position where you just want to not punish behavior that the NLRB might consider organizing activity, "talking with one or more employees about working conditions," "participating in a concerted refusal to work in unsafe conditions," "joining with co-workers to talk to media about problems in your workplace." Employees are generally protected against discipline or discharge for engaging in such activity. So that's a little different. But just keep that in mind as a side note, in general, though they can't refuse to work, that can be a disciplinary issue. 

             Now, can employers in the United States refuse an employee's request to wear a medical mask or respirator? 

             Yes, under most circumstances, I have a link on the website peopleprocesses.com where we go into the justification a bit more under the OSHA respiratory protection standard, which is a link on our site 29 C.F.R. 1910.134. It covers the use of most safety masks and the workplace, a respirator must be provided to employees only "when such equipment is necessary to protect the health of such employees." Likewise, OSHA rules provide guidance on when a respirator is not required: "an employer may provide respirators at the request of employees or permit employees to use their own respirators, if the employer determine that such respirator use will not in itself create a hazard" (29 C.F.R. 1910.134(c)(2)). In almost all work situations, however, there are no currently recognized health or safety standards – even when employees work near other people and thus no need for a mask or respirator. 

             WHO has stated that people only need to wear face masks if they are treating someone who is infected with COVID-19. WHO has also said that wearing masks may create a false sense of security among the general public. Doctors agree that the best defense against COVID-19 and influenza is simply washing your hands. Thus, the consensus is that there are more appropriate measures of defense than wearing a surgical mask or respirator. So you can refuse that request. 

             Now, can an employee refuse to work without a mask? So they say, "I want to wear a mask" and you're like, "No, that would be very strange. You can't wear a mask if you feel sick, don't come to work, but otherwise, you know, come to work." And then they say, "Alright, well, I'm not coming to work unless I can wear a mask." 

             Can an employee refuse to work without a mask? 

             OSHA has addressed this common question of whether employees can simply refuse to work in unsafe conditions. The safety agency file provided the following guidance, which wouldn't require the use of mask or respirator in most situations. An employee's right to refuse to do a task is protected if all of the following are met:

             1. Where possible, you've asked the employer to eliminate the danger and the employer failed to do so;

             2. You have refused to work in "good faith." That means you must genuinely believe that an imminent danger exists;

             3. A reasonable person would agree that there is real danger of death or serious injury; and

             4. There isn't enough time, due to the urgency of the hazard, to get it corrected through the regular enforcement channels, such as requesting an OSHA inspection. 

             Given the consensus that face masks are only necessary when treating someone who is infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus or influenza, masks are likely not necessary to protect the health of most employees. Therefore, most employers do not have to provide, or allow employees to wear, a surgical mask or respirator to protect against the spread of COVID-19 or the flu for that matter. The use of the word "may" in OSHA's respiratory protection standard makes it clear that when a respirator is not necessary to protect the health of employees, it's within the discretion of the employer to allow the employee to do it or not. Accordingly, you are well within those OSHA standards to say no, denying employees requests to wear a surgical mask in pretty much every situation. Again, now if you're a hospital, and you're treating COVID-19 patients, that's different, right. But in most cases throughout the United States, you don't have to allow it. 

             Absent a legally recognized disability, unique physical condition or an occupation where employees work directly with those impacted by conditions such as COVID-19, you're generally not required to allow them to wear masks at work. 

             Okay. All right. Now, I want to very briefly since we're talking about, let's say an employee comes, he says, "Hey, I want to wear a mask, or I'm wearing a mask now and you can't make me take it off." You've explained that, "Hey masks are not necessary in this job. They say it's not. There's no reason to suspect that this is it, you're in any danger being here more than you would being at Walmart right now shopping."

             Though you don't need a mask, you may want to be able to respond with Steps you can take now to minimize the risk of transmission.

             So now I'm going to talk about things you can actually do besides wearing a mask that would actually help. So repeatedly, aggressively encourage employees and others to take the same steps they should be taking to avoid the seasonal flu. For annual flu, SARS, avian flu, swine flu and now COVID-19. The best way to prevent infection is to avoid exposure. So the messages you should be given to employees are:

             • Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. If soap and water are not available, use alcohol-based hand sanitizer. 20 seconds feels like a long time. Come up with a song. Sing it while you're washing your hands. That's 20 seconds long.
             • Avoid touching your eyes, nose, mouth with unwashed hands. 
             • Avoid close contact with others, especially those who are sick. 
             • Refrain from shaking hands with others for the time being. 
             • Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue and then throw that tissue in the trash. 
             • Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces; and
             • Stay home when you are sick. Go away if you are sick. 
             
             

             Okay, as an employer, you should be doing the following:

             • Ensure that employees have ample facilities to wash their hands including water and soap, and that third-party cleaning/custodial schedules are accelerated. 
             • Evaluate your remote work capabilities and policies (see that earlier podcast episode where we talked about that). Teleconference or use other remote work tools in lieu of meeting in person if that's available. 
             • Consider staggering employee starting and departing times, along with lunch and break periods, to minimize overcrowding in common areas such as elevators, break rooms, those sorts of things. If you're in an environment that has it. 
             • Have a single point of contact for employees for all concerns that arise relating to health and safety, highly recommended you need a health and safety officer anyway. If you're, if you're a very small company, that's okay. Tell people, the person to contact should be probably the owner in that case: and
             • Follow updates from the CDC and World Health Organization regarding additional pre call precautions. 
             
             

             We have linked on our website, OSHA's Guidance on Preparing Workplaces for an Influenza Pandemic, which gives some additional kinds of steps you can take. More specific ones like engineering things around air conditioning, but also personal protective equipment. It just really goes in a lot more depth linked right on our website @peopleprocesses.com. 

             I hope this helped you answer the question of whether an employee can refuse to come to work because of their fear of Coronavirus and what you can do in response. Thank you for taking the time to listen. You can find us on Facebook LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and @peopleprocesses.com. On peopleprocess.com bottom right hand corner, there's a chat button, bright green. We're open regular business hours, but leave a message overnight. I'll reach back out to you. I'd love to hear from you. If you have any questions or need to go by or some help around this, we have staff standing by to help you. We're just doing that right now. There's no charge. You just have questions, ask, okay. Maybe the basis of a future podcast episode. I just reply to you via email. Whatever we need to do to help us is kind of our way of helping. If an employer is in a position where they're not sure what to do, and they need some advice. Just reach out. We'll help. Thank you for tuning in. Have a great day. Now go out there and get your work done.

             Reference links here:

             Yes, Guidance on Preparing Workplaces for an Influenza Pandemic 

             COVID-19 Q&A Part I & II links here:

             Part I - Should we send everyone to work from home with this Coronavirus?

             Part II - I think an employee may be sick… what do I do?

             ]]>b8c049e5-2740-4718-bc0c-6b95e55dcb79Tue, 24 Mar 2020 08:45:00 -050012:39falsefull2212212Rhamy AlejealCOVID 19 Q&A PT 2: I think an employee may be sick… what do I do?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 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 determine whether the pandemic rises to the level of a "direct threat." Direct threat, that's the key. The assessment by the CDC as the severity of the COVID-19 will provide the objective evidence needed for medical exams. If the COVID-19 coronavirus becomes widespread in the community, as determined by state and local health authorities, the employers may take the employee's temperature at work. But if you're in a place that hasn't had a case yet, maybe there's five cases in your state, none in your city, it's not a direct threat. You can send people home because you're scared or you feel like they're scaring other people, or hell, they may have it, but you don't want to do the actual temperature test.

             Having said all that, as a practical matter, people can be infected with COVID-19 without exhibiting recognized symptoms such as fever, so temperature checks may not be the most effective method for protecting your workforce anyway, long and short is going as far as to take their temperature is about big step, you need to have a very good reason. If you're in Washington State, Seattle, and you got hundreds of cases popping up around you make sense. But other than that, of course, you may be listening to this. So two, three weeks from now, who the hell knows where it's going to be at that point, but unless it's a direct threat, you don't want to do the temperature, you just want to decide where they're going to send them home, ask them to give a test.

             Speaking of testing, an employee has tested positive for COVID-19. What do we do? 

             You should send home all employees who work closely with that employee for a 14day period of time to ensure the infection does not spread. Before the employee departs, ask them to identify all individuals who worked in close proximity (that's three to six feet) with them in the previous 14 days to have a full list of those who should be sent home. When sending the employees home, do not identify by name the infected employee or you could risk a violation of confidentiality laws. You may also want to consider asking a cleaning company to undertake a deep clean of your affected workspace. If you work in a shared office building or area, you need to inform building management so they can take whatever precautions they deem necessary, long and short is from the point of interaction. You need a 14-day quarantine with anyone who worked in close proximity. You want to send them home. So this, we actually had a case client right now. It's medical so it's a little different, but they did rounds with someone who's suspected to have COVID-19 , it's Saturday. Now, they did that on Monday, I believe so it's been six days. They just found out today they're experiencing no signs or symptoms, but they need to quarantine for another week. They need 14 days as a rule of self quarantine from that interaction. 

             What if, though we don't have a positive test, we just have a suspected but uncommitted firm case, What do we do if one of our employees is suspected but unconfirmed?

             You just want to do the exact same thing as above, treat the situation as if the suspected case is a confirmed case for the purpose of sending home potentially infected employees. Communicate with your affected workforce to let them know that the employee has not tested positive for the virus, but has been exhibiting symptoms that lead you to believe a positive diagnosis as possible. Okay. Only the effective workers don't cause panic as a rule. But yeah, you just want to send them a call saying assume any symptomatic cases are a case.

             How do we distinguish between those suspected about unconfirmed cases of COVID-19 and just a typical illness that people get the flu?

             There's absolutely no good answer to this. There is no easy way for you to make this determination. But you just generally just kind of want to let logic guide your thinking. The kinds of indicators that will lead you to conclude an illness could be a suspected but unconfirmed case of COVID-19 include whether that employee traveled to a restricted area that is under a level 2, 3, 4 travel advisory warning, whether the employee was exposed to someone who traveled to one of those areas or similar facts, or if the prevalence of it in your area. Again, if there's no one in your city who has it, you can kind of know, and they're just in there, they got a call. It's like, don't think that's coronavirus, necessarily. I mean you can even be cautious without just overblowing this, okay? But if there's any reason to think about how there's a decent connection, then it's like, alright, that's probably that we should assume it's tough.

             If COVID-9 becomes severe, inquiries into an employee's symptoms, even if disability-related, are considered justifiable by the EEOC. So the general idea is that the more prevalent it is, the more okay it is for you as an employer to say, "Hey, bro, you got this thing. Help us figure this out." Basically, even if these inquiries would normally be protected, they're not. According to the EEOC, as a "reasonable belief based on objective evidence that the severe form of a pandemic influenza poses a direct threat." Again, that direct threat language, you gotta maintain all information about employees and illnesses by the way in a confidential medical record, in compliance with the ADA. So don't be just sticking that out and putting it in a company newsletter, "Hey, Jack's got COVID. Don't do that. No need to. 

             All right. What about not a suspected case with an employee but one of your employees self reported that they came in contact with someone who had a presumptive positive case of COVID 19. What do we do?

             Same thing as above, treat the situation as if the suspected cases would confirm the case for purposes of sending home potentially infected employees. Communicate with your affected workers to let them know the employees asymptomatic for the virus. But you were acting out of an abundance of caution. Great, great language to use.

             One of one of our employees has been exposed to the virus but only found out after they had interacted with clients or customers, What do we do? 

             Again, send them home for 14 days. Check out the coworkers list, do the same 14-day self quarantine treating the situation as if the exposed employee has a confirmed case of COVID-19 and you're sending home the potentially infected employees you came in contact with. As for the third parties, you need to communicate with customers and vendors that came into close contact with the employee to let them know about the potential of a suspected case. It's not going to be fun, but you need to drop an email, give a call and say, "If you may have come into contact with an employee of ours who has a suspected case of this on this date," something like that. "We are acting out of an abundance of caution; they have no symptoms. But there's a suspected case here or there that has symptoms and is in quarantine." It's like okay, so give him a heads up. 

             All right. Last thing we got, which is a terrifying question, is if we learn or suspect that one of our employees has COVID-19, Do we have a responsibility to report this information to the CDC and have the check on this one? 

             The answer is no. There's no obligation to report a suspected or confirmed case of COVID-19 to the CDC. The healthcare provider that receives the confirmation of a positive test is a mandatory reporter. And they will handle that responsibility. Okay, so it's on the doctor. It's kind of important you've not. I haven't found a case where this is violating HIPAA or any of that kind of stuff. But it seems to me that if they know they have a case that a doctor knows and the doctor is the one who by law has to tell the CDC so they already know no action for you to take. 

             I hope that was helpful for you. Just giving you a brief guide of what you need to do if you have an employee or suspected employee who may be sick with this virus. We're going to go on to Part III next.

             I hope this was helpful to you. Reach out to us on social media LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram @PeopleProcesses and Rhammy Alejeal. I would love to have your questions and if we can provide any help, we're here to do so. Okay, if you need go-bys, if you need a sample document, if you're just going, "Hey, I don't even know where to start with us." Reach out at peopleprocesses.com, there's a chat button in the bottom right hand corner. There are downloadable materials for subscribers. We want to help in any way we can. Best of luck. Now it's time for you to go out there and have a great day and get your work done. I'll see you in Part III.

             ]]>40782a6a-b9f7-463b-a7a4-0a8111a6ef86Fri, 20 Mar 2020 08:45:00 -050012:38falsefull3203203Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen. This is Rhamy Alejeal, CEO of People Processes and I want to welcome you to the People Processes podcast. Here 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 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...Rhamy AlejealCOVID 19 Q&A PT 1: Should we send everyone to work from home with this Coronavirus?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?

             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, and you want to send them home to do it, like obviously, you can't do retail, but even light manufacturing, quality assurance testing, lots of different things call centers could be distributed rapidly. That's much more questionable because you have to think about how you are going to provision them. And more importantly, can it cause more problems than it solves? 

             What infrastructure should we have in place for a remote work plan?

             You're going to want to identify the roles that are critical to your business operations and determine whether those individuals specifically can carry out their jobs while working remotely. So start with that. A lot of times maybe in your organization, not everyone can work over work remotely. But if you start with your most critical people, you can then figure out if they can work remotely. Then the next step is to assess your technological capabilities. Do you have the support in place to assist with the inevitable questions and IT problems that will arise? Because there's going to be a ton of them. Do you have sufficient security and privacy protocols in place? Considering these questions are going to help you determine whether you can move towards a remote workplace. I want to stress that security and privacy protocols. When you start working from home on people's laptops or their personal computers, you're exposing data, the liability associated with doing this in an ill prepared way could lead to well, much bigger problems for your organization than even a month long, late, sabbatical for everybody. 

             So you just want to think about, what is the risk you're exposing yourself by implementing this? So let's say you decide to do it.

             How are we going to prepare for that remote work scenario?

             First, take an inventory of the types of equipment your workers need to get the job done and ensure they have access to them. This could include laptops, desktop computers, monitors, phones, printers, chargers, office supplies, similar materials. Then you need to encourage your employees to prepare for the possibility of an immediate introduction to work from home. Ask them to develop a “ready bag” that they can take home with them at the end of each day that would allow them to begin working remotely the next day. This would obviously include their laptops, smartphones, other related technology, but could also include physical items (such as binders, documents, folders, materials) calendars, those sorts of things. And those will be the things that you'll forget. Everyone's going to remember their laptop but the number of unique case files that you left at work. Those sorts of things are often forgotten. 

             Make sure you consider and clearly communicate with your workers about which physical items are acceptable to be taken from the workplace and which need to stay in your location at all times. If you have certain things that cannot leave the office, you need to tell them that otherwise you'll come in and everything else should be gone. Desks and chairs included. So you want to take a minute and just kind of lay out , "Hey, here are the things to take home. Don't take this." I know it sounds silly. Think of it as a moment of levity. You may want to take the time now to digitize any relevant physical materials to make remote working easier. This is a quick prep that could be done over the weekend, with some overtime, any current files that are still paper based, now's the time to get rid of them. You may want to communicate with your workers about whether they can and should take digital photos of physical calendars, whiteboards, Kanban boards with sticky notes, or whether they're prohibited from doing so. This is an important item if you brainstorm or keep important metrics, not in a digital dashboard, but in a physical place. You may just want to give a heads up if you're concerned again. The likelihood is if you tell people they're going to work from home and you need to prepare for it and you give them a list of stuff. If there's anything you don't want them to take or take a digital copy of, that's the thing you need to stress. 

             Alright. The most important part though, is you need a remote work policy if you do not already have one in place. And review and update your existing policy as it relates to this specific situation.

             What should be included in a remote work policy?

             And what should be included in it? Your policy for remote work lays out the expectations you have for your workers as they embark on their temporary remote work routines. The number one item you should convey to them is that you expect them to help your organization maintain normal business operations during this period of time to whatever extent possible. Consider all aspects of their work, make sure they understand what is expected of them.

             • How strict is your policy going to be? Are you going to have your workers?
             • Are you simply going to encourage them to work at home or are you going to absolutely bar them from coming to the office?
             • Will there be exemptions for “essential” personnel that need to be at certain physical locations?
             • Will they need to be available at all times during work time hours, or will remote meetings and appointments be scheduled ahead of time? (Take into account that your workers’ lives may be highly disrupted in other ways because of the coronavirus, and therefore they may not be able to maintain normal working hours during this time or maybe somewhat distracted by family or medical obligations during certain times of the day.)
             • Since, as we know, most schools are closing, there's all sorts of knock on effects of this. Will remote meetings take place online, over the phone? Do they need a webcam?
             • Will you prohibit employees from meeting together in person during this period?
             • Will you only restrict in-person meetings of a certain size (no more than three to five workers)? A lot of times when you go remote work, people will then meet up at a coffee shop, which may not be the best thing right now.
             • Will you prohibit employees from meeting with third parties while doing company business during this time? If you're saying don't come to the office, you may also want to say also don't meet with that vendor for that steak lunch or meet with potential clients. We're going to suspend in person meetings with clients, is that something you want to do? You want to think about that. 
             • Will you prevent workers from performing work outside of their homes (coffee shops, libraries) because of security concerns? I recommend you consider this heavily depending on your industry. If this kind of work is permitted, do you have sufficient security infrastructure in place (encryption, password protection, log out lock requirements, third, party two factor authentication, biometric security), and are your workers aware of your requirements to prevent data breaches and other losses? So I just want to stress that you want to put limitations on this, depending on your work, but in ours, especially when we consider our telecommuting over the last few years. Data Security is paramount and it's one of the top fears what we did have in allowing this. We invested many thousands of dollars per employee just in security on the devices themselves. And on top of that, training and remote access policies and ways of keeping all of our data safe. So you just want to think about this.
             • Finally, can the workers perform the work on their own devices? And if so, do you have a comprehensive BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy in place? That's a separate policy and it talks about what they can do on their devices for years. If this is an emergency and you are sending everyone home for the first time, with little preparation, you may not have laptops, desktops, or laptops, the associated accessories to go along with it for everyone. So if they're going to use their own devices, you need to talk about what that's going to be. You need to include an anticipated date in your work remote worker announcement if this is temporary and inform your employees that you will provide weekly updates regarding the status of the remote work period. If you, I highly recommend this and you may also want to just just whack on there you're at will reminder. But the key that I would just say is, "put an end date", say we're going to go remote work, we're going to close down the office, we're not allowing client meetings, no more than three people meeting at a time, blah, blah, blah. But we expect this policy to end in 30 days, something like that. We'll provide you updates. It's always good to put an end date on it. Makes people feel a lot better. And it keeps this from being a permanent policy that you have to restate. 
             
             

             Now let's talk about the requirements. Let's talk about a couple of best practices for how we can ensure our remote work time is productive and successful.

             There are a number of steps you can take to ensure that the temporary remote work time goes well for your workers and for your organization.

             • From a functionality standpoint, you may want to agree on a single communications platform that all workers will be required to participate in. I highly recommend this. It could be email but I recommend instant messaging of some kind, Slack, Zoom, Skype. I love Google Hangouts personally, that's what our company runs on. Microsoft Teams is great, but you need a live immediate chat, you need to talk about responsibility. During this time, it's very important to communicate with your employees that, “Hey, if you're on the clock, and it is work time, I expect you to go on that hangouts app or update your calendar when you're available or not. However, you're gonna do it so that when people message you, it's just like walking in the room. If you're not there, they're gonna wonder where you are." That kind of thing.
             • You need to take an honest approach internally with yourself about whether any concerns you have regarding reduced productivity among your workers while they're working at home, are realistic or overblown. Recognize that you aren't babysitting your employees while they're performing work at the office, so you shouldn't begin to micromanage them when they're at home. Right? If they work hard at the office, they're probably going to work hard at home. Keep an eye on the bigger picture and track overall productivity, but not moment by moment activities. They have the flexibility by doing this.
             • In fact, experts say that overwork is more likely for remote workers than lack of productivity, especially in the first week of a remote worker assignment. So keep an eye out for employee burnout, overstressed workers and address your concerns as appropriate. It will shock you, then you may have trouble returning to the office. Telework has been outstandingly good for our company in many, many of our clients if you go into it, with eyes wide open and the processes in place to track it.
             • Another concern for workers not used to working remotely is that they may feel untethered or disconnected from the organization during the time period. Some tactics to prevent and overcome this problem include:
             • Developing distributing an agenda for all team get togethers and meetings, as well as meeting minutes and task lists after they're completed so that those unable to attend can feel part of the action.
             • You want to schedule virtual team lunches or social time where workers can interact on a social level. Our offices open 30 minutes after the phones close and sometimes like on that one that's crazy day. But we normally end or begin our day with just a kind of a breakout team size five to seven people per video call sometimes more, sometimes 1020. But normally smaller teams and just catch up on everybody. You would do it in the office. And if you do it, if you make it intentional, it really does make a huge difference in the cohesiveness of the team.
             • Connect workers new to remote work with your...]]>3647f730-a049-49af-a91c-9a0fe00f273aWed, 18 Mar 2020 08:45:00 -050017:07falsefull3193193Good 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. I'm going to cut the intro short and introduce myself briefly. My name is Rhamy Alejeal. I'm the CEO of people processes. And this is going to be part one of six of our COVID-19 QA. 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,...Rhamy AlejealNew Overtime Guidance explains Lump Sum Bonuses!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...]]>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 using this Method, Method #2 would allocate the bonus on an hourly basis. And that would mean that they're actually paid more. I'm not going to go through the math, but because podcasts are great for math, as I've learned, the long and short is when you have a bonus. It's normally right. Well, it's totally fine normally to allocate it evenly over the weeks in which the bonus was earned. As long as the earnings were similar each week. It's not about the hours worked. If, for example, any given week, they could have lost the bonus because of their action, then it's probably safe to assume that you could have just distributed equally. If however, the hours themselves are the thing that generate the bonus then you need to distribute using Method #2, dividing out by the number of hours worked each week makes a big difference. If you don't know what the heck I'm talking about, by the way, what do you mean when I give a bonus I have to go back through and up my overtime. You're missing something, check out our academy, academy.peopleprocesses.com or reach out to us on social media. There are some past episodes where we've gone into depth on this. 

               Just a quick reminder, bonuses come over a pay period, when did they earn the bonus. And if they earned overtime during that period, by giving them a bonus, you are adjusting their regular rate of pay, which means they do additional overtime. There are quick and easy ways around this, primarily, around bonusing a percentage of pay rather than a flat amount. If you're going to do a flat amount, you have to keep in mind that the period in which they earn the bonus, you have to go back and recalculate overtime. Hope that's helpful. You need help, contact us social media, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, love to hear from you. Again, my name is Rhamy Alejeal. I appreciate you tuning in today. It's time for you to go out there, get your work done and have a great day.

               ]]>fb0413e6-6518-4407-a01b-1bbd28a5e79fFri, 13 Mar 2020 08:45:00 -050008:15falsefull3183183Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. And welcome to the People Processes podcast. My name is Rhamy Alejeal and I'll be your host today. I'm the CEO of People Processes. And on this podcast, we dive deep into the tools, loans and yes, processes that you need to know in order to scale and grow your organization. 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 talking about a new guidance that came from the about 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...Rhamy AlejealSECURE Act changes a LOT about 401k plans!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...]]>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.

               Okay. There's also a little bit of a change with “safe harbor 401(k) plans” that include automatic enrollment in order to meet nondiscrimination requirements. These plans, safe harbor plans, must provide for automatic enrollment at a default percentage of compensation that increases each year (e.g., 3% for first year at least to 6% in the fourth year). A plan can provide for higher default rates. However, under prior law, the default rate could not exceed 10% for any year. The new law increases the default percentage cap to 15% for any year after the first year of automatic enrollment. So that's basically not the first year, but if you want to continue to step up people's investment by 1% a year, unless they opt out, you can now go up to 15%.

               All right. Last big change. Retirement plan, distributions and loans. Distributions from quality qualified retirement plans, 401(k) are generally included in income for the year of the distribution before the plan participant has reached 59 and a half is generally subject to a 10% penalty tax. 

               There are a number of exemptions to the 10% penalty though, but there's a new one created by the SECURE Act for distributions made on account of birth or adoption of child. Effective for distributions after 2019, the penalty tax does not apply to a distribution made during the one-year period beginning on the date that the participant's child is born or that the legal adoption of an adoptee is finalized and shall put it either adoption date of birth date. You got one year around there. 

               Provided certain requirements or met, loans from qualified retirement plan are not treated as taxable distributions from the plan and are not subject to the 10% tax penalty. Assuming again that if you turn it into a distribution, the SECURE Act cracks down on arrangements that allow employees to access plan loans using credit cards or similar mechanisms. Effective for loans made after just December 20, 2019, plan loans distributed through credit cards or similar arrangements will not meet the requirements for plan loan treatment and will be treated as taxable distributions. It's not a common thing, but a lot of weird companies were kind of doing some stuff like being able to access your 401(k) balance through a credit card and it matches up to a loan. They basically disallowed those. If you do it, it's just a distribution now.

               Okay. All right. That's the key stuff. A general rule, taxable retirement plan distributions are subject to income tax withholding, right? We talked about that and that extra 10%. However, in most cases, plan participants can elect not to have withholding applied. Tell them that this role participants must be provided with a notice of the right to elect no withholding. Under prior law, the penalty for failure to provide that required notice was $10 bucks for each failure, up to a maximum of $5,000 effective for notices after December 31, 2019, the penalties increased for $100 for each failure up to a maximum of $50,000 for the calendar year. So that's the one other kind of little compliancy change. Make sure that they're getting their notice of the right to elect no withholding if they are doing a distribution.

               Not most people don't do distributions of course, unless they're leaving your employment. Anyway, let's recap real fast. The retirement plan changed the part-time participation rules to add long-term part-timers. It gave credit for automatic enrollment and for safe harbor plans. You can now by default, when you do a safe harbor plan with automatic enrollment, you actually increase by 1% per year automatically and you can now go up to 15% instead of 10, and they added a qualified distribution. You can take money out of your retirement plan without paying income tax, but you don't pay the extra 10% penalty in the year that you have a child or adopt one. Finally, there's a bunch of penalty increases, especially around not providing that notice of no withholding.

               I hope that was helpful for you. Again, my name is Rhamy Alejeal. People Processes work on things like this all the time. We work on the systems and operations around keeping, attracting training, finding the best people in your industry, and I hope this sort of information is helpful to you. If it is, drop me a line, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, we are available on all of them. Instagram, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to ask questions there. In the meantime, my name is Rhamy Alejeal and I appreciate you tuning in. Time for you to go out there, get your work done, and have a great day.

               Reference links here: 

               I.R.C. §§401(k)(2)(D), I.R.C. §45T, I.R.C. §45E(b)(1), I.R.C. §401(k)(13)(C), I.R.C. §72, I.R.C. §72(p)(2)(D), I.R.C. §6652(h) 

               ]]>33b82f92-a9c5-42a1-861f-d285b03d7326Tue, 10 Mar 2020 08:45:00 -050008:47falsefull3173173Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to the People Processes podcast. I'm your host, Rhamy Alejeal, CEO of People Processes, and here 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 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 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 threeRhamy AlejealMarch 8 (Spring Forward) CAN totally screw up your pay!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...]]>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.

               ]]>898d8e66-4f0b-46a2-8d97-98b12d12ead8Fri, 06 Mar 2020 08:30:00 -050003:40falsefull3163163Rhamy Alejeal2020 is weird, you may way overpay your employees!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...]]>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 health coverage, retirement plan contributions, and flexible spending accounts. If you pay as usual—and deduct as usual—for that 27th paycheck, you would be over withholding for the year for things like major medical. If you prorate annual compensation over 27 paychecks, you're going to need to recalculate the per paycheck benefit deductions as well. 

               This gets way complicated guys. That's why we strongly recommend for those of you on a biweekly payroll that you withhold 24 times a year, you always block that third payroll in a month. That's how we do it. But there are many other people who don't. That's totally fine, but you've got to think about this stuff. You won't get in trouble for paying too much. You will get in trouble. Real trouble for over withholding funds to pay for health insurance your employees don't have. So you got to focus on this.

               By the way, this is also a problem for weekly payrolls. It's similar anyway. It shows up more frequently every five or six years—and 2020 is one of those years. For 2020, employees who pay weekly on Wednesdays or Thursdays are going to have 53 weekly paydays instead of the normal 52. For Friday payrolls, there will be 53 paydays next year, 2021. A 53rd weekly paycheck raises the same issues to the 27th paycheck for biweekly payrolls. But that extra paycheck is not as likely to catch the employers off guard since it's not as uncommon. Still, weekly payroll is most typical in industries with hourly workers. So also if they're hourly, no stress, but by weekly is the most common pay frequency for private employers, especially in industry with salaried employees. 

               So that's the one we focused on here today. Your biweeklies, it's a similar math though. You've got to think about the fact that if you do have people salaried paid weekly, you're going to have some rough calculations you gotta figure out. You gotta decide whether you're gonna prorate all year. You gotta decide whether you're going to just pay extra and he got to look at your deductions. Again, weekly can be solved the same way. Block the fifth payroll of each month so that all of your deductions, there's only 48 deductions a year versus 52, gives you a much more even set up for payroll deductions each month.

               Contact us if you have any more questions. We'd love to help you explore how to better structure your payroll deductions to make this less of an issue. Then you don't have to worry about your earnings. Okay, Ladies and Gentlemen, that is it for today. Just a quick deep dive into this weird calendar year, once a decade kind of occurrence. If you pay on Fridays, next year is your problem. Think about it before that, if you pay any other day of the week, Wednesday, Thursday, you're going to wind up owing the money. You're going to wind up with an extra payroll this year, biweekly or weekly. Thank you so much for tuning in. My name is Rhamy Alejeal, I'm the CEO of People Processes, and I appreciate your time now check us out at peopleprocesses.com. Go out there, get your work done and have a great day.

               ]]>a01801cf-0be8-42da-9a0a-41908e9c9e44Tue, 03 Mar 2020 08:45:00 -050006:59falsefull3153153Good 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...Rhamy AlejealUnderstanding Mileage Reimbursement in 2020Good 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...]]>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 a fixed and variable rate (FAVR). This is a favour allowance. This includes a cents-per-mile rate to cover the variable costs (such as gasoline) and a flat amount to cover fixed operating expenses (such as depreciation and insurance). The amount of a FAVR allowance must be based on data that is reasonable in approximating the actual expenses for the purposes of computing the allowance under our fabric plan. The standard automobile cost may not exceed $50,400 for automobiles (including trucks and vans) for 2020, so if you go that route, you probably need a little bit of help figuring that stuff out a little more in depth than what we want to cover in this podcast.

               There's another thing to think about. In 2020 the standard mileage rate for medical and moving expenses is 17 cents per mile, which is down 3 cents from 2019. So when you were reimbursing employees for moving expenses, you probably used 20 cents. Now it's down to 17 the standard mileage rate for trips connected with charitable activities is set by statute and remains at 14 cents per mile for 2020. So if you're reimbursing employees for traveling to a charitable event, it's 14 cents, same as last year. 

               Another reminder, the TCGA changed that too. Under the prior law, taxpayers could deduct moving expenses of a job-related move. In addition, an employer's reimbursements or payments for job-related moves were tax-free to the employee and deductible by the employer. The Tax Cut and Jobs Act suspends deductions and income exclusions for moving expenses for tax years 2018 through 2025. The only exception is members of the armed forces. So you, instead, deductions or reimbursements for mileage in connection with such moves, you would use that standard mileage rate that we were talking about that 17 cents and it would be employer paid. If you don't do it, the employee can't write it off. 

               There's a new IRS Revenue Procedure on this. It's linked on our website for a complete discussion of the new guidance. It's “IRS Updates Rules of the Road for Standard Mileage Rates Reimbursements.” Payroll Manager's Letter came out December 21st of 2019. This is a lot of information. If you do mileage reimbursements, let's recap. It's gone down by a half a cent. If you move, it's gone down by 3 cents. And if you don't do either, unlike last year, well, unlike prior years, your employees are no longer able to claim those as deductions. So if you don't reimburse it, they're just out of luck.

               Ladies and Gentlemen, that's it for today. Just a quick compliance update. Hope you learned something. Hope you had a good time. Reach out to us on our social media, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, wherever you want to find us. Ask us questions. We'd love to help. Thank you for tuning in. Again, my name is Rhamy Alejeal, and I appreciate you coming out. Time for you to go out there, have a great day, and get your work done.

               Reference links here: I.R.C. §67, I.R.C. §170(i)

               ]]>e9248e82-3e0e-499f-8bd9-1225fd55f1fbFri, 14 Feb 2020 08:45:00 -050006:44falsefull3143143Rhamy AlejealThe Battle Update: What is going on with the ACA?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...]]>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 ACAis severable from the mandate, and some is not. But this is no small thing for unelected life-tenured judges to declare duly enacted legislation passed by the elected representatives of American people unconstitutional. The rule of law demands a careful, precise explanation of whether the provisions of the ACA are affected by the unconstitutionality of the individual mandate as it exists today.” Moreover, finally, the district court is determined whether the final decision should apply across the board nationwide or only to the 18 Republican Line states that actually started the lawsuits. So as we go to press right now as we write about this, a group of 21 Democratic Led States and the U S House of Representatives have petitioned the Supreme Court for an expedited review of the Fifth Circuit decision citing the paralyzing uncertainty that now hangs over the ACA.

               The links to those, that's the U S House of Representatives versus the State of Texas, et al. There's a couple of different lawsuits going on around that. Basically, the only courts that have ruled, have ruled that the individual mandate is gone and that's good. It's not part of the taxing power. If the individual mandate is gone, one court ruled that the whole law has to go. There Superior court said, "We don't know that that's the case. Please explain why." And that's where we're at now. It's going to go back down to that district court and they're going to have to give a good explanation why. Then the Appeals Court will decide whether that's correct and at any point along the way the Supreme Court could reach down and pull it up as they've been petitioned by the House of Representatives to do. That's your update on the ACA.

               Can you take away file your 1095s? You've got to do it this year. You're still under the mandate. We don't know, maybe mid year this will all get figured out and there won't be the ACA anymore, in which case, those of you who are offering major medical just to comply with the law won't have to anymore. But for those of you who are in that position, don't stop right now. File your 1095s for 2019 because if the case goes the other way, penalties are outrageously huge. So keep your insurance, make sure you're complying with the law, pay your people to file their returns. And we'll see how this plays out over 2020. Thank you so much for listening. Again, my name is Rhamy Alejeal and I just love having you guys tune in. Reach out to us on social media, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. We're always there at People Processes. I'd love to hear from you. You can also reach me on LinkedIn at Rhamy Alejeal. Thank you for listening. It's time for you to go out there, have a great day, and get your work done.

               Reference Links : 132 S. Ct. 2566 (2012) , I.R.C. §5000(c)

               ]]>f073b3ed-a269-4fe2-a723-a247312c4a59Tue, 11 Feb 2020 08:45:00 -050006:32falsefull3133133Good 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...Rhamy AlejealPeople Process Interviews: Jacqueline Throop RobinsonGood 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]]>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 a remote person?

               Well, no, I travel.

               Now that you're here, kind of you're at maybe not the top of your game yet, but a really high point. And a lot of our listeners, especially those younger HR people out there who are trying to grow a career, they're looking at you and going, "Man, I wanna I want to do that. That sounds outstanding." But rather than focus on how cool things are now, I think they can learn the most from hearing about our hardest times. So I really want you to tell us a story to take us back to in the journey of your entrepreneurial career. You run your own company or being an HR person in a larger organization, what do you think your hardest point was, your biggest failure? What did you learn from it?

               Two things come to mind actually. One when I was a corporate employee and one as an entrepreneur. It's quite interesting that both of those sort of emerged simultaneously when you asked that question. I think, probably speaking of the corporate career might be most relevant when you're thinking of younger listeners, people who are starting their careers. I rose very quickly through the corporation in which I'd been hired in my early twenties mid twenties and I had many, many ideas of what I wanted to do. I had a lot of aspirations and I loved my team. I really was sort of a natural born leader with people who reported to me and we were just kicking it like we were having this amazing time and getting a ton of support until we didn't. And it was really quite stunning for all of us. It was just like, we're hitting all our targets, we're making all these changes. It's just like an amazing time. And the support just seemed to all of a sudden go away. And I had to really sit back and look at that and think what has happened?

               Our feedback was amazing. And you know what? It took me a minute to think about what really happened there. And when I had the insight, it hit me like really like a ton of bricks. That was that we were so focused on what we were all about. That we were not paying attention to our environment, to peer groups, to people in other departments. And really probably does a little bit too arrogant and just not nurturing the relationships needed across the organization to really sustain our success. And it was a hard road back up. I mean we did it, we did it! But I'll tell you, it's so easy to become very focused on what you want, what your team's doing, even what your clients want, which sounds so great. But if you're not paying attention to your entire landscape, you can set yourself up. Your success can actually hurt you if you aren't nurturing those broad relationships and networks.

               Okay. Well I think that's an interesting idea. Now, I think a cynical listener would say, "So what you're saying is we need to play politics too while we're doing an amazing job?" Is that part of it or is it that you also need to just have a broader focus or how would you respond to something?

               That's a really good question because I actually don't mean politics at all, but, I can completely see that question. And sometimes I think also, I guess it depends on what we mean by playing politics. But I think what I was really talking about and the lesson we really learned is how to be inclusive. How to bring people along on our journey, how to stay open to others' ideas and other ways of doing things. How to see, how we can connect and collaborate with others instead of sort of staying in our silo and just being very focused on our own internal needs. I think it's very easy to slip into that, especially when you're passionate. I think in some ways it's the downside of passion. You have to actually make sure that others are with you on the journey in an authentic way, but that they understand what you're up to and they want to support you and you want to look for ways of supporting them. So that was really more what I was talking about.

               Yes. And whether you're talking about inside an organization, a larger organization with multiple silos and departments that you need to reach out to and make sure you're all in line or even from an entrepreneurial perspective. I see this a lot in clients sometimes. There's a focus thing, a passion thing as you mentioned for entrepreneurs where you're building your company and it's like, do your thing. We talk about shiny object syndrome moving from thing, whatever attracts you that day and how it can totally destroy your business. But there's a flip side to that. Some of the greatest growth connections opportunities I've ever gotten have been because our business was working hard on it's thing. And at the same time, we managed to help out a client or even a person who was not a good client or not a client at all with something outside of our mission. And it was like, "You know what? We have a little extra time. Let's help them do this thing." And those have turned into amazing long-term relationships and opportunities. So keeping an eye out for that, just outside your direct focus. Ability to help others really can pay off. And I think that applies whether you're internal or external.

               I think what you're saying is 100% true. And it's actually why I have clients around the world in so many interesting ways. You can help people and it doesn't have to be like the new shiny object. It can be, of course you can let that really distract you. But I think there are often very many simple opportunities to really support someone else's aspirations. And in that gift, the reciprocity that comes from that, it's not your reason for doing it, but I think it's just amazing how that kind of support you give others comes back. And I think more than what you give really, I have found, that has always been true. And just trying to be a good advisor to clients, small clients, big clients, challenging clients, easy clients, you know, it's interesting. It's one of the principles in which we operate. Like how can we always support and help the people we touch? Right? And sometimes that's a vendor, sometimes it's a client. I have an interesting situation right now where one of my clients through the HR procurement process has three competitors working together. And it's been fascinating to go into that process and to just ensure we all keep an openness and an inclusivity has been a challenge sometimes. But it has really ended up creating a situation where it's the best thing for the client and we are expanding our own horizons as a result. So, yeah.

               Because you see, I have a client, it's a weird situation actually. But my little sister is a marketing person. She's 24, I think. I hope I got that right. She is now a marketing client administrator services rep. She's the account manager. That's the words for a SEO company in town. The company that she's working for. And so they've given them a budget and six months or three months or something and like, "Hey, go forth." But they're trying. They're trialing like four other companies at the same time. It's a big client and they're like, "We're going to hire for marketing companies, give them each a budget and you'll just go run wild and we'll pick the one we like the most." That's a rough situation because it's just like HR marketing is one of those it kind of needs to have a throughput, right? It needs to be coordinated and you can't just go out at it alone and we were talking about that. Some of the weirdest stuff is that, If she's finding a ton of value in working with her competitors. It's like this is really interesting stuff. You get to see a lot more than you normally do.

               It's really interesting from a point of view of finding out what your unique offering is for that particular client cause it actually might be that the best solution for that client is all four companies stay involved as collaborators but bring different unique strengths to the table and that takes quite

               Spoken like a true HR person right there. We can all be friends. I agree.

               You know, what's so interesting like this competitive mindset is really challenging both internally and externally. And yet we all have it because most of us were nurtured in that kind of an environment. And to really do your best work. And I guess, because I'm all about passion, right? And I find that people end up taking on work that is not meaningful to them. And so they never can get to that point of passion. Right? But if you really find your sweet spot and really do the work that's most meaningful to you. Your level of fulfillment will be exponential. Sometimes it means saying no to work maybe that you've always done or saying no to a part of a contract that is really lucrative. So that can be challenging in another way. Right?

               Well, and on that, I mean, I believe the number is something like 60%. 60% of the workforce is completely unengaged. Right? They aren't much less passionate. They're barely alive when they're at their desk. Why do you think that is? And is there something that we could do about it from your world? What do you think it is that we can really move the needle on that with?

               Well, that number is a little bit leading. It is one source of information on engagement, which kind of puts engagement into an all or nothing bucket. But what we have is a much more nuanced model. Where we have eight different states of engagement that we've been able to identify. But to your point, however, if we look at some of the states that are a little bit more challenging like where meeting's not very high and there's not a high sense of progress. You get a solid 25% of people within organizations that are really struggling. No.

               Not really sound more right because those headliners, those like 60%. And you look in your organization. We both run companies, but we work inside other people's organizations and numbers high. But still 25%, one in four are just not really going anywhere or not really feeling like they're doing much. That sounds very...

               Yeah. And it varies a little bit like when we find it in Singapore. It's a solid 25, sometimes in North America, but again, North America is huge depending on what part of North America, it can be a little lower. But yeah, I think 25 is sort of a reliable number. And the other piece that's really interesting when you look at our research, which we've been doing for like 20 years, so this is really robust research. There's a state of engagement that we actually call neutral, where people are negative, but they're not bringing positive energy into the organization either. And that's somewhere around 35%. So those numbers often get brought together to give you like the big number. But actually neutral's not bad.

               The headlines, as you say, make it all sounds so grim, but what it is a real opportunity to take people who are looking for something a little more, looking for a little more challenge, looking for a little more meaning, and looking to feel like they're making a difference in what they do. And you can pretty easily, if you have the right strategies, move those people into a more positive state of engagement and people want to be engaged. You know, if they're not, it's simply because they don't know how to be. They haven't figured that out. And sometimes managers in the organizations don't know how to help. So there's a lot of hope. We've worked with organizations who started off at that solid 25 with 30% in neutral or more like half the organization. And we've gotten them to the point where it flipped so that they were down to like 5% of truly disengaged with about 15 to 20% in neutral and everyone else in these positive states that we call energized, engaged, passionate. So there's a lot you can do and that's been the part that's been so fantastic about the research that we've done, is that it comes down to a pretty simple formula and I think that's the beauty of it.

               Yeah. Well, let's say, I mean, I know this is obviously a large body of work. But, for our listeners, what can you give us? Maybe that's the formula or the shortcut that, I mean, I know there's no one sentence. Well, if you just put smiley faces on everyone's desk, they'll feel great. But what would you say is maybe a nugget of wisdom that you'd be willing to share with us. That maybe are smaller businesses out there could go and implement quickly on their own or our larger businesses that could get their brain turning around an idea or a concept?

               Well, the key thing to remember is to get to the point of passion at work, you need two things. You need to see your work as highly meaningful and you have to have a sense of high progress that you're getting somewhere against those things that are meaningful to you. So the formula is, “meaning” times “progress” and you need both. Meaning alone is not enough. You also need a sense of forward movement, impact, making a difference, however you define progress. So that is the lens in which everyone needs to think about their work right before we get into the...

               “Meaning”?

               Yeah.

               It's progress.

               255fc3e2-d685-4365-84a9-5916160f81efFri, 07 Feb 2020 08:45:00 -050050:27falsefull3123123Rhamy AlejealPeople Process Interviews: Sue SalveminiLadies 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...]]>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 position you were in, executives in larger companies and they're thinking about jumping ship. Right. I asked my interviewees to tell us about the worst experience they've had with entrepreneurship and tell us that story. Really take us there so that we can relive it with you. Then we can talk a little bit about some of the lessons.

               Well, it's a great question and wow, there's so many. I do have a motto, “you sort of fail forward to success and the sooner you stumble, the greater you'll be”. So I think every good entrepreneur I talked to is just like, “Oh, there was that one time I made a mistake.” You know, it's going to happen. So you just got to run close. The faster you run towards it happening, the faster you can say, okay, now that one's done. So it's funny, when you start your own business, there's obviously the passion and the fire in your belly and you have this vision and then there's the reality of the economics of it. And in some cases, for me this was going to be my income.

               I wasn't doing a bridge thing. It was it. So yeah, failure is not an option, which is actually a good motto because you don't then look for that safety net. However, in a different way you do find safety nets. And this contributes to my biggest challenge and failure. And I'll say failure lightly because it all contributes to where I am today.

               Of course, failures are only failures. Exactly right. But I haven't figured out a better way.

               I know. No, it's great. I love it. And it makes me think so, thanks to only one cup of coffee, but it's good. So what happens is naturally, I'm building the business and I'm to get clients and my natural work was in medical devices, sales and technology and startup. So I had a lot of contacts that knew me for that. Naturally people were reaching out to me to help them with different ideas and whatnot.

               So I took on some clients to do that, but that was not still truly following what I was desiring, which was building a very strong coaching and leadership development, leadership training business. But I took these clients on and I rationalize that this was the finances that was going to fund my ability to do and to follow my greater passion that I don't think was a mistake. That was a very intentional, thoughtful view I had of it. Yes, I had to be. I talk a lot about core values and not just the surface values, really understanding why you're doing something and how it's serving your greater vision and purpose. So I knew unequivocally in selecting this work that it was filling one of my swimlanes in my company, which was consulting and it was also some income.

               So I embraced it and I loved these clients. I love working with them and I loved the work and the work was easy for me. This is what I've done for 20 plus years. So here's the obstacle though. What happened is not too long into it. I was doing a lot of this work that I did so well and I cared deeply about these clients. You became friends, you work so closely and then I would do my work. That was bridging more of the direction I wanted the company to go, which was coaching and leadership programs. And on a purely economic comparison, the ROI on the work I was doing was completely disproportionate to the work that I was wanted to be doing more of. Okay. I mean to like 10 X less. So I was putting in 20 and 30 hours for a consulting role with a medical device startup that was essentially paying me for about five, but it just required that much more work even though it was easy, but it was easy for me.

               So I didn't really calibrate that it was work. The gist of it is, I was a little fearful to leave that, but I didn't know how to say no. And when it got real for me and so I consider it not so much a fit. It was a failure. It was a great learning moment because I got a new client for coaching and it became crystal clear. The more I worked with my coaching clients and the work I was doing, I saw the impact and I would lead a workshop, see the impact and I looked at the time it took me to invest in that and both the return from mostly what my clients were experiencing and my personal satisfaction doing it and the economic return was completely disproportionate to the other work that was now unfortunately was taking me away from my ability to do more of this coaching leadership training.

               So I had to make a decision and I had to slowly migrate away from this type of work. And I think what happened was in hindsight, had I done that or been able to make that, see that so clearly sooner and make that jump sooner. My work and my ability to have an impact and influence and both and also grow my business, I would have been even further along than the businesses now. You know, I mean it was a necessary part on one level, but I held on too long. It was real and you know, I have a coach, I believe in coaching, so my coach would gently coach me around. “So what is it you're holding onto?” You know, and it was a safety net. So the very thing I said that I tried to like run from, which is that there's a safety net, but run from your safety net because you need to elevate your business and move forward towards your dream.

               You've thought of it, you know, there's a plan. There was a business plan. This isn't just a vision for myself. I had a very strict business plan. I deviated from it because it was comfortable. And because I didn't want to let a client down, I mean one of my core values deeply is the interaction relationship I have with my clients. It was the very thing that was an area of conflict. But from a business perspective. I held on to something that was not yielding both financially the right return and even on a deeper level, it wasn't fueling the direction of the company appropriately. And I lingered in making that observation and then making a decision.

               There are a few lessons I kind of take from that. The first one is kind of the one you already had, which I get this question a lot from people in jobs that they hate, right? Like, “Hey Rhamy, I really want to leave and start my own company. I want to go out and do my thing, but I've got a wife and two kids and a mortgage and like you know, I've got enough money saved up that we could go like two months without a paycheck.” And then I tell him, “you can't, you do have a responsibility. The things you know that you've committed to, you still have to do. And so you can't just roll, go to the casino and roll it all and gamble at all.”

               So first of all, of course, have a plan, all those kinds of things. But don't be afraid to, you have to pray. You have to think pragmatically to a degree, you can't go out of business because you refuse to do some work that doesn't pay quarters well, isn't exactly what you want. On the other hand, this is the bigger lesson. I see a lot of it comes across in a lot of ways, in your case, it was getting rid of, kind of align a business or a product effectively that was relatively under-performing and not fulfilling. But it happens in a lot of different ways. You may have a client that you like that you're doing the thing you're supposed to do, but they're not a good fit. They cost significant film sums. But you have to, you have real trouble making that hard decision to let that client go. Maybe it's about an employee, maybe it's about a product line.

               Like you said, as a business evolves over time, you're going to wind up adding and subtracting product lines. I will say, probably one of the biggest killers of those businesses that make it past that first year or two that I see is, they just add lines and they never drop any. Right. They're just like, I'm going to do this too, and this too, and this too. And then they know that the things they did three years ago, not what they should be doing now, but they can't just tell the client. They can't let the employee go, who's responsible for it or they can't let the client know, look, you're gonna have to find someone else to do this. 

               We talked with a lot of CPAs who are in the tax world and maybe they've been doing tax returns for 20 years, but in the last three years they've gotten much more into like CFO financial work. And they have a slew of old clients who just send them their tax forms in February and are like, go get it done. And they know it's not that profitable. They know it's not what they want to do. It kills their soul. But they just are afraid to let that part die. And I think they've given a great example.

               It's the constant quest. It's funny, I find this with a lot of entrepreneurs and the financial, the energy around finances can be so, so funky, because some people view if it's not financially smart, does that make me a bad person? That I want to get rid of something because it's a good thing to do, but it's not serving the business and I help people come back to. But if you don't have an economically sound model, then you can't fulfill what you're supposed to be doing and serving the people in the greater goodness. So there's actually a financial fiduciary responsibility to yourself and your company to say no to some of these product lines so that you can do and fulfill the greater cause. You know, it's actually very smart.

               Absolutely. And as you scale your company and you have employees relying on you or contractors whose livelihood depends on you. You have to be profitable and you have to be pretty dang profitable because things will hit you. Like we had a big hit in February and I had to cut a check. I mean I had to cut a check for $40,000 that month and since then we've spent another 80 just fighting it. And it wasn't in the budget. If you cannot put yourself in the position as an entrepreneurial or even as a department executive where your budget is so tight, your margin is so slim that if the client asks you to go that extra step, you can't do it.

               No, no, no. We lose, we go out of business. If we did that, you would have the flexibility to answer the client needs, to help your employees to take a hit, a hard hit and going. Otherwise you're never gonna make it right and you won't be any good to the people that you want to serve. You know? Right. In my business as a payroll company or an HR company or a benefits company, we have to be there, right? To be there 10 years from now. Right? I cannot allow myself to discount something across the board to the degree that like, “Guys, if I get hit hard or you got, or there's a screw up, we won't be in business.” I can't allow that. We get audited and we're rated on like how we gotta make sure we have a lot of money.

               It's an advantage. You should go with us because I promise we will charge you. Right? So you gotta switch to that mentality. And it's a really hard one for people who move from that technician role that I do a job for an hourly wage. I'm building a long lasting business that has that sustainability. 

               Well, I think those are some really cool lessons from your story. I'd love to kind of move forward now. Now here you are. You've got a successful company growing, you've got a great book. What's got you excited and jumping out of bed in the next six months? What have you got coming?

               Oh, I'm super excited. So I have in the next month, I'm heading to Louisville. I'm going to be a keynote speaker for an event for a bunch of younger or not younger, necessarily newer CEOs and executives in different nursing groups. So I was asked to come out and speak to them about sort of different leadership, rallying their team, motivating their team, running effective meetings, which sounds so parochial, but it really isn't. When you get to the executive level, it's really critical. And there's no one size fits all. So I'm super excited about this program. I just finished recording my audio book so it is in public, it's in the process of publication. So we'll be releasing it in the fall. I'm excited about that because when I wrote my book, just under a year ago and it came out and I've used it with a lot of my work, but the audio book is going to be so much more fun and readily available for people because if they're like me, they multitask and listen to things all the time. So I'm excited for that.

               Making me feel guilty when my book came out. No, my book came out in October of last year. It did very well. Number one Amazon bestseller in HR. We were really excited since it was launched, I've been emailed like, “when's the audio book?”

               That's so funny, Rhamy. You have to do it because it's funny. I was at an event with a gentleman that was, you know, he had a publisher and I went with a professional publishing group but I self published and I wanted to do that intentionally. And he looked at me and he said, “I can't do my audio book. My publisher won't allow it. So if you have control, you need to go do it.” Honest to goodness, that was the impetus. I was with one of my clients at an offsite and this was one of the speakers. And I literally came and that was it. I said, “I've got to do this”, and it's super fun. The experience was awesome. That's another podcast series we'll talk about. But yeah, so I'm going to launch it and I'm excited about that launch because I didn't really launch my book.

               I published it to use with my clients. So I didn't do a big social media launch, so to speak. It's not necessarily, but I'm excited. Lastly, I've got some workshops coming up and I have a client. I think one of the things I'm most excited about is one of my newer clients in the past six months. They've been going...]]>4046427f-2d49-4b3a-8ac1-400aa58a1591Mon, 03 Feb 2020 08:45:00 -050032:25falsefull3113113Ladies 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...Rhamy AlejealPeople Process Interviews: Thomas VeemanLadies 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...]]>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 in English U S school out of California and doing work with local populations here. Basically the ghetto of Mexico City with youth. Like I was working before now to make money on the side.

               I was teaching English in organizations. And from that I started to not care very much about the English part, but I started to see, look, there are really creative people who have a lot to give, but who are in teams or in organizational cultures that are holding them back from bringing the best of themselves to work and through first, as an English teacher. I thought, well, why don't I use some of the skills? Some of the tools that we used in either wilderness therapy or in the psychology training to help bring some of these creative energies out so people can really be alive with what they do. And it worked beautifully. It worked beautifully. People bloomed. They enjoyed coming to their classes. I enjoyed coming to their classes. And often we didn't look at a single element of grammar. 

               Right. The result was the ability to communicate. It doesn't matter. It's not about the language. It's about the ability to actually get out there and get the ideas across. Right.

               Yeah. That's a big part of it. Getting the ideas across. And that requires also having the courage to share what you really think. To be aware of what you really think by going through a process of understanding yourself both emotionally in terms of what you really want from life, what your priorities are and what you have to give. And then finding a way also to make that work in a team and to bring value to an organization.So yeah.

               And from that, you decided to launch this global organization now.

               Yeah, exactly. So I knew Kevin Kennedy Anderson from my studies and he had already gone into consulting and frankly, at that time I didn't even know what consulting was. Alright. So I thought it was going to be a therapist, a psychologist, but then working in the organization, I thought, well, how can we do this in a way that we actually get to create the programs that have a bigger impact. Sat down with Kenneth, brought him into the organization to do a special kind of course company. Loved it. They bought it for consulting prices. And from that moment, Conversari was born.

               Very nice. Yes. Those kinds of consultant prices are always a good place to start a business.

               Sure. I mean, it's a big difference right here. And if you're in the box of an English language teacher, you're always limited. No matter how much value you add to people's lives, that's not going to be reflected.

               In transferring from that hours for pay to value for pay. That's the shift. Well, that's awesome. So now you've got a successful organization. You guys are really bridging those cultural communication divides, helping companies and organizations out. And I know that you have had that experience of growing your organization. You've had to have had some amazing highs and some amazing lows. Now I think our listeners, maybe it's because a little shot in Freud, but mainly I think they learn the most, not from the successes, the great ideas, but from failures.

               So I always ask my guests to take us to the day. Tell us the story in that narrative form. You're so good at, about your greatest entrepreneurial failure mistake. Very, very, very bad day. What came of it?

               That's a great question. I think there's a few places it could go with this, but the hardest part is,

               Picking one, right? You've been in business long enough.

               There is one that sticks in my mind right now. We were lucky enough to work with a multinational company here in Mexico and they liked our training so much that they said, “alright, we have our partners in Krakow and in India that would like your services, are you able to travel and deliver there?” We said, “of course, right. First class ticket each way, please.” Right.

               Then here's the funny thing, we went to India, we delivered a course and it was actually relatively straightforward in terms of the cultural element. Then we got to Krakow and kind of in a way the train came off the hinges. What happened was we have our courses, we always like to do them in a way that prioritizes experience, right? Because it's great to have theory and to have constantly and all of that. But at least for me and for the other, the other, now 16 of us. 

               One thing that binds us together is that we like to see things in action. So we put that first in our training and we came to our training in Krakow, now crack coasts, kind of the European training hub for a tech company that we were working with. And you're going to have to help me because I'm not asking for me, where's Krakow Caicos in Poland. Okay, well it's behind what was the iron curtain of course, as much deeper, longer history, they're just fat. But it's kind of the new growth area of Europe where some of the infrastructure costs are lower. But also not as much experience internationally yet. 

               So we come to Poland and there's participants being brought in from all over Europe and not only Europe, but also Africa and the middle East. So you 're training a group of people that's widely diverse. We start our training the way we normally do. And that's when things start to look a little different in terms of the response people. They had that quizzical look on their face rather than nodding the excitement that you look for as a trainer had that quizzical, the crossed arms.

               A lot of questions. That doesn't seem to go away about what we're doing, why we're doing it. And then we started getting feedback. All right, we'll get feedback from our contacts there. You know, people really don't, they're not on board with this. They feel like it's very American in its style and they don't trust it. And we're like, “what's happening? What's happening here?” Right. Lowest reviews we've ever received. And I remember walking back that night in it's cold in Poland, in the winter and just feeling like, man, I don't know how I'm going to get up and what am I going to do the next morning to make this feel different.

               Right. And of course, these are big risks for your company too, right? I mean, not just this one training, going back. This isn't. These are very costly to put on. I'm sure there are significant risks to the company and career.

               Sure. I mean not only to the self-esteem that was happening with regard to the organization. This was our first as Conversari Global. This is our first reach into actually delivering globally and we're being faced with this big challenge. If I don't turn around, we will lose that continued contact and that feedback will come back to our biggest client. Right.

               So of course the opportunity for more work in that area.

               Yeah, exactly. So we met with the leadership, with our contacts there. We went out to dinner actually, where they tried to explain what was going on. We started reading and looking more at the cultural elements of this and part of that we were already doing, but we were missing a key element. Right. Well, it turns out as we're looking at these things, it turns out that the main element we were missing was the difference in pedagogical styles from one culture to another. And in this sense it was shared by most of Europe and an approach that puts theory before applications.

               So what was happening is, we were explaining things with examples, with demonstration, with popping people into role-plays before we explain all of the process and then working backwards to develop the process. Well that tended to work pretty well in the U S and here in Mexico. But doing that in Europe, people don't feel open to trusting an application until they understand the process behind it.

               Wow.

               And even more than that, like the people, I remember people, some of them were like shaking to do this and getting angry at us because we were putting them in a position where they had to make a mistake by not being able to do something well yet.

               Because we didn't tell them what the goal, what the theory was, what the outcome should be.

               Exactly. They didn't know the criteria. So they hated us because we were putting that emotional space that was really uncomfortable.

               Wow. That reminds me, gosh, so what'd you do?

               Well, one part of it was really just like when you understand what's going on, that's half the battle, right? Pending that we just backed up. So the next day we made the adjustment of changing some of the order, putting more of the explanation of why we're doing things and giving more space for that upfront. And then we did find that they could debate a little bit back and forth once they got the concept. There was almost you could see this palpable nod with people and that was the cue that okay, now we're ready to put it into practice. And then it worked a lot better.

               That is so interesting. At my company, Poplar Financial, we do systems design. So companies come to us because they have a great training like yours or anything that they want to systematize to make sure it goes out to everybody to keep track of, to issue certificates for all that kind of stuff and we just picked up. 

               We're licensed and we practice in the United States and we very much work in the HR function for consultation. But we had one client that came to us earlier this year. I think they started January 1. They only have about 20 employees in the U S but they have 300 contractors internationally. Some of Ukraine and some of the Philippines. And they wanted us to systematize their training, their on-boarding tools, their performance management, that kind of stuff that they already have figured out, but they wanted us to systematize it.

               Right. And I'm sitting here staggering, thinking. I'm just like, because something as simple as the order in which information is presented could vary by culture. Like that had never occurred to me. Very interesting. So given your experience, our listeners, they run the gamut from an HR person and a 5,000 man company to mom and pop shop with three employees or their CPAs who have no employees but just working a bunch of organizations. 

               What do you think they could take from your story of this that'd be a really rough time that you turned around and what they apply in their own businesses?

               Well, that's a great question and that's what we always try and do too, right? Getting slapped upside the head with an experience like that. What can we do to learn from it and not make the same mistakes and open up new opportunities in the future. I think a key one is recognize whether it's a small organization or a big one. You have to think globally in today's business and so much of both geography and time borders are breaking down. Like we're having this conversation across an international border. It becomes so easy to do that, that the flow of work is going to require more and more of that to happen. Whether it's a supplier, whether it's a business partner, globality is a norm that you have to take into consideration. So that's the first part.

               So then the second part, once you understand, okay, we have to be able to deal across the borders and also understanding the differences. It's like, the culture is an iceberg, right? There's the part of the surface, the part that you can see where people speak different languages. They might look different, they might wear different clothes and have music and food and all of that stuff, right? That's the visible part of culture, but it's the underneath part. That's where the ships often wreck in business, right? It's the values. The assumed, the expectations of how things work there. And even often in cultures that are seemingly similar inferences are exactly where you end up with conflicts.

               Oh yeah. Not too many years ago, we were just in the Southern United States, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas. These good old Southern States with barbecue. And in the last few years we've expanded nationally, picked up a lot of New Yorkers, a lot of Washington tech people in California and business owners that are coming up with the next big idea. And we've had to do internal training and conversations about when you're talking to someone in Nashville, Tennessee, if you don't ask how their kids are doing and what's up with their dog and how's business, how's life, how's the weather? You're downright rude. But in New York, if]]>5b44536a-17a1-4c50-b3cd-b13da545053bFri, 31 Jan 2020 00:00:00 -050047:01falsefull3103103Ladies 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...Rhamy AlejealPeople Process Interviews: Linda BrownGood 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...]]>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, okay, it's time to get serious, my kids don't need me anymore. I had absolutely no idea on how to market. I took marketing class after marketing class and basically what they taught me is what you should do but not how I should do it. And so I got very frustrated and so I'm still digging that out. Now, learning how to dues, not what to do.

               So when was the kind of moment of realization that you needed to really start investing in the marketing side of the business?

               Believe it or not, it was when I joined profit first and Mike McCalla woods is a big believer in having a niche. And when I met Mike McCalla with some profit first, I had 44 clients in 44 industries. Mike's like, you need to niche it down. You need to set up a system and processes within this one niche. And I realized very quickly that he was right because when we see my first profit to profit first clients, I couldn't bring on staff because each individual client had an individual process or procedure. So I couldn't actually bring staff on because there were no systems and processes. So to set up my systems and processes, which meant I made it to me show that all my clients were the same and then I could start marketing and growing it. Should you wind up both focusing totally? Actually it's dual because it's female entrepreneurs that work in the coaching and the design and staging industry for their homes.

               Nice. Okay. Well, cool. Any lady, female entrepreneurs out there, especially those in the coaching or the interior design. We've got a specialist right here on the podcast for you. We'll talk about how to reach out to her later. What do you think our listeners can learn from the kind of your journey and story? Why do you think they could take from that?

               It's not enough for two things. One, it's not enough just to know what you know, you also have to find somebody that's going to teach you what you don't know. And by teaching, it’s not telling you what you don't know. It's how to solve the problem of what you don't know. So just like yourself are teaching people how to get the HR into their business because it's a big thing. Right? I can tell you, I don't know everything. That's why I come to you.

               Right.Yeah. No and I'm in the same boat. I have a full time bookkeeper and two different CPAs and both of them, all three of them I know enough to hopefully tell if they're trying to cheat me. That's about it. Other than that, I'm trying to find the best people and letting them direct me.

               And that's the key aspect right there, is to find the people and know enough not to let them cheat you. I have quite a few clients who actually did just what you said. They went out and got a bookkeeper and got a CPA only to get audited and not realize they weren't doing information correctly. So the course comes down to when you just blindly hand something over, are they actually doing what they're supposed to do or not? And how do we as small business owners know and be able to track what they're doing?

               Right? But the reason I have two CPAs is because I still have a third party. I have a third party audit, right? Just to have someone go behind, it's worth paying twice as much to make sure that the first guy does the job. Right? There's a great quote by Steve jobs and he says, I don't hire smart people to tell them what to do. I hire smaller, more smart people to have them tell me what to do. And I think there's a balance between that and giving up the responsibility of running your own company. Right? You have to balance both. You need smart people telling you what to do, but that doesn't mean it's not your butt. On the line. So it's still your responsibility, even if it's someone else's acumen that's directing you.

               Exactly.

               Well, that is awesome. So what's coming up in the next six months? What have you got looking forward to? That's got you excited that you're doing over at Spire?

               Well, I'm really, really excited because we are switching over to group platforms in group training for our clients. We have a four step process of understanding the foundation of which to me, is your money. If as long as your money is working correctly for you, you should be able to do everything you need it to. So we have a money mastery class, a profit mastery class we have from the first implementation and then pump plan growth workshops going on.

               So good. You've been doing those things for a long time, but now you're focusing kind of on the group class version.

               Right. I was doing it one on one and I realized that I wasn't reaching as many people and my calendar got full so I was turning a lot of people away. So we've started implementing the cost strategy sessions.

               Interesting. Are those already live? Are they up and running? Are you coming up on your first one soon?

               We've done a couple beta ones that were word of mouth. But we're starting to advertise this month for the first classes. That will be just 90 minute workshops in August, going into full classes in September.

               Well, this podcast will air in August. So guys, we'll talk about at the end where you can look up information on this. But by the time this is up in live, you should be able to check it out. And if you're interested in a course , or a group class, that'll help you dive into the money side of your business. That's pretty cool. Well, let's talk a little bit about what we call rapid fire questions. There's just ways to maybe quickly share some of the key knowledge and bits that you've picked up. And one of my favorite questions is if you could recommend one book to maybe go alongside a people processes, how your people can be your organization's competitive advantage, what book would you recommend for new business owners out there? Honestly, it's a children's book, the little engine. Yeah, I remember this book. I think my parents read to me the little engine.

               What I find is that, most entrepreneurs need the mindset to know that they can go forward. I can do this, I can do this. We tend to get so discouraged and bring ourselves down, that little engine, he believed that he could get over that mountain if he just found the right partner to work with them. And so he went asking and asking and asking until he found the right partner.

               Well that's a great one. We'll put the link in the description as well. We've had maybe a hundred 110 interviews or so. Never had that book recommended. And I think it's an awesome one. That is so cool. Alright. So if you could go back in time, send a letter to yourself or whisper in your ear on the first, that first day you took maternity leave and we're starting up your business, what would you tell yourself?

               Oh, what would I tell myself? First of all, Linda, you can do anything that you set your mind to. Second of all, is set up the processes and the systems your business needs long before you need them.

               Make a plan.

               Well, make a plan. Yes, but more than the plan, actually have them. Because what we find in business oftentimes, possibly even yourself, is that we know the plan is there. We know what we need to do, but unless you actually have the plan working for you and the system's there when you really need them is when you're too busy to set them up.

               Sure, sure. I have a joke that I do in a lot of my talks. It's not a very good one, but it's about naming your kid before you have it or at least before the epidural comes in. Because we had a very good friend who didn't do that and then wound up having to change their daughter's name three days after birth because she named the child after the epidural. Just saying, have a process in place before you need it. I often use it for maternity leave. If you've got employees, make your maternity leave policy before your first pregnant employee is wondering what's going to happen to her.

               Exactly. And I'm going to play, I was that person. I had two children, one six weeks early, one five weeks early. Neither one was named within the first 48 hours. I hadn't gotten anything there.

               And Hey, it works for some people and every once in a while you wind up with the infamous fun Yetta, as a child because that's what you're craving, right? Especially in all seriousness and business, you don't want to be deciding, what's your disciplinary policies going to be when it finally happens? You don't want to, when you have five employees or 10 employees and you have your first complaint that you know, one of our clients harassed me or I'm worried that my manager isn't treating me well because I'm a woman.

               Those are things that are not fun to think about, but you really don't want to be trying to figure them out in the hours after someone brings it up. Right. Oh my, I got injured at work today. Here I was, it's an office environment. It's a CPA or a bookkeeping shop and you know, getting into the office, I slipped and fell and I hurt myself. What do we do? Who do we call? Do we even, you know, do I go to mind? But doctor, do we, you know, just a little plans like that, that there's not that many. But if you have a process or a plan in place when it's actually needed, it's going to save your butt.

               Exactly. Not just the plan, but the process document. And it's easy to find out because when we're in the moment, we can get scattered.

               Right? And it needs to be, I mean, in the long run, it needs to be accessible, right? It's not just written down. It can't just be in a binder that one person knows. It needs to be accessible. It needs to be communicated well. You know, someone needs to be responsible for it. Perhaps the most important thing of having processes is how, and when does it get updated? How do you review it and improve it over time? All of those pieces, the differentiator between businesses that can scale and those that don't. Right. Exactly.

               That's where I think most people want to go. They want to be able to scale. We want to have the infamous four week vacation.

               Right? Absolutely. Well, let's go on. So outside of the wonderful book of the little engine that could, and that you have told yourself back on the first day, you can do anything and to think big and also that you need to have actual processes in place. What is the best business advice you've ever heard from someone else? The best business advice someone's passed along to you?

               My very first employer as an adult, I'm actually on the very first day of my job with him, said, "I don't care what you know, I don't care what you don't know. The most important thing that you will ever have is who you know and what they know is. So get good contacts, find out what they know, what they're experts in." You know, because everybody has a background, right? Especially entrepreneurs. We all have some type of corporate background or knowledge behind us. So figuring out what they know as well so you can go and ask questions because you don't need to know it. You just need to know the person that does.

               I like that. I can't remember who said it, but it's something like in business there's never a how problem. There's only a who problem, something like that. I always keep in mind whenever I'm trying to figure something out is like, how are we going to do this? What are we going to do? Well, the real question is who, who do I know who can do this? That's the reality.

               Exactly.

               Well, I like that. We're an HR podcast. Of course a lot of people listen to us to think about scaling those people operations side of your business. What do you think is the number one policy, procedure, system training that's had the biggest effect on your clients or your company internally?

               Two-fold, if I may. First, it's figuring out, because I work with a lot of entrepreneurs. Are they in fact an employee or are they in fact a contractor? So that's first and foremost for any company, especially the small employer who doesn't want that person to be an employee because it's going to cost them extra money. So in the long-term, figure out who actually needs to work for you and then get them set up correctly. Bring in the expert HR person, make sure you're covered with your disability and your workers' comp. Have your employee manual inset. You really don't want to mess up when it comes to people's resources.

               Oh, I like that. But yeah. So number one, is get your people right, especially the classification independent contractor versus employee.

               You know, I always say, money is the foundation of your business. You can float by for a little bit. If something gets undone, you cannot float by if something ever happens to your people.

               Right. So, money is the foundation, but money's important because you gotta pay your people. That's the number one reason, right? The people are the thing that executes nothing but nothing, but people execute anything in it.

               Exactly. And you have to make your people happy so that your business is going to grow. Because even times these solo entrepreneurs, right, their worst boss is themselves. They could have worked in corporate America for years and years and years, but the worst boss is themselves. So yes, money is key and fundamental, but you need to make sure your people are done right because they're going to be the ones that support you and grow with you.

               fb7eff45-60e9-4e75-8ca3-3b7ed3034734Mon, 27 Jan 2020 08:45:00 -050025:46falsefull39393Good 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 whenRhamy AlejealPeople Process Interviews: Lee CaraherGood 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...]]>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 to mention, big piles of money. Absolutely. Well, I'm sorry to hear about that. So if our listeners are in their first couple of years of business and they're thinking about similar concerns you had. What do you think maybe they could take from your story and they could learn from your mistakes? What should they do when they're trying to accomplish something similar?

               Beginning of your business and you have a partner, make sure that you have a great prenup. Whatever that agreement is between the partners on how they will leave, what the calculation will be for an earn-out, what are the conditions, whatever that is, batter that out before you get started because you will hate each other one moment in time for sure. It's going to happen. You can get past it if you have really good agreements. So, that was on my co-founder,, it was very clear what had to happen and what he had to do to get the maximum value out of the company for himself, which I was very happy to write the check for because he fulfilled all the agreements we had put in place before. On the second piece, bringing a successor in. Very tough. You know, it's one of the things that big companies struggle with so much. I think that if your gut is telling you something about the person, no matter what their credentials are, no matter how much you've known them, no matter how much success they've had in the past, if your gut is telling you something, you need to listen to it. And don't ignore what's happening just because you want it to work out.

               I like that. So on these big decisions, these succession issues, listen to your gut. If you're feeling something wonky, timed up. Time to really zoom in on that and pay attention. I like that. Well, your book, which came out in 2017, is the boomerang principle. What is the boomerang principle? What does that even mean?

               The boomerang principle is the idea that those companies and organizations that don't just allow but actually encourage people to return to them as employees once they've left. Have a strategic advantage over those that don't. Something that we've practiced on that one fourth day since the beginning. We're a small company. We have 37 people right now. We have rehired 16 people and we rehired four people twice. So across the board, if you look at those companies that do rehire people, these people are the highest performers they have in their entity. So the more we will to that sort of point of view of having people return to the company when they've left, the better it is for the people who were there. And the better it is for your bottom line.

               That's very unique. I mean, just an interesting idea. We've had, you know, this is an HR podcast. My company, Poplar financial, we work on the processes and systems around human resources. So systematizing things like on-boarding and off-boarding which everybody goes through. We talk about it all the time, it's a huge part of that. But everyone focuses on retention. How do you keep people from leaving? You're saying, no, no, no, no, no. Allow them to leave and in fact encourage exploration, but make sure they come back. Is that the idea?

               A few things. One is when you create an environment that people return to, you're creating an environment in a culture that people have a hard time leaving, right? People don't return to something bad. They only return to something good, number one. So if you have an environment in a culture that helps people return, you actually have a culture that helps people stay longer and retention is built into that. Number one. Number two is when you actually have someone return to you, they are more valuable to you the second time around then they were the first for many reasons. One is you already know that they've worked well with you in your culture. They already have proved themselves as one of you. Whatever that culture company is.

               The second is they've gone out into the world and learned other things that they're bringing back to you. You can apply a more worldly view to the work that they're going to be doing. And we all know, and there's a lot of data that says, the more different inputs you have, the better decisions you make. And the problem with retention sometimes is that we can become more inwardly focused. Right. It's really a challenge to get outside of view into a group that stays together for a long time. And I found this in my own business now. But when you have someone come back, right, they go, I learned this thing out there. What if we do it here? They bring other things back to you and they know what could and could not work. And the third is they come on board, you know, it doesn't, they're not a hundred percent day two. Right. But they're 100% around day 3540, which is so much right of a new employee. Right. A new employee takes six to six months to one year to become fully functional in any answer.

               Yeah. And such an interesting idea. Obviously they're more valuable and also, the grass is greener on the other side mentality, which has been, if they're coming back, they've seen the other side. Right, right, right. I guess. Oh, interesting. So why I guess that makes sense. If an employee is going to leave you, you want them to come back, I'm assuming you didn't like to throw them out because they're thieves or something like that. Yeah. So how do you do that? What are the steps to actually creating a system that encourages return work?

               Yeah. Well it starts on day one, right? It starts on day one. I meet every new employee in the company, in their first two weeks. And one of the first things I say to them, Rhamy is, "Hi, I know you're going to leave us. So it's really important to us that when you do leave here, you never take the devil to take off your resume." And that is a point of pride that you were at double forte. And I hope you're here for a long time. And I hope that it's mutually rewarding. I hope that you grow, learn new things and achieve your own personal goals within the constructs of our company. But I know when you hire someone, they're going to leave. So I know you're probably not gonna stay in for the rest of your life, but I hope when you do that, it's good that it's positive and that when you're no longer interested, come and talk to us and we will help you find what's next. Then I hope you come back.

               I say that in the first week of their employment. And of course some people are like, just got here. But I think it's important to like to set the tone. I said, the tone I want to set is double before two, we want double forte beat to be important to your career. And we're set up to do that. We're also set up to do really good PR, digital communications and we have to do those two things together. And that means one, we have very high standards of work and that we're going to be training for, be mentoring for, be fostering. And two, it's going to be a good conversation with every employee around, what is it that is their goal? How do you see yourself? What do you want them to know about this job?

               If it's an entry level person, they don't want to know that it's only one path. What are the past they could take? And to have really good conversations with these people, not just at review time, but throughout the course of the year. See what's going on. What are you interested in? My own assistant who came to the company, he's actually just left, but he was at the company for almost five years. He came from Michigan. He wanted to be an actor, but he knew he wasn't gonna be able to do that full time. So he wanted to be an assistant so he could then sort of get out by 5:30 and go act. And he did that. And then one day I turned around, he's great at it, and I turned around and he was drawing a greeting card for his mother and it was amazing.

               And I'm like, David, did you do that? He goes, yeah, it's my lunch hour. I'm like, Oh man, I don't care about the lunch hour part. I'm like, I didn't know you were an artist. You didn't tell us you were an artist. Well, I didn't think you'd care. What do you want to do here? Do you want to use it? Oh, I'd love to do that here. I mean, who knew? Right? And he told us he was leaving and one of the reasons he stayed so long and was five-year for somebody under 30 is a long time in San Francisco. When he told us he was leaving, he goes, one of the reasons I stayed so long is, because I got to do the things that I love at double forte and help the company doing those things. So when you can find those interests and they can be so much more valuable within just the job description you hire, or because the job description is just one facet of those pictures, but people's role is how people show up in the world.

               So you know, he's gone. I hope he comes back. He's already sent us to people who might be great employees. So already, he's come back to us in a way he didn't have to do that. And that's the loyal part, right? It used to be the old paradigm used to be, if you leave me like when you work for me, you're not loyal and you're dead to me. Well, actually not when you're getting paid. That is a transaction. I will give you a paycheck. You're supposed to show up, which frankly is not a skill, but you need to do it. And that's a paid transaction. Loyal act is when you don't expect anything in return that you're out there in the world and you go, you know what? I met Joe. Joe would be awesome at double forte. I'm going to give Lee a call and say, Hey, you should talk to Joe.

               You didn't have to do that. You don't have to do that for me to know that for Joe and to do it for himself, but that's a loyal act. I'm thinking about the betterment of whoever you're talking to, right. When you don't expect anything in return. So that's what I'm talking about in the boomerang principle is if we get away from thinking about loyalty just when we pay people, right? Thinking about, Oh, I want someone to be loyal to the company for their entire career. Well how does that work? What does that look like? That looks like them going out into the world and always keeping in touch with us, always being connected to double forte. And when something comes across their viewpoint that could benefit the company, they pick up the phone and they make it happen. That's a loyal act. So how do you keep them involved after they leave? I mean, so you treat them when they're with you, you on-board them with the expectation of understanding.

               Also, one thing about your first week conversation that struck me is it also gives you a little bit more. I think a lot of employers, as you said, they're pretending or kind of inferred anyway. I inferred, they're pretending that when they hire someone at 27, that they're going to retire from minutes. Right? And they're like, well, 68. Yeah, we want you to work for us forever. And that's our goal. And when you state your goal is that, one thing that puts you in a position is when an employee's not though, right? When an employee has needs, whether they're temporary or permanent, that does not fit the company's needs. So I don't know, maybe they don't have the skills to generate salary or they have some issues that need to work on before they move to another step or something.

               You're putting a weird position in saying that we want you to stay here forever, but also, we can't satisfy the immediate needs you're presenting. Whereas, if you're saying, look this is the place for you for now and we want you here. We want this to be your place forever. But if it's not, we want you to stay loyal and we want you to join us at the moment, we want you to come back and be a part of us long-term. You're also implicitly stating, if this isn't the right fit for you, get to move on and we're all still friends and we can continue to work together. And it takes a little pressure off the company to be like, we have to meet your immediate needs, all the time. Forever for the entire future of our lives.

               Well, it also takes pressure. I think it takes pressure off both sides. Right? It's sort of like, stating the obvious and as long as people aren't pretending, you're just removing a lot of pressure and anyway. Right.

               Right. It's not like any other company is going to give you a pay. Yeah. It's just that you're being more honest.

               That is what used to be the expectation, right? The expectation used to be when my parents were working, you come, you go, and when you go, it's when you're getting your watch and you're retiring. I mean that has changed,, that used to be the American dream and we could talk forever about this, Rhamy. I have a lot of statistics and data and maybe we can talk about it some other time, but that's just not reality anymore. And instead, particularly for younger people who they already know, that whatever job they have today, will look different in five years. Unlike people my age were like, Oh, I've learned a skill. I can do it for the rest of my life. It's not true anymore. And anything you do today, if you have a job title today, that job titles will look very, very different in three or four years.

               So you're also setting the expectation if it doesn't work, we'll help you find something that does help you be successful somewhere else. That's what we're all about. Right. How do you keep the most productive organizations are the happiest organizations? The happiest organizations are the most effective organizations. So you have to have the most positive high producing teams, ones that are very clear on mission, very...]]>7ebf5659-db0c-4545-a8b5-6ff23bf56399Thu, 23 Jan 2020 08:45:00 -050032:19falsefull38383Rhamy AlejealPeople Process Interviews: Jacob BaddsgaardLadies 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...]]>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 my cup. Filling self value, build my esteem, giving me the success and fulfillment that I was looking for in life that would help me get to some level of easy street with lots of money and would solve all my problems. And finding success with meaning. Yeah. And so when I saw that turned into a failure and how that manifested in my relationship with my wife and with my kids as well, but primarily with my wife. It wasn't until two to three years into the business where we were just at a sink. It felt harder than it needed to be. We found a good marriage counselor that we were working with, because of course, Rhamy, this wasn't my problem. This was my wife's problem.

               Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll see a counselor if you're all right. Yeah.

               And you know, it was really interesting. I'll never forget that moment where we were sitting down together and we'd had some productive sessions and read some good books together and we're making some progress. But, I didn't have that epiphany moment. Until one day we were sitting there and he was asking something about the business and it was doing well and kind of asking some questions and saying, Oh, that's great. Like, what is your business partner? I think about that. I said it wrong and I answered it wrong. And I said, what do you mean? I don't have a business partner. And, and he said, Oh, you don't? And he looked at my wife and he looked back at me and then he just continued on.

               The moment where I've got to tell you, it just hit my, my heart, my mind and my soul, like a ton of bricks in realizing that I didn't see my wife as a partner, right. Like not only in the business but in most aspects of life. And it actually had nothing to do with her. It had to do with the insecurities that I had and that I needed to over-inflate the value that I was providing from the business success to justify being controlling or manipulative or not being the type of partner that I needed to be and using the business as any sort of justification to feel better about that. You know. No good story doesn't have some resolution or outcome on that. So that was probably what I wanted to say three years ago.

                I remember driving home from that session and just saying, do you feel like I see you and treat you like an equal and having verbalized the answer that I already knew was true. Just really deciding that I needed to make some personal changes there. And what I will tell you Rhamy is, for our 13th anniversary which was this year, we were just having a weekend getaway. And on the drive up I asked her the same question and said, how do you feel in our relationship? Do you feel like I see you and treat you like an equal? And to have that answer come back and say, yeah, I do. I do feel that way now. And this is by far the best year of our marriage so far. Not a little bit, but like a lot of it. Right. So that was probably the one that I would point to in terms of a failure that became very prominent to me. It helped me to learn and grow as a person and a professional.

               Well, I appreciate you sharing that. I've done about 150 interviews and you know, the stories that always touch us are the personal ones. They're the ones that really do matter. My biggest failure is that time, I lost that one account and then I turned around and got it back. It's a story I get every now and again. And I'm like, ah, well you haven't been in business long enough yet. It must be the, you know, the big hit. But man, I appreciate you sharing that. For guys and gals who are out there starting up, what would you think maybe they can learn from your story that they could put in place earlier? It's not later. It's not big. It's able to be headed off, right. An ounce of prevention versus a pound of cure.

               Yeah. I think really that comes down to whether as an entrepreneur or in whatever relationships that we have. No one or nothing can fill our cups for us. We can only do that for ourselves. The way that I've found more success is liking who I am and feeling that inner confidence. Independent of how my marriage or business or things are going is identifying those daily routines that helped me to be my best self, which are simple things like, silence, visualizations, affirmations, exercise, reading, and doing religiously. Doing those things on a daily basis that allow me to be the person I want to be each day and to fill my own cup so that I don't show up and have unhealthy expectations in my relationship or from the business or really stretched to have things or people fill my cup for me, which is just they can't do. And it's actually pretty unhealthy to expect that. So I would say that , if we can get our head right there and place the focus and energy that can really get us where we want to go and not go down the path that I did, which was trying to solve it in a way that was never really gonna fix it.

               Makes total sense. Well, I appreciate you sharing that. So now that you've been through some of those harder times, your wife is happy with you. Again, your company's kicking butt. What's got you most excited in the next six months or so? What are you doing in your company or personally that's got you getting out of bed and super excited?

               Well, let's see. Let's do one of each person. Personally, I am training to run a Boston qualifying time for a marathon 90. So that gets me up early. And so that's going well. As a family, we're actually having our fourth child and our first boy, in November. So that's coming up sooner than I think we realized and then as far as the business is concerned, I am just so passionate about some of the programs that we have put together to focus on helping ourselves. Myself included and people in the company with optional programs to help people develop some of the same skills that we just talked about. And so I've actually put together courses around personal leadership and financial development to teach the skills and to create the accountability systems for people and myself to just be great in those areas. And I have just found so much passion in doing that as a company. We've actually had about 65 already go through the first course of personal leadership development and they have graduated from that one to then go through the financial development course. And it's just so exciting to feel like, Hey, we're here to win at life and business together. And so that's what I'm the most excited about right now.

                I saw on your bio of course you've grown this company hugely and it seems like a lot of that has been from these, perhaps a more personal focus on your employees in that manner by investing or training in the personal development or leadership development as you called it, of your employees. What does that actually look like for your employees? What are they participating in that you feel like and what's from a purely pragmatic standpoint, what's the benefit to the company itself for doing that?

               Yeah, so it's a 10 week course and it actually has a $500 enrollment cost. So it costs money optional. It's early at 7:00 AM on Monday mornings. If they graduate the class, they get their $500 back as well as a $500 bonus. If they fail to meet the very strict requirements of the class, they have the opportunity to lose their bonus opportunity and their investments. So one big mistake can cost someone 1000 bucks. So there's just some really strong accountability and skin in the game. Interesting. Have you had anybody fail? Yes.

               Oh man. All right. Keep rocking. Yeah.

               Many, not many but certainly some people have lost their money or their bonus. Unfortunately, a situation or two where people have not been able to make it through the course but very like one or two out of 16 or something at this point. The first portion of the class is purely based on the book called the miracle morning and just developing those good daily habits.

               When you earlier said it's those daily, you know, I could hear you saying savers, I was like, I feel like he's saying lifesavers.

               Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. Everyone agrees to start doing that. We also agree to how we can use our phones for the 10-week period, which is for nothing other than GPS texts and phone calls. Then everyone has to show their screen time every week to prove how they did demonstrate with their journal and the readings and quizzes and completing the assignments. The next portion of the class is to change the world by changing yourself, not trying to change other people. And we read the book leadership and self-deception by the Arbinger Institute and work and practice on those principles and everyone gets to choose someone in their life to work on that with. And then the third section of the course is developing a life map and getting a better understanding of where they're at and where they'd like to go to with an action plan of creating what's more commonly referred to as a vision board. But I refer to it as a painted picture and creating, Hey, this is how I see myself three years from now and here's what is a part of my present or past that would hold me back from being that person and then getting after it. Right. And so that's how the course works. And then there's a follow up on accountability group for people that want that ongoing accountability. Where about a third to half the people continue to participate in that just ongoing forever after that.

               So how do you get any push-back from employees who are saying, look, this is my business. I mean, I guess you're not requiring enrollment in this year. You're actually optional. Do you feel like there are people who maybe don't participate in that? Who would feel somewhat negative or resentful of it or if you've not really seen that? Let me just ask him. We've got a bunch of people out here.

               I'm pondering that I haven't gotten that feedback specifically. I mean clearly there's a lot of people that haven't taken it. That's a good question. I don't even have the answer to that and I should probably look into it.

               Yeah. We're often involved in wellness programs. Whether that means mental or counseling kind of wellness programs similar to what you're talking about life skills and development or even physical. Let's get you guys to stop smoking or can we help you? Can we pay for six months of Weight Watchers or something? And there are many people who took advantage of those and probably half are people who were already fit or already mentally exploring those ideas. And half of the people who take advantage of really excited about the opportunity, some fail. So I'll make it through and it does move the needle but then, there's up some portion of most populations who probably need it most, but choose not to participate and they feel somewhat cut out of something like right in the right. Like even as simple as a wellness program, you don't have to participate. If you do, we'll give you Amazon gift cards, something like that. And then they say, well, I'm a working mother or I've got no time to do any workouts. I'm never going to go for a walk. This is ridiculous. Something, you know, there's always an excuse, but there's some push-back to it. You haven't seen that in your company,

               With these programs specifically? I did get a little bit of push-back because we have a financial course that at the end of it, they put together a six month budget and if they stick to it, we actually contribute an amount to their goal. But, you have to graduate from the class first. I actually did get some push-back from saying, how can we have to take this class first to do that. And I said, well, because I don't trust people that don't have good daily habits to follow through with a budget. So I want to make sure that we're building, you know, step on step. So I got some push-back there. But with context, it felt like it sun-settled relatively quickly. Aaron liner. So I'll have to look into that a little bit. One of our core values here is extreme ownership.

               So if you're recruiting the right view from the beginning, then you won't have that issue. Very interesting. I mean, I don't want to use the word paternalistic because it has a negative connotation, but it's a true involvement in your employee's lives that I think a lot of it happens in 5 men, 10 men, 20 men companies, very few hundred men. Companies really have that level of development and involvement in their employees lives. It's very interesting. So what sort of results have you seen? I mean, how's it gone for the 65 people who've gone through there?

               Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I think that it's pretty clear that when people develop these types of traits and habits in their life, that it spills very quickly into business success as well as you might imagine that people that have gone through and graduated from the course and now doing the financial courses. I look in the room and I'm like, these are all my performers in the company. It's pretty natural to see that occurring. Here's the thing, I do it because I love the people I work with and I care about them, but I'm also selfish and I do it for myself because I am not the teacher that has it all figured out. I am the facilitator and a participant of those classes. Everything that we review, I am doing myself. I am being accountable to the class, because I want that accountability in my life and I want those things as well. I do it as much for myself as I do for anyone else and I'm okay with that. I think that also helps it to feel a little bit more authentic because I'm not there to teach something that I figured out. I want, Hey, I've got some experiences I'm going to share and let's figure this out together.

               Very interesting. I want to transition a little bit. A lot of our listeners and many of my clients, even in the HR space, are in a position where they've grown an operation or service team, a delivery team, but they're still stuck in the owner as the salesperson. And I know that you have had success in transitioning from that model and I'm wondering what sort of insights you can give us on how to actually make transitioning from that founder or owner based sales team to having a sales team.

                Yeah. A high level response...]]>1ebfc53b-63af-48e9-bb19-f7329671dd30Mon, 20 Jan 2020 08:45:00 -050039:42falsefull37373Ladies 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. 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 the 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...Rhamy AlejealQ&A: Does Workers Comp Count against FMLA?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...]]>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 accrued, if that's vacation or personal, whatever it is during a furlough, during a layoff. If an employer has no accrued time off, the employer can even put the employee into a negative pay leave balance if you would like. So you could continue paying them, let it go negative, require that be paid back upon resumption of work. Even while furloughed, however, FLSA applies to employees. So the fair labor standard act mandates compliance with the salary basis requirement for salaried exempt personnel. So if an employee performs any work during that week period, for a salary basis employee FLSA exempt, the employer may not dock the employees pay for the absence. When a furlough is for one week or more a full week, something like that. Federal law generally does not require payment to the employee. So if you're going to lay someone off or you're gonna have to do a temporary shutdown for a low, you've got to look at whether they're salaried or hourly. If you're going to do salary, you got to pay him for the whole week period if they work any hour of that week. One thing to also keep in mind that I didn't ask about this, but during a furlough for the legal term of that, you are required to continue occurring vacation days, sick days, personal days, and to continue to receive other benefits such as health insurance. So hope that helps you out there.

               Next question.

               Does workers' compensation leave count against an employee's FMLA leave entitlement. And how do temporary disability plans fit within the Family Medical Leave Act?

               Okay. Let me clear something up. FMLA leave a family medical leave act. It protects the employees job and benefits during the leave for up to 12 weeks in a 12 month period. There are some exceptions to this. The spousal exemption is actually my favorite, most common, where you share these things in a lot of ways with a employed spouse at the same organization. But the key is FMLA leave is unpaid. It's a job protection and benefits. It is not related to pay. Workers' comp provides for treatment for a work related injury or illness and partial wage replacement. So it's a disability policy. It would run concurrently at the same time with leave under the FMLA at leaves you, what you should do is designate the leave is FMLA.

               As soon as FMLA leave starts, as soon as that eligible workers' compensation illness or injury starts and it requires that the employee be out of work, it starts then. That's their 12 weeks of protection. But the pay is related to the worker's comp. If your company, if your employee qualifies for any sort of partial disability plan, whether that's workers' comp or some other disability plan, it's going to run concurrently with FMLA leave disability plans, workers' comp, they provide for wage payment. FMLA provides for job and benefits protection, but not pay. Hope that clears up for you. In the process of our last question of the day. Hope this has been interesting to you so far.

               In the process of auditing I-9s, we found some I-9 forms containing incomplete or inaccurate information. What should we do?

               Okay. You do not want to get new ones. Let's start with that. If information on an employee's I-9 is incorrect or incomplete, you can make corrections near the incorrect or incomplete space in the employee's I-9 that had the errors. The employer and the employee have to work together on it. What you want to do is draw a line through the inaccurate information, write the correction on the form using a different colored pen. If you did this digitally, you need to print the copy, do this on paper, scan it back in. Okay. So anyway, I'm sorry. I printed it off, draw a line through the inaccurate information, right? The correct information on the form. Use a different color pen and then initial and date the correction, both the employer and the employee. Missing information should be provided initial dated and a written explanation. I'd put it on the front as to the reason for the change attached, not on the same form, like an extra one.

               I would make a note that the file was a self-audit that was completed on that date. So if you have like five or six changes or 50 or 60 changes to make, I do your I-9, I'd put up, you know, internal memo in a self-audit was completed on December 31 2019. The following twenty I-9s had corrections brought with the employee, make those pieces, make sure the signature relates to the attestation. So remember that there's a signature line of the I-9. It says, “I attest under penalty of perjury...” So you want to put that, you want to make sure you're signing near there. If you have a cover letter, you want them to sign on top of it. I wouldn't do that. I would just have them initial and date the corrections and sign at the bottom

               If your company is audited, the examiners will want to have proof that you exhibited good faith effort to audit your records and correct the deficiency. So it's a good thing to do. You're not going to get me in worse off shape. Having audited founded errors and corrected them. You just want to make sure that it's obvious that you're not covering it up. You used a different color pen. You got it straight, cleared up, made a note, signed at the bottom. It'll take care of you.

               Okay, ladies and gentlemen, that's it for today. I hope that was helpful to you. I hope you learned a little something. Please check us out on our social media pages and subscribe at peopleprocesses.com or on the pod catcher of your choice. We're going to be coming out with episodes every week. We've got a lot of interviews coming up for 2020. I'm very excited to get to know some of our new guests and share their wisdom with you. Thank you so much for tuning in. My name is Rhamy Alejeal. Now it's time for you to go out there, have a great day, and get your work done.

               ]]>5bf85a21-2115-4637-80f6-822906c6b5caFri, 17 Jan 2020 09:00:00 -050010:25falsefull36363Listen and learn about FMLA and workers' compensation. We're going to be talking about required religious holidays and a few more topics.Rhamy AlejealDo you have a Performance Based Bonus Plan?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,]]>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 budget, which a nonprofit is like most of it. 2% of that is going to some sort of a short term incentive. On average, the most common type of STIs are still those AIPs, the annual incentive plans. But, spot award programs are much more common or more prevalent in nonprofits compared to AIPs, in at least compared to private industries with discretionary bonuses, project bonuses, team, small group incentives and profit sharing plans.

               Also in the mix, STI plans are being simplified as nonprofits getting used to having these plans as reward tools. The prevalence of organizations using 10 or more performance measurements in their annual incentive plans decreased in 2019 and more. Organizations now report using four to six performance measures. Long-term incentive plans are used by a small minority with only 22% reporting and LTI plan in 2019. A lot of those LTIs are probably for HighQ,. High end executives, right year over year over year growth in your nonprofit, perhaps the, executive director or some of your executives may have some long-term incentives. One of the most interesting trends this year is the decrease in the number of performance measures used by nonprofits, said Bonnie SJ, Lender, principal at CAAP. Four to six performance measurements are now prevalent reflecting a move towards more holistic but manageable incentive management frameworks.

               Discretion also continues to play a role in incentive decisions given the difficulty in measuring performance objectively without a true profitability metric. So this survey is very interesting and I just want to kind of hit on a couple of big ideas. If you are a smaller nonprofit or a private company and you're doing a flat Christmas bonus, everyone gets $50, nothing wrong with that. But short term incentive plans, annual improvement, annual incentive plans are huge and everywhere. They're a great way to control to incentivize good behavior. In order to do any good performance management, you have to take a holistic approach. You have to know what the objectives key results are you're trying to accomplish in a year. You have to know what KPIs measurements you can use that are objective to measure the performance of your employees. It's a big process.

               At Academy.peopleprocesses.com we have a week-long deep dive into performance management where we dive in deep on how to structure all of that and bring ideas. Even have templates and that kind of stuff you can use to distribute to your organization. But for those of you who already have one, just keep in mind that the good numbers are 2% of operating budget for nonprofits and 6% of operating profit is going to STIs. So if you take your profit last year, take 6% of that, set it aside. That's about your short term incentive budget. A 6.5%, actually now in 2020, 19 up from 6% in 2017 and 5% in prior years. So take a look. If you're looking at your profit and you go, Hey, you know what? I don't know how much to allocate to bonuses to, to this kind of stuff.

               That's what you want to do, but you don't want to just do a blanket. Let's say you had $1 million in profit last year. You want to say, all right, my budget is 65,000, but you don't want to just spread it out among your employees, not evenly based on their salary. You want to have a plan in place. If you're thinking about jumping into this, put your plan in place in January or February, run the whole year and do it at the end of your next year or however your fiscal year runs. Nonprofits, like I said, around 2% of operating budget is the most common. Let me know what you think. Speak in the comments message as you can always email us at service,at people processes or find us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and message me on there. I'd love to hear your thoughts about, does your PR, does your budget reflect a 2% for nonprofits into short term incentives like bonuses. What about your company profit? Are you doing around 6%? Are you doing a lot less? I'd love to see how this applies down into some of our local companies.

               In the meantime, take a look at what you're going to do for 2020. If you're thinking about pay raises or budgeting for bonuses, lean towards bonuses, this is going to be a great opportunity to truly control. To provide the right incentives for the behavior you want. And this as a manager or an executive going to be one of the biggest bang for your buck in terms of both spend and time spend that you take to put this together. All right. That's it for today. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope this is helpful. On our website peopleprocesses.com we have all these numbers laid out. Hey, listen this on the podcast. If you want to check us out there, I'd sure appreciate it. Subscribe on there for some special subscriber only content. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Love to hear from you on there. Now it's time for you to go out there, have a great day, and get your work done. Thanks for listening.

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               ]]>7d0410c7-5009-4dd1-a3cc-0f8c6557441bMon, 13 Jan 2020 09:00:00 -050009:34falsefull35353Rhamy AlejealPeople Process Interviews: Angela LauriaRhamy 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...]]>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. And they make somewhere between a quarter of a million and a half million dollars doing the very thing that saved my life and changed my life for other people. So their wellness books, nutrition books, business books, find a career you love, save your marriage, get healthy, all those different topics. And we've now just published our thousandth book. We we're at about, 20 million in revenue. We'll do about 20 million this year in revenue. We have 45 employees. We have two locations in the Washington D C area. I'm currently at the author training Academy in Georgetown. Then we also have the author castle on the Potomac river in Northern Virginia. And it's pretty exciting what we've built in about six years.

               Rhamy Alejeal: That's outstanding. And I know that journey, there's been tons of amazing successes and right now things are looking awesome. But I like to start our interviews after we kind of know a person we're talking with a little bit and how cool they are. Now, I like to go back to the hardest parts because I think a lot of our listeners, and I know myself, we learn more from the mistakes from the big rough times and how we got through them than we do from the successes.

               So Dr. Angela, could you go back on your last six years in this entrepreneurial journey of building out this company to such a success? And tell me about the worst entrepreneurial moment you've had, the one that took nearly took you out and, and take us to that time.

               Dr. Lauria:       Yeah. Well God knows there's a lot of those. It really is hard to pick. There's two that come to mind and I'm going to share about both of them though. The one that really took me out that was like, I guess this is just the end, was when I formed a partnership and I think a lot of people in business do this. Early on, very early on for me. I formed a partnership with one of our authors, her book had done so well. Her business. She had been in business for like I think five years maybe, and had made no money. And within three months of her book coming out, we did over $100,000. She was one of my very first authors. I was just learning the different process. She was one of my Guinea pigs and it was super exciting.

               And one of my coaches said to me, what you should do is partner with her. You should be taking a percentage from all of your authors instead of just having them pay you and you bring so much value you should get, you should get more value than just being paid back money for value. Right, right, exactly. Which sounded really good to me. So we partnered and I decided instead of having lots of clients, I would just have a few, like maybe three or four, but I would own like 40% of their business and I would do all the marketing and they would provide the content cause I'm super good at marketing and they're good at whatever they're good at. In this case, it was a woman who taught self care to new moms. And so she could do her program and I would do all the marketing and then I'd get 40% of the value and it worked.

               We partnered, we made tons of money. I was like, this is a great strategy. I'll do this with four more people and that'll be my whole business. Cause if I get four people to a million, then you know, that's all the money that I'll need. Like I'll be done. It'll be great. And super simple. And then about six months in she was like, Oh, I don't want to do this anymore. Now I want to do this thing and I don't like the marketing copy or writing and I don't want you to have my passwords for social media and everything you write, I want to approve and I'm not going to give you the password to my email. All the emails are coming out under my name. And all of a sudden I was like an employee and she wasn't very good at marketing. That's why she hadn't made any money in six years.

               So I was in a position where I had invested so much in this partnership. Like I put all my eggs in this one basket and without full control of the marketing, I knew I couldn't make us any money and I didn't want to just be an employee. That was like why I was starting a business. So we terminated that partnership. She went on to go back to not making money and did the marketing her way, which is what really felt good to her. And I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't do partnerships anymore and that I wanted to always have full control of my own destiny.

               Rhamy Alejeal: Before we move on to your other story, I think that's really interesting and I hear that we actually just finished up an interview last week with an older gentleman who's been in business for 20 years. And his story was the same as first business didn't go well, and it was because of a partnership that he didn't control. Right. He didn't feel like that wasn't his issue.

               But from your story, what do you think if you know, our listeners should take away from?

               Dr. Lauria:       Don't do partnerships. That's the line. It's hard liner on this. I very rarely hear positive, not never, but I very rarely hear a positive story about a partnership. And if you think you're that exception, you would not be asking the question, should I do a partnership? So anyone who's asking the question, should I do a partnership? The answer is no.

               Rhamy Alejeal: Yeah, I think that's fair and reasonable. I think that's very reasonable. Some people are, you know, I'm kind of with you. I think probably in the last 30 interviews I've done a bad partner in the beginning has been the number one problem or moment of near destruction.

               Dr. Lauria:       It seems like it'll make things easier. It makes them exponentially harder. And I don't even, I've totally made amends with this person, but I don't even, it wasn't her fault. She was like, I don't want something going on. You're like, good, then do your own marketing. But then all of a sudden I had nothing to sell. And this happens in so many ways with partnerships that yeah, if you're asking the question, it's a no.

               Rhamy Alejeal: Right. And it's one of those where you know either if you're investing and you're getting out sized returns because of your value, then the other person or the majority owner will feel that they're paying you hundreds of thousands of dollars a month for something they could hire a great marketing company for five minutes. And so there's a structural view that leads to resentment a lot of times, unless there's a much more complicated structure for like a publicly traded or, you know, venture capital kind of setup. But, for the vast majority of our small business listeners, I completely agree with you. A partnership just as you're asking for pain, you're asking for, well, you said you to tell us another story though.

               Dr. Lauria:       Well, I did because that's the story that's really gotten me here. This is the one that I think is an even better lesson. So, when I started my business I thought as I got busy, there would be tasks that I could hire people to do those tasks. And so it was a very transactional idea I had about hiring people. And the idea was I have a task, I give you money, you do the task. I love this idea, I daydream about it. Sometimes I just stare off into the sunset. This idea is not reality. Anyone anywhere, anytime. And it's very hard to believe that cause your brain, at least my brain wanted to be like maybe if we pay them more, maybe if we find a different person, maybe if we make the task smaller, but no, the actual problem with this mistake is thinking you can get people to be transactional.

               Dr. Lauria:       They, in my experience are not, and it is so much more rewarding to actually build something with someone. I know it doesn't sound that way. When you're on the other side of it, you're like, would you just shut up and do what I'm asking and do it my way. My dad was an entrepreneur and he used to say this thing that I never understood. But now it makes so much sense. He would say to his employees, I don't pay you to think, I pay you to act. I don't pay you to think it did not work. But I now know why he said that he had it written all over his office. There were plaques everywhere that said, I don't pay you to think Mickey Lauria, to remind his employees all day long to just do what they were told. And, I think the reason why my dad, my dad has super successful business, he's in the hot rod hall of fame and got his business to $5 million. But I think the reason he capped out at $5 million is that's about how far you could get if you don't pay people to think. If you want to get beyond six figures or beyond seven figures, at least you're going to have to pay people to think. And that was my biggest lesson.

               Rhamy Alejeal: Well, I think that's very reasonable. And that's a lot of course. What all our listeners are familiar with in people processes and that kind of thing to build out those structures to develop people. I'm really interested. I know we're going to cover that a little bit later. We want to hear about how you actually implemented that.

               But tell me about the realization point for you. Like why, how did you come to that decision?

               Dr. Lauria:       Yeah, it was, it was a lot of misery. What happened for me was, I wanted to hire people and have them document what they were doing and it seemed like every time I would hire them and try and get them to document it, they had all these suggestions and changes and then other people in the organization, it would mess them up. And it was just a disaster after it was like I was constantly fighting fires and I just decided there was one morning I was in Tuscany and it was the last day of an event that I was running in Tuscany and I just refused to get out of bed. I've never had burnout. I hear people talk about it and it sounds dumb to me, but that day was the only day lasted about 45 minutes where I was like, I am just not going to get out of bed.

               There's no one can make me, you are going to have to like drag me out of here because I just couldn't handle another crisis. I knew the second my feet hit the floor that the crisis is we're going to start there was, I was staying with my team in this Tuscan village and at the bottom of the steps I was staying in the master bedroom in this villain. At the bottom of the steps was the kitchen and I knew once I got to the kitchen there would be a question and it would be something like real quick, what do we do when a customer does this, but it wouldn't be real quick and it was going to be from 7:00 AM until midnight that I was going to be badgered with fires and it felt like Puranas were just literally picking my body to pieces every day and I didn't know how to do it.

               One more day. Like I just could not go on one more day. And somehow I dragged myself out of bed that day and then the next day was a day off. And that was when I decided to build a real company and to stop hiring people and to start really to start over from scratch with the idea of having relationships and partnerships with my employees and really understand fundamentally what they were getting out of the job and what they wanted because trying to get them to do it my way just wasn't working. So I had to start learning more and caring more about them as whole people. And I really made that decision in Tuscany, in 2016 and rebuilt my business. I came back from Tuscany and completely rebuilt my business with a lot more employees, but they're more empowered. So I was really trying to do the whole thing backwards.

               Rhamy Alejeal: Wait for dive. I'm looking forward to diving into that. It reminds me, and it's so funny that it was 2016 because, it was right around, it was the end of 2015, early 2016, my wife and I had gone on a trip to Barcelona with family. I had almost the exact same thing. We'd doubled in size a few years in a row. We were making money, things were going great. And I just remember two or three first time events, you know, where the standard operating procedures just wouldn't cut it, popping up every day of a five day vacation. And I remember sitting there, you know, time zones were different for US. So we would check in, you know, my things would start blowing up around like 4:00 PM in Barcelona. And I remember my Liz and I who started the company together, at least started the company with me years ago.

               We were up at midnight in Barcelona while everyone else was asleep in our beautiful middle of nowhere Wine, country Villa. And we're sitting there pissed cause we have bad internet trying to figure out how to deal with these problems. And that moment of, there's gotta be a step beyond, you know, you read the emails, you build a company, you think there are technicians, then there's this, this layer and you just have to build standard operating procedures for all the processes and then it'll all work. But at scale that doesn't work. That is not the end. There's another step past that you got.

               Dr. Lauria:       And I was in the e-myth club and still love it. Like was totally in that club. But then yeah, just didn't quite.

               Rhamy Alejeal: I think it's neat. I mean some people need a kick in the pants to get out of making the bread or writing the book itself.

               You know, they need to get pass technician role, but there's a step beyond making nice procedures for everyone to follow on a task based transactional nature. Absolutely. So I think I want to give you a chance to kind of show where you're at and how you got there. I want you to have a chance to tell us about what's coming up in the next six months and then we're going to switch back to some of the insights you've gained. Because I think that's gonna help round us out.

               But in the next six months, what...]]>493fd7f9-7191-419a-affc-0c45226a7f31Thu, 09 Jan 2020 09:00:00 -050040:26falsefull34343Dr. 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.Rhamy AlejealNew Trump Order means Insurance has to tell you how much things cost?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]]>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 you can't go compare that to Amazon and you don't get any pre-estimates. It's just price transparency is going to be if this is able to be implemented, which no guarantees. But if this rule is able to implement it, it is the first true movement to lowering the cost, the true cost of healthcare in this country. Not what people pay individually, not what companies pay. And I would ensure his pay but just the overall cost. So everybody benefits that. I've seen at least since I started in this business about 10 years ago. The proposed rule includes two approaches to make healthcare price information accessible to consumers, allowing for easy comparison shopping.

               So these are the two things they're going to do. First, each non grandfathered group health plan or health insurance issuer offering non grandfathered health insurance coverage in the individual and group markets. So basically everybody who's not unlike an old plan pre 2013 would be required to make available to participants, beneficiaries and enrollees personalized out of pocket cost information for all covered healthcare items and services. Through an internet based self service tool and in paper form upon request. For the first time, most consumers would be able to get estimates of their call sharing liability for healthcare for different providers, allowing them to both understand how costs for covered healthcare items and services are determined by their plan and shop and compare costs for healthcare before receiving care. Second, each non grandfathered group health plan or health insurance offering non-grant grandfathered individual coverage would be required to make available to the public, including stakeholders such as consumers, researchers, employers and third party developers.

               The end network negotiated rates with their network providers and historical payments have allowed amounts to out of network providers through standardized regularly updated machine readable files, I. E. big giant databases that I can turn into proposals. This would provide opportunities for innovation to dive, to drive price comparison, consumerism in the healthcare market. That would be huge. Knowing what the usual and customary out-of-pocket spend is something that's nearly opaque right now. Even for someone like me who's in the industry quoting hundreds of companies, working with hundreds of companies every year, being able to see the actual, like you would get a proposal and be like, this is your deductible, your out of pocket maximum and here's a sampling of negotiated rates for providers in your area. That makes a huge difference. In conjunction with the proposed rule, the DOL posted three appendices to its website.

               The model notice proposed data elements for the negotiated rate machine readable file and proposed data elements for the allowed amount. That's the out-of-pocket or the out of network stuff in machine-readable files, so they actually said, not only do we want you to do it, here's the notice we want you to put out and here's how we want your data to look so that everybody can read it. Those came out. That's the big news for you as a consumer of healthcare. Now there's a couple of other little things. They changed up how the MLR works. The medical loss ratio basically saying if you can provide information that lets people save money, the insurance company doesn't have to necessarily rebate that as an MLR. They can split it with the consumer. So basically it frees up a little bit like right now, most MLRs are 80%.

               So whatever dollars come into the insurance company, 80% has to go to spend on actual medical payments. This is saying, look, if you can actually lower the cost of health insurance and people are using these tools, we'll let you go a little bit above 80%. This gives an insurer the incentive to make the system good instead of some just, you know, crappy website that no one ever uses because no one can ever find it. When they do, it doesn't work. We don't want that. So it also provides an incentive knowing that a lot of this cost of publishing this information is going to disrupt insurance services and presidents and other, it says if you do it well and it saves people money, you can make a little bit more too.

               Now, when would the start? All components of the role would be applicable for plan years beginning on or after one year after the finalization of the rule. So the rule is not final yet. A commons are due on or before January 14th, 2020. So if you really think about this and you want to comment on it, we'll have a link to our website. We can actually go online and comment to the federal government, department of labor, the joint task force on this and tell them what you think. Those comments are going to be up. You can do them up to January 14th, 2020 and then after that there's normally a 90 day review period and then the law would go into effect unless they revise it. If that's the case, then by 2021, we could have this kind of transparency. It would be a game changer, an absolute game changer.

               So, you know, wherever your politics are, I gotta say I'm super excited about this. I think it would give us so much more information going in. So keep an eye out. If next fall you renew if you're a January 1 renewal, so not 2020 that we're already done with, but 2021 keep an eye on this because your 2021 proposal may be completely different and if your broker isn't necessarily providing that information to you, you want to shop around, take a look around because this could be the biggest deal in terms of selecting health plans in a long time. My name is Rhamy Alejeal, I'm the CEO of peopleprocesses. We help companies all over the U S with things like on-boarding, payroll, timekeeping, and of course employee benefits. We can help you find and select the best plans for your organization, communicate them, enroll them, handle all the paperwork and talk to each and every one of your eligible employees with one of our licensed benefits counselors whose only job is to help employees understand this stuff. If you're interested, drop us a line at surfaceatpeopleprocesses.com or at peopleprocesses.com you can book an appointment directly. We'd love to help you out there. In the meantime, it is time for you to go out there, have a great day, and get your work done. Thanks for listening.

               Proposed rule

               Appendices. In conjunction with the proposed rule, the DOL posted the following three appendices to its website:

               • Proposed Transparency in Coverage Model Notice
               • Proposed Data Elements for Negotiated Rate Machine-Readable File
               • Proposed Data Elements for Allowed Amount Machine-Readable File.
               
               

               Footnotes

               5Proposed Rule: Transparency in Coverage, 26 CFR Part 54, 29 CFR Part 2590, and 45 CFR Parts 147 and 158; 84 FR 65464, November 27, 2019; https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2019-11-27/pdf/2019-25011.pdf.

               ]]>f9b89636-8070-4b6c-9257-ce396f367d47Fri, 03 Jan 2020 09:00:00 -050010:38falsefull33333Rhamy AlejealWhen to start using the 2020 W4Good 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...]]>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 to all these different pieces. In the actual form itself, it looks pretty similar. It say W4 on the top left. First section, super easy. First name, last name, social security number, address, city, state, and zip code. Great. Then it asks single or married filing separately, married filing jointly or qualifying widower and head of household, which means check only if you're unmarried and pay more than half the costs of upkeep of keeping up a home for yourself and a qualifying individual. So those are your three options. Great. Click one that's straightforward.

               Technically, that can be the end of the form, but we're going to add a couple more. So complete steps 2 to 4 only if they apply to you. Now, how do we know that they apply to you? Alright, complete this step if you hold more than one job at a time or are married filing jointly and your spouse also works the correct amount of withholding depends on income earned from all of these jobs. So the W4 is now going to get information on whether you need information about your spouse's income as well. So this is pretty cool. So it says, do one of the following, only one of the following. If you have more than one job or you have a spouse who works in your filing jointly, you want to use the estimator@irs.gov/w4app, which is actually not too bad.

               Use the multiple jobs worksheet on page 3 and enter the result in step 4. See below. Or if there are only two jobs total, you may simply check this box. Do the same on the W4 for the other job. This option is accurate for jobs with similar pay, otherwise more tax than necessary may be withheld. All you gotta do is check the box. So if you have two working or you have two jobs that pay a similar amount, you simply check that box and you move on. If you're married filing jointly, then over in a step to be the multiple jobs worksheet. Basically it says, if you have two jobs or you're married filing jointly and you use a higher spot and you and your spouse each have one job, find the amount from a table on page 4, which is basically, a go to the higher paying job and look at your annual salary.

               And then that's what it shows on the left. So it says like zero to 10,000, 10,000 to 20,000 on the left in a column. And then across the top it says a lower paying job, annual taxable wage and salary. And it makes a little chart. So let's say you make 80,000 and your spouse makes 30,000. It takes you over to the chart and it gives you a number 3440 and it asks you to then put that on the multi wage worksheet. So you can do it that way. Again, if you're paid a similar amount, you can simply check the box under step two. Finally, you go onto step 3 and it says, complete this for only one of the jobs. And so whichever one is the highest paying job of your spousal income or your two jobs that you've told yourself you would complete step 3 on.

               If you don't have more than one job, you don't need to complete step 3. You don't need to do step 2 either. If you are married and you know, and not filing jointly, you don't need to do step 2 or 3. But if you are, you go in here and it says, Hey, step 3 claim defendants. This is for those of you who would only do it on one of the jobs, right? Just one. Don't do it on the extras. If your income will be less than 200,000 or less than 400,000. If married filing jointly, multiply the number of qualifying children under age 17 by 2000, multiply the number of other dependents by 500. And then combine the totals to fill out your final number. So you got one kid, you got one spouse, maybe one who's not working. You put 2,500 in step 3. That's simple. If you were the lower income spouse, you would put nothing in 3.

               Finally, there's the step 4 other optional adjustments, which you can say, Hey, I make extra money here, from riddle properties or something like that. Or driving an Uber. You can put in other income. You can also put in other deductions other than the standardized worksheet if you want. The vast majority of people will not use that. You can also put in your extra withholding, which again is an option that was on the prior SA W4. Again, very rarely used for most, but that's foresee. So for A, B and C, completely optional, but some people will use them. Then you sign and date and then the employers numbers go on the bottom, first name and address, first date of employment and the EIM. And that's it. That's the W4. Now there's a little bit more complexity to it because it's kind of asking about total combined household income as opposed to just wanting to ask you the number of withholding. But that's going to lead to such more accurate withholding that I'm quite pleased about it, but I understand it's going to be a bit of a booger. So how do you fill it out? We just went over it. When do you start using it in 2024 new hires only or people who want to make updates in 2020.

               Going forward go to peopleprocesses.com download a new one. Now, normally I just want to drop a little plug in here to let you know. Of course, in our HR systems, these are all part of your on-boarding systems and our HR base base HRS platform, they connect directly to payroll. They handle all the calculations on the back end. They're easy for employees to access an update. Pretty cool little tool. If you're not on it yet, let us know. We'd love to show you around, but many software out there are going to have, it doesn't just have to be ours. Just need to get that W4 filled out for your new hires starting in 2020. I hope this was helpful for you. Hope you'll learn something, go to the website, download the form, and look it over yourself. The lot of this episode will make a lot more sense that way. Thank you for taking the time. My name is Rhamy Alejeal, and I'm so excited you joined me to here today. Now it's time for you to go out there, have a great day, and get your work done.

               • Form W-4 (final version for 2020)
               • Publication 15-T (third draft for 2020)
               • Frequently asked questions
               
               ]]>5d371cd4-c86b-435f-85a2-3e547ba64936Fri, 27 Dec 2019 08:00:00 -050010:06falsefull32323Rhamy AlejealNew FLSA Standards are not enough for Washington!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...]]>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 2021. When the State and federal thresholds conflicts, you must meet the most favorable threshold to the employees. So in Washington next year, just like the rest of the country, FLSA exempt is going to be 35,005.68, but by 2021, this is just for businesses with 1 to 50 by the way, this is the small business side of it. You'll have to pay at least 827 a week. So 2020, you're hitting the federal 35,005.68 a year, 2021, Washington, you're at 40,300.4 a year.

               If you have more than 51 employees, then the threshold will actually be 1.7 time, seven five times the normal wage, 1.75 times the minimum wage, which is about 965 a week or 50,001.68 a year. So if you got over 50 by January 1, 2021, FLSA exempt line is 50,001.80, for those of you in Washington, this is going to lead to more and more incremental increases in the state threshold until January 1, 2028, which is when it reaches that final 2.5 times the state minimum wage, that's going to be a big, big dollar figure to swallow at that point. So this is a great example of how a lot of the States having had this kind of crack in the FLSA where we are finally at a level restructured what the minimum salaries are now. They are going in and adding their own requirements, which are significantly higher. There's some other things to think about. Job duties test is not just based on salary on how much you're paid. There's also regulations on what the employee does itself. Now that's a little beyond the scope of this particular episode. We do have one back in the archives and we'll probably do an updated one here in first quarter of 2020 so that we can kind of read everybody in. Of course, we also have, if you'd want to, check it out at academy.peopleprocesses.com. A deep dive into employee classification where we go through at a federal level and then each individual state the requirements among other things for FLSA exemption. The job duties test is also changing out in Washington. The Washington state currently uses two job duties tests that have been reduced to one test with language that now more closely aligns with the federal job duties test.

               So they are actually simplifying it, making it a lot more like the a FLSA at the federal level. I think that's a good thing much more similar across the nation. The other thing is that when you look at how to comply with this, employers have multiple options. For example, they can convert current salary exempt employees to salary non-exempt or hourly non-exempt and pay overtime for any work over 40 hours a week. So you can keep the salary, but then if you've got to track their hours that they work over 40, you're paying overtime or you can take them to hourly. Of course you could try to limit the number of hours of work to 40 hours a week or less. If they wish to maintain the employees exempt status, they would need to ensure the employee meets the new duties test and is paid at least the updated salary requirements. You got to pay more. In addition to qualifying for overtime pay, non-exempt workers must also receive other protections under the state's minimum wage act, including paid sick leave up there in Washington. So if you're looking at expanding into Washington or you're already there, you need to do a quick little review to make sure you are covering.

               Washington isn't the only state making some changes. Coming up, starting January 1, 2020 California's minimum wage among many other States is scheduled to increase California's minimum wage will increase on January 1 to $13 per hour for employers with 26 or more employees and to $12 an hour for employers with 25 or fewer. State law requires that most California workers be paid the minimum wage. Some cities and counties have local minimum wages that are higher than the state rate. So you need to take a look around, see where your people are working, make sure you're compliant with the local requirements as well. The legislation was actually enacted back in 2016. It was called Senate bill three, a link that is on the website as well. It provided increases in the state minimum wage over time to reach $15 per hour statewide by 2022 for large businesses and 2023 for small businesses.

               So we are well on our way. There's also a requirement to post information on wages, hours, and working conditions at work site areas. It has to be accessible to employees. There's a couple of rules around it. Employer posting requirements are available from the department of industrial relationships, workplace postings website. So if you're out in California and you're concerned about that, I'll put a link on the website for that as well. Keep in mind that this increase to 12 and $13 per hour, of course it's a minimum wage increase that we need to worry about starting January 1. But, California is expected to also mirror something like Washington and their FLSA requirements are going to go up as well. So you need to take a look at your salary people in California, make sure that you're doing the appropriate pieces in there. If you're interested in me doing a bit of a deep dive on a salary requirements, just maybe by state, going through a couple of good examples and providing a chart, let me know in the comments.

               You can email us at service at peopleprocesses.com. You can always comment on the episode, either on iTunes or wherever you're at. Just drop a line. We read all of them. And suggestions always get floated up to us. Thank you for joining us today. I hope this was a quick and interesting thing to draw your attention to. Some of the changes coming up in the US we will be doing many interviews coming up in the coming weeks with business leaders and HR folk. We also have many more compliance updates scheduled to come, so please subscribe and drop us a line if you have any questions or anything we can help you with. We will be doing our Q and A's. They were very popular last season. So if you want to reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, we are at people processes on most of those. If you want to check it out, the links are below on our peopleprocesses.com website. Please message us in there and we use that to compile a Q and A that we do every few weeks where we go over some of the best questions from our listeners. Now it's time for you to go out there, have a great day and get your work done. I'm Rhamy Alejeal, CEO of people processes. Thank you for tuning in.

               Senate Bill 3

               Workplace Postings

               Source: State of California, Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, News Release No. 2019-94, December 5, 2019.

               ]]>77f54a52-9210-488d-a6cf-0db58aa5fa15Fri, 20 Dec 2019 09:00:00 -050011:09falsefull31313Rhamy AlejealPeople Process Interviews: Tomas KeenanRhamy 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.instagram.com/tomas_keenan/

               https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomas-keenan/

               https://tomaskeenan.com/

               https://topclassinstallations.com/

               ]]>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.instagram.com/tomas_keenan/

               https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomas-keenan/

               https://tomaskeenan.com/

               https://topclassinstallations.com/

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=2091Tue, 02 Jul 2019 13:30:35 -050028:30falsefullRhamy Alejeal Interviews Thomas Keenan, Author of UnF*ck Your Business. <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> 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.<br /> &nbsp;<br /> Find Tomas Here:<br /> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/tom.keenan.988" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.facebook.com/tom.keenan.988&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1561809986106000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEPHAp4s_BglVPGx1YkYabCXM5jkQ">https://www.facebook.com/tom.keenan.988</a><br /> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/tomas_keenan/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.instagram.com/tomas_keenan/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1561809986106000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE_s5XH9krY1co3oBlgII3mn5hdZw">https://www.instagram.com/tomas_keenan/</a><br /> <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomas-keenan/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomas-keenan/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1561809986106000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHFHs6W4h2D4v125V6lYmyUQIP92A">https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomas-keenan/</a><br /> <a href="https://tomaskeenan.com/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://tomaskeenan.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1561809986106000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEBbnIBvc-GuqlDxpMRvKYhHzuDZw">https://tomaskeenan.com/</a><br /> <a href="https://topclassinstallations.com/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://topclassinstallations.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1561809986106000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGPjEcgM0MW6K_yWk9UnOWCFs0Bog">https://topclassinstallations.com/</a><br /> <br />Rhamy AlejealTrump’s Executive Order promotes price transparency, but lacks detailEliminating 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/

               ]]>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/

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=2093Fri, 28 Jun 2019 12:45:00 -050005:56falsefullEliminating 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.<br /> Policy statement. The Executive Order states that the federal government aims to:<br /> <br /> <br /> eliminate unnecessary barriers to price and quality transparency;<br /> <br /> <br /> increase the availability of meaningful price and quality information for patients;<br /> <br /> <br /> enhance patients’ control over their own health care resources, including through tax-preferred medical accounts; and<br /> <br /> <br /> protect patients from surprise medical bills.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> SOURCE: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-improving-price-quality-transparency-american-healthcare-put-patients-first/<br />Rhamy AlejealAll the minimum wage increases in the next yearIs your business prepared for a minimum wage increase?

               A quick update from 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?

                

               1. 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.

                

               2. 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.

                

               3. 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 (FLSA) of 2009, all employers]]>Is your business prepared for a minimum wage increase?

               A quick update from 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?

                

               1. 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.

                

               2. 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.

                

               3. 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 (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 1, 2023
                 • *annual increases continue 2030 until they reach $12.05
                 
                 
               • Minnesota
                 • 9.86 for large employers
                 • $8.04 for others
                 • Annual adjustments based on CPI
                 
                 
               • Missouri
                 • $8.60²
                 • $9.45 by Jan 1, 2020
                 • $10.30 by Jan 1, 2021
                 • $11.15 by Jan 1, 2022
                 • $12 by Jan 1, 2023
                 
                 
               • New Jersey
                 • $8.85
                 • $10 by July 1, 2019
                 • $11 by Jan 1, 2020
                 • $12 by Jan 1, 2021
                 • $13 by Jan 1, 2022
                 • $14 by Jan 1, 2023
                 • $15 by Jan 1, 2024
                 
                 
               • New Mexico
                 • $7.50
                 • $9.00 by Jan 1, 2020
                 • $10.50 by Jan 1, 2021
                 • $11.50 by Jan 1, 2022
                 • $12.00 by Jan 1, 2023
                 
                 
               • New York
                 • $11.10³
                 • $11.80 by Dec 31, 2019
                 • $12.50 by Dec 31, 2020
                 • After 2020, annual inflation-driven adjustments will continue until the minimum wage rate reaches $15
                 
                 
               • Ohio
                 • $8.55⁴
                 • Indexed annual increases based on consumer price index (CPI)
                 
                 
               • Oregon
                 • $10.75
                 • $11.25 by July 1, 2019
                 • $12.00 by July 1, 2020
                 • $12.75 by July 1, 2021
                 • $13.50 by July 1, 2022
                 
                 
               • Rhode Island
                 • $10.75
                 • $11.25 by July 1, 2019
                 • $12.00 by July 1, 2020
                 • $12.75 by July 1, 2021
                 • $13.50 by July 1, 2022
                 
                 
               • South Dakota
                 • $9.10
                 • Indexed annual increases based on CPI
                 
                 
               • Vermont
                 • $10.78
                 • Annual minimum wage increases according to CPI or by 5%, whichever is smaller, beginning Jan 1, 2019.
                 
                 
               • Washington
                 • $12
                 • $13.50 by Jan 1, 2020
                 • Indexed annual increases based on CPI beginning Jan 1, 2021
                 
                 

               
               

               Other important information

               *State minimum wage laws can be complex, subject to change, and often take into account factors like employee age and the employer’s gross annual revenue. As such, it’s important to consult state statutes and regulations for a comprehensive overview of wage requirements.

               1_{For a complete list of planned wage increases as they pertain to each state, please visit the National Conference of State Legislators website or check with the Department of Labor in your state.}

               2_{Retail and service businesses with less with an annual gross income less than $500,000 are not required to pay state minimum rates.}

               3_{Minimum wage rates may vary based on location and number of employees. This is particularly true for employers in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County.}

               4_{Businesses with an annual gross income of $314,000 or less are only required to pay the federal minimum wage rate of $7.25.}

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=2084Tue, 18 Jun 2019 13:30:26 -050009:13falsefullIs your business prepared for a minimum wage increase?<br /> A quick update from <a href="http://poplarfinancial.com">poplarfinancial.com</a>!<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> Many states across the country have recently raised the minimum wage, and more changes are on the horizon.<br /> &nbsp;<br /> 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.<br /> &nbsp;<br /> 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.)<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> What can you do to stay ahead?<br /> &nbsp;<br /> 1. Evaluate expenses and revisit your budget<br /> 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.<br /> &nbsp;<br /> 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.<br /> &nbsp;<br /> 2. Don’t forget payroll taxes<br /> 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.<br /> &nbsp;<br /> 3. Make strategic cost cuts<br /> 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.<br /> &nbsp;<br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> Is your state on the list?<br /> &nbsp;<br /> According to the Fair Labor Standards Act <a href="https://www.dol.gov/whd/minimumwage.htm">(FLSA)</a> 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.<br /> &nbsp;<br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> Minimum Wage Rate Increases by State1<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> Alaska<br /> <br /> $9.89<br /> Indexed annual increases based on consumer price index (CPI)<br /> <br /> <br /> Arizona<br /> <br /> $11<br /> $12.00 by Jan 1, 2020<br /> <br /> <br /> Arkansas<br /> <br /> $9.25<br /> $10.00 by Jan 1, 2020<br /> $11.00 by Jan 1, 2021<br /> <br /> <br /> California<br /> <br /> $12<br /> $13.00 by Jan 1, 2020<br /> $14.00 by Jan 1, 2021<br /> $15.00 by Jan 1, 2022<br /> <br /> <br /> Colorado<br /> <br /> $11.10<br /> $12.00 by Jan 1, 2020<br /> <br /> <br /> Delaware<br /> <br /> $8.75<br /> $9.25 by Oct 1, 2019<br /> <br /> <br /> D.C.<br /> <br /> $13.25<br /> $14 by July 1, 2019<br /> $15 by July 1, 2020<br /> <br /> <br /> Florida<br /> <br /> $8.46<br /> Indexed annual increases based on consumer price index (CPI)<br /> <br /> <br /> Illinois<br /> <br /> $8.25<br /> $9.25 by Jan 1,Rhamy AlejealPeople Processes Interviews: Alison ColleyWho 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/

                

                

               ]]>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/

                

                

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=2075Tue, 11 Jun 2019 13:30:27 -050025:13falsefullWho are we interviewing:<br /> Alison Colley – Solicitor and Founder of Real Employment Law Advice and host of the podcast ‘The<br /> Employment Law and HR Podcast’<br /> How did she get here?<br /> I qualified as a Solicitor (known as lawyer in the US) in the UK in 2006 and worked for traditional<br /> lawyers’ firms, where I specialised in employment law and providing legal advice to employers and<br /> employees.<br /> After becoming disillusioned with the traditional career path, stuffy slow pace of change and<br /> presenteeism required in the profession I found the ‘4 hour work week’ by Tim Ferris whilst<br /> wondering around bored on my lunchbreak and from this I was led into the world of<br /> entrepreneurship, passive income and taking control of my destiny.<br /> For several months after reading the 4 hour work week I came up with a vast number of hairbrained<br /> schemes completely unrelated to the legal profession, not having the confidence to consider that I<br /> could start my own legal firm. Eventually, realising I was not quite ready to give up on my profession<br /> and passion for helping to solve problems I set about starting my own legal practice.<br /> In November 2013 I started Real Employment Law Advice as a Sole Practitioner completely from<br /> scratch with no client base and no investment or capital.<br /> I started the firm with the objective of providing a new service to my local community and with the<br /> vision of starting something different to the traditional Solicitors brand.<br /> My objective was (and remains) to provide legal services in a new way, disrupting the market by<br /> utilizing technology to deliver service and provide information on a variety of platforms throughout<br /> the UK.<br /> I now have a team of 4 staff, including two other Solicitors and we work with clients throughout the<br /> UK on everything from contracts to HR best practice through to representation in the Employment<br /> Tribunal and Courts.<br /> Podcasting<br /> Few Solicitors in the UK are podcasting, and I was a relatively early adopter (August 2014), and have<br /> maintained consistency throughout this time. The podcast now regularly gets between 7,000- 8,00<br /> downloads per month from all over the world and I focus on the law, HR and best practice for<br /> employers, managers and HR professionals.<br /> As a result of the success of the podcast I was interviewed by the Guardian for an article on their<br /> website about podcasting for business.<br /> Contact Info<br /> Check her out at http://alisoncolley.co.uk/ or connect to her company: https://www.linkedin.com/company/real-employment-law-advice/<br /> &nbsp;<br /> &nbsp;<br />Rhamy AlejealPeople Process Interviews: Nathan Hirsch

               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.

               ]]>

               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.

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=2071Tue, 28 May 2019 13:21:05 -050021:33falsefull<br /> Nathan Hirsch is a 29 year old long time entrepreneur and expert in remote hiring and eCommerce.<br /> &nbsp;<br /> 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.<br /> <br />Rhamy AlejealPeople Processes Interviews: Alicia DunamsInternational 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.

               ]]>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.

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=2056Tue, 14 May 2019 13:09:40 -050028:13falsefullInternational 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. <br /> <br /> In her new book, I Get To: How Using The Right Words Can Radically Transform Your Life, Relationships &amp; 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. <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br />Rhamy AlejealDEEP DIVE! New 4 Factor Test for Joint EmploymentProposed 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 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 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...]]>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 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 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 the office park building after-hours. According to a contractual agreement with the office park and the janitorial company, the office park agrees to pay the janitorial company a fixed fee for these services and reserves the right to supervise the janitorial employees in their performance of those cleaning services. However, office park personnel do not set the janitorial employees’ pay rates or individual schedules and do not in fact supervise the workers’ performance of their work in any way. Is the office park a joint employer of the janitorial employees?

               Application: Under these facts, the office park is not a joint employer of the janitorial employees because it does not hire or fire the employees, determine their rate or method of payment, or exercise control over their conditions of employment. The office park’s reserved contractual right to control the employee’s conditions of employment does not demonstrate that it is a joint employer.

               (4) Example (landscaping services): A country club contracts with a landscaping company to maintain its golf course. The contract does not give the country club authority to hire or fire the landscaping company’s employees or to supervise their work on the country club premises. However, in practice a club official oversees the work of employees of the landscaping company by sporadically assigning them tasks throughout each workweek, providing them with periodic instructions during each workday, and keeping intermittent records of their work. Moreover, at the country club’s direction, the landscaping company agrees to terminate an individual worker for failure to follow the club official’s instructions. Is the country club a joint employer of the landscaping employees?

               Application: Under these facts, the country club is a joint employer of the landscaping employees because the club exercises sufficient control, both direct and indirect, over the terms and conditions of their employment. The country club directly supervises the landscaping employees’ work and determines their schedules on what amounts to a regular basis. This routine control is further established by the fact that the country club indirectly fired one of landscaping employees for not following its directions.

               (5) Example (staffing company): A packaging company requests workers on a daily basis from a staffing agency. The packaging company determines each worker’s hourly rate of pay, supervises their work, and uses sophisticated analysis of expected customer demand to continuously adjust the number of workers it requests and the specific hours for each worker, sending workers home depending on workload. Is the packaging company a joint employer of the staffing agency’s employees?

               Application: Under these facts, the packaging company is a joint employer of the staffing agency’s employees because it exercises sufficient control over their terms and conditions of employment by setting their rate of pay, supervising their work, and controlling their work schedules.

               (6) Example (association providing group benefits): An association, whose membership is subject to certain criteria such as geography or type of business, provides optional group health coverage and an optional pension plan to its members to offer to their employees. Employer B and Employer C both meet the association’s specified criteria, become members, and provide the association’s optional group health coverage and pension plan to their respective employees. The employees of both B and C choose to opt in to the health and pension plans. Does the participation of B and C in the Association’s health and pension plans make the association a joint employer of B’s and C’s employees, or B and C joint employers of each other’s employees?

               Application: Under these facts, the association is not a joint employer of B’s or C’s employees, and B and C are not joint employers of each other’s employees. Participation in the association’s optional plans does not involve any control by the association, direct or indirect, over B’s or C’s employees. And while B and C independently offer the same plans to their respective employees, there is no indication that B and C are coordinating, directly or indirectly, to control the other’s employees. B and C are therefore not acting directly or indirectly in the interest of the other in relation to any employee.

               (7) Example (supply chain contracts that include code of conduct, wage conditions): Entity A, a large national company, contracts with multiple other businesses in its supply chain. As a precondition of doing business with A, all contracting businesses must agree to comply with a code of conduct, which includes a minimum hourly wage higher than the federal minimum wage, as well as a promise to comply with all applicable federal, state, and local laws. Employer B contracts with A and signs the code of conduct. Does A qualify as a joint employer of B’s employees?

               Application: Under these facts, A is not a joint employer of B’s employees. Entity A is not acting directly or indirectly in the interest of B in relation to B’s employees—hiring, firing, maintaining records, or supervising or controlling work schedules or conditions of employment. Nor is A exercising significant control over Employer B’s rate or method of pay—although A requires B to maintain a wage floor, B retains control over how and how much to pay its employees. Finally, because there is no indication that A’s requirement that B commit to comply with all applicable federal, state, and local law exerts any direct or indirect control over B’s employees, this requirement has no bearing on the joint employer analysis.

               (8) Example (hotel industry franchise providing sample employment forms, documents): Franchisor A is a global organization representing a hospitality brand with several thousand hotels under franchise agreements. Franchisee B owns one of these hotels and is a licensee of A’s brand. In addition, A provides B with a sample employment application, a sample employee handbook, and other forms and documents for use in operating the franchise. The licensing agreement is an industry-standard document explaining that B is solely responsible for all day-to-day operations, including hiring and firing of employees, setting the rate and method of pay, maintaining records, and supervising and controlling conditions of employment. Is A a joint employer of B’s employees?

               Application: Under these facts, A is not a joint employer of B’s employees. A does not exercise direct or indirect control over B’s employees. Providing samples, forms, and documents do not amount to direct or indirect control over B’s employees that would establish joint liability.

               (9) Example (shared retail space requiring uniforms, code of conduct): A retail company owns and operates a large store. The retail company contracts with a cell phone repair company, allowing the repair company to run its business operations inside the building in an open space near one of the building entrances. As part of the arrangement, the retail company requires the repair company to establish a policy of wearing specific shirts and to provide the shirts to its employees that look substantially similar to the shirts worn by employees of the retail company. Additionally, the contract requires the repair company to institute a code of conduct for its employees stating that the employees must act professionally in their interactions with all customers on the premises. Is the retail company a joint employer of the repair company’s employees?

               Application: Under these facts, the retail company is not a joint employer of the cell phone repair company’s employees. The retail company’s requirement that the repair company provide specific shirts to its employees and establish a policy that its employees to wear those shirts does not, on its own, demonstrate substantial control over the repair company’s employees’ terms and conditions of employment. Moreover, requiring the repair company to institute a code of conduct or allowing the repair company to operate on its premises does not make joint employer status more or less likely under the act. There is no indication that the retail company hires or fires the repair company’s employees, controls any other terms and conditions of their employment, determines their rate and method of payment, or maintains their employment records.

               Said Keith Sonderling, Acting Administrator for the Department’s Wage and Hour Division. “The proposed changes would provide courts with a clearer method for determining joint employer status, promote greater uniformity among court decisions, and reduce litigation.”

               More information about the proposed joint employer rule is available at www.dol.gov/whd/flsa/jointemployment2019.

               The DOL encourages any interested members of the public to submit comments about the proposed rule electronically at www.regulations.gov, in the rulemaking docket RIN 1235-AA26. Once the rule is published in the Federal Register, the public will have 60 days to submit comments for those comments to be considered.

               Source: Joy Waltemath, J.D.

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=2036Wed, 01 May 2019 15:21:32 -050014:33falsefullProposed joint employer rule includes 4-factor test: hiring and firing, supervision and control, payment, and recordkeeping<br /> Noting it has not meaningfully revised its joint employer regulation since 1958, the Labor Department has announced via press release a <a id="link5" class="link" href="https://www.dol.gov/whd/flsa/jointemployment2019/joint-employment_NPRM.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">proposed rule</a> to revise and clarify the responsibilities of employers and joint employers.<br /> 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:<br /> <br /> <br /> Hire or fire the employee;<br /> <br /> <br /> Supervise and control the employee’s work schedules or conditions of employment;<br /> <br /> <br /> Determine the employee’s rate and method of payment; and<br /> <br /> <br /> Maintain the employee’s employment records.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> 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.”<br /> In June 2017, the DOL <a id="link20" class="link" href="https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/opa/opa20170607" target="_blank" rel="noopener">withdrew</a> 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.<br /> 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:<br /> (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?<br /> 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.<br /> (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?<br /> 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...Rhamy AlejealSurvey reveals employees’ major financial stressors, millennials’ interest in gig work

               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%

               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 within the workplace that offer the same gig-like diversity of exposure and flexibility can satisfy employees’ interests in this new type of work.”

               Source: Metlife 17th Annual US Employee Benefit Trends Study 2019

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=2038Thu, 18 Apr 2019 19:55:50 -050005:17falsefull<br /> Survey reveals employees’ major financial stressors, millennials’ interest in gig work<br /> MetLife&#8217;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.”<br /> 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.”<br /> 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.<br /> What are employees’ top 5 sources of financial stress?<br /> <br /> <br /> Being able to afford the cost of healthcare in retirement &#8211; 72%<br /> <br /> <br /> Outliving my retirement savings &#8211; 68%<br /> <br /> <br /> Having money to pay bills if someone loses their job &#8211; 67%<br /> <br /> <br /> Having money to cover out-of-pocket medical costs &#8211; 67%<br /> <br /> <br /> Ability to rely on Social Security/Medicare in retirement &#8211; 66%<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> “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.”<br /> The gig economy can be a challenge and an opportunity for employers<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> What are the top 3 reasons full-time workers are interested in gig work? 1) flexible schedule &#8211; 31%; 2) ability to work where they want &#8211; 29%; and 3) ability to take on multiple different projects &#8211; 22%<br /> But ultimately, employees want to ensure that joining the gig workforce doesn&#8217;t come at a loss of financial stability — their primary source of stress.<br /> The Study states that employers can use unique levers to cater to employees’ desires for financial security and stability. “Certainly,Rhamy AlejealCMS Extends Small Group Transitional Relief Policies through 2020CMS Extends Small Group Transitional Relief Policies through 2020

               On Mar 25, 2019, CMS issued a 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 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:

               • 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.
               • 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.
               • CMS Extends Small Group Transitional Relief Policies through 2020

                 On Mar 25, 2019, CMS issued a 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 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:

                 • 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.
                 • 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.
                 • 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.
                 • Feb 23, 2017 – Extension 3. Available to policy years beginning Jan 1, 2014 – Oct 1, 2018. All non-compliant policies must terminate by Dec 31, 2018.
                 • Apr 9, 2018 – Extension 4. Available to policy years beginning Jan 1, 2014 – Oct 1, 2019. All non-compliant policies must terminate by Dec 31, 2019.
                 • Mar 25, 2019 – Extension 5. Available to policy years beginning Jan 1 2015 – Oct 1, 2020. All non-compliant policies must terminate by Dec 31, 2020.

                 
                 
                 ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=2042Thu, 11 Apr 2019 15:22:57 -050005:46falsefullCMS Extends Small Group Transitional Relief Policies through 2020<br /> <br /> On Mar 25, 2019, CMS issued a <a href="https://www.cms.gov/CCIIO/Resources/Regulations-and-Guidance/Downloads/Limited-Non-Enforcement-Policy-Extension-Through-CY2020.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">new one year extension</a> of its transitional policy for non-grandfathered small group plans that are not compliant with the ACA.<br /> 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.”<br /> 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.<br /> We have confirmed with most of the state DOL&#8217;s and Departments of Insurance that they will allow grand&#8221;mothered&#8221; plans to continue, provide policyholders the freedom to change their anniversary dates, and allow carriers to offer short plan renewal options within CMS guidelines.<br /> 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 <a href="https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-issues-2019-exchange-open-enrollment-period-final-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CMS press release</a> 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.”<br /> Background<br /> 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:<br /> <br /> * <a href="https://www.cms.gov/CCIIO/Resources/Letters/Downloads/commissioner-letter-11-14-2013.PDF" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nov 14, 2013</a> – The original transitional policy. Available to policy years beginning Jan 1 – Oct 1, 2014. All non-compliant policies would terminate by Sep 30, 2015.<br /> * <a href="https://www.cms.gov/CCIIO/Resources/Regulations-and-Guidance/Downloads/transition-to-compliant-policies-03-06-2015.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Mar 5, 2014</a> – Extension 1. Available to policy years beginning Jan 1, 2014 – Oct 1, 2016. All non-compliant policies would terminate by Sep 30, 2017.<br /> * <a href="https://www.cms.gov/CCIIO/Resources/Regulations-and-Guidance/Downloads/final-transition-bulletin-2-29-16.Rhamy AlejealQ&A: Do adoption assistance programs need to be in writing?

                 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: 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.

                 ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=2011Tue, 12 Mar 2019 17:19:10 -050003:55falsefull<br /> 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?<br /> 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.<br /> 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 &#8220;qualified adoption expenses.&#8221; 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Source: Internal Revenue Code Sec. 137.<br />Rhamy AlejealQ&A: Considering ADA when denying a promotionIssue: 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, reported in Employment Practices Guide, New Developments

                 ]]>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, reported in Employment Practices Guide, New Developments

                 ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=2013Thu, 07 Mar 2019 16:34:09 -050004:38falsefullIssue: 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?<br /> 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.<br /> 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&#8217;s license cannot be used to deny her an employment opportunity.<br /> Source: EEOC Publication: Revised Questions and Answers about Epilepsy in the Workplace and the Americans with Disabilities Act, <a id="link12" class="link" href="http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/epilepsy.cfm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/epilepsy.cfm</a>, reported in Employment Practices Guide, New Developments<br />Rhamy AlejealQ&A: Are baseball tickets, hot dogs, drinks purchased for a client deductible under new tax law?

                 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:

                 ...]]>

                 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;

                 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.

                 ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=2012Tue, 05 Mar 2019 15:46:37 -050005:48falsefull<br /> 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?<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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:<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 1.<br /> <br /> 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;<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 2.<br /> <br /> The expense is not lavish or extravagant under the circumstances;<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 3.<br /> <br /> The taxpayer, or an employee of the taxpayer, is present at the furnishing of the food or beverages;<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 4.<br /> <br /> The food and beverages are provided to a current or potential business customer, client, consultant, or similar business contact; and<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 5.<br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> Rhamy AlejealHR Update: NJ Paid Family Leave, Employer CHIP Notice, Min Wages, and Workplace Violence

                 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.

                 ]]>

                 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.

                 ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=2009Thu, 28 Feb 2019 16:26:15 -050005:34falsefull<a href="https://i0.wp.com/peopleprocesses.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/My-Post-12.jpg?ssl=1"></a><br /> 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.<br /> Employer CHIP notice. Employers sponsoring group health plans in states that provide premium assistance under Medicaid or the Children&#8217;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<br /> 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.<br /> 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&#8217;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.<br /> 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&#8217;s LiveHR help platform. Our thoughts go out to all those affected.<br />Rhamy AlejealQ&A: Flu and the FMLA

               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.

               ]]>

               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.

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1982Tue, 26 Feb 2019 14:30:20 -050002:28falsefull<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> Question: Is the common flu considered a serious health condition under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)?<br /> 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.<br /> 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:<br /> <br /> * The employee has been incapacitated for a period of more than three full days; and<br /> <br /> * Consults with a doctor two or more times within 30 days, or<br /> * Has one consult with a doctor and a regimen of continuing treatment.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> <br />Rhamy AlejealInterview: Ronit Enos – Salon Cadence

               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.

               ]]>
               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.

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1997Thu, 21 Feb 2019 19:07:13 -050025:02falsefull<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> In particular, learn why decision making can be difficult and how to overcome these problems. Hear for yourselves how this brave woman became BIG.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Rhamy AlejealInterview: Erin Longmoon – Zephyr RecruitingToday 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!
               ]]>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!
               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1995Thu, 14 Feb 2019 15:00:57 -050022:22falsefullToday 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!<br />Rhamy AlejealAll the Minimum Wage increases, by state for Jan 1 2019!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...]]>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, $12 per hour; and in the remainder of the state, $11.10 per hour. There are different hourly rates for workers in the fast food industry and those who receive tips.

               Ohio. The minimum wage in Ohio will increase from $8.30 per hour to $8.55 per hour on January 1, 2019.

               The 2019 minimum wage applies to employees of businesses with annual gross receipts of $314,000 or more per year. For employees at smaller companies with annual gross receipts of less than $314,000 per year after January 1, 2019, and for 14- and 15-year-olds, the state minimum wage rate is $7.25 per hour.

               Rhode Island. The minimum wage in Rhode Island is scheduled to increase from $10.10 per hour to $10.50 per hour on January 1.

               South Dakota. The minimum wage in South Dakota will increase from $8.85 per hour to $9.10 per hour on January 1.

               South Dakota’s minimum wage is adjusted annually based on inflation. The change for 2019 is based on a 2.7% increase in the cost of living.

               Vermont. The minimum wage in Vermont increases to $10.78 per hour on January 1.

               Washington. The minimum wage in Washington will increase from $11.50 per hour to $12 per hour on January 1, as part of a scheduled increase.

               Washington’s minimum wage applies to workers in both agricultural and non-agricultural jobs. However, 14- and 15-year-olds may be paid 85% of the minimum wage rate.

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1987Tue, 08 Jan 2019 21:03:43 -050008:25falsefullThe minimum wage will increase in 20 states on or before January 1<br /> Twenty states will see increases in the minimum wage in the new year—one, New York, actually beginning on December 31.<br /> The minimum wage increases are scheduled as follows:<br /> Alaska. The minimum wage in Alaska will increase from $9.84 per hour to $9.89 per hour on January 1, 2019.<br /> Alaska’s minimum wage is adjusted annually based on inflation. The change for 2019 reflects a 0.5% increase in the cost of living.<br /> Arizona. The minimum wage in Arizona is scheduled to increase to $11 per hour on January 1, 2019.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Colorado. The Colorado minimum wage is scheduled to increase to $11.10 per hour on January 1, as part of a scheduled increase.<br /> Delaware. The minimum wage increases to $8.75 per hour on January 1, as part of a scheduled increase.<br /> 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.<br /> Florida. The minimum wage in Florida will increase from $8.21 per hour to $8.46 per hour on January 1.<br /> 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).<br /> Maine. The minimum wage in Maine is scheduled to increase from $10 per hour to $11 per hour on January 1.<br /> Massachusetts. The minimum wage in Massachusetts is scheduled to increase from $11 per hour to $12 per hour on January 1.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Montana. The minimum wage will increase from $8.30 per hour to $8.50 per hour on January 1, 2019.<br /> New Jersey. The minimum wage in New Jersey will increase from $8.60 per hour to $8.85 per hour on January 1, 2019.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.Rhamy AlejealHow to Have a Productive Exit InterviewHow 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...]]>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 especially sticky situations, however, get assistance from someone outside the organization, such as your attorney or third-party HR company.

               In all cases, be sure to clearly communicate the employee’s departure to clients. If the ex-employee had a client-facing role with established relationships, reach out to those clients, notify them of the change, and introduce them to their new contact.

               Let key players know what’s going on, and then shape the message accordingly.

               It is also very important to communicate the departure to remaining employees. How you do that depends on the dynamic within your organization.

               In smaller companies, the entire organization should be informed. In larger companies, you want to at least communicate with direct reports and coworkers. Coworkers are especially critical to communicate with if you wish to control the narrative.

               Be compassionate in your delivery, don’t speak negatively of the ex-employee, and tell remaining team members how and when you plan to fill the vacancy.

               Make a plan, present it with confidence and empathy, and commit to it.

               If you are honestly treating the departing employee with respect, your remaining employees will feel it. Remember, investing in your terminated employees, voluntary or not, is truly an investment in the morale of your remaining team!

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1976Mon, 03 Dec 2018 13:55:00 -050010:07falsefullHow 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,Rhamy AlejealDo You Have Mixed Emotions about Open Enrollment?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 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:

               1. 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.
               2. 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.
               3. 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.
               4. 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.
               5. 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:

               1. 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...]]>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 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:

               1. 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.
               2. 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.
               3. 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.
               4. 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.
               5. 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:

               1. 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?
               2. Enrollment methods. Online? Manual? Mobile? Make it as administratively simple as possible for both employees and the benefits administration staff. Use electronic tools if the budget allows.
               3. Timing. Establish a timeline working backwards from the date that the information must be completed with the carriers and other benefits providers. Then work forward to deliver the communications program.
               4. Frequency. Employees need time to consider their options and allow the information to soak in. Consider sending employee prompts and reminders so that the enrollment process is completed in a timely manner.

               
               

               The annual open enrollment communications opportunity is precious — you can influence how employees see benefits or cost changes, motivate employees to change their health or savings habits, and let employees know that management is listening, considering their feedback valuable, and responding to their needs.

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1960Tue, 20 Nov 2018 14:31:58 -050007:01falsefullDo You Have Mixed Emotions about Open Enrollment?<br /> <br /> 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.<br /> Better Benefits Attract and Retain Talent<br /> 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 <a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/press/job-seeker-preferences/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">survey</a>, 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 5 Steps for Success<br /> 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:<br /> <br /> * 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.<br /> * 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.<br /> * 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.<br /> * 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.<br /> * 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.<br /> <br /> 4 More Things to Consider<br /> The next step is to tackle the “how” of the benefits communications and enrollment program, including:<br /> <br /> * 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?Rhamy AlejealThe Four Measurements of an HR System that WorksAutomation 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]]>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 positions. That means the cost to replace a $100,000 CEO is $213,000.
               
               

               With the help of automation, your company can focus on making your human capital the best they can be. In five years, they will be at the top of their productivity game.

               At ten years, an employee is worth their weight in gold. Just like most investments, employees provide the greatest benefit the longer you hold on to them!

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1900Thu, 11 Oct 2018 13:30:43 -050006:40falsefullAutomation can make HR processes run smoother, saving organizations time and money, and helping them avoid costly mistakes.<br /> 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.<br /> You know, the human part of human resources.<br /> Automated systems have obvious tech aptitudes, like automatically flagging missing social security numbers on insurance forms, but they can also benefit attitudes.<br /> 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.<br /> Automation helps keep processes consistent, allowing your HR team to focus on improving the employee experience around life cycle events and HR systems.<br /> 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.<br /> With an automated system in place to remove the drudgework, HR staff can spend their time communicating and maintaining a consistently motivated workforce.<br /> Building an HR System That Works<br /> 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?<br /> HR systems that fuel a productive and satisfied workforce have four components: efficiency, scalability, reliability, and compliance. Let’s look at each one.<br /> Efficiency<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Scalability<br /> It’s imperative to scale your system to match organizational needs.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Reliability<br /> In addition to effectiveness and scale, HR systems must be consistent.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Compliance<br /> HR systems must also be compliant and include only accurate information.<br /> 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.<br /> The Statistics Tell the Story<br /> 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.<br /> 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:<br /> <br /> 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.<br /> It costs 20% of annual salary for midrange positions ($30-50,000 a year).Rhamy AlejealQ&A: Porn on an employees computer?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.

               ]]>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.

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1894Tue, 09 Oct 2018 13:30:40 -050004:00falsefullQuestion:<br /> <br /> We have found pornography on an employee&#8217;s computer. How should we handle this? And, is an employee&#8217;s addiction to pornography protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)?<br /> Answer:<br /> <br /> 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:<br /> <br /> * Transvestism, transsexualism, pedophilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism, gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments, or other sexual behavior disorders;<br /> * Compulsive gambling, kleptomania, or pyromania; or<br /> * Psychoactive substance use disorders resulting from current illegal use of drugs.<br /> <br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br />Rhamy AlejealFive Common Onboarding Issues and How to Avoid ThemStarting 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:

               1. Gather and audit new employee information.
               2. 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.

               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:

               1. Gather and audit new employee information.
               2. 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 401(k).

               He continues to input the data he has, leaving gaps along the way.

               Now the HR associate must go out and gather the missing information. This back and forth delays the arrival of the new employee’s 401k.

               Now the employee is upset because she doesn’t have retirmenet and hasn’t had it for two weeks. HR is stressed and rushing to make things right.

               The scenario is time-consuming and sends a negative (usually unfair) message to the new employee: HR is a necessary evil that should be avoided if possible.

               #5: Training Seen as Unimportant

               Another common scenario is one in which an employee has been working for an organization for several weeks but, due to the workload over in HR, the company’s sexual harassment training was overlooked during onboarding.

               HR knows they are supposed to send the employee through trainings on situations like these, but so much time has lapsed that an HR associate decides to simply ask the employee if she has any questions about the sexual harassment policy.

               More often than not, the employee will not have questions, and it’s easy for the HR associate to move on and mark that box on the form as complete.

               By now, the employee has the impression that these required trainings are unimportant, that “it’s just paperwork.” That this uninformative, boring paperwork is what HR does—an attitude that will come back to haunt HR and the employee in the end.

               Solution: An Automated Onboarding System

               Onboarding shouldn’t be a dreadful experience for you or the new employee.

               Instead, it should be a way for you to welcome someone to your team and leave them feeling motivated and happy to be there. The process itself, as with every HR procedure, should be automated, repeatable, compliant, and scalable.

               To accomplish this effectively, you should be involved before the employee actually comes on board, preferably via a recruiting platform through which you can manage the process more effectively. At the least, your HR department should be present from the time the employee receives the offer or welcome letter forward.

               An automated HR system that deploys a smooth, seamless onboarding experience will help organizations of every size avoid the pitfalls that come with new hires.

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1902Thu, 04 Oct 2018 13:30:47 -050007:57falsefullStarting a new job might be cause for nerves, but it shouldn’t induce headaches.<br /> Organizations that understand this fact will ensure their onboarding process is smooth for the new employee and seamless for the HR staff.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> #1: A Lack of Orientation<br /> Onboarding serves two basic purposes:<br /> <br /> Gather and audit new employee information.<br /> Introduce your company’s mission, culture, and values to your new hire.<br /> <br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> In addition to orientation issues, onboarding often feels like a data dump.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.”<br /> Why should employees be treated any different than clients?<br /> #2: Colleagues Must Answer Questions<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Rather than bugging a supervisor (or get mixed message again), the employee might ask a colleague what the procedure is to request time off.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> #3: Knowledge Gaps Slow Things Down<br /> When onboarding isn’t done well, there are knowledge gaps on the HR side too.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> If you think such a snafu is uncommon, think again.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> #4: Delays in Getting Insurance<br /> Many HR processes are time sensitive, and delays and missing information can cause more than simply logistical issues. Consider this scenario:<br /> 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.<br /> Rhamy AlejealQ&A: OSHA 300 for Temporary WorkersQuestion:

               ---

               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 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.

               ]]>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 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.

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1892Tue, 02 Oct 2018 13:30:17 -050004:07falsefullQuestion:<br /> <br /> 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?<br /> Answer:<br /> <br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> OSHA’s <a href="https://www.osha.gov/temp_workers/OSHA_TWI_Bulletin.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Temporary Worker Initiative bulletin</a> addresses how to identify who is responsible for recording work-related injuries and illnesses of temporary workers on the OSHA 300 log.<br />Rhamy AlejealWhy Too Many HR Departments are UnproductiveFor 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...]]>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.

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1898Thu, 27 Sep 2018 13:30:28 -050005:29falsefullFor the important role they play within every type of organization or business, HR departments too often lack that… human touch.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> The result is unmotivated employees, unchanged processes, and expensive turnover.<br /> In many cases, HR departments are a mess due to misaligned priorities.<br /> 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.<br /> If the discrepancy between the two is large, you likely have an HR problem.<br /> If an unhappy client leaves, alarm bells are set off and questions start flying:<br /> “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?”<br /> 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.<br /> Leaders Have the Wrong Focus<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Shifting the Focus to People<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br />Rhamy AlejealQ&A: Required by law to have a compliance officer?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.

               ]]>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.

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1890Tue, 25 Sep 2018 13:30:03 -050003:02falsefullQuestion:<br /> <br /> Are we were required by law to have a dedicated compliance officer, who cannot be the same individual who handles HR?<br /> Answer:<br /> <br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br />Rhamy AlejealWhy You Should Consider Timekeeping for Your Salaried EmployeesThe 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.

               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 do. It can be difficult for managers to enforce timekeeping when they haven’t done it themselves. Because it shows the time spent by each employee, tracking hours in the upper ranks is an effective way to boost morale and transparency.

               Implementing this practice in a company is no easy task. In tenured organizations, staff have likely been salaried for years and work all hours of the night.

               Any kind of timekeeping system you put in place needs to be flexible enough to handle a variety of situations—a step that requires patience and understanding.

               It may have been twenty years since a staff member has ever physically clocked in and out, so you will likely get pushback when it comes time for implementation.

               However, if the policy is company-wide—that is, from the CEO down—employees are more likely to understand the change is about unifying HR systems for long-term company benefit, not about catching them doing something wrong.

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1896Thu, 20 Sep 2018 13:30:58 -050006:41falsefullThe 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.<br /> Is that the right choice? Should full-time salaried employees use timekeeping systems?<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Tracking the Overworked Employee<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> HR staff are usually overwhelmed with work, care deeply about the company, and work far too many hours in stressful, deadline-driven environments.<br /> 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.<br /> Finding the Underworked Employee<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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!<br /> 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.<br /> Company-Wide Timekeeping Might Not Be Popular<br /> Convincing everyone to clock in is a hard sell, but it sets a strong example.<br /> Rhamy AlejealQ&A: Overtime pay for hourly bonusesQuestion:

               ---

               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:

               1. 50 (total hours worked) x $10 (regular rate) = $500
               2. $500 (weekly pay) + $25 (weekly nondiscretionary bonus) = $525
               3. $525 (total pay) ÷ 50 (total hours worked) = $10.50 (regular rate)
               4. $10.50 (regular rate) x 1½ (overtime multiplier) = $15.75 (overtime rate)
               5. 40 (straight time hours) x $10.50 (regular rate) = $420 (straight time earnings)
               6. 10 (overtime hours) x $15.75 (overtime rate) = $157.50 (overtime earnings)
               7. $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:

               1. Divide the bonus by 52.
               2. Add that sum to the wages earned during the workweek.
               3. Recalculate the regular rate.
               4. 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. 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.

               ]]>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:

               1. 50 (total hours worked) x $10 (regular rate) = $500
               2. $500 (weekly pay) + $25 (weekly nondiscretionary bonus) = $525
               3. $525 (total pay) ÷ 50 (total hours worked) = $10.50 (regular rate)
               4. $10.50 (regular rate) x 1½ (overtime multiplier) = $15.75 (overtime rate)
               5. 40 (straight time hours) x $10.50 (regular rate) = $420 (straight time earnings)
               6. 10 (overtime hours) x $15.75 (overtime rate) = $157.50 (overtime earnings)
               7. $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:

               1. Divide the bonus by 52.
               2. Add that sum to the wages earned during the workweek.
               3. Recalculate the regular rate.
               4. 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. 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.

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1888Tue, 18 Sep 2018 13:22:11 -050005:41falsefullQuestion:<br /> <br /> How do we handle overtime pay calculations for hourly employees when they receive nondiscretionary bonuses?<br /> Answer:<br /> <br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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:<br /> <br /> * 50 (total hours worked) x $10 (regular rate) = $500<br /> * $500 (weekly pay) + $25 (weekly nondiscretionary bonus) = $525<br /> * $525 (total pay) ÷ 50 (total hours worked) = $10.50 (regular rate)<br /> * $10.50 (regular rate) x 1½ (overtime multiplier) = $15.75 (overtime rate)<br /> * 40 (straight time hours) x $10.50 (regular rate) = $420 (straight time earnings)<br /> * 10 (overtime hours) x $15.75 (overtime rate) = $157.50 (overtime earnings)<br /> * $420 (straight time earnings) + $157.50 (overtime earnings) = $577.50 total weekly pay<br /> <br /> 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:<br /> <br /> * Divide the bonus by 52.<br /> * Add that sum to the wages earned during the workweek.<br /> * Recalculate the regular rate.<br /> * Pay additional time-and-a-half based on the regular rate for all hours worked over 40.<br /> <br /> 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.<br /> Note that California requires employers to use a different overtime calculation method when including bonus or commissions. <a href="https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/DLSEManual/dlse_enfcmanual.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The California rules</a> 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.<br />Rhamy AlejealHow to Have a Productive Exit InterviewIt’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...]]>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 from someone outside the organization, such as your attorney or third-party HR company.

               In all cases, be sure to clearly communicate the employee’s departure to clients. If the ex-employee had a client-facing role with established relationships, reach out to those clients, notify them of the change, and introduce them to their new contact.

               Let key players know what’s going on, and then shape the message accordingly.

               It is also very important to communicate the departure to remaining employees. How you do that depends on the dynamic within your organization.

               In smaller companies, the entire organization should be informed. In larger companies, you want to at least communicate with direct reports and coworkers. Coworkers are especially critical to communicate with if you wish to control the narrative.

               Be compassionate in your delivery, don’t speak negatively of the ex-employee, and tell remaining team members how and when you plan to fill the vacancy.

               Make a plan, present it with confidence and empathy, and commit to it.

               If you are honestly treating the departing employee with respect, your remaining employees will feel it. Remember, investing in your terminated employees, voluntary or not, is truly an investment in the morale of your remaining team!

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1870Tue, 21 Aug 2018 12:28:09 -050008:12falsefullIt’s never an ideal situation when an employee leaves your organization.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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?<br /> 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.<br /> Employees leave voluntarily for many reasons: pursuing dreams, better pay, other career interests, or because of problems with the organization itself.<br /> 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.<br /> Once you’ve gathered feedback, make it actionable by asking the following questions:<br /> <br /> How did the employee get all the way to quitting?<br /> Did the employee not feel they could come to HR with their concerns?<br /> If so, where did the relationship break down and affect communication?<br /> What is missing from our processes that contributed to this de parture and prevented the employee from communicating concerns earlier on?<br /> <br /> 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.<br /> 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?<br /> 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?<br /> 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?<br /> These are the kinds of questions you want to answer during an exit interview.<br /> But what about if the employee was fired? How does the exit interview work then?<br /> Put Involuntary Exits to Work<br /> If an employee leaves involuntarily, you should still conduct an exit interview.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> While you may think your organization doesn’t really deal in severance agreements, the most common severance agreement involves PTO or vacation pay.<br /> 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.<br /> With an involuntary termination, however, you have more legal risk.<br /> Lay out exactly what your organization needs to protect itself and negotiate with the departing employee to get the proper documents signed.<br /> Remember, contracts must have consideration for all sides, so the employee has to get something for signing any severance papers beyond a grim farewell!<br /> Who Should Conduct the Exit Interview?<br /> Whether an employee’s parting is voluntary or involuntary, choose someone separate from the employee’s direct supervisor to conduct the exit interview.Rhamy AlejealQ&A: Does a pregnant worker denied starting a job, when baby is due, have a plausible claim of discrimination?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

               ]]>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

               ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1801Wed, 15 Aug 2018 13:30:23 -050005:22falsefullQ&amp;A: Does a pregnant worker denied starting a job, when baby is due, have a plausible claim of discrimination?<br /> 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?<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Source: Fireside v. College for America, Southern New Hampshire University (DNH 2018) 102 EPD ¶45,992<br />Rhamy AlejealWhile Americans have mixed views of unions, public sector organizing suffers setbackWhile 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 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 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...]]>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 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 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, with conservative and moderate Democrats more likely than liberal Democrats to view business corporations favorably (53 percent vs. 40 percent).

                 
                 

                 Supreme Court bars public sector “agency fees.” Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a significant blow to the financial viability of public-sector unions by holding that the state of Illinois cannot require nonunion public employees to pay an “agency fee” to cover union expenditures for collective bargaining activities. In a 5-4 decision issued on June 27, the High Court held in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31 that the state’s extraction of such fees from nonconsenting public employees violates the First Amendment, concluding that its 1977 ruling in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education was inconsistent with other First Amendment cases and has been undermined by more recent decisions. As a result, state laws that allow public-sector unions to collect agency fees from nonmembers are no longer enforceable.

                 ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1799Mon, 13 Aug 2018 13:30:59 -050007:09falsefullWhile Americans have mixed views of unions, public sector organizing suffers setback<br /> 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 <a id="link149" class="link" href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/06/05/more-americans-view-long-term-decline-in-union-membership-negatively-than-positively/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">survey</a> 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.<br /> 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 <a id="link152" class="link" href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/27/union-membership/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">at more than 34% in 1954</a>, according to the Congressional Research Service.<br /> 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.<br /> Race, age, and education. The survey also found racial, age, and educational differences in assessments of the reduction in union representation:<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> Other differences. The survey broke the numbers down by several other factors such as age, education, and differences among those with similar political affiliations:<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> Among Republicans and Republican leaners, nearly two-to-one (65 percent to 33 percent) of those with at least a...Rhamy AlejealCareerBuilder’s midyear job forecast shows tough hiring environment for employers is paying off for job seekers 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.

                 ]]>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.

                 ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1795Fri, 10 Aug 2018 13:30:54 -050004:43falsefullCareerBuilder&#8217;s midyear job forecast shows tough hiring environment for employers is paying off for job seekers<br /> 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&#8217;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.<br /> &#8220;Low unemployment and increasing skills gaps continue to plague employers who are struggling to fill roles at all levels within their organizations,&#8221; said Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder. &#8220;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.&#8221;<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> The study shows that compensation increases aren&#8217;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.<br /> 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:<br /> <br /> <br /> Casual dress code—36 percent;<br /> <br /> <br /> Employee discounts—31 percent;<br /> <br /> <br /> Ability to work remotely—25 percent;<br /> <br /> <br /> Extra paid time off—22 percent;<br /> <br /> <br /> Signing bonus—21 percent;<br /> <br /> <br /> Free lunches—14 percent;<br /> <br /> <br /> Gym memberships—12 percent;<br /> <br /> <br /> Work from home Fridays—10 percent; and<br /> <br /> <br /> Daycare—8 percent.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> Source: CareerBuilder.<br />Rhamy AlejealTemecula nail salon cited $1.2 million for misclassification and wage theft of 36 workersTemecula 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 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 Barbering and Cosmetology Licensees.

                 Source: State of California, Department of Industrial Relations, News Release No. 2016-65, July 30, 2018.

                 ]]>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 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 Barbering and Cosmetology Licensees.

                 Source: State of California, Department of Industrial Relations, News Release No. 2016-65, July 30, 2018.

                 ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1797Wed, 08 Aug 2018 13:57:42 -050007:07falsefullTemecula nail salon cited $1.2 million for misclassification and wage theft of 36 workers<br /> 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.<br /> “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.”<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Required <a id="link11" class="link" href="https://www.dir.ca.gov/wpnodb.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">workplace postings</a> 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 <a id="link12" class="link" href="https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/publications/Barbering%20and%20cosmetology%20posting%20notice.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Barbering and Cosmetology Licensees</a>.<br /> Source: State of California, Department of Industrial Relations, <a id="link15" class="link" href="https://www.dir.ca.gov/DIRNews/2018/2018-65.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">News Release No. 2016-65</a>, July 30, 2018.<br />Rhamy AlejealHouse lawmakers introduce bill to require E-Verify usePROPOSED 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, 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, according to the lawmakers.

                 Eligibility and visa allocation expanded. A 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...]]>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, 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, according to the lawmakers.

                 Eligibility and visa allocation expanded. A 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 would not be required to do so.

                 • To discourage “abusive litigation,” farmers and H-2C workers would be able to “agree” to binding arbitration and mediation of any grievances. H-2C workers would not be eligible for taxpayer-funded legal assistance under the Legal Services Corporation Act.

                 • H-2C workers would be eligible for 36-month visas but would have to accrue 60 days outside the U.S. before becoming eligible for a subsequent visa.

                 • Once agricultural employers are required to use E-Verify, H-2C workers already in the U.S. would be able to seek at-will employment with registered farmers (who would still need to comply with program requirements) during the time of their work authorization.

                 
                 

                 Enforcement provisions. The proposed legislation includes these features that sponsors contend would ensure effective enforcement:

                 • Employers would be required to report any H-2C workers who abandon their jobs within 72 hours.

                 • H-2C workers who do not return home as required would be barred from reentry to the U.S.

                 • Employers would deposit 10 percent of H-2C workers’ wages into a trust fund. Workers would only be able to access the escrowed amounts by going to a U.S. embassy or consulate in their home country.

                 • H-2C workers would not be able to bring spouses and minor children, unless they are also guestworkers.

                 
                 

                 Taxpayer protections. The bill’s sponsors pointed to certain protections said to be for taxpayers, including that H-2C workers would be ineligible for federal public benefits, Affordable Care Act subsidies, and federal refundable tax credits (the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit). H-2C workers would be required to have health insurance, however, in order to protect taxpayers from “footing the bill” for expensive medical care.

                 Employment verification. The AG and Legal Workforce Act would also requires that all U.S. employers use E-Verify, what the lawmakers see as “an effective web-based program that protects jobs for legal workers.” H.R. 6417 would repeal the “error-prone,” paper-based I-9 system and replace it with E-Verify. There would be a gradual phase-in for employers, starting with the largest employers first and eventually phasing in small businesses and agricultural employers.

                 ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1780Tue, 24 Jul 2018 13:21:54 -050008:36falsefullPROPOSED LEGISLATION,(Jul. 24, 2018)<br /> A group of Republican, plus two Democratic, lawmakers have teamed up to introduce and co-sponsor the &#8220;AG and Legal Workforce Act,&#8221; which would replace what sponsors called the &#8220;outdated and broken H-2A agricultural guestworker program&#8221; 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.<br /> H-2C program. The bill, <a id="link8" class="link" href="https://judiciary.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/AG-and-Legal-Workforce-Act.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">H.R. 6417</a>, 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, <a id="link9" class="link" href="https://judiciary.house.gov/press-release/goodlatte-peterson-smith-cuellar-newhouse-conaway-calvert-introduce-the-bipartisan-ag-and-legal-workforce-act/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to the lawmakers</a>.<br /> Eligibility and visa allocation expanded. A <a id="link12" class="link" href="https://judiciary.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/071318_AG-and-E-Verify.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bill summary</a> points to several key features that would expand the agricultural sectors eligible for the program, as well as the number of visas available:<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Wages and regulatory burdens. The bill would require that workers receive &#8220;reasonable wages&#8221; and would put an end to &#8220;excessive regulatory burdens,&#8221; according to sponsors. To that end, the proposed legislation would include these provisions:<br /> <br /> <br /> Employers would be required to pay H-2C workers not less than the state or local minimum wage,Rhamy AlejealU.S. employers eye improvements to compensation programsU.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 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...]]>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 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, executive compensation, Willis Towers Watson. “As more organizations define what fairness, inclusion and diversity mean to them, today’s reward leaders must understand how to tangibly impact this agenda through reward program design and delivery.”

                 ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1765Fri, 20 Jul 2018 13:30:25 -050006:13falsefullU.S. employers eye improvements to compensation programs<br /> Growing pressure to improve their pay-for-performance programs and ensure fair pay throughout the workplace is sparking changes to corporate America&#8217;s employee compensation and performance management programs, according to Willis Towers Watson&#8217;s <a id="link393" class="link" href="https://www.willistowerswatson.com/en/insights/2018/06/2018-getting-compensation-right-survey-global-findings-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2018 Getting Compensation Right Survey</a>.<br /> 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).<br /> Changes respondents are planning to make this year, or considering over the next three years, include:<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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).<br /> 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).<br /> Pay equity review. &#8220;Employers contending with fair pay and gender gap issues should conduct a gender pay...Rhamy AlejealEHB, “minimum value” nixed despite concerns for AHP’sAccording 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;

                 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 supported by HRSA (not otherwise addressed by the recommendations of the Task Force).

                 
                 

                 The DOL also pointed out that Title VII, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, generally provides that pregnancy-related expenses for employees and their spouses must be reimbursed in the same manner as those incurred for other medical conditions.

                 FAQs. In conjunction with its release of the final rule, the DOL has posted a series of “Frequently Asked Questions” about the final rule. Among other things, the FAQs state that AHPs:

                 • will not be able to charge different premiums to employees based on their health status;

                 • will not be able to charge employers different rates based on the health status of their employees;

                 • may not charge higher premiums or deny coverage to people because of pre-existing conditions, or cancel coverage because an employee becomes ill; and

                 • cannot cherry-pick or discriminate based on health or prior conditions.

                 
                 

                 Applicability. The new rule does not affect previously existing AHPs permitted under prior guidance. Such plans can continue to operate as before, or elect to follow the new requirements if they want to expand within a geographic area, regardless of industry, or to cover the self-employed. New plans can also form and elect to follow either the old guidance or the new rules.

                 ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1763Wed, 18 Jul 2018 13:30:08 -050007:47falsefullAccording 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 &#8220;minimum value&#8221; within the meaning of Code Sec. 36B(c)(2)(C)(ii) and Reg. §1.36B-6.<br /> Proponents of the rule, however, while acknowledging concerns that AHPs may provide inadequate benefits, did not believe that &#8220;legitimate&#8221; 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.<br /> 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&#8217; 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 &#8220;minimum value&#8221; coverage as a condition for a group or association to qualify as bona fide.<br /> 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 &#8220;overstated.&#8221; 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.<br /> 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:<br /> <br /> <br /> 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;<br /> <br /> <br /> 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 &#8220;in effect&#8221; 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;<br /> <br /> <br /> 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<br /> <br /> <br /> With respect to women,Rhamy AlejealEEOC—Fifty years after the ADEA, agency reports on the state of older workers and biasEEOC—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 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...]]>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 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 Court reasoned that the 1991 addition to Title VII of a provision setting forth a motivating factor framework did not apply to the ADEA because Congress failed to similarly amend the ADEA.

                 The report stressed that “while individuals with race or sex discrimination claims under Title VII can prove unlawful disparate treatment under either a ‘but for’ causation standard or a ‘motivating factor’ standard, victims of age discrimination are limited to just one — a ‘but for’ standard.” As a result, some courts have interpreted Gross as making ADEA cases harder to prove.

                 Recommendations. Stereotypes are tenacious and it takes generations to change a stereotype, the report pointed out, yet workplace practices can counter unconscious bias and stereotyping. Some of the report’s recommendations include:

                 • Include age in diversity and inclusion programs and efforts. Research demonstrates that age diversity can improve organizational performance and lower employee turnover. Studies also find that mixed-age work teams result in higher productivity for both older and younger workers.

                 • Avoid age bias by recruiting workers of all ages and not limiting qualifications based on age or years of experience. Contrary to common perception, older workers do not cost significantly more than younger workers. Millennials are leaving their employers, on average, after three years, whereas older workers, on average, provide employers with more stability, longer tenures, and ultimately a greater return on investment.

                 • Assess interviewing strategies to avoid age bias, as studies and experience show that interviewers tend to favor job candidates who remind them of themselves. An age-diverse interview panel for prospective employees may be viewed more positively by candidates and may be less vulnerable to implicit bias.

                 • Provide career counseling, training, and development opportunities to workers at all ages and at all stages of their careers. Mixed-age and reverse-age mentoring can increase worker productivity and satisfaction. Workers of all ages value flexible work options that can provide work/life balance at various times in their careers.

                 
                 

                 The report recognizes the similarities between age discrimination and other discrimination. Only about 3 percent of those who have experienced age discrimination complained to their employer or a government agency, according to recent research. Even with a booming economy and low unemployment, older workers still report they have difficulties getting hired.

                 ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1760Mon, 16 Jul 2018 13:30:31 -050009:03falsefullEEOC—Fifty years after the ADEA, agency reports on the state of older workers and bias<br /> 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 <a id="link194" class="link" href="https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/history/adea50th/report.cfm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">State of Older Workers and Age Discrimination 50 Years After the Age Discrimination in Employment Act</a>.<br /> &#8220;Open secret.&#8221; The ADEA was an important part of 1960s civil rights legislation that was intended to ensure equal opportunity for older workers. Today&#8217;s experienced workers are more diverse, better educated, and working longer than previous generations, yet the report finds &#8220;many similarities between age discrimination and harassment,&#8221; explained Lipnic. &#8220;Like harassment, everyone knows it happens every day to workers in all kinds of jobs, but few speak up. It&#8217;s an open secret.&#8221;<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> &#8220;Fissuring of the ADEA&#8217;s ties to Title VII.&#8221; Importantly, the report stressed that experts have expressed concerns about Supreme Court decisions in the past 15 years &#8220;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.&#8221; 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...Rhamy AlejealSHRM survey finds uptick in health and wellness offeringsBENEFITS—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 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...]]>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 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.

                   
                   ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1758Fri, 13 Jul 2018 13:30:29 -050005:27falsefullBENEFITS—SHRM survey finds uptick in health and wellness offerings<br /> 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 <a id="link232" class="link" href="https://shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/research-and-surveys/Pages/2018-Employee-Benefits.aspx?_ga=2.109490181.167073314.1529332789-1390505139.1493823220" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2018 Employee Benefits Survey</a> 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).<br /> Recruiting and retention tool. Retention (cited by 72 percent of respondents) and recruiting (58 percent) were the top reasons reported for increasing benefits. &#8220;With unemployment at an 18-year low, employers view benefits as a strategic tool for recruiting and retention,&#8221; said Trent Burner, SHRM&#8217;s vice president of research. &#8220;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.&#8221;<br /> Wellness. Wellness benefits are popular offerings. Three-quarters (75 percent) of employers offer wellness resources and information and/or a general wellness program.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Other key findings. SHRM&#8217;s annual survey of U.S. employers examines more than 300 benefits that organizations offer their employees. Other key findings include:<br /> <br /> <br /> Preventive programs specifically targeting employees with chronic health conditions fell by 8 percentage points (from 33 percent in 2017 to 25 percent in 2018).<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> Sixty-three percent of organizations give service anniversary awards, an increase of 9 percentage points from 2017.<br /> <br /> <br /> More than two-thirds (70 percent) of organizations offer some type of telecommuting, up from 62 percent last year.<br /> <br /> <br />Rhamy Alejeal6 Questions on Dependent Care Spending Accounts

                   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:

                   1. 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.

                   2. 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.

                   3. 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.

                   4. 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.

                   5. 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,...]]>

                   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:

                   1. 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.

                   2. 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.

                   3. 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.

                   4. 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.

                   5. 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 basic fee, which would be eligible for reimbursement.

                   6. An employee’s children go to private year-round schools. He pays tuition for one child’s grade school and fees for the other child’s nursery school. Are both types of expenses eligible for reimbursement?

                   Educational expenses are not reimbursable, unless the educational services are merely incidental as part of a child care service. Expenses to attend kindergarten or a higher grade are educational, so the older child’s school fees are not eligible for DCSA reimbursement. (Expenses for before- or after-school care, however, may qualify as reimbursable expenses.)

                   On the other hand, expenses for a child in nursery school, preschool, or a similar program for children below the level of kindergarten are expenses for care. Such expenses are not considered educational even though the nursery school may include some educational activities.

                   For detailed information about expenses eligible for DCSA reimbursement, the IRS provides a helpful guide: Publication 503 “Child and Dependent Care Expenses”. Have a fun summer!

                   ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1756Wed, 11 Jul 2018 13:52:38 -050007:26falsefull<br /> 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.<br /> The following are the top summertime questions about DCSAs and reimbursable expenses:<br /> 1. What are the basic rules for reimbursable expenses?<br /> 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).<br /> 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.<br /> 2. 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?<br /> 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.<br /> 3. 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?<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Note that the employee’s spouse or the child’s parent is never a qualifying provider.<br /> 4. 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?<br /> 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.<br /> 5. 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?<br /> The day camp expenses generally are reimbursable. Expenses for overnight camp, however, are not eligible since overnight care is not work-related.<br /> 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.Rhamy AlejealToo few managers believe key performance indicators align with organization’s strategic objectivesToo 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, “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...]]>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, “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 powerful and persuasive mechanisms for defining economic value and organizational accountability. By contrast, organizations ambivalent about data-driven analytics and algorithmic innovation will continue to (merely) use KPIs rather than commit to them.

                     About the study. The study is based on a global survey of more than 3,200 business executives, managers, and analysts from organizations around the world, and 18 interviews with executives and thinkers on the topic.

                     Source: MIT Sloan Management Review.

                     ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1739Fri, 06 Jul 2018 13:30:37 -050006:37falsefullToo few managers believe key performance indicators align with organization’s strategic objectives — MIT SLOAN<br /> 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&#8217;t use KPIs to drive change in their organizations. The study, <a id="link6" class="link" href="https://mitsmr.com/2syjWyu" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8220;Leading with Next-Generation Key Performance Indicators,&#8221;</a> delves into why some business leaders are rethinking how they use KPIs to lead and manage the enterprise.<br /> &#8220;KPIs should be the most important data and analytics that an organization has,&#8221; said Michael Schrage, a research fellow at the MIT Sloan School&#8217;s Center for Digital Business and a coauthor of the report. &#8220;But our research indicates that KPIs are mismanaged and undervalued.&#8221;<br /> 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 &#8220;the customer journey,&#8221; encompassing the many touchpoints through which customers interact with brands today.<br /> &#8220;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,&#8221; said David Kiron, executive editor at MIT SMR and a coauthor of the report.<br /> 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:<br /> <br /> <br /> Use KPIs to lead, as well as manage, the enterprise.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> Insist on the ability to digitally drill down to KPI components. Rating their agreement with the statement, &#8220;I can easily drill down to see the underlying data or analytic components that are aggregated into my KPIs,&#8221; 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> Aim for &#8220;KPI parsimony.&#8221; 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> The research indicates that KPIs are strategically, culturally, and operationally entwined with how leaders of data-driven organizations define success.Rhamy AlejealWhole benefits package crucial in competitive labor marketTOP 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 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 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...]]>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 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 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 without degrees and part-time workers. The survey revealed that one in three employees have second jobs, apart from their day-to-day. These employees may need additional funds on top of their base salary or pay, to make up for the current wage push inflation.

                     “With the tight labor market, non-traditional talent pools are a great place for companies to turn to. We are seeing that companies are more willing to hire candidates without a degree, and our survey findings mirror that thought process; nearly 80 percent of employees hold the belief that experience is more important than a degree,” Russell said.

                     ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1732Wed, 04 Jul 2018 13:30:35 -050005:28falsefullTOP TALENT—Whole benefits package crucial in competitive labor market<br /> 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 <a id="link210" class="link" href="https://www.adeccousa.com/employers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Adecco USA</a>, which surveyed over 1,000 employed adults to provide insight on what companies can do to be an ideal employer.<br /> &#8220;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,&#8221; said Federico Vione, CEO of Adecco, North America, UK and Ireland. &#8220;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.&#8221;<br /> 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&#8217;s more, most employed adults (70 percent) believe minimum wage should be raised (39 percent believe &#8220;minimally&#8221; and 31 percent feel it should be raise &#8220;significantly&#8221;). Apart from monetary compensation, alternative benefits like growth opportunities and flexible work arrangements also prove to be important to employees.<br /> Key findings about benefits include:<br /> <br /> <br /> More than half of respondents (58 percent) said a pay raise would encourage them to stay at a job they were considering leaving;<br /> <br /> <br /> Almost half of those surveyed from the ages of 18 to 44 (45 percent), ranked professional development as &#8220;extremely important&#8221; in determining their happiness;<br /> <br /> <br /> Nearly one fifth (16 percent) of respondents left their job in 2017 due to a lack of growth opportunities; and<br /> <br /> <br /> Work life balance (20 percent) and positive workplace culture and working relationships with coworkers (a combined 24 percent) also topped the benefits lists.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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 <a id="link230" class="link" href="https://www.adeccousa.com/employers/resources/us-workforce-attraction-and-retention-report/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2018 US Workforce Report</a> 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.<br /> &#8220;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,&#8221; said Joyce Russell, president, Adecco USA. &#8220;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.&#8221;<br /> Russell added, &#8220;In addition to fair pay as a key part of securing today&#8217;s ambitious workforce, it&#8217;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.&#8221;<br /> Opportunities in new talent pools. The survey also suggests that employees who have been out of the labor pool for some time...Rhamy AlejealCompensation Changes – Inflation Up, Unemployement Down, Wages Stable

                     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 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 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 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]]>

                     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 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 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 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.

                     ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1737Mon, 02 Jul 2018 13:30:39 -050006:42falsefull<br /> <br /> CPI for all items rises 0.2% in April<br /> 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 <a id="link349" class="link" href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> May 10. Over the last 12 months, the all items index rose 2.5 percent before seasonal adjustment.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> &nbsp;<br /> Real average hourly earnings are unchanged in April<br /> Real average hourly earnings for all employees were unchanged from March to April, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics <a id="link356" class="link" href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.nr0.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> 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).<br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> &nbsp;<br /> Unemployment rate edges down to 3.9% in April<br /> 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 <a id="link361" class="link" href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Rhamy AlejealFORM I-9—Increased federal enforcement requires proactive measuresFORM 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 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]]>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 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. “Although challenging, having a Form I-9 compliance program and training personnel on properly completing the Form I-9 can help minimize the costly pitfalls of noncompliance.”

                     ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1735Fri, 29 Jun 2018 13:20:08 -050007:25falsefullFORM I-9—Increased federal enforcement requires proactive measures<br /> 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 <a id="link174" class="link" href="https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flink.rm0004.net%2Fgo%2FSnzhdqY-HDXE8EQsxIIUxw2%2F&amp;data=02%7C01%7Cheidi.henson%40wolterskluwer.com%7Cba81c70d73d648d4b2e208d5bcb6ef8d%7C8ac76c91e7f141ffa89c3553b2da2c17%7C1%7C0%7C636622416251610934&amp;sdata=XqMGE0oppPi%2BOmGVEBH8rv5ljQEwFdW1MLCNbJd10iY%3D&amp;reserved=0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a>. Otherwise, employers may be ICE&#8217;s next target.<br /> 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&#8217;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.<br /> &#8220;While it may seem daunting to stay current with the form&#8217;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,&#8221; says Melissa A. Silver, Legal Editor, XpertHR.<br /> 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.<br /> 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:<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> Wait until after the prospective employee has accepted the employment offer before verifying the new hire&#8217;s eligibility for work or requesting completion of the Form I-9.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> Avoid making hiring, retention, or termination decisions on the basis of actual or perceived citizenship status, national origin, or the employee&#8217;s native language.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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:<br /> <br /> <br /> Whether to copy supporting documents;<br /> <br /> <br /> Storage of I-9 forms;<br /> <br /> <br /> Addressing credible reports of suspected unlawful employment and/or fraudulent identity; and<br /> <br /> <br /> Retention and purging.Rhamy AlejealHow to calculate if you are an Applicable Large Employer under the ACAYou 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.

                     ]]>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.

                     ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1720Mon, 25 Jun 2018 13:30:55 -050007:38falsefullYou 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.<br /> Steps to determine your status as an ALE<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Responsibilities for applicable large employers<br /> 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.<br /> 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:<br /> • failed to offer coverage to at least 95 percent of full-time employees and their dependents, or<br /> • 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<br /> •offered coverage that was not affordable,<br /> •offered coverage that did not provide a minimum level of coverage.<br /> 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.<br />Rhamy AlejealMajority of working parents claim they are able to ‘have it all’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.

                     ]]>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.

                     ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1716Wed, 20 Jun 2018 13:30:09 -050006:01falsefullMajority of working parents claim they are able to ‘have it all’ — SURVEY RESULTS<br /> 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.<br /> &#8220;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,&#8221; said Jennifer Grasz, vice president of corporate communications for CareerBuilder. &#8220;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.&#8221;<br /> 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.<br /> 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).<br /> 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&#8217;s life due to work in the last year—more than 1 in 5 (21 percent) have missed three or more events. Parents&#8217; 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).<br /> 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.<br /> Source: CareerBuilder.<br />Rhamy AlejealBenchmark: Employer Costs for Employee CompensationBenchmark: Employer Costs for Employee Compensation

                     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...]]>Benchmark: Employer Costs for Employee Compensation

                     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 percent of these costs, while benefits, which averaged $18.49 per hour, accounted for the remaining 37.4 percent.

                     Legally required benefits averaged $2.73 per hour (5.5 percent of total compensation). Other benefit categories and their average cost per hour worked were:

                     • life, health and disability insurance: $5.89 (11.9 percent of total compensation);

                     • paid leave: $3.70 (7.5 percent of total compensation);

                     • retirement and savings: $5.68 (11.5 percent of total compensation); and

                     • supplemental pay: 49 cents (1.0 percent of total compensation).

                     
                     

                     Source

                     For details from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest Employer Costs for Employee Compensation release, see http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecec.pdf.

                      

                      

                     ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1712Mon, 18 Jun 2018 19:09:39 -050007:19falsefullBenchmark: Employer Costs for Employee Compensation<br /> <a href="https://i1.wp.com/peopleprocesses.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/BLS-table.png?ssl=1"></a><br /> Employee compensation packages usually contain at least two components:<br /> <br /> <br /> base salary or hourly wage; and<br /> <br /> <br /> group benefits.<br /> <br /> <br /> Base salary depends on competitive considerations such as the available talent pool, the role of bonuses, and the company&#8217;s stated philosophy to pay at a specified percentile of the market salary.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Quarterly results for March 2018 are as follows:<br /> Survey description<br /> <br /> <br /> Survey is conducted quarterly by the BLS. The payroll period that includes March 12, 2018, is the reference period.<br /> <br /> <br /> Survey release date: June 8, 2018.<br /> <br /> <br /> Data from both private industry and state and local government is included. Self-employed, farm, household, and federal government workers are not included.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> Summary of survey results<br /> Compensation costs for civilian workers<br /> 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.<br /> Legally required benefits ( e.g., Social Security, Medicare, workers&#8217; 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:<br /> <br /> <br /> life, health and disability insurance: $3.18 (8.8 percent of total compensation);<br /> <br /> <br /> paid leave: $2.58 (7.1 percent of total compensation);<br /> <br /> <br /> retirement and savings: $1.92 (5.3 percent of total compensation); and<br /> <br /> <br /> supplemental pay: $1.20 (3.3 percent of total compensation).<br /> <br /> <br /> Compensation costs in private industry<br /> 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.<br /> 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:<br /> <br /> <br /> life, health and disability insurance: $2.74 (8.0 percent of total compensation);<br /> <br /> <br /> paid leave: $2.40 (7.0 percent of total compensation);<br /> <br /> <br /> retirement and savings: $1.30 (3.8 percent of total compensation); and<br /> <br /> Rhamy AlejealNew Supreme Court Ruling Affects Arbitration AgreementsLegal 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 ( 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 ( 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...]]>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 ( 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 ( 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 ( 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 employment discrimination laws.

                     Factors. Employees must have knowingly agreed to arbitrate employment discrimination claims before they can be forced to arbitrate those claims ( ²⁰). An employer argued that its employee’s Title VII sexual harassment charge should be subject only to arbitration. However, the arbitration agreement’s failure to describe which types of disputes were to be arbitrated prevented it from being a knowing agreement to arbitrate discrimination claims.

                     The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Patterson v. Tenet Healthcare, Inc., held that an arbitration clause in an employee handbook — which required employees to submit any claims arising out of their employment to arbitration — could be enforced against a Missouri employee, even though the rest of the handbook was not enforceable ( ²⁵).

                     Consideration. An arbitration agreement between job applicants and a third-party arbitration services provider that gave the arbitration firm complete discretion over arbitration rules and procedures, including the unlimited right to modify the rules at any time, without employee consent, was unenforceable. Having also retained complete discretion in choosing the arbitration forum, the firm’s promise to arbitrate was illusory; and the employees, therefore, did not receive consideration for their promise to submit disputes to arbitration. Accordingly, two employees were free to pursue Americans with Disabilities Act and Fair Labor Standards Act claims for unlawful termination ( ³⁰).

                     Voluntarily beginning arbitration. According to another case, an employee who voluntarily submitted a discrimination claim to arbitration was bound by the arbitrator’s decision ( ³⁵). The court held that a fired employee’s Title VII race discrimination suit was barred by his voluntary initiation of binding arbitration to resolve his challenge to his termination.

                     Even the fact that the employee had refused to sign the arbitration agreement did not prevent the arbitrator’s decision from being final. According to the court, the FAA’s writing requirement was satisfied both by an employer handbook establishing the grievance process the employee followed and by the employee’s written request to submit his grievance to final and binding arbitration.

                     Coercion or misconduct. Arbitration awards will not be upheld if there is corruption, fraud or other wrongdoing in the process. Thus it was unlawful for an employer, following the filing of discrimination charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, to require employees, upon penalty of termination, to sign statements of a mandatory policy to arbitrate ( ⁴⁰).

                     Class-action waivers. On January 13, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review whether class- and collective-action waivers in employment arbitration agreements violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and whether the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) nonetheless trumps the NLRA. This resolved a split caused by contrary answers to those questions declared by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and federal courts of appeals. The Court consolidated three cases — NLRB v. Murphy Oil, Ernst & Young, LLP v. Morris, and Epic Systems Corporation v. Lewis — for purposes of its review. In each of the three cases, an employer required, as a condition of employment, a contract providing for individualized arbitration proceedings to resolve employment disputes between the parties. However, each employee sought to litigate Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and related state-law claims through class or collective actions in federal court.

                     On May 21, 2018, a divided U.S. Supreme Court held, in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, that class- and collective-action waivers in arbitration agreements do not violate the NLRA ( ⁴⁵). The NLRA does not endow employees with the right to pursue class-action lawsuits, according to the High Court. The FAA strongly favors the arbitration of disputes, including employment-related disputes, and it instructs federal courts to enforce arbitration agreements according to their terms, including terms mandating individualized proceedings. Therefore, employers may compel employees, as a condition of employment, to agree to waive the right to file suit and to mandate arbitration instead — and to require that such arbitration proceed on an individual rather than a class-wide basis.

                     Encouragement of ADR

                     The EEOC announced in a policy statement that it is committed to the use of ADR in some cases where agreement between the parties is possible. ADR may not be appropriate in all cases in which the EEOC is involved; for example:

                     • where there is a need to establish policies or precedents;

                     • where resolution of the dispute would have a significant impact on non-parties;

                     • where a full public record is important; or

                     • where, because of the nature of the case, the agency must maintain continuing jurisdiction.

                     
                     

                     Fairness. For ADR proceedings to be “fair” in the eyes of the EEOC, they require at a minimum:

                     • voluntariness;

                     • neutrality;

                     • confidentiality; and

                     • enforceability ( ⁵⁰).

                     
                     

                     Where ADR is inappropriate. ADR is not a viable alternative to litigation in every instance. For example, in workers’ compensation claims, each state has established its own processes and rulings that, as a general rule, form the employee’s sole remedy.

                     Due process ensured. No matter what process and in what format, the courts demand due process and fairness in arbitration proceedings. Due process and fairness includes:

                     • proper and adequate notice to all parties clearly stating that all parties are to be governed by the process;

                     • proceedings where all parties have the right to present evidence and make arguments and have the right to rebut evidence presented by other parties and challenge the other parties’ arguments;

                     • a provision that the final decision is final and binding; and

                     • possibly other procedural requirements, based on each situation in context.

                     
                     

                     Additional encouragement to use ADR. Various federal laws have been written or amended to encourage ADR, including:

                     • The Civil Rights Act of 1991, amending Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964;

                     • Section 1981 (Civil Rights Act of 1866);

                     • Attorney’s Fees Awards Act of 1976;

                     • Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (Section 513);

                     • Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967; and

                     • Family Medical Leave Act of 1993.

                     
                     

                     Footnotes

                     5 Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp. (SCt 1991) 56 EPD ¶40,704. 10 Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams (SCt 2001) 79 EPD ¶40,401. 15 Rent-A-Center, West, Inc. v. Antonio Jackson, (SCt 2010) 93 EPD ¶43,916. 20 Prudential Insurance Co. of America v. Lai (9thCir 1994) 65 EPD ¶43,365. 25 Patterson v. Tenet Healthcare, Inc. (8thCir 1997) 70 EPD ¶44,677. https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1686Fri, 15 Jun 2018 13:30:30 -050011:25falsefullLegal analysis of alternative dispute resolution<br /> 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:<br /> <br /> <br /> fair and objective;<br /> <br /> <br /> cost effective;<br /> <br /> <br /> capable of protecting the employer&#8217;s interests;<br /> <br /> <br /> reliable;<br /> <br /> <br /> binding on all parties; and<br /> <br /> <br /> a mechanism to provide closure.<br /> <br /> <br /> Arbitration<br /> 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.<br /> 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 ( <a class="pointer" name="09013e2c875871d0-footdocd2812e1fn27-reference"></a><a id="footdocd2812e1fn27-reference" class="footnoteRef osa-doc-anchor-link" href="https://answersnow.cch.com/?refUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fmy.coloniallife.com%2Fproducers%2FSearch%2520Results%3Fq%3Dcch%26page%3D1&amp;P=collife&amp;cpid=WKUS-REX-HRLP#09013e2c875871d0-footdocd2812e1fn27" name="footdocd2812e1fn27-reference" data-jsfn="scrollToAnchor">5</a>). 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 ( <a class="pointer" name="09013e2c875871d0-footdocd2812e1fn32-reference"></a><a id="footdocd2812e1fn32-reference" class="footnoteRef osa-doc-anchor-link" href="https://answersnow.cch.com/?refUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fmy.coloniallife.com%2Fproducers%2FSearch%2520Results%3Fq%3Dcch%26page%3D1&amp;P=collife&amp;cpid=WKUS-REX-HRLP#09013e2c875871d0-footdocd2812e1fn32" name="footdocd2812e1fn32-reference" data-jsfn="scrollToAnchor">10</a>). The rulings give employers broad authority to require employees to arbitrate employment disputes.<br /> 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 &#8220;gateway&#8221;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 &#8220;gateway&#8221; 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 (...Rhamy AlejealNew NLRB memo talks permissible vs. impermissible handbook rulesNew 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. 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 employer (as opposed to rules banning insubordinate or disruptive conduct at work, or rules specifically banning participation in outside organizations). Rules against making false or inaccurate statements (as opposed to rules against making defamatory statements) Category 3. Rules in this category are generally unlawful because they would prohibit or limit NLRA-protected conduct, and the adverse impact on the rights guaranteed by the NLRA outweighs any justifications associated with the rule. Regions should issue complaints on these rules, absent settlement. However, if the Region believes that special circumstances render lawful a rule that normally would fall in Category 3, it should submit the case to the Division of Advice. The memo lists in this category: Confidentiality rules specifically regarding wages, benefits, or working conditions; and Rules against joining outside organizations or voting on matters concerning the employer Substantial change. Not only did the Board in Boeing add a balancing test, it also significantly altered its jurisprudence on the reasonable interpretation of handbook rules. The Trump Board “severely criticized” Lutheran Heritage and its progeny for prohibiting any rule that could be interpreted as covering Section 7 activity, as opposed to only prohibiting rules that would be so interpreted. The new memo states that ambiguities in rules are no longer interpreted against the drafter, and generalized provisions should not be interpreted as banning all activity that could conceivably be included. What has not changed. The memo notes Boeing did not alter well-established standards on certain kinds of rules where the Board has already struck a balance between employee rights and employer business interests, as in, for example, the balancing test involved in assessing the legality of no-distribution, no-solicitation, or no-access rules. Nor did Boeing deal with the “special circumstances” test of apparel rules, although it may apply to aspects of apparel rules that are alleged to be unlawfully overbroad. Maintenance of facially neutral rules. As specifically noted in the decision, Boeing applied only to the mere maintenance of facially neutral rules. Rules that specifically ban protected concerted activity, or that are promulgated directly in response to organizing or other protected concerted activity, remain unlawful, the memo notes. In Boeing, the Board also held that the application of a facially neutral rule against employees engaged in protected concerted activity is still unlawful. A neutral handbook rule does not render protected activity unprotected. Not yet determined.Boeing’s effect on rules about confidentiality of discipline or arbitration, or rules that potentially limit employees’ access to Board processes, has not yet been determined, according to the memo. Accordingly, when presented with such rules, Regions are instructed under the memo to submit the case to the Division of Advice. Source: information from Pamela Wolf, J.D. ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1682Mon, 11 Jun 2018 13:30:28 -050010:18falsefullNew NLRB memo talks permissible vs. impermissible handbook rules in light of Boeing<br /> 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.<br /> Rules categories. The memo provides instruction as to each of the three categories of rules set forth in Boeing:<br /> <br /> <br /> Category 1: Rules that are generally lawful to maintain<br /> <br /> <br /> Category 2: Rules warranting individualized scrutiny<br /> <br /> <br /> Category 3: Rules that are unlawful to maintain<br /> <br /> <br /> 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 &#8220;outweighed by the business justifications&#8221; associated with the rule, according to the memo. Charge allegations alleging that rules in this category are facially unlawful should be dismissed, absent withdrawal.<br /> 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.<br /> 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:<br /> <br /> <br /> Civility rules<br /> <br /> <br /> No-photography and no-recording rules<br /> <br /> <br /> Rules against insubordination<br /> <br /> <br /> Non-cooperation, or on-the-job conduct that adversely affects operations rules<br /> <br /> <br /> Disruptive behavior rules<br /> <br /> <br /> Rules protecting confidential, proprietary, and customer information or documents<br /> <br /> <br /> Rules against defamation or misrepresentation<br /> <br /> <br /> Rules against using employer logos or intellectual property<br /> <br /> <br /> Rules requiring authorization to speak for the company<br /> <br /> <br /> Rules banning disloyalty, nepotism, or self-enrichment<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> Examples of possible Category 2 rules include:<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> Confidentiality rules broadly encompassing &#8220;employer business&#8221; or &#8220;employee information&#8221; (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).<br /> <br /> <br /> Rules regarding disparagement or criticism of the employer (as opposed to civility rules regarding disparagement of employees).<br /> <br /> <br /> Rhamy AlejealNo more tax deductions for un-reimbursed business travel!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. ]]>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. ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1665Wed, 06 Jun 2018 13:25:06 -050005:30falsefullStandard mileage rates updated to reflect elimination of miscellaneous itemized deductions<br /> 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:<br /> <br /> <br /> the suspension of the deduction for un-reimbursed employee expenses;<br /> <br /> <br /> the suspension of the deduction for move related expenses; and<br /> <br /> <br /> the increase of depreciation limits for passenger vehicles.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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:<br /> <br /> <br /> members of a reserve component of the U.S. Armed Forces;<br /> <br /> <br /> state or local government officials paid on a fee basis; and<br /> <br /> <br /> certain performing artists.<br /> <br /> <br /> Thus, Notice 2018-3 will continue to apply to those above listed taxpayers claiming deductions for unreimbursed employee travel expenses.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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).<br /> SOURCE: Notice 2018-42, I.R.B. 2018-24, June 11, 2018.<br />Rhamy AlejealSpecial Notice: TN Employers – Unemployment InsuranceLaw 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). ]]>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). ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1663Mon, 04 Jun 2018 13:25:04 -050002:59falsefullLaw amended — TENNESSEE — Unemployment Insurance,(Jun. 1, 2018)<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Note that the required affidavit must be submitted within the first quarter, beginning January 1, 2019, and annually thereafter (Tenn. ¶4236).<br />Rhamy Alejeal12 Employee Company hit with $550,000 in penalties for misclassifying interns!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...]]>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 Labor Division. Source: Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Office of the Attorney General, May 24, 2018, Press release. ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1661Fri, 01 Jun 2018 13:59:44 -050007:04falsefullPrivate equity firm to pay over $550,000 in back wages and penalties over misclassifying employees as interns — MASSACHUSETTS — Employee misclassification<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> “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.”<br /> 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.<br /> 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:<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 1.<br /> <br /> Is similar to that which would be given in an educational environment, even though it includes actual operation of the employer’s facilities;<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 2.<br /> <br /> Is for the benefit of the intern;<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 3.<br /> <br /> Does not displace regular employees, but the intern works under close supervision of existing staff;<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 4.<br /> <br /> Provides the employer with no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 5.<br /> <br /> Does not entitle the intern to a job at the conclusion of the training period; and<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 6.<br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Rhamy AlejealPeople Processes: Best Practices for pay equity, and I-9’sLaw 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 2018 Trends and Developments in Pay Equity Litigation Report and the 2nd Annual 50-State Pay Equity Desktop Reference.  From XPERT HR (full report): The law firm practice group also 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 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 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 voluntary or mandatory 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 2018 Trends and Developments in Pay Equity Litigation Report and the 2nd Annual 50-State Pay Equity Desktop Reference.  From XPERT HR (full report): The law firm practice group also 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 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 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 voluntary or mandatory (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 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: 1. 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. 2. 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. 3. 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. 4. 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. 5. 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. “Although challenging, having a Form I-9 compliance program and training personnel on properly completing the Form I-9 can help minimize the costly pitfalls of noncompliance.” ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1646Wed, 30 May 2018 13:30:07 -050008:55falsefullLaw firm’s pay equity guidance points to trends — PRACTICE TIP<br /> 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 <a id="link8" class="link" href="http://www.seyfarth.com/dir_docs/publications/Trends_PayEquityLitigation_April2018.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2018 Trends and Developments in Pay Equity Litigation Report</a> and the <a id="link9" class="link" href="http://www.seyfarth.com/dir_docs/publications/PayEquity_50State.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2nd Annual 50-State Pay Equity Desktop Reference</a>.  From <a href="https://bit.ly/2Lc38po">XPERT HR (full report):</a><br /> The law firm practice group also <a id="link11" class="link" href="http://www.seyfarth.com/publications/MA041118-LE" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pointed</a> to several emerging trends:<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> Federal circuit split on pay factors: Recent cases demonstrate that <a id="link22" class="link" href="http://www.seyfarth.com/publications/OMM050417-LE" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Federal circuit courts are split</a> 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 <a id="link23" class="link" href="http://hr.cch.com/eld/RizoYovino040918.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ninth Circuit changed course</a> in an en banc decision and held that an employee’s prior salary does not constitute a &#8220;factor other than sex&#8221; upon which a wage differential may be based under the statutory &#8220;catchall&#8221; exception in the federal Equal Pay Act (Rizo v. Yovino). Stay tuned to see this in the Supreme Court.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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 <a id="link29" class="link" href="https://www.laborandemploymentlawcounsel.com/2016/04/pay-equity-communications-aka-what-do-i-say/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">voluntary</a> or mandatory <a id="link30" class="link" href="http://www.seyfarth.com/publications/PEG020817" target="_blank" rel="noopener">(like in the U.K.</a>) disclosures about pay. This raises additional concerns and, at the same time, provides additional opportunities. Seyfarth notes that it expects this trend to continue.<br /> <br /> <br /> Report identifies best practices for I-9 compliance — PRACTICE TIP <br /> The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is...Rhamy AlejealPeople Processes: Investing in Benefits Technology, Professionals can’t unplugEmployers 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 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:...]]>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 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 According to a new survey from Accountemps, 44 percent of employees typically don’t check in at all with the office while on vacation, but the majority will. In fact, 70 percent of respondents ages 18 to 34 will maintain some contact with work compared to only 39 percent of those ages 55 and older. Professionals plan to take an average of nine vacation days this summer, but the frequency of office check-ins varies by market. Here are highlights among the 28 cities included in the poll: Never out of office: Nashville, Dallas and Los Angeles lead in terms of the number of workers who plan to take no summer vacation. Checking in constantly: Employees in New York, Charlotte, Los Angeles, Miami and Seattle are most likely to connect with the office at least several times a week. Leaving town and never looking back: Professionals in Cleveland, Minneapolis, Denver, Philadelphia and Salt Lake City are best at disconnecting from work while out of office. Findings from similar surveys show employees are more connected to the office than ever: In 2016, a majority of workers (59 percent) said they never check in while on vacation; that number fell to 47 percent in 2017 and 44 percent this year. Michael Steinitz, executive director for Accountemps, gives insight into the trend. “Employees need time away from work to rest, relax and recharge. Yet for an increasing number of people, totally disconnecting from the office can have the reverse effect and add stress,” he said. “Some workers enjoy greater peace of mind when they allow themselves to check in a few times — but not much more than that — while on vacation. Doing so confirms that all is well, which allows them to stop worrying and focus on relaxing instead.” Source: Accountemps. ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1644Fri, 25 May 2018 13:30:15 -050007:11falsefullEmployers found to be accelerating adoption of benefits technology — SURVEY RESULTS<br /> 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 <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=2139271-1&amp;h=2539129855&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.guardiananytime.com%2F&amp;a=Guardian+Workplace+Benefits+StudySM">The Fifth Annual Guardian Workplace Benefits StudySM, Game-Changer: The Digitalization of Employee Benefits Delivery</a>.<br /> 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 &#8220;highly important&#8221; compared to 47 percent in 2014.<br /> &#8220;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,&#8221; said Marc Costantini, executive vice president, Commercial and Government Markets, at Guardian. &#8220;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.&#8221;<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Other key findings in the study include:<br /> <br /> * Three in four millennials wish it were easier to learn about and access their workplace benefits;<br /> * 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;<br /> * Fifty eight percent of employers say managing their employee benefits has become increasingly complex (up from 52 percent in 2015); and<br /> * Sixty seven percent of highly digital employers said enrolling employees is &#8220;very efficient&#8221; compared to 44 percent of paper-based employers.<br /> <br /> Source: The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America.<br /> Rhamy AlejealPeople Processes Q&A: FMLA part time, Pet Bereavement, and GarnishmentsHow 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...]]>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 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 subject to CCPA garnishment limitations, “the central inquiry is whether the amounts are paid by the employer in exchange for personal services.” When the lump-sum payment is made in exchange for personal services rendered, then like payments received periodically, it will be subject to the CCPA’s garnishment limitations (as described in Fact Sheet #30: The Federal Wage Garnishment Law, Consumer Credit Protection Act’s Title III). “Conversely, lump-sum payments that are unrelated to personal services rendered are not earnings under the CCPA,” according to the letter. The WHD considers that the following lump-sum payments (as specifically defined in the text of the letter) are earnings under the CCPA: Commissions; Discretionary and nondiscretionary bonuses; Productivity or performance bonuses; Profit-sharing, referral, and sign-on bonuses; Moving or relocation incentive payments, attendance, safety, and cash service awards; Retroactive merit increases; Payment for working during a holiday; Workers’ compensation payments for wage replacement; Termination pay (e.g., payment of last wages, as well as any outstanding accrued benefits); Severance pay; and Back and front pay payments from insurance settlements. The letter also stated that the following lump-sum payments (as specifically described in the inquiry to which the letter responds) are not earnings under the CCPA: Workers’ compensation payments for medical reimbursements; Wrongful termination insurance for compensatory or punitive damages; and Buybacks of company shares. ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1642Wed, 23 May 2018 13:30:13 -050008:22falsefullHow should intermittent FMLA leave be calculated when an employee moves from full- to part-time status?<br /> 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?<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> Source: 29 CFR §825.205(b)(2).<br /> <br /> <br /> FMLA leave generally not available following pet’s death<br /> 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?<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> SOURCE: Buck v. Mercury Marine Corp., (E.D. Wis.), No. 16-cv-1013-pp, December 22, 2017.<br /> Garnishment of Lump-Sum Payments<br /> 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?<br /> Garnishment of lump-sum payments. The <a id="link157" class="link" href="https://www.dol.gov/whd/opinion/CCPA/2018/2018_04_12_1NA_CPPA.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">third letter</a> 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...Rhamy AlejealPeople Processes: Open Workspaces, Short Term Incentives, and Background Checks 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 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 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. 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 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 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 findings reveal: Nonprofit and government organizations favor simplicity by offering a limited number of STI plans. Of the respondents, more than 75 percent reported having three or fewer STI plans in place. By far, the most common type of STI plan at nonprofit and government organizations continues to be an annual incentive plan (AIP). However, prevalence of AIPs dropped to 77 percent in 2017 from 86 percent in 2015. Source: WorldatWork. Employment background checks an essential component to reducing liability Liability for negligent hiring is “alive and well” but can be reduced by comprehensive employment background screening, said Debra Keller, presenter at a Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA) webinar entitled, “Background Screening: What You Don’t Know Can Hurt Your Organization.” In addition to describing the benefits for background screening, Keller, vice-president of compliance at Reference Services, Inc., outlined the components of a quality background check. Benefits of background checks. One benefit of background checks is an increase in applicant quality because the screening discourages applicants who are trying to hide something. They could also help prevent violence in the workplace—1.5 million workers are assaulted in the workplace each year, at a loss of $55 million a year in lost wages alone. Background checks can also help reduce and employee theft, which Keller described as “rampant and growing.” She said that 43 percent of workers admit they have stolen from their employer, and 70 percent of people who steal will reoffend. Negligent hiring. Negligent hiring is the failure of the employer to investigate an applicant’s work experience, character, criminal history, and other relevant information before hiring the employee. Employers are responsible for both what they know and what they should have known about their employees. Keller noted that employers lose about 75 percent of negligent hiring cases, and average settlements in negligent hiring lawsuits average seven figures. Knowing that a potential employee was involved in criminal activity such as drug abuse, theft, or violent behaviors allows an employer to determine if the applicant is suited for the job and whether he or she poses a potential threat to other employees. Comprehensive background check. To minimize risk, the following should be included an employer’s background screening package: a nationwide criminal search, which Keller described as the foundation of all comprehensive background checks; a Social Security trace to ensure that the applicant record belongs to that person; manual county courthouse searches for seven years of applicant address history; former employer verification; and education verification, if applicable. Keller emphasized the importance of doing a manual county search; while a nationwide criminal report captures convictions only, county records provide the most up-to-date information and include pending, dismissed, and deferred charges. In addition, many counties do not report up to a nationwide data source. She warned against instant county data, which is not a real search and not guaranteed to be up to date. In addition, employers should not rely on fingerprinting as the sole source of background screening. Keller noted that the FBI databases were not intended to be used for background screening and are incomplete and inaccurate. Choosing a background screening firm. Criminal records come from many sources and each background screening firm chooses its own sources, Keller said. The number of records searches varies widely among firms; for example, some contain sex offender registry information and other watch lists, while others do not. If you are paying for a cheap background check you are getting substandard results, said Keller. She recommended that an employer ask about a firm’s data sources: Is the firm nationally accredited by the National Association of Professional Background Screeners? Are team members Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) certified? How many records are searched and how many data sources are used? Request a nationwide criminal source list. The firm should perform “order review,” a process of reviewing criminal records, ensuring the records belong to that applicant, and ensuring that the employer is seeing only those records it is legally able to see. Compliance problems. The past several years have been a “hotbed of activity” with legal action against employers related to noncompliant background screening practices: Under 15 U.S.C. 1681, the FCRA, the applicant authorization form cannot be attached to the application, and it must not contain any waiver or indemnification language. The employer must also include a summary of consumer rights, as well as specific forms for certain states. Before taking any adverse action based on a consumer report, the employer must mail the report, summary of consumer rights, and an adverse action letter to the applicant. After five days, if there is no dispute, the employer must send a post-adverse action letter. While convictions stay on a person’s record forever, several states impose time restrictions (e.g., an employer cannot consider convictions beyond seven years). Under certain circumstances, an employer might consider information on an arrest with no conviction as “underlying conduct.” Source: Written by Sheila Lynch-Afryl, J.D., M.A. ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1584Mon, 21 May 2018 13:30:28 -050012:35falsefull<br /> Workers value sense of community in the workplace<br /> About half (47 percent) of part- or full-time employees value a community atmosphere in the place where they work, according to a new <a id="link5" class="link" href="https://clutch.co/hr/resources/future-of-work-how-workspaces-meet-worker-needs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">survey</a> 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.<br /> While Generation X and baby boomers also value community, they don&#8217;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.<br /> Cummings says that the internet is a connective tool that allows people to create projects of previously unimaginable scale and reach. &#8220;The internet has brought this idea of multi-disciplinary work to a whole new level.&#8221;<br /> 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. &#8220;When designing the community spaces, I&#8217;m thinking about these spontaneous conversations that might happen,&#8221; Shaked said. Putting community building at the forefront of workspace design is critical.<br /> 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&#8217;re able to concentrate better and think more positively about the work they do.<br /> Source: Clutch.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> Short-term incentives no longer just for executives<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> As for private companies, the <a id="link10" class="link" href="https://www.worldatwork.org/docs/surveys/Survey%20Brief%20-%202017%20Incentive%20Pay%20Practices-%20Privately%20Held%20Compaies.pdf?language_id=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">research</a> reveals:<br /> <br /> <br /> Spending on STIs increased to 6 percent of operating profit at median, from 5 percent in prior years.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> Rhamy AlejealPeople Processes: Deep Dive into Mental Health Parity and Autism DiagnosisEBSA 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...]]>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 treatment-by-treatment basis, while denying all benefits for MH/SUD treatment that have a rating of “C” or below, without reviewing the treatments to determine whether exceptions are appropriate. Although the text of the plan sets forth the same evidentiary standard for defining experimental as the Hayes Medical Directory ratings below “B,” the plan applies a different evidentiary standard, which is more stringent for MH/SUD benefits than for medical surgical benefits because the unconditional exclusion of treatments with a “C” rating for MH/SUD benefits is not comparable to the conditional exclusion of those treatments with a “C” rating for medical/surgical benefits. Because of the discrepant application of the evidentiary standard used by the plan, the fact that the plan ultimately denies some medical/surgical benefits that have a rating of “C” does not justify the total exclusion of treatments with a “C” rating for MH/SUD. Dosage limits. The FAQs also provide that a plan does not comply with MHPAEA where it follows professionally-recognized treatment guidelines when setting dosage limits for prescription medications, but the dosage limit set by the plan for buprenorphine to treat opioid use disorder is less than what professionally-recognized treatment guidelines generally recommend. However, the dosage limits set by the plan with respect to medical/surgical benefits are not less than the limits such treatment guidelines recommend. If the plan follows the dosage recommendations in professionally-recognized treatment guidelines to set dosage limits for prescription drugs in its formulary to treat medical/surgical conditions, it must also follow comparable treatment guidelines, and apply them no more stringently, in setting dosage limits for prescription drugs, including buprenorphine, to treat MH/SUD conditions. Particular condition or disorder. A large group health plan or large group insurance coverage that provides benefits for prescription drugs to treat both medical/surgical and MH/SUD conditions but contains a general exclusion for items and services to treat bipolar disorder, including prescription drugs, is permissible under the MHPAEA although if the plan is insured, it would depend on whether state law permits such an exclusion for large group insurance coverage. Generally, MHPAEA requires that treatment limitations imposed on MH/SUD benefits cannot be more restrictive than treatment limitations that apply to medical and surgical benefits. An exclusion of all benefits for a particular condition or disorder, however, is not a treatment limitation for purposes of the definition of “treatment limitations” in the MHPAEA regulations. Small employer group health insurance coverage and individual health insurance coverage are subject to the requirement to provide essential health benefits, and the determination of whether certain benefits must be covered under the requirements for essential health benefits depends on the benefits in the applicable State’s EHB benchmark plan. Step therapy. The FAQs also address a situation where a health plan requires step therapy for both medical/surgical and MH/SUD in-patient, in-network benefits. The plan requires a participant to have two unsuccessful attempts at outpatient treatment in the past 12 months to be eligible for certain inpatient in-network SUD benefits. However, the plan only requires one unsuccessful attempt at outpatient treatment in the past 12 months to be eligible for inpatient, in-network medical/surgical benefits. This is probably not permissible under the MHPAEA, according to the FAQs, because refusing to pay for a higher-cost therapy until it is shown that a lower-cost therapy is not effective (commonly known as “step therapy protocols” or “fail-first policies”) is an NQTL. Although the same NQTL – step therapy – is applied to both MH/SUD benefits and medical/surgical benefits for eligibility for inpatient, in-network services, the requirement for two attempts at outpatient treatment to be eligible for inpatient, in-network SUD benefits is a more stringent application of the NQTL than the requirement for one attempt at outpatient treatment to be eligible for inpatient, in-network medical/surgical benefits. Unless the plan can demonstrate that evidentiary standards or other factors were utilized comparably to develop and apply the differing step therapy requirements for these MH/SUD and medical/surgical benefits, this NQTL does not comply with the MHPAEA. Reimbursement rates. A plan also does not comply with the MHPAEA where its plan documents state that in-network provider reimbursement rates are determined based on the providers’ required training, licensure, and expertise. However, medical/surgical benefits, reimbursement rates are generally the same for physicians and non-physician practitioners. For MH/SUD benefits, the plan pays reduced reimbursement rates for non-physician practitioners. While a plan is not required to pay identical provider reimbursement rates for medical/surgical and MH/SUD providers, a plan’s standards for admitting a provider to participate in a network (including the plan’s reimbursement rates for providers) is an NQTL. ERISA disclosure. The FAQs also address several issues relating to ERISA disclosures for MH/SUD benefits. The MHPAEA final regulations provide express disclosure requirements. Specifically, the criteria for medical necessity determinations with respect to MH/SUD benefits must be made available by the plan administrator or the health insurance issuer to any current or potential participant, beneficiary, or contracting provider upon request. In addition, under MHPAEA, the reason for any denial of reimbursement or payment for services with respect to MH/SUD benefits must be made available to participants and beneficiaries. Updated provider network. DOL regulations provide that, if an ERISA-covered plan utilizes a network, its SPD must provide a general description of the provider network. The list of providers in that SPD must be up-to-date, accurate, and complete (using reasonable efforts). The list may be provided as a separate document that accompanies the plan’s SPD if it is furnished automatically and without charge and the SPD contains a statement to that effect. Moreover, an ERISA-covered plan must disclose a summary of material modifications or changes in the information required to be included in the summary plan description not later than 210 calendar days after the close of the plan year in which the modification or change was adopted. Information provided electronically. ERISA-covered plans and issuers that utilize provider networks are permitted to provide a hyperlink or URL address in enrollment and plan summary materials for a provider directory where information related to MH/SUD providers can be found. While ERISA-covered plans must provide an SPD that describes provisions governing the use of network providers, the composition of the provider network, and whether, and under what circumstances, coverage is provided for out-of-network services under ERISA Sec. 102 and the DOL’s implementing regulations, such information could be provided electronically, for instance in a hyperlink or URL address, provided the DOL’s electronic disclosure safe harbor requirements are met. Revised draft model disclosure form. In addition, the Departments are soliciting comments on 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 nonquantitative treatment limitations that may affect their MH/SUD benefits, or to obtain documentation after an adverse benefit determination involving MH/SUD benefits to support an appeal. A draft form was issued on June 16, 2017, and based on the feedback received through that solicitation, the Departments have revised the form, which can be found at https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/ebsa/laws-and-regulations/laws/mental-health-parity/mhpaea-disclosure-template-draft-revised.pdf. Comments. Public comments are invited on the proposed FAQs and should be submitted by June 22, 2018, to E-OHPSCA-FAQ39@dol.gov. ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1580Fri, 18 May 2018 13:30:09 -050018:18falsefullEBSA issues array of guidance on mental health parity<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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...Rhamy AlejealPeople Processes: Do we have to cover gender reassignment? A Deep Dive into Gender Identity DiscriminationNY 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...]]>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 identity, appearance, behavior, expression, or other gender-related characteristic regardless of the sex assigned to that person at birth, including, but not limited to, the status of being transgender. If this passes it puts into criminal law many of the effects put into place by the New York State Division of Human Rights 9 NYCRR 466.13 from earlier. The Guidance on that resolution clarifies that the NYCHRL prohibits discrimination in the terms and conditions of employment based upon gender identity or gender expression.  The protections, like most prohibitions against discrimination on the basis of a protected category, apply to employment, housing and public accommodations. The Guidance identifies the following eight distinct categories of conduct that constitutes unlawful discrimination on the basis of gender identity or gender expression: 1.         Failing to Use an Individual’s Preferred Name or Pronoun The Guidance takes the position that covered employers8 and entities are legally required to use an individual’s preferred name, pronoun and title (such as Mr., Ms. or Mrs.) regardless of their gender at birth, their anatomy, gender, medical history, appearance, or the gender listed on their identification.  It violates the NYCHRL to intentionally or repeatedly refuse to use an individual’s preferred name, pronoun or title, or to require that they provide a court-ordered name change or certification in order to use their preferred name.  An employer cannot refuse to call a transgender woman by her preferred name, e.g., “Alice,” because her identification states her name is “David.”  An employer may not require an individual to provide information about their medical history or proof of having undergone medical procedures in order to use their preferred name, pronoun or title. 2.         Refusing to Allow Individuals to Use Single-Sex Facilities and  Programs Consistent With Their Gender Identity  The Guidance provides that employers and businesses must permit individuals to use single-sex facilities, such as restrooms or locker rooms, and participate in single-sex programs consistent with their gender identity.  The Guidance clarifies that the law does not require employers or places of public accommodation to make existing restrooms unisex or construct additional restrooms.  However, the Guidance also clarifies that objections by employees, customers, and program participants about sharing a facility with a transgender or gender non-conforming individual are not a lawful reason to deny that individual access to a single-sex facility. Violations of the NYCHRL include prohibiting an individual from using a facility or program because they are transgender, gender non-conforming or do not conform to sex stereotypes, requiring a transgender or gender non-conforming person to provide proof of their gender or identification showing a particular sex in order to access same sex facilities or programs, barring such an individual from participating in a program or using a facility because they may make someone uncomfortable, or forcing such individual to use a single occupancy restroom.  So, an employer or business open to the public cannot lawfully ban a transgender employee or patron from a single-sex bathroom because other employees or patrons are uncomfortable, no matter how vociferously the employees or patrons protest. 3.         Sex Stereotyping The Guidance explains that discriminating against an individual because they do not conform to gender stereotypes is a form of gender discrimination.  Such acts constitute treating an individual differently because they do not conform to widely held stereotypes of how people of a particular gender should look, act or dress – that is, they are insufficiently masculine or feminine.  Violations of NYCHRL based on sex-stereotyping include using anti-gay or derogatory epithets when speaking to or about an individual based on their nonconformity with gender norms, or overlooking a female employee for promotion because her behavior does not conform to how the employer expects a female to behave at work. 4.         Imposing Differential Uniform or Grooming Standards Based on Gender The Guidance states that employers and covered entities may not require dress codes, uniforms, or grooming or appearance standards that differ based upon sex or gender.  So, employers and businesses cannot require that only men wear ties, that male and female waiters wear different uniforms, or that only female employees may wear skirts or make-up.  This standard differs from prior federal court decisions which have held that different dress and grooming standards based on sex or gender are lawful if they do not impose an undue burden.9  Under the NYCHRL, in contrast, “the fact that the grooming standard or dress code differentiates based on gender is sufficient for it to be considered discriminatory, even if perceived by some as harmless.”10  Covered employers and businesses are entitled to enforce a dress code or require specific grooming or appearance standards, as long as those standards do not differentiate on the basis of gender. 5.         Providing Employee Benefits that Discriminate Based on Gender The NYCHRL prohibits offering benefits that discriminate on the basis of gender. Employee benefit plans that are covered by and in compliance with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and applicable federal anti-discrimination laws comply with the NYCHRL.11  However, the Guidance specifically states that to be non-discriminatory, health benefit plans must cover transgender-related medical procedures and transition-related healthcare (also known as transition-related care or gender-affirming care).  Employers are not, however, responsible for denial of coverage for a medical procedure by an insurance carrier if the plan itself does not discriminate.  Violations of the NYCHRL relating to the provision of employee benefits include offering health benefits to opposite sex spouses of employees but not same-sex spouses, offering health services that provide certain procedures to others but which are not covered for transgender employees (for example, covering prostate cancer screenings for men but not for transgender women), categorically excluding from coverage health services related to gender transition, or any other benefits that discriminate by gender (for example offering child care benefits to female but not male employees). 6.         Considering Gender When Evaluating Requests for Accommodations It is unlawful under the NYCHRL to consider gender when evaluating requests for accommodation for disabilities, changes to the terms and conditions of employment, participation in a program, or use of a public accommodation.  Such requested accommodations may include medical or personal leave or changes in work schedule.  Violations of the NYCHRL relating to requests for accommodation include an employer refusing to honor its policy of unpaid medical leave when the request is made by a transgender employee, an employer who permits an accommodation for a “cisgender”12 female employee to have medically necessary reconstructive breast surgery but refuses the same accommodation for a transgender employee undergoing the same medically necessary surgery, requesting medical documentation to verify leave time from transgender employees but not cisgender employees, or determining the retention and accrual of benefits such as seniority and pension rights based on gender. 7.         Discriminatory Harassment Discriminatory harassment or violence motivated by a person’s actual or perceived gender identity or expression violates the NYCHRL.    8.         Retaliation The NYCHRL prohibits an employer from retaliating against an individual for opposing discrimination or requesting a reasonable accommodation.  These prohibitions apply with equal force when the discrimination complained of is gender identity discrimination, or the accommodation request is based upon the individual’s gender identity.  Any action taken against an individual because of such a request that is “reasonably likely to deter them from engaging in such activities” is unlawful retaliation.13  Unlawful retaliation includes firing or demoting an individual who files a complaint, assigning the individual to work less desirable shifts contrary to standard practice, failing to grant routinely provided accommodations, and refusing to advance an individual in a program because of their complaints.   Penalties for Discrimination Based on Transgender Status or Gender Identity  Employees claiming discrimination on the basis of their gender identity, gender expression or transgender status may file a complaint of discrimination with the City Commission or the State Division of Human Rights within one year of the discriminatory conduct or file a lawsuit within three years.14  A prevailing plaintiff can recover back pay, front pay, compensatory damages and, under New York City law, reasonable attorneys’ fees and punitive damages.15  In addition, the Commission can impose civil penalties of up to $125,000 for violations and up to $250,000 for violations it finds to be “willful, wanton and malicious.”16  In assessing a civil penalty, the Commission will look to several factors, including the severity of the violation, whether or not there were previous or subsequent violations, the employer’s size and its knowledge of the NYCHRL. Recommendations for Employers Discrimination on the basis of gender identity should be treated just as seriously as any other type of unlawful discrimination.  Employers should read both the New York State Regulations and the Commission Guidance, and review their existing policies and procedures for compliance.  Employers should consider revisions to their policies, benefits programs and handbooks to ensure they do not violate the NYSHRL and NYCHRL.  Disability accommodation policies should be reviewed to ensure they cover medically necessary gender reassignment or transition procedures and do not exclude gender dysphoria as a disability. The Guidance endorses a number of actions by employers to avoid each category of unlawful conduct described above including, among other things, education programs to inform supervisors and employees of the requirements of the NYCHRL.  Employers should consider providing compliance training to supervisors, managers, human resources and recruiting personnel, and in-house counsel to ensure they understand their obligations to ensure lawful treatment of transgender employees.  Further, employers must make sure that reporting procedures are available to employees so they can address questions that arise and any complaints get escalated. Employers should consult experienced employment counsel to assist them in ensuring their policies, programs and benefits do not violate the law, and to provide them with best practices for compliance going forward. ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1582Wed, 16 May 2018 13:30:33 -050019:56falsefullNY Assembly again passes Gender Non-discrimination Act — NEW YORK<br /> 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).<br /> “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.”<br /> “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&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;s Hate Crimes Law.”<br /> 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&#8217;s legislation would ensure that all transgender New Yorkers have secure, lasting protections against discrimination.<br /> Since 2008, the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act has passed the Assembly 10 times.<br /> “Today&#8217;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.”<br /> 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.”<br /> 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...Rhamy AlejealQ&A: Six Tips to Head off Hiring Headaches, and Employee Fatality at WorkSix 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? <<Answer: Figuring out how to hire an employee with just the right mix of skills and knowledge can feel like a daunting task. Robert Half shared the following tips to attract and hire employees who bring maximum value to your creative agency or in-house department. 1. Juice up the job description. Generating interest from highly qualified job candidates is often one of the most difficult aspects of the hiring process for a business. When a position opens up, take the time to write a job description that’s both detailed and compelling. While you don’t want your job posting to be excessively long or so specific that it deters qualified candidates from applying, you do want to include enough information to attract job seekers who are well-suited for the position. If it’s a new role, carefully consider the tasks you want the employee to take on short term and long term, and the levels of education and experience your ideal candidate should possess. If you’re filling a vacated role, take the opportunity to evaluate whether you want to make changes to the position. Chances are you’ll want to add or shift some responsibilities. 2. Cast a wide net. When you’re ready to start recruiting candidates, cast your net deep and wide. Post the opening on your website and on job boards that cater to your company’s industry or the creative field. Also, share the job ad on your company’s social media accounts. Don’t forget about the power of in-person networking to spread the news of your open position, whether you’re attending a casual lunch, professional event, or industry conference. You also may want to consider working with a specialized recruiter who has access to highly skilled creatives, including passive job seekers. 3. Don’t shortchange the resume review. Evaluating resumes can be tedious and time-consuming, but it allows the hiring manager to decide if a candidate’s qualifications fit the bill. Look for resumes with key words and phrases that match the job description. This shows that the candidate is focused on details and has experience that aligns with the job duties. Also, keep an eye out for resumes that highlight both technical and soft skills and that include concrete ways the job seeker added value and helped meet company goals in previous roles. 4. Conduct consistent interviews. During each interview, pay attention to whether the candidate is well prepared by testing...]]>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? <<Answer: Figuring out how to hire an employee with just the right mix of skills and knowledge can feel like a daunting task. Robert Half shared the following tips to attract and hire employees who bring maximum value to your creative agency or in-house department. 1. Juice up the job description. Generating interest from highly qualified job candidates is often one of the most difficult aspects of the hiring process for a business. When a position opens up, take the time to write a job description that’s both detailed and compelling. While you don’t want your job posting to be excessively long or so specific that it deters qualified candidates from applying, you do want to include enough information to attract job seekers who are well-suited for the position. If it’s a new role, carefully consider the tasks you want the employee to take on short term and long term, and the levels of education and experience your ideal candidate should possess. If you’re filling a vacated role, take the opportunity to evaluate whether you want to make changes to the position. Chances are you’ll want to add or shift some responsibilities. 2. Cast a wide net. When you’re ready to start recruiting candidates, cast your net deep and wide. Post the opening on your website and on job boards that cater to your company’s industry or the creative field. Also, share the job ad on your company’s social media accounts. Don’t forget about the power of in-person networking to spread the news of your open position, whether you’re attending a casual lunch, professional event, or industry conference. You also may want to consider working with a specialized recruiter who has access to highly skilled creatives, including passive job seekers. 3. Don’t shortchange the resume review. Evaluating resumes can be tedious and time-consuming, but it allows the hiring manager to decide if a candidate’s qualifications fit the bill. Look for resumes with key words and phrases that match the job description. This shows that the candidate is focused on details and has experience that aligns with the job duties. Also, keep an eye out for resumes that highlight both technical and soft skills and that include concrete ways the job seeker added value and helped meet company goals in previous roles. 4. Conduct consistent interviews. During each interview, pay attention to whether the candidate is well prepared by testing his or her knowledge of your company and industry. Zero in on both technical know-how and interpersonal abilities. Your job is not only to find the most qualified person, but also to build a well-functioning and cohesive creative team. While your conversations will naturally take different courses, be sure to ask all candidates the same questions to keep the playing field level. Don’t forget to sell yourself and your company — interviews are a two-way street. 5. Determine the right salary range. Offering an attractive salary package is a must, given the competition to attract talent today. According to a survey by The Creative Group, 57 percent of hiring managers polled say they are willing to negotiate salary with top candidates. Review salary surveys to make sure your starting pay ranges are on par with or better than what other companies in your area are offering. 6. Act fast when you find the right candidate. According to the aforementioned survey, it takes five weeks, on average, to fill an open staff-level position. Filling an open management-level role takes an average of seven weeks. Once you’ve identified your top candidate, extend an offer quickly. Candidates with strong portfolios and the right mix of skills frequently have multiple opportunities from which to choose. Expect the candidate to take a day or two to consider your offer, and plan for some back-and-forth negotiating. Finally, make it clear that the job offer is contingent upon any reference or background checks you need to complete. Source: How to Hire an Employee: 6 Tips to Head Off Hiring Headaches, released October 5, 2017; Robert Half   Workplace fatalities: Steps to be followed by employers and OSHA Issue: Sadly, a worker was killed in an industrial accident at one of your organization’s facilities. Everything happened so quickly and, frankly, you didn’t know what was expected of you with regard to OSHA reporting. At the same time, you weren’t sure what to expect from OSHA. What rules pertain? Answer: OSHA regulations require employers to report deaths on the job within eight hours. Employers may call their local OSHA office or may use the agency’s toll-free number: 800-321-OSHA (6742). The agency then investigates the circumstances of the death, usually onsite, to determine the cause of death and if violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act are involved — unless the matter is clearly outside OSHA’s jurisdiction, such as over-the-road traffic accidents and some apparent sudden deaths on the job such as heart attacks or strokes. Depending on the nature and complexity of the incident, an OSHA investigation may take as long as six months. If the agency determines that the employer failed to follow safety and health requirements, it issues citations and proposed civil penalties. The proposed penalties are based on the statutory factors of employer size, gravity of the violation, good faith of the employer, and the history of previous violations. Effective January 2, 2018, the maximum penalty that may be assessed is $12,934 for a serious violation or $129,336 for a repeated or willful violation. OSHA assistance to family members. OSHA is committed to working with families to provide an accounting of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of workers and to doing everything possible to prevent future tragedies. Agency representatives contact the family of the worker who died to let them know of the agency’s investigation and to arrange to provide further information as it becomes available. Investigators take into account relevant information that family members may provide concerning their loved one’s working conditions and death. OSHA’s administrator also sends a letter of condolence to the family, which includes contact information for the office handling the inspection. Family members may then request a copy of all citations, subsequent settlement agreements, or Review Commission decisions as soon as these are available. Criminal prosecution of willful deaths. The Occupational Safety and Health Act also provides that where OSHA can document that an employer willfully violated an OSHA standard and that violation caused the death of a worker, the matter may be referred to the Justice Department for consideration for criminal prosecution. Any criminal prosecution that the Department of Justice pursues is usually in addition to civil citations and penalties. ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1560Mon, 14 May 2018 13:30:09 -050009:24falsefullSix tips to head off hiring headaches<br /> Issue&gt;&gt;: 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?<br /> &lt;&lt;Answer: Figuring out how to hire an employee with just the right mix of skills and knowledge can feel like a daunting task. Robert Half shared the following tips to attract and hire employees who bring maximum value to your creative agency or in-house department.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 1.<br /> <br /> Juice up the job description. Generating interest from highly qualified job candidates is often one of the most difficult aspects of the hiring process for a business. When a position opens up, take the time to write a job description that’s both detailed and compelling. While you don’t want your job posting to be excessively long or so specific that it deters qualified candidates from applying, you do want to include enough information to attract job seekers who are well-suited for the position. If it’s a new role, carefully consider the tasks you want the employee to take on short term and long term, and the levels of education and experience your ideal candidate should possess. If you’re filling a vacated role, take the opportunity to evaluate whether you want to make changes to the position. Chances are you’ll want to add or shift some responsibilities.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 2.<br /> <br /> Cast a wide net. When you’re ready to start recruiting candidates, cast your net deep and wide. Post the opening on your website and on job boards that cater to your company’s industry or the creative field. Also, share the job ad on your company’s social media accounts. Don’t forget about the power of in-person networking to spread the news of your open position, whether you’re attending a casual lunch, professional event, or industry conference. You also may want to consider working with a specialized recruiter who has access to highly skilled creatives, including passive job seekers.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 3.<br /> <br /> Don’t shortchange the resume review. Evaluating resumes can be tedious and time-consuming, but it allows the hiring manager to decide if a candidate’s qualifications fit the bill. Look for resumes with key words and phrases that match the job description. This shows that the candidate is focused on details and has experience that aligns with the job duties. Also, keep an eye out for resumes that highlight both technical and soft skills and that include concrete ways the job seeker added value and helped meet company goals in previous roles.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 4.<br /> <br /> Conduct consistent interviews. During each interview, pay attention to whether the candidate is well prepared by testing his or her knowledge of your company and industry. Zero in on both technical know-how and interpersonal abilities. Your job is not only to find the most qualified person, but also to build a well-functioning and cohesive creative team. While your conversations will naturally take different courses, be sure to ask all candidates the same questions to keep the playing field level. Don’t forget to sell yourself and your company — interviews are a two-way street.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 5.<br /> <br /> Determine the right salary range. Offering an attractive salary package is a must, given the competition to attract talent today. According to a survey by The Creative Group, 57 percent of hiring managers polled say they are willing to negotiate salary with top candidates. Review salary surveys to make sure your starting pay ranges are on par with or better than what other companies in your area are offering.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 6.<br /> <br /> Act fast when you find the right candidate. According to the aforementioned survey,Rhamy AlejealPeople Processes: Q&A – Group Retirement, and Dramatic Changes in AppearanceHow 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? IssueHow 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? <<Answer>>: No, the salon owner may not disclose Donny’s illness to coworkers and others in the workplace. Despite the concern an employee’s coworkers and others may have for an employee’s health, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits an employer from revealing that the employee has cancer. An employee, however, may voluntarily choose to tell his coworkers and others that he has cancer and about his treatment. However, even when an employee voluntarily discloses that he has cancer, the employer must keep this information confidential consistent with the ADA. An employer also may not explain to other employees why an employee with cancer has been absent from work if the absence is related to his cancer or another disability. With limited exceptions, an employer must keep confidential any medical information it learns about an applicant or employee. Under the following circumstances, however, an employer may disclose that an employee has cancer: to supervisors and managers if necessary to provide a reasonable accommodation or meet an employee’s work restrictions; to first-aid and safety personnel if an employee may need emergency treatment or require some other assistance at work; to individuals investigating compliance with the ADA and similar state and local laws; and where needed for workers’ compensation or insurance purposes (for example, to process a claim). In this instance, the salon owner should act to discourage the rumors and gossip but may not reveal that Donny has cancer. ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1558Fri, 11 May 2018 13:30:07 -050008:19falsefullHow can organizations help prepare employees for a timely retirement?<br /> 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?<br /> Answer: Employers have a variety of strategies available to support their employees’ retirement planning,  For today’s multi-generational workforce, Sibson recommends the following:<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 1.<br /> <br /> Targeted education. Opening the channels of communication and customizing the messages are pivotal factors in helping employees improve their retirement readiness. &#8220;One-size-fits-all&#8221; is a misnomer; with a few rare instances, it should be &#8220;one-size-fits-few,&#8221;. 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:<br /> <br /> <br /> Demographics (age, gender, education, income, type of work, cultural, and geographic region);<br /> <br /> <br /> Attitudes/Beliefs/Behaviors (extrinsic v. intrinsic motivation, optimistic, fearful/suspicious, skeptical, cost-conscious, risk tolerance, and compliant);<br /> <br /> <br /> Communication Expectations (familiarity, access, time, face-to-face, technology, social); and<br /> <br /> <br /> Work/Life Stage (new hire, mid-career, late-career, Medicare-eligible, single, married, children, life events).<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 2.<br /> <br /> 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 &#8220;one-size-fits-all&#8221; 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 3.<br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> If an employee’s appearance dramatically changes, may an employer explain to coworkers that the employee has cancer?<br /> Issue&gt;&gt;: 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?<br /> &lt;&lt;Answer&gt;&gt;: No, the salon owner may not disclose Donny’s illness to coworkers and others in the workplace. Despite the concern an employee’s coworkers and others may have for an employee’s health, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits an employer from revealing that the employee has cancer. An employee, however, may voluntarily choose to tell his coworkers and others that he has cancer and about his treatment. However, even when an employee voluntarily discloses that he has cancer, the employer must keep this information confidential consistent with the ADA.Rhamy AlejealPeople Processes: Compliance Update May 7May 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...]]>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 the first quarter of 2018. Compensation costs for civilian workers increased 0.8 percent, seasonally adjusted, from January to March. Wages and salaries (which make up about 70 percent of compensation costs) rose 0.9 percent, while benefits (which comprise the remaining 30 percent of compensation costs) increased 0.7 percent. EEO reporting. The deadline for filing the 2017 EEO-1 Report has been extended to June 1, 2018, according to a notice posted on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) website; the original deadline was March 31, 2018. All employers in the private sector with 100 or more employees, and federal contractors and subcontractors with 50 or more employees and a federal contract or subcontract amounting to $50,000 or more, must file the EEO-1 Report annually with the Joint Reporting Committee. Covered employers are required to provide workforce profiles by race, ethnicity, sex, and job category. The preferred method for completing the EEO-1 Report is the web-based online filing system. Workforce trends. Most companies (94 percent) have innovation on their core agenda this year, and 96 percent are planning organization design changes, according to a global talent survey from Mercer. At the same time, employees are seeking control of their personal and professional lives, with more than half asking for more flexible work options ]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1556Wed, 09 May 2018 13:30:04 -050009:06falsefullMay 7 Compliance Update<br /> <br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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:<br /> <br /> <br /> Diagnosis, treatment, or recovery from a mental or physical illness or injury, or preventive care, for the employee or a family member;<br /> <br /> <br /> Obtaining services if the employee or a family member is a victim of domestic or sexual violence;<br /> <br /> <br /> Circumstances arising from a public health emergency; and<br /> <br /> <br /> A school-related meeting or event with regard to the employee’s child.<br /> <br /> <br /> New Jersey was added to the list of states that mandate paid sick...Rhamy AlejealPeople Processes: Deep Dive into Non-Compete AgreementsNoncompetition 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...]]>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 has been proven, the law provides a remedy. It will, however, be up to the employer to prove in court that the information it seeks to protect meets standards for trade secrets and that it did everything it could to safeguard the secret nature of the information. Trade Secrets What Is a Trade Secret A trade secret can be any information that derives independent economic value from not being generally known or readily ascertainable. Among the things that can be trade secrets are formulas, patterns, compilations, programs, devices, methods, techniques, or processes. Among things courts have found to be trade secrets are machining processes, blueprints, stock-picking formulae, customer lists, pricing information, and nonpublic financial data. On the other hand, information such as overhead rates and profit margins that help define a price may be found to be a trade secret even if the price itself is known. Legal Tests 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 to 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. Restrictive Covenants Definition Restrictive covenants, also known as noncompetition/noncompete agreements, are contractual arrangements that restrict employees’ rights to compete with their employers for a period of time following termination of employment. Once reserved for the highest-level executives, researchers, and outside sales personnel, noncompete agreements are being increasingly used with midlevel managers, technical staff, and any other employee whose departure could create a competitive disadvantage. Unlike the common law duty of loyalty, an agreement not to compete prohibits conduct that takes place after the employment relationship has ended and is not limited to “wrongful conduct,” such as stealing client lists. Other agreements are more narrow, restricting only contact with customers. Such an agreement is referred to as a nonsolicitation agreement. Through the use of noncompete, nonsolicitation, and nondisclosure agreements, employers try to prevent employees from cashing in on opportunities gained during the employment relationship. What Restrictive Covenants Protect Restrictive covenants provide protection by preventing former employees from alienating long-standing customers and disclosing or using confidential information acquired from the employer. Note, however, that with professionals such as doctors, accountants, and certain others, where a personal relationship has developed, courts will frequently refuse to enforce a noncompetition agreement that would result in patients not being able to see their own doctor or clients not being able to use the accountant they have dealt with for years. Employers can protect confidential information that may be helpful to a competitor or to an employee who decides to go into private business. Courts will enforce this protection if an employee has signed a restrictive covenant and the covenant is reasonable in all other important aspects. This is distinct from the general provision provided by the law of trade secrets and is a way for employers to protect themselves against disclosure of information that may not otherwise qualify as a trade secret. An employer must, however, be able to show that the information was indeed treated as confidential. Restrictions on Noncompete Agreements Before embarking on a campaign to have employees sign noncompete agreements, companies should consider a few cautionary points. Considering these points will also help companies draft workable agreements. Courts in all states dislike noncompete agreements and welcome the opportunity to limit or eliminate them. Their sentiment is largely based on a desire to allow individuals to earn a living in the field of their choice. Agreements that are too broad are likely to be tossed out or at least rewritten by a judge in those states that allow for such an option. As a general rule, courts will consider the following factors in determining whether to enforce a restrictive covenant: Does the employer have a legitimate interest in being protected from this employee’s competitive activity? A court may refuse to enforce a restriction that is too broadly drafted even though the employer may be able to demonstrate a legitimate business interest worthy of protection. Is the restriction reasonable in light of all the circumstances? By “reasonable,” the courts would mean that the agreement is no more restrictive upon an employee than necessary to protect the employer’s legitimate business interests. Is the restriction reasonably limited in time and geography? The agreement must contain a reasonable time restriction. Such a time restriction would be based on such factors as the time it would take to train a new employee and for customers to become familiar with this employee and eliminate the identification between the employer’s business and the former employee. The geographical scope of the restriction must be limited to areas necessary to protect the employer’s interests. Will enforcing the restriction harm the public interest? Will any aspect of public policy be affected if the agreement is enforced? This factor tends to be the least definitive; however, the following example may be illustrative: An employer-hospital requires a restrictive covenant with the only cardiac surgeon in a 500-mile radius, and that surgeon then leaves the hospital. If the restrictive covenant were to require the surgeon to not compete within a 200-mile radius, the public would be severely harmed by this restrictive covenant. Was there reasonable consideration given in return for the restrictive covenant being signed? Most states require an employee’s agreement to noncompetition restrictions to be in exchange for receiving something of value, such as the initial job offer, a raise or promotion, or extra benefits upon leaving the organization. When will the noncompetition restriction be triggered? Some agreements apply automatically, whether the employee’s termination was for cause, without cause, or as part of a layoff. Some agreements apply only if the employee resigns or is terminated for cause. Other agreements limit the period of restricted activity to the time severance benefits are being paid. Where the period of restricted activity is limited to the duration of severance benefit payments, the employee is free to forego severance payments to accept employment. Note that some employers include an agreed-upon fee that the employee will pay if the employee engages in the prohibited activity during the restricted period. Enforcement The best noncompete agreements are narrowly tailored to meet the most important needs of the organization, judiciously applied only to individuals in sensitive positions, and vigorously invoked when violated. In many cases, merely having a noncompete agreement in place will discourage most employees from leaving the organization to work for a competitor. When an employee does leave, however, the agreement allows the employer to have some control over the timing, terms, and effect of the departure. Companies must fight to enforce their noncompete agreements. If the potential harm is sufficient to justify a restrictive covenant, it is serious enough to do something about when that covenant is violated. Violation of noncompete agreements may allow employers to obtain, in addition to monetary damages, nonmonetary relief such as restraining orders and injunctions to protect the organization’s interests. Companies that fail to enforce their noncompete agreements often find that their former employees’ attorneys can argue that there was no need for the restriction in the first place since the organization has not bothered to enforce it in the past. Nondisclosure, No-Solicitation, and No-Raid Agreements Employers can have employees sign even more limited agreements — for example, nondisclosure, no-solicitation, and no-raid agreements — which do not limit their ability to work in the field but do prevent them from causing harm to the former employer in their new job. These more limited agreements are usually more easily enforced than a true noncompete agreement. One difficulty with these agreements, however, is proving they have been violated. A nondisclosure agreement can prevent an employee from using or disclosing an employer’s confidential information in the new job. An advantage of this sort of agreement is that the employer can define confidential information so that more things are included than would qualify as trade secrets under common law. In addition, such a signed agreement would prevent employees from pleading ignorance as an excuse for sharing confidential information. It would, of course, be difficult to prove a violation when the employer’s confidential information could arguably be ascertained from sources other than the employee. A no-solicitation agreement prohibits the employee from going after the organization’s customers or suppliers. A no-raid agreement prohibits the employee and a new employer from inducing other employees to leave the original employer to work for the new one, at least for some specific time after the former employee leaves employment. While employee raiding is not recognized as a cause of action in most states, employers may be able to pursue a remedy for raiding of employees based on a claim of intentional interference with contractual relations or prospective economic advantage. These agreements tend to be viewed more favorably by the courts since they do not actually keep anyone from working. Conflict-of-Interest Clauses Many employers also include a conflict-of-interest clause in their noncompetition agreements. This provision generally requires employees to devote their entire productive time and full attention to the employer as a condition of employment. A conflict-of-interest clause may also contain an agreement by employees to refrain from directly or indirectly engaging in any outside employment, consulting, or other business activities while employed by the employer. Employees can additionally be required to agree to refrain from engaging in any outside employment without the written consent of the employer. Hiring a Competitor’s Employees Employers often find themselves in a position to hire a competitor’s employees. In these cases, it is worthwhile to take some precautionary steps because state courts may find that a new employer’s interference with valid noncompete agreements constitutes “tortious interference” with the former employer’s relationship with the employee. An employer should first determine if the employee is subject to any restrictions. An employer should not be satisfied with a vague answer to a question whether the employee has any sort of restrictive agreement with the former employer. The employer should have the employee sign a statement that the individual is not subject to any noncompete or other agreement. If an employer hires a competitor’s employee knowing that the employee is subject to a restrictive covenant, the organization could be sued for interfering with the previous employer’s contractual rights, just as employers could sue an organization that hired one of their employees subject to such an agreement. The key to lawsuits regarding violation of another organization’s restrictive covenant is the hiring organization’s knowledge of the restriction and its decision to employ the person in spite of this knowledge. This is why the first step in such a case may be the sending of a certified letter by the old employer to the new, putting the new employer “on notice” of the restriction. If, in fact, it can be proven that the nature of an individual’s work for the new employer makes it virtually impossible for the individual not to use or disclose the old employer’s confidential information, a court may be persuaded to restrain the employee from working for the competition at all. If an employer learns that a new hire does have a restrictive covenant, the employer should obtain a copy of the restrictive covenant for legal counsel to examine. It may be that the prohibitive activity does not match the duties of the position to be filled. The agreement may also appear too broad. It may also be that there was no consideration in return for the agreement being signed. Once an employer knows how enforceable the agreement is, the employer can decide how to proceed. An employer may want to begin negotiations with the other employer in cases where the agreement seems especially strong. The employer should be especially cautious about hiring employees with noncompetition agreements if the organization requires such agreements of its employees. It will be very difficult to enforce agreements, based on what the employer argues is a legitimate reason for having employees sign them, if an employer finds it acceptable to violate another employer’s agreements. Employer Practices Employers are protected by common law from the misuse of their trade secrets by former employees. To ensure their confidential information is protected, employers must actually treat this information as confidential and restrict access to it, instituting restricted-access procedures, and posting appropriate signs. Employees should be trained in the proper handling of confidential information. In situations where employers fear that employees may leave and take customers with them or share crucial information with a new]]>https://peopleprocesses.com/?p=1546Mon, 07 May 2018 13:30:02 -050025:05falsefullNoncompetition Agreements and Trade Secrets<br /> Introduction<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> 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.<br /> General Protections<br /> 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.<br /> The Duty of Loyalty<br /> 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.<br /> 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...Rhamy Alejeal