A revised FMLA poster is now available.

A revised Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) poster, reflecting the recently published final rule, is now available for viewing and downloading. Every employer covered by the FMLA is required to post and keep posted on its premises, in conspicuous places where employees are employed, a notice explaining the Act’s provisions. The revision to the FMLA and the new poster becomes effective on January 16, 2009.

The poster can be downloaded at: http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/fmla/finalrule/FMLAPoster.pdf

Additional information and materials can be viewed at the DOL’s FMLA website at: http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/fmla/finalrule.htm

The Sectretary of Labor due to release model notification regarding the COBRA subsidy program.

The Sectretary of Labor must release model notices for the subsidized COBRA program no later than thirty (30) days after the date of enactment (2/17/09) of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. This week will culminate the 30 days, therefore the model notification should be released by the 19th of March. As a reminder, employers have sixty (60) days from enactment of the Stimulus bill to send out updated notices to any assistance eligible individuals.

StaffScapes will release additional information once we have had time to review the model notices being released from DOL this week. 

People who are looking for work and are currently employed need to consider a few changes to better thier succes when looking for a new job.

We recently placed an add for a new payroll administrator on jobing.com over the week we have gotten in over 150 resumes for this job posting. During the review process we noticed a few items in the resume that may make it difficult for applicants to get recognized by prospective employers. 

Below are a few things to consider not having on your resume:

- If currently employed do not fax your resume from your office fax machine.

- This also goes if you plan to email your resume in don’t use you current employers email account.

- The phone number you use for a prospective employer should not be your current employers phone number. Many employers have caller ID and this can cause problems. You would not want to get fired for looking for work on company time.

-If you leave a phone number to call consider updating your voice mail message that an employer would feel comfortable leaving a message on. Don’t leave "bro leave a message I may call you back".

These are a few things to thing about changing or updating on your resume.

See Also

• Payroll Administrator
  Jobing.com payroll add

New law mandating employers to provide unpaid time off to parents for their children’s educationOn August 5^th, 2009, employers with 50 or more employees must provide up to 18 hours of unpaid leave for parents to attend parent-teacher meetings and other school-related events. The bill, Parental Involvement in K-12 Education Act, was signed into law by Gov. Ritter on June 1^st of this year. Parents must be allowed to take up to 6 hours of leave each month, and a maximum of 18 hours in a year. The parent must “make a reasonable attempt to schedule academic activities… outside of regular work hours” and schools “shall make their best efforts to accommodate the schedules of employees”. The parent must give notice to the employer no later than one week in advance of the needed time off.

See Also

• House Bill 09-1057, Parental Involvement in K-12 Education Act
  Parental Involvement in Kindergarten Through Twelfth Grade Education

Five tips for both the employer and employee. Part one employer

No one that I know of is comfortable with the thought of preparing for a staff reduction.  Both employers and employees are often placed into uncharted waters.  Everyone has questions and finding or knowing the answers often seems as easy as walking through quicksand.  I have a unique perspective as I have personally been on the receiving end of the “thank you for your dedication and oh sorry, you don’t get the five year service award company water bottle” and the “economic times are forcing us to reduce staff, now what do we do?” sides of the current and difficult times we are facing today.  So, to help navigate, here are a few suggestions:

For the Employer

1. Evaluate. The economic downturn has affected your bottom line.  You have cut expenses, cancelled the company picnic and removed bonus programs.  But all of these measure have not prevented the worst thing imaginable—the need to eliminate jobs to keep the company in business.  How do you select the people to lay off?  What do you need to do to conduct the layoff?  How do you tell the employee?  What do you tell the remaining staff?  These are all good and important questions to ask.  The first step is to evaluate or conduct an assessment of business needs and determine what areas have a potential surplus in resources and which areas are at a critical operational base.  Are you aligned with your Mission, Vision and Values?  Determine the KSA’s (Knowledge, Skills & Abilities) and KBP’s (Key Business Practices) needed in your business moving forward. Reductions based on the “last in first out rule” may help mitigate legal claims but they may not help you protect your investment in intellectual capital and help you keep the business running.  Look at all functional areas of your operations and determine your core needs.  Remember that term S.W.O.T. you learned in college but didn’t see the value of during the group exercise?  It actually does have a purpose and will help you understand your business, its operations and your strategies for future success.
2. Plan.  The best businesses don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan.  Once you have determined your core competencies and have outlined the areas of reductions, have a strategy in place for how you are going to move forward and still get the work done with fewer resources.  In this critical time, you can not afford to let your attention to details and customer focus lapse.  Determine which staff members will be responsible for tasks once completed by former employees and communicate these needs and responsibilities clearly. 
3. Document.  There are legal requirements when conducting a lay off.  Decisions based on objectivity and not emotion or a knee jerk reaction will help.  Review your decisions against the EEO requirements and consider protected classes (i.e., minorities, individuals age 40 and older, the disabled, or veterans) and make sure that your layoff decisions will not favor any one class over the other.
4. Empathize.  This is a tough time for both the employer and the employee.  It is tempting to be direct and non-caring to avoid legal action.  But how you handle a lay-off will determine how your remaining employees react, their morale and their decisions to stay with your organization. If the entire process is professionally administered, information is provided to the affected employee to help them understand the next steps they need to pursue  and the former employee is made aware that this is due to a business need and that they are valued and appreciated for their prior contributions, the process will be smoother for everyone involved    

5.     Motivate.  The desks are cleared, the personal photos are gone and your remaining staff have just lost their friends and fear they will be next.  Now is the time to communicate clearly to your staff what has happened and why and where you are heading.  Let them know that you understand their fear and that you value their continued contributions.  This isn’t going to make the situation go away or prevent future disruption, but it is one step to recovery that can make the difference between a satisfied workforce and one that is ready to jump ship

By:  Eugena Bellamy, StaffScapes

Federal minimum wage increases Friday

The federal minimum hourly wage will increase this Friday (July 24, 2009) to $7.25 per hour. This is the last and final increase put in place by The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007. Many states have a seperate state minimum wage different from the federal.  Employers are required to pay which ever (federal or state) minimum wage amount is higher to their employees.  Colorado’s minimum wage of $7.28 per hour is higher than the required federal minimum wage, therefore Colorado employers will need to use the states minimum wage.  

The CDC has some very good information for employers and employees concerning this years influenza season.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has recently updated their website with a Communication Toolkit for Businesses and Employers to prepare for the upcoming influenza season.  With the concern of the H1N1 (Swine Flu) coming back around this season, the CDC has some helpful information for employers and employees to help prevent the spread of the flu.  Included in the toolkit are communication pieces addressing steps that employers can take to keep their workplace healthy, suggested actions to design an influenza plan, posters, and notices to employees on staying healthy during this flu season.  The CDC webpage where the toolkit can be found is here: http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/business/toolkit/

StaffScapes highly recommends that our clients review these suggestions and create an influenza plan to prepare for this season.  Employees should not come in to work if they are infected and businesses should plan for having higher than normal employee leaves this year.  Preparing now can help businesses get through the trying times that happen when higher percentages of employees are missing from work.

A pharmacy technician is suing her employer for traumatizing her during a recent training session.

Recently reported on FindLaw, a New Jersey pharmacy technician claims she was traumatized from a mock hold up arranged by her employer. The gunman told the technician that he had taken another employee hostage and demanded the pain narcotic OxyContin. Later she found out that the hold up was fake and the employer arranged it for a training exercise.

The technician claims that she is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder arising from this training exercise.  The technician’s claim rests on the fact that she was not notified in advance of the training drill.

Employers need to be cognizant of how these training exercises will affect their employees and try and prevent any undue stress or hardship.  There is a balance between realism and effectiveness that must be calculated for any training exercises.  In this case the effectiveness of the training seems to have been significantly overshadowed by the trauma caused by its realism. 

See Also

• FindLaw article
  FindLaw article

Congress and US DOL using H1N1 scare to push for mandatory paid sick leave.

Look out employers, the Deputy Secretary of Labor, Seth Harris, gave a testimony on November 10^th, 2009, to a Senate Subcommittee pushing for mandatory paid sick leave. Using the national concern over the H1N1 flu, the Deputy Secretary explained the US DOL strongly supports the Healthy Families Act of 2009. Highlights of the Healthy Families Act include:

·        Paid time of to care for yourself, child, spouse, parent, or any other individual related by blood of affinity;  or absence resulting from domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking

·        employees accrue 1 hour of paid sick leave for each 30 worked, no exceptions for part time workers

·        mandatory carry over, however a cap of 56 hours of sick leave accrued at any given time may be used

·        physician certification can only be requested if leave is greater than 3 consecutive days, employees have 30 days to provide certification

·        severe penalties will be accessed for discharging, discriminating or using the taking of paid sick time as a negative factor in employment action (such as hiring, promoting or disciplinary action)

See Also

• Full testimony of Deputy Secretary Harris
  Remarks Prepared for Delivery by U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis - Testimony of Deputy Secretary of Labor Seth Harris’ before the Subcommittee on Children and Families Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, United States Senate, Washington, DC, November 10, 2009

IRS will audit 2,000 taxpayers each year for the next three years.

Beginning February 2010, the Internal Revenue Service will begin employment tax audits on 2,000 randomly selected taxpayers (employers) per year for the next three years.  The IRS states that they are conducting this study “to collect data that will allow the IRS to understand the compliance characteristics of employment tax filers”. This means, the IRS is using this three year “study” to find out where employers are not staying in compliance with collecting, reporting, and paying taxes. The IRS also explains that the examinations will be comprehensive in scope. The IRS will not be looking for just a handful of different problem areas, but searching for any and every area of non-compliance. Now is the time to audit your employment compliance practices. Contact StaffScapes to discuss any concerns or problems that you may have.

See Also

• IRS Will Begin Employment Tax Research Study in February 2010

On December 3, 2009, the Internal Revenue Service announced a reduction to the optional standard mileage rates for 2010.

For the year 2010, the optional standard mileage rate will reduce from 55 cents to 50 cents per mile. Taxpayers have the option of using the optional standard mileage rate to calculate deductible costs of operating an automobile for business purposes.

The rate for computing the deductible medical or moving costs have also reduced to 16.5 cents per mile, however the rate for providing services for charitable organizations has remained unchanged at 14 cents per mile. For further information you can go to the IRS announcement at: http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=216048,00.html

It’s everywhere.  Every day you probably follow a group, friend someone you haven’t talked to in 15 years, tweet that your newest video is posted on You Tube TM and make sure that you are LinkedIn TM.  Keeping up with Social Media is a part-time job of its own.  It’s fun, it promotes you and what you are doing and it can keep you in touch with those in your life.  However, setting aside all of the positive aspects of Social Networking, as a business owner you must consider how this impacts you and your bottom line. 

Almost all employees have their own dedicated computer or access to a computer while on the job.  This makes it very easy to have access to the web and its opportunity for “surfing” when time should be devoted to work.  Surfing the internet while on a break or during a lunch hour is acceptable for some companies and can have positive effects on productivity.  Where it crosses the line is when an employee devotes more than their allotted break time to their social media status updates.  If you are paying your employees for time spent in non work related tasks, you are loosing revenue.  You don’t have to invest in surveillance equipment or micro-manage your employees.  But, what you should do is have a policy in place that clearly defines acceptable usage of company owned equipment and make sure that each employee clearly understands the consequences of unauthorized usage.  Should you need to reprimand an employee or terminate their employment, having a policy in place will pave the way to ensuring your decisions are supported by the Department of Labor. 

For more information on establishing company policies, contact StaffScapes at 303-466-7864 or info@staffscapes.com.

I turned on the news last night and watched as picture after picture was displayed showing the aftermath of the violent storms and devastating tornados that made their way across Oklahoma.  It happens every year across our great nation.  Buildings are destroyed, people are killed, and families go from enjoying an evening meal together to figuring out where they will sleep after their homes have been demolished.  Having been through several severe storms myself including the tornado that hit Windsor, CO in May, 2008, I am reminded that it is important to have a plan in place to deal with natural disasters when they occur.  As a business, it is your responsibility to provide a safe environment for your employees at your location.  You can’t prevent a natural disaster, but your can prepare for how to respond when the need arises.  Here are 3 Keys to help you get started:

1.  Have a written emergency evacuation procedure that includes floor plans and indicate exit locations and fire extinguishers.  Communicate these procedures with your staff

2.  Have an emergency kit stocked and accessible in each building of your business.  Include in this kit, contact phone numbers for medical treatment facilities in your area

3.  Have a designated location for all staff members to report to immediately after an emergency is declared.  Keep a staff roster with emergency contact information in an easily accessible location and account for all individuals by roll call to ensure safety and well-being of all employees

For more tips and information on preparing for an emergency, please contact us at 303-466-7864 or Eugena.Bellamy@StaffScapes.com for a complimentary copy of our whitepaper on developing your Emergency Response Plan.

During this economic recession, Colorado companies need to be aware of the CDLE’s ability to investigate companies looking for additional tax revenues.  The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) is required by House Bill HB09-1310, to accept complaints and conduct investigations regarding alleged misclassification of employees as independent contractors. An additional notification has also been added to the required Unemployment Notice Poster, alerting employees and contractors of their right to file a complaint.

Any person may file a written complaint alleging that an employer has misclassified an individual, who is performing work, as an independent contractor. After a complaint is received, the CDLE determines within 30 days whether an investigation is needed. If it is determined that an investigation is warranted, the CDLE will notify the company that an investigation will be conducted. Once the investigation is completed, the CDLE will issue a written order either dismissing the complaint or finding that the company has engaged in the act of misclassifying employees.

If an investigation finds that an employer has misclassified employees, the employer must pay all back taxes owed with interest. Additionally, the employer may be fined up to $5,000 per misclassified employee for the first misclassification and up to $25,000 per misclassified employee for a second or subsequent misclassification. In addition, upon a second or subsequent misclassification, the employer is prohibited from contracting with, or receiving any funds from, the state of Colorado for up to two years.

The law also allows an employer to request an advisory opinion. The opinion is available to employers seeking advice on proper classification of workers. If you would like to request an advisory opinion on whether you should classify individuals as employees or independent contractors a written, signed request must be submitted. Some of the questions CDLE will base their determination on are:

• Does the individual(s) have an independent trade, profession, or occupation? If so, what is that trade, profession, or occupation?

• How is the rate of pay determined? Is the individual paid a salary, hourly rate, fixed rate, contract rate, or by the completion of work?

• Does the individual(s) work exclusively for you?

• Do you oversee the actual work or instruct the individual as to how the work will be performed?

• Can you terminate the work the individual is performing at any time? If so, for what reasons?

• What training do you provide the individual(s)?

• What tools or benefits do you provide to the individual(s)?

• What materials and equipment do you provide to the individual(s)?

• What are the individual’s work hours? How is the time he or she works determined?

• How is the individual(s) paid? If by check, who is the check made payable to?

• Is the individual(s) business a part of your business? Is it separate and distinct?

Apple™ promotes its new Apple iPad™ as the “best way to experience the web, e-mail, photos and video.  Hands Down.”  We agree.  We also think that StaffScapes is the “best way to handle your human resources needs.  Period.”  Hundreds of people count on us weekly to be their “partners to answer questions regarding Human Resources, employee relations, process payroll, assist with workers’ compensation and unemployment claims and much more”, said Jim Thibodeau, President of StaffScapes, Inc. 

From today through Labor Day, StaffScapes will be providing one Apple iPad™ to any person or company that refers a qualifying* new client and who begins services by September 6, 2010.  This promotion is open to any client, employee, friend, relative or business associate of StaffScapes, Inc. Some restrictions apply.  For rules and regulations, please contact StaffScapes, Inc.  303-466-7864 or info@StaffScapes.com.

*see rules and regulations for qualified requirements.

Employees who are participating in a HSA must file a Form 8889 along with their 1040. Form 8889 must be filed for any year that an individual makes or receives HSA contributions or any year that they take a HSA distribution.

Employers will report any contribution it made to the HSA on the W-2 on box 12. In addition, individuals should receive a Form 5498-SA from the HSA trustee that reports total contributions made during the year and the value of the HSA at year end. If any distributions were taken during the year, the trustee will also send a Form 1099-SA to the individual reporting total distributions made for the year.  These three forms will be used to complete Form 8889.

Additional information can be found in the instructions for Forms 1040 and 8889 at the IRS website. Individuals should consult their tax advisors if they have any additional questions.

Last Thursday on February 24th, I sat through a four hour “Information and Outreach Forum” presented by the Department of Labor. This however was not a forum looking to help educate employers on doing business better and legally, it was “an information and outreach forum for workers, community based organizations, unions and advocacy groups in Denver.” The goal of this forum as stated by Dusti Gurule, regional representative for Secretary Solis in Denver was “that this outreach effort will increase workers’ awareness of the laws and arm employees with the information to file a complaint when their rights have been violated.”  The attendees were made up of about two-thirds union representation and the other third being advocacy groups.  There did not appear to be any individual employees/workers attending nor any other employers.

We were welcomed by a representative of the Interfaith Worker Justice and FRESC, a labor organization. He clearly had a bias that businesses are bad, and went on to excitedly tell us about a rally that they organized last November where they got 100 day laborers together to file claims against their employers. Oh boy, if this is the direction of this forum, I am going to have a great time this next three and a half hours!

The first presenter was from our own Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE). The CDLE presenter was clearly showing her labor support. There were multiple statements about how upset and sad they (I am assuming other workers at the CDLE) were that the state minimum wage actually decreased a couple of years ago, instead of constantly increasing. Continuing on she explained how happy they were that the minimum wage has gone back up and pleased that it is back to being greater than the federal minimum wage. After going on stating how employees deserve overtime she explained that the CDLE deal with over 7,000 complaints and written inquires annually and mediation takes around 35 to 45 days. This appears to be a large number; however the additional statistic that would help put this into perspective, how many complaints are found to be valid, was never given.

The next speaker was a representative from the federal DOL and he presented a basic overview of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). I have seen this representative speak before in a meeting of employers and his presentation did not change much but he did emphasize areas due to his audience.  One particular area that I found intriguing was when he was explaining that paying cash for payroll was ok to do. As he was explaining this fact he was giving an example and stated that some employees do not have a checking account or bank so he said “it could be an undocumented worker, and that is ok”. I thought that it was illegal for an employer to hire and work “undocumented workers”. So it appears that this DOL representative is telling us that it is ok to work an illegal alien. I wonder how that made the union representatives feel?

The last presentation was from two representatives of OSHA.  I actually found this last presentation pretty refreshing as the OSHA reps did not seem overtly biased on either side. There were several times when the union representatives seemed to get pretty excited over the fact that they could turn in other contractors and employers for potential violations that they see. However the OSHA representative continued to explain that OSHA’s main goal is to keep employees safe and that the union reps should first get the exposed employees to safety before worrying about how to file a complaint.  OSHA also explained that they should try and let the contractor/employer know of the unsafe exposure before filing a claim. I really appreciated this explanation because we should all (union, employer, worker, advocate, etc.) work together to keep workers and the workplace safe, and not just look for ways we can penalize or shut down business.

I went into this forum with the purpose in mind to find out what the different divisions of the DOL had to say about employers when speaking to unions and advocacy groups. What I found was that there are still groups and individuals that absolutely believe that employers are innately bad. A couple of presenters clearly had this belief and that very much worries me. There are bad employers out there, however based off of the last 15 years that I have been working with small businesses, that is the extreme exception and not the norm. I sure wish someone could convince these anti-business believers that it is only the bad businesses that should be punished and not every business. I guess I am living in my dream world again.   

Over the last couple of weeks two separate provisions of the Health Care Reform Act (PPACA) have been repealed. 

On April 14, 2011, the first provision of the PPACA to be repealed was the onerous expansion of 1099 reporting. This provision would have made it mandatory for businesses to significantly expand their reporting of 1099s to any vendor they pay $600 or more for goods and services. As we reported in an earlier blog, this would have increased administrative costs for all businesses immensely.  The repeal of this provision was expected from the inception of the PPACA.

The second repealed provision, which came as a pleasant surprise, is the “free choice voucher” program. The repeal was finalized on April 15, 2011 as part of the Fiscal Year 2011 Spending Plan. The voucher provision would have required employers to offer “free choice vouchers” to employees who chose not to enroll in the employer’s health plan, and would be used to purchase health coverage through one of the state “Exchanges” created by the PPACA.

Employer groups argued that vouchers would contribute to “adverse selection” to their group health plans. They explained that vouchers could encourage healthy employees to waive coverage under the group plan in favor of purchasing cheaper coverage through an Exchange. The remaining employees in the group plan would be less healthy or be in a classification, such as age, that would cause the premium cost of the group plan to increase. Additional concerns were voiced by employers over the increased burden and cost to administer the free choice vouchers. The vouchers were to be given only to employees with household income below 400% of the federal poverty level and whose required contribution for the group coverage would have been between 8% and 9.8% of their total household income.

The US Department of Labor has recently released their new smartphone application, and instead of explaining its advantages to employers, they state the reason for this app is so the employees do not have to rely on their employer’s records. What? Quoting DOL’s press release, “The first DOL application for smartphones is a timesheet to help employees independently track the hours they work and determine the wages they are owed… This information could prove invaluable during a Wage and Hour Division investigation” and “This new technology is significant because, instead of relying on their employer’s records, workers now can keep their own records.”

So my interpretation of the message the DOL is presenting is employers are no longer to be trusted keeping and recording time worked by their employees or to determine the wages they are owed. The current DOL Administration continues to show their bias against employers through this press release.

With that being said, I believe the actual application could be useful to employers and mobile employees. The application makes it pretty easy to track hours through a few pushes of buttons and at the end of the pay period can be emailed to the supervisor for approval, or for the purposes of the DOL to the employee’s attorney or DOL representative. Providing employers with a free application to improve recording time worked by employees would be very beneficial to the productivity of our country and economy. I do not know how the DOL thinks that economic recovery is going to happen by attacking employers at every turn. The DOL should have released the application with information going to employers getting “buy in” and stating the benefits to them provided by the app.

The accuracy of the E-Verify program has always been argued, but recent statistics released from USCIS show that this is a very accurate system. The statistics are based on cases submitted through E-Verify between October 2009 and September 2010, the most recent fiscal year for USCIS. Out of over fifteen and a half million cases 98.3% of employees were automatically confirmed. Of the 1.7 % of employees receiving system mismatches, 0.3% contested and resolved the mismatch and 1.4% were not found work authorized.

This puts serious doubt to the argument that there are up to 20% of work authorized employees having to contest and resolve errors stemming from the E-Verify system. I also find it interesting that only 1.4% are not work authorized, which means that either the number of illegal immigrants working in the US is significantly lower than what has been reported or illegal workers are applying at other employers that are not doing the verifications. I tend to believe it is the latter. 

USCIS also reported that through regular updates and enhancements, the E-Verify system continues to improve its accuracy.