In today’s video blog, CAI’s Director of HR Services, Molly Hegeman, shares several interesting findings from CAI’s 2012 Policies and Benefits Survey. More than 260 employers from across North Carolina participated in the survey conducted last year.

Molly reports that nearly 50 percent of the participating companies have wellness strategies in place at their workplace. Some of the common components employers are including in their wellness programs include: health risk assessments, flu shots, and diet and educational counseling.

Molly says the survey also revealed that NC employers are focusing on their work environments. To bring fun to the work atmosphere, companies are incorporating workout rooms and gyms, gaming stations and TVs, and lounge areas where employees can relax or collaborate with their coworkers.

In addition to the perks above, 40 percent of companies are providing their staff with activities outside of the workplace. Of those companies, 80 percent invite the family members of their employees to events like company picnics and sponsored events. Molly mentions in the video that activities that include an employee’s family help create a more welcoming work environment.

For more information on CAI’s Policy and Benefits Survey, please contact a survey team member at 919-878-9222 or 336-668-7746.

If you choose to hire unpaid interns, make sure you take great care in following the internship program guidelines provided by the US Department of Labor (USDOL).  Failure to do so could lead to a lawsuit like in the case of Hearst Magazines and a former intern.

Protect yourself and your company from a wage and hour investigation or lawsuit by knowing all of the factors that need to be met in order to offer unpaid internships. If your internship program does not include all of the criteria below, you have an employment relationship and must pay your interns minimum wage and overtime.

According to the USDOL’s Fact Sheet #71: Internship Programs under the Fair Labor Standards Act for an internship to be unpaid, it must meet the following six criteria:

1. The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an education environment;

2. The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern;

3. The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;

4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;

5. The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and

6. The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.

Along with the six criteria, USDOL also provides some examples and interpretations of workplace situations in the Fact Sheet.

For additional information on company internship programs and compensation, please call a member of CAI’s Advice and Counsel Team at 919-878-9222 or 336-668-7746.

Photo Source: US Department of Education

With the news coming out of companies such as Yahoo and Best Buy recently, telecommuting has been back in the news. While these companies have chosen to scale back their telecommuting programs, working from home remains popular with employees and is offered as an option at many organizations.

Much of the debate about telecommuting has centered around productivity, collaboration and employee engagement. However, there’s an important aspect of any telecommuting program that seldom gets discussed — how to track employee time.

Performance versus Time Spent

I came across an article not too long ago in which the author stated work-from-home programs would mean “the death of the time clock,” because employers only needed to evaluate how well workers met their goals, not how much time they spent working on them.

The problem, of course, is that the author was confusing performance evaluations with payroll. Effective performance evaluations have always been about meeting or surpassing goals and not about simply showing up. On the other hand, payroll — especially for overtime-eligible employees — requires some form of time tracking.

No matter when or where the work is done… if an employee is eligible for overtime, the company must track the time the employee spends on the job. Otherwise, how are they to calculate properly whether (and how much) overtime is due?

In fact, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires employers to maintain accurate, complete payroll records, including records of time worked, for all overtime-eligible employees.

Alternatives and Options

Many companies already have a telecommuting policy or are considering implementing this popular employee perk. How can you offer a telecommuting program and still maintain compliance with the FLSA?

Well, the law does not require you to track time for workers who are exempt from overtime. So you might choose to allow only exempt employees to work remotely, while your overtime-eligible workers must come in to the office where their time can be more easily monitored and recorded.

Problem solved, right? While this might seem like an easy solution, there are several issues to keep in mind:

1. Employee morale: If some non-exempt or hourly jobs are otherwise suitable for a flexible work arrangement, employees in those jobs may become resentful when denied the opportunity you extend to exempt workers.
2. Workforce quality: Higher-caliber workers may be inclined to migrate to companies that do allow them to telecommute.
3. Other labor laws: The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires employers to offer “reasonable accommodations” to disabled employees. If an employee becomes disabled, and working from home would allow him to remain productive in his job, you may be required to offer him the option of telecommuting, regardless of his overtime eligibility status.
4. Misclassification issues: If it turns out you have misclassified any employees as exempt when they should have been non-exempt — and those employees have been working from home, where you were not tracking their time — you could find yourself on the hook for thousands of dollars in back pay and penalties. Without any employer time records, the courts will rely on the employees’ own recollections or personal records, which might or might not accurately reflect the time they really spent on the job.

Modern Time Recording to the Rescue

The best option, of course, is to implement a time tracking solution that allows you to accurately record all employee work hours (exempt and non-exempt), no matter where the work is performed. As a bonus, automated time and attendance systems typically offer many cost-saving and productivity-enhancing benefits beyond the ability to record time for remote workers.

Consider, for instance, a cloud-based time recording system. Typically these systems can be accessed using an Internet connection and a web browser or via a smartphone app, enabling employees to easily clock in and out no matter where they are. Some also offer a telephony module that let employees clock in and out using any telephone, whether mobile or landline, or other options.

Like their employees, the supervisors and managers can access the system using a web browser, so they can review and approve employee time sheets no matter where or when they are working. The approved time is automatically totaled and can easily be exported to the company’s payroll system for processing. All high-quality service providers also process and store your information in highly secure data centers and keep regular backups, reducing your risk of data loss.

With a modern web-based time clock system, employers can offer their employees flexible work arrangements while still meeting their legal obligations to maintain accurate time records. It’s a win-win situation!

If you need an accurate  solution to track work hours for your employees, regardless of their location, contact Acroprint at 1-800-334-7190 or visit www.AcroTime.com to learn more.

Photo Source: polapix

USCIS explains that employers can find the revision date of the new Form I-9 on the lower left corner of the form. The agency warns against completing new Form I-9s for existing employees if a properly completed Form I-9 is already on file. USCIS will no longer accept previous versions of the Form I-9.

The agency provides a Spanish version of Form I-9 (revision 03/08/13)N, and it is available on the USCIS website for use in Puerto Rico only. Spanish-speaking employers and employees in the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and other US territories are only allowed to use the Spanish version for reference, according to the press release. These employers and employees must complete and retain the English version of the form.

You can find the revised forms at www.uscis.gov/I-9. The agency also offers a telephone number, 888-464-4218, to call for more information. USCIS has representatives available Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. to discuss any questions or issues that may arise from the news of needing to use the revised Form I-9. You can also visit I-9 Central, a website the agency created to support Form I-9 users. USCIS has also scheduled free webinars to educate employers on the new form.

CAI’s 2013 Employment and Labor Law Update scheduled for May 22 and May 23 at Raleigh’s McKimmon Center will feature knowledgeable attorneys from Ogletree Deakins who will present additional information for Form I-9 compliance. Former NLRB member Brian Hayes joins this year’s lineup of attorneys from Ogletree Deakins. He will share his view on the board’s recent rulings and give advice for handling new challenges during his can’t-miss presentation.

Please visit www.capital.org/lawupdate to review the full agenda of the conference, descriptions about the presentations and to register. Feel free to call 919-878-9222 or 336-668-7746 with any questions.

Photo Source: Victor1558

Knowing how your organization is viewed by the public, your industry peers and rivals is important. Having a strong employer brand can make a difference on whether you can secure a great candidate for a vacancy or how a news outlet portrays you to the public. There are several steps you can take to strengthen your employer brand to show that your organization is a stellar place to work. Try the four tips below:

Define How You’re Perceived

In order to strengthen your employer brand, you have to determine how you want your organization to be perceived. Once you decide how you want to represent your organization, make sure your company’s mission statement and values reflect that decision. Your mission statement and values are generally one of the first places interested job seekers visit to learn more about a company. Make sure yours represents your organization well.

Offer Competitive Benefits

Do you want to be known as the company that offers lousy benefits? Or the one that doesn’t understand the importance of work/life balance? In order to become an employer who attracts and secures high-performing talent, you must do your homework and find out what the top benefits candidates are looking for. Competition for top-notch talent is fierce. A strong benefits package that includes a competitive salary as well as non-monetary perks will help you establish your positive employer brand.

Make Smart Hiring Decisions

Don’t just hire a candidate because they have the exact skills and qualifications that your job description requires. Making a smart hiring decision goes beyond matching up a resume to an open position. Adding a new hire to your ranks is important, so it’s critical to ensure they match your culture and will get along with their new coworkers. Failing to do so could result in the new hire leaving in under a year, or worse, one of your loyal employees leaving because they don’t work well with the new employee.

Provide Incredible Customer Service

A surefire way to enhance your employer brand is to improve your customer service. Think of brands like Apple and Zappos. Yes, they sell great products, but they also rely on their customer service teams to help them represent their company. Make sure your employees have all the tools and training they need to offer an exceptional experience to your customers. When your employees are content and engaged, your customers are more likely to be content and engaged as well.

For more ways to improve your employer brand, please call a member of CAI’s Advice and Counsel Team at 919-878-9222 or 336-668-7746.

Photo Source: Robert Scoble

Many changes are taking place in the business world. The full effects of healthcare reform will soon come to fruition, the competition for top talent still rages on with no plans for stopping, and your employees are looking for better ways to manage both their responsibilities at work and outside of it.

How will you handle the changes that you and your organization face? In order to continue to achieve success at your business, or even just to stay afloat, you must start by creating a plan to address your most pertinent issues.

Review the following articles for help handling the changes that you and other employers will likely see:

Changes in Healthcare Reform

Are you interested in knowing the top healthcare issues of 2013 and how they will affect employers? Our benefits partner, HCW Employee Benefit Services, put together an article highlighting this information. Check it out here: http://blog.capital.org/the-top-10-healthcare-industry-issues-of-2013-how-they-will-affect-employers/.

Compete for Top Talent and Win

Many organizations are struggling to find high-performing talent to fill their open positions. If you aren’t finding the right candidates, you may want to review your hiring process. Finding an excellent employee isn’t something you can attain quickly. Just like other projects you work on, you must have a solid plan for securing top achievers. Here’s an article to help: http://blog.capital.org/smart-recruiting-is-the-key-for-securing-top-talent-4-helpful-tips/.

Dealing with Workplace Change             

Changes in the business world aren’t just affecting employers; they are also affecting your workforce. Understanding the concerns your employees may have about various workplace changes is important for growing your organization with a loyal team.  Review this article to gain strategies for helping your staff deal with company changes:  http://blog.capital.org/help-employees-deal-with-workplace-changes/.

Employees Crave Work/Life Balance

Engaged employees help drive the business results that you want. They are productive team players who strive for excellence. Their work life is important, but so is the life they’ve established outside of your company. Help them manage both well. When you do, you’ll see a number of benefits. Read more about them here: http://blog.capital.org/help-your-employees-achieve-and-maintain-worklife-balance/.

For additional advice or information for dealing with change at your workplace, please call a member of CAI’s Advice and Counsel Team at 919-878-9222 or 336-668-7746.

CAI’s Director of Member Development, Doug Blizzard, shares advice for finding high-performing talent in today’s video post. He offers a reason as to why employers are struggling to find top talent:

“…it may be because you’re looking in the same places, in the same ways, and at the same time as everybody else.”

He goes on to say that finding top talent today requires a new approach. He suggests learning from the world of sales to benefit your recruiting efforts. Doug details six lessons that you and your organization can borrow from your sales team:

1.       Start Your Process Early

Landing the best account takes time in sales. Don’t be desperate in your hunt for a new team member because you will find desperate job applicants. Doug says to get great people you need to start the recruiting process well in advance of the opening.

2.       Put Your Goals in Writing

In the video, Doug shares that the top sales people all have incredibly clear goals and a written plan to accomplish their goals. For recruiting people for your company’s critical roles, he suggests that you create and keep a list of people you want to hire. These are your sales targets.

3.       Define Your Ideal Candidate

Doug says the best sales people win more business because they only focus on ideal prospects, so make sure your team has determined who the ideal candidate is in regard to skills and fit. If you’re not sure what to look for, Doug suggests asking your best employees because they will want your team to attract great coworkers.

4.       Get Known in Your Industry

In order to get known by high-performing talent, you must get known in your industry. Doug encourages you to find out what associations your prospects belong to, events they attend and social media platforms they participate on. In the video, Doug lays out several ways to be more visible to your prospects, as well as in your industry. He says these efforts will help you identify your top candidates and also draw them to you.

5.       Create a Regular Touch System

Once you find your top prospects, Doug says you should implement a touch system of regular contact with them in order to pull them towards your company. He suggests that you mix up the medium you use. The touch system could include emails, phone calls, snail mail, etc. You’ll also want to mix up the content you send, so share information about your industry, specific professions, and other data your prospects will find useful. Be creative and make sure to include information about your organization.

6.       Create a Clear Value Proposition

The best sales people sell on value according to Doug. Relating this to employers, he says you must be able to clearly articulate to your prospects why they should come work for you. It can’t only be in terms of pay and benefits, he warns. Work to uncover their needs and match them to your workplace environment. Show them how coming to work for your organization will get them where they need to be.

For additional guidance on recruiting like a sales person, please contact Doug Blizzard at 919-713-5244 or Doug.Blizzard@capital.org.

From an era of a labor surplus to an era of a labor shortage, when it comes to looking toward the future for talent, the economic crisis has made developing strategies and planning that much more difficult.  Would you agree that there seems to be a massive and devastating shortage of skills and an aggressive war for global talent?  The US workplace has become a playing field of competition for hiring top talent in every industry.

The “brain drain” is making it more difficult to find people who are qualified to do the work that needs to be done.  In addition, you have an extraordinary amount of competition, so you will have to be well prepared to attract and keep the best of the best.  It’s your responsibility as the hiring manager to identify the right people who have more than technical certification, proven abilities, or specific skills.

However, just as important as the required skills, you will need to hire job applicants with the energy, ambition, and potential it takes to meet your specific work standards as well as embrace a people-oriented leadership style and comfortably merge with your existing corporate culture.  Personality counts, as does the ability and willingness to get along with everyone including internal customers and teammates.

The following ideas have proven successful and are worth considering as you build your team of qualified employees:

•  Focus on company policies and procedures that increase employee retention in the future, such as career development opportunities, bonus compensation, competitive benefits, stock options, flexible schedules, on-going new-hire orientation and mentoring programs.  Today’s generation demands instant gratification.

•  Evaluate your recruitment strategies and hire the right people for the right jobs, rather than trying to fit square pegs into round holes.  The latter approach is guaranteed to set new-hires up for failure.

•  Before you develop a strategic recruitment plan to increase the number of highly qualified and difficult to find job applicants, conduct a self-assessment to compare your recruitment approach to the universe of known recruitment strategies.  This takes time, but once you know what works and what doesn’t you’re ahead of the game.  You will also want to determine what takes the least amount of effort, but still yields good results.

•  Selectively screen resumes and applications.  Many job applicants are using the “dart approach.”  They’re sending out dozens or even hundreds of resumes even when they are not qualified for the position (s) as advertised.  Screening these documents is an enormous waste of your time.

• Do whatever it takes to not only raise the bar, but raise skill levels as well.

•  Do your homework by completing the necessary market research to determine the levels of compensation expected by highly sought-after job applicants.

•  Learn how to efficiently transfer knowledge from senior members of the team to new or entry-level employees.

•  Make use of HR’s abilities and resources in improving the skills and education of your current staff.

• Consider job-sharing and part-time work opportunities for valued employees who cannot work a 40-hour week.

• Develop a partnership with colleges, universities and technical schools in getting students to consider majors where jobs are immediately available upon graduation.

Contact Carol by visiting her website: www.carolahacker.com.

If your company would reply yes to any of the questions above and you aren’t offering your employees paid time off, you may want to reconsider. Many business owners who aren’t giving their employees paid time off believe that the financial responsibilities are too high in this post-recession economy. However, the benefits from offering paid time off may outweigh the financial responsibility your organization would incur.

Review the three reasons below that show why offering employees paid time off is advantageous to your business:

Attract the Best

High-performing candidates aren’t just looking for any job that’s available. These job seekers are in search of companies that offer several benefits for producing great work. Opportunities for growth, meaningful projects and having their ideas heard will keep a candidate interested in an employer. Offering additional benefits that help them balance their responsibilities outside of work could be a deciding in factor in whether they choose to invest in your company.

Avoid Meltdowns

If you’re not paying employees when they take time off, they may not take time off. And if that’s the case, you should be concerned. Employees may work through illness and personal struggles to ensure their paychecks aren’t short because they don’t have other options. Doing this once in a while may be manageable, but in the long run, your employees will burn out. Several side effects can occur once that happens—increase in sickness, higher levels of stress, irritability, missing deadlines, mediocre work, etc. Your employees may even decide to leave to find an employer that does offer paid time off.

Get Quality Work

Giving your employees a set amount of paid sick and personal time will not only benefit them, but your organization will see the rewards as well. Allowing employees to fully recover from a cold or a rough personal patch will prove invaluable. Having time to rest, forget about work and not worry about money on their days off will help employees save energy for their return to work. Time off will assist them in staying focused to complete important projects, interacting positively with their coworkers and customers, and offering your team fresh ideas.

For additional benefits of employee time off, please call a member of CAI’s Advice and Counsel Team at 919-878-9222 or 336-668-7736.

Photo Source: Brian Reid Furniture

After lingering doubts about whether it would actually occur, the U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), coupled with the re-election of Barack Obama as president, has virtually ensured that national healthcare reform is underway. That means employers need to accept this reality and prepare employees for what they can expect.

We provided a timeline on how PPACA came into fruition and initial implementation at the end of last year. This blog offers an update on what developments to expect in 2013 and beyond.

Changes In Effect Now and In Upcoming Months

•  At Present: PPACA contains several tax changes that affect select taxpayers. For one, it increases the Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) tax rate on wages by 0.9 percent on earnings more than $200,000 for individual taxpayers and earnings more than $250,000 for married couples filing jointly. Additionally, it imposes a 3.8 percent assessment on unearned income for higher-income taxpayers. 
• On Oct. 1, 2013: Individuals and small businesses can buy affordable and qualified health benefit plans in insurance exchanges. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is offering a checklist for small businesses to prepare for the change that provides information that owners can use to tell employees about their options in this area. North Carolina has decided to follow a Federally-facilitated Exchange that will be in effect at the start of 2014.  All employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act must notify employees of the existence of the insurance exchanges prior to insurance exchange open enrollment in October 2013.

What to Anticipate in 2014

Several big items will take effect on January 1, 2014, including:

• The requirement for all U.S. citizens and legal residents to have qualifying health coverage or pay a tax penalty
• The requirement for carriers to issue and renew health insurance regardless of pre-existing health conditions or gender.
• No annual limits on coverage of essential health benefits.
• Deductible limits in the individual and small group markets.
• Eligibility waiting periods are limited to 90 days.
• Prohibitions on insurers from dropping or limiting coverage because an individual chooses to participate in a clinical trial, such as those that treat cancer or other life-threatening diseases.
• Tax credits will become available for those with income between 100 percent and 400 percent of the poverty line who are not eligible for other affordable coverage.  These individuals may also qualify for reduced cost-sharing (copayments, co-insurance and deductibles).

All of these changes will all need to be explained to employees in advance of the date of implementation, with particular note to one other item. PPACA requires that health insurance plans offered in the individual and small group markets provide essential health benefits – items and services in 10 different categories listed in PPACA. The range of essential health benefits offered in these categories will be determined by a benchmark plan. Employers in the small group market should review their benefit plan designs to confirm that their plan(s) comply with the essential health benefits requirements upon renewal in 2014.

What Else to Tell Employees

Remember to let employees know that there already has been and likely will continue to be updates and revisions to these provisions as new regulations are released. While many effective dates are already established, the resulting effects remain unclear. However, proactive communication regarding upcoming changes may help soften the blow of any unintended consequences as implementation of healthcare reform moves forward.

To stay up to date on the changing healthcare reform requirements, register for one of HCW’s upcoming mini webinars held throughout the year and listed on our events calendar. Our June 26^th mini webinar titled, Impact of Reform on Employees, will focus on what your employees need to know as 1/1/2014 approaches.