Outsourcing Your Payroll: a no-brainer

Few things demoralize your work force faster and more severely than for employees to find that their paychecks aren't there on time and in full. Managing the payroll can be a tough task with high consequences if you get it wrong. With the added complications of personnel changes, changing tax regulations, and unforeseeable delays, stress becomes a daily companion.

Over a fourth of all businesses have found that the cure for these headaches was as simple as making the decision to outsource their payroll. Outsourcing makes good sense for many reasons.

Saves on Software Costs
No purchase, installation, support, or maintenance of elaborate payroll software is needed, and the payroll company is responsible for the updates. Payroll companies can interface with your existing office accounting system.

Adapts to Personnel Changes
Growing companies can add new employees seamlessly. For downsizing ones, the payroll company handles the layoffs, unemployment insurance, and severance pay. This scalability is especially valuable for companies that hire seasonal help.

Frees Up More Time
Payroll outsourcing allows you to concentrate on your product or service. In the average business, payroll typically consumes one employee workday each pay period. That's eight to ten hours that could be better spent on enhancing productivity.

Improves Efficiency of Timekeeping
Employees can log their hours directly into the payroll company's data base electronically, eliminating the need for timecards and reducing the chance of human error. Managers retain the ability to approve or adjust the data, as needed.

Accommodates Special Circumstances
One-time bonuses, variable commissions, fines and other irregular payments can all be handled by payroll companies.

Allows Flexibility in Form of Payments
You have the option of distributing paper paychecks or of having deposits made directly into your employees' bank accounts.

Shifts Regulatory Compliance Tasks
If you haven't decided to hire an outside payroll company yet, consider this: Payroll services take on the responsibility of covering shifting tax regulations and mandatory withholdings at the local, state and federal levels. They also manage contributions to health and retirement plans. Hiring an outside payroll company is a good business decision for this one reason alone. But there is yet an additional level of protection in outsourcing payroll. The payroll company, not you, will pay the fines if they are not in compliance with the rules and regulations

Some business decisions are easy. The decision to outsource your payroll is one of them.

Updating the Description of a Job Description

Do you recall some of the early writing lessons you had in grade school? Remember the assignment where you were supposed to describe a dog? The finished sentence went something like, "The dog was big and black." The reader still did not know if, upon meeting the dog, he should prepare to have his face slurped in exuberant friendliness, or if he would be more likely to lose a chunk of his ankle.

Many job descriptions haven't evolved much beyond a third-grade creative writing project. They still read like an inventory of attributes and say very little about what to expect as an outcome. Most job descriptions are duty lists that have been divorced from the esprit of the work.

As "The Staffing Advisor" at wordpress.com laments, "The most accurate part of many job descriptions is 'other duties as assigned.'"

As a remedy, some HR professionals are taking a new look at old job descriptions. They're asking if this old staple of business needs to be retooled to keep up with the times. They suggest that business ought to shift the old paradigm of determining the talent needs by the number of jobs to a new one that is more focused on the output of the work.

It may seem a subtly of language to move from "what should the employee do" to "what should the employee accomplish," but the effect can be profound. It shifts the focus from the drudgery of the work to the achievement of the goal. It redirects the attention away from a list of tasks to a description of performance expectations.

This new orientation will necessarily alter some of the traditional approaches to hiring. Different questions will be asked, and different qualities will be looked for.

Goals and expectations change over time, as do markets and technologies. The new breed of job descriptions will have to be more fluid and adaptable than in the past. For many jobs, an employee's natural talent will become just as important as his honed and practiced skills.

Effective hiring managers consider not only where a company is today, but where a successful employee will help to take the firm in a year's time. In the past, ill-fitting job descriptions confined this forward-looking approach to hiring upper management. But focusing on results is a principle that is not just for the big guys anymore.

Providing Health Insurance Coverage

Question:
What do most Americans consider more important than managing debt or building their retirement fund?

Answer:
Having health insurance! The intensified media coverage of the past year has boosted health care to the number two spot on a list of financial planning issues, according to the 2009 National Consumer Survey on Personal Finance recently published by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards.

The top five concerns are: (1) managing retirement income, (2) providing health insurance coverage, (3) managing/reducing current debt, (4) building a retirement fund and (5) building an emergency fund.

Clearly, having health coverage for oneself and one's family is an important issue for many Americans at all levels of income and education, no matter where they may live or what their gender or ethnicity is. But the report does not indicate what kind of health insurance people want. In fact, many seem willing to trust their employers or others to make that decision for them.

When planning your financial future, it is important that your decisions do not oppose each other. This is an issue where your goals need to work together so that funding one area won't inadvertently cause increased debt in another.

Regulations on Rounding Employee Hours

Question:
Is it permissible to round off the minutes worked and pay employees in 5-, 10-, or 15-minute increments? Are there any special rules to observe when rounding off the minutes that an employee works?

Answer:
Yes, you can do that. The gist of the rule is that rounding off time has to be done in a fair manner. In other words, you cannot always round a worker's time down to favor the employer. To paraphrase an old saying, what rounds up, must round down.

The official policy is found in § 785.48(b) of the Fair Labor Standards Act under the heading of "Hours Worked Regulations" and is quoted below:

(b) ''Rounding'' practices. It has been found that in some industries, particularly where time clocks are used, there has been the practice for many years of recording the employees' starting time and stopping time to the nearest 5 minutes, or to the nearest one-tenth or quarter of an hour. Presumably, this arrangement averages out so that the employees are fully compensated for all the time they actually work. For enforcement purposes this practice of computing working time will be accepted, provided that it is used in such a manner that it will not result, over a period of time, in failure to compensate the employees properly for all the time they have actually worked.

It may be read in its entirety here: http://www.osha.gov/pls/upub/wageindex.download?p_file=F30725/WH1312.pdf

Preventative Health Benefits Sees an Increase

Due to current economic conditions, many companies are shutting their doors, downsizing, and businesses are looking for ways to save money. Employee benefit programs, such as health insurance, paid vacation time, and bonuses is just one area that has received a lot of scrutiny. According to the 2009 Employee Benefits Survey released by SHRM indicated that 60% of human resource specialists who responded to the survey indicated that the current economic downturn has impacted their employers' benefits offerings. However, despite all the efforts to cut corners, there is one particular benefits area that has seen significant efforts to augment current offerings--preventive health and wellness.

Offering preventive health and wellness benefits is a method in which employers reward employees for taking measures to prevent chronic diseases and illnesses by reimbursing a specified dollar amount monthly or yearly. Examples of preventive health measures include acupuncture, health club memberships, chiropractic care, and mental health counseling. Engaging in this practice will not only improve employee health thereby reducing absenteeism but it will also lower the cost of healthcare for everyone involved.

The SHRM survey supports this trend:

* Within the next 12 months, 10% of respondents indicated that they are going to implement health and lifestyle coaching.

* 5% of respondents are going to begin offering wellness resources, information, and weight loss programs.

* 7% of respondents who currently have employees with chronic health conditions plan to launch preventive programs targeted at these employees.

* Finally, 10% of respondents have indicated that they are going to implement rewards or bonuses for acheiving or completing certain health and wellness goals. Based on the 2009 Employee Benefits Survey along with the need for employers to save money while still offering employee benefits, it is evident that preventive health and wellness benefits are the wave of the future.

Taking the Temperature of Small Business: Owners in Nevada Say They’re Squeezed Between Soaring Health-Care Costs and Going Uninsured

After pay, heath insurance is the most important inducement small businesses use to recruit and keep workers. Yet more than half the 365 small businesses in a recent survey said their premiums rose as much as 10 percent this year.

Almost one in 10 told the Nation Association of Professional Employer Organizations they would dump their health coverage next year or are unsure about it.

"This is another wake-up call" said Shanon Hennesay, HR Director, Pay Pros Las Vegas. "Soaring health costs hit small businesses especially hard, and these businesses employ the cast majority of workers.

So this is an extremely troubling development, not just for small business's and their workers, but the entire economy."

Around 1996, more small companies began offering health benefits. Then, from 2000 ti 2005, the percentage dropped, says the Kaiser Family Foundation, from 68 percent to 59 percent - back to the same level as in 1996.

That's stabilized in the last two years. NAPEO's survey shows 71 percent will continue to insure their workers in the coming year - but another five percent remain unsure about continuing.

Cutting Benefits Beats Cutting Jobs

Media companies (such as newspapers, magazines, broadcasters, etc) have eliminated 41,000 jobs in the US (4.6% staff) since December of 2007 when the recession began. To learn more about why a PEO advises implementing alternative work schedules, read this article from the Denver Business Journal.

PEOs Can Ease Burden

Nothing good comes easy, and that includes hiring and managing employees. That's why many small businesses turn to professional employer organizations (PEOs) to handle the complex, time-consuming administrative burdens.

PEOs are companies that help businesses find and hire people, plus manage such things as health benefits, worker's compensation claims, payroll, unemployment insurance and more.

As a business owner, you contract, with a PEO to assume these and other responsibilities, allowing you to concentrate on the revenue-producing side of operations. PEOs establish and maintain an employer relationship with the workers assigned to you. They assume many employer responsibilities and risks.

Most small businesses are new to the human resources (HR) field. One advantage of using a professional employer organization is that they have experienced HR workers who can handle benefits, payroll, OSHA compliance, and just about everything else you will need. By bringing employees into a larger overall group, a PEO can offer your workers benefits, such as health insurance and retirement plans. These can be valuable perks you would be hard-pressed to deliver on your own.

Pre-employment testing is another area where PEOs can help. Without a screening process, you risk placing the wrong person in the job, leading to lost productivity and costly turnover. PEOs tailor pre-employment tests to predict loyalty to you, as well as success on a specific job. The tests aren't foolproof, but they can have a positive impact.

Small-business owners don't relish the idea of reading stacks of resumes and conducting interviews for prospective hires. PEOs can reduce this burden and deliver candidates quickly, then handle the paperwork for the new hire. Some PEOs have entire divisions devoted to recruiting and helping small-business owners gather information to make the right hiring decisions.

An excellent source of information for identifying and working with PEOs is the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO). Its a WB site, http://www.napeo.org, describes how PEOs work, the benefits they offer new and growing small businesses and guidelines for selecting one that is right for your HR needs

article from
The Beacon Journal/Ohio.com
Gary Sutherland