HR Laws & Policies

I Was Going to Pay It Back….Honest!

Another update from the HR jungle….

Sam leads the IT department for his company and is the head of their internal security team. As part of his duties, Sam has administrative rights to all electronic and computer-based systems at the company. He ensures that new employees are issued security clearances to use the company computers. He sets the dollar limits on company-provided credit cards as authorized by the owners of the company.

But Sam has a problem. He likes to gamble. It started years ago quite innocently when he participated in a sports betting pool with co-workers at a former employer’s office. Then he started spending his weekends at casinos. Sam began using his company credit card to get cash advances at the ATM in the casino.

At first, he paid off the credit card balance each month and no one discovered what he was doing. When he couldn’t pay the credit card balance, he raised the credit limit on the card using his administrative rights as the head of internal security.

Sam’s basically a decent guy and the stress of his situation has finally gotten to him. This morning he walked into the owner’s office and confessed all. As he sat sobbing and promising to reimburse the company, the owner stared at him, stupefied with shock.

What could the owner have done to avoid this employee theft?

The owner could have regularly reviewed all company expenses, including credit card charges, to ensure they were used only for valid company business.
The owner could have required regular reports from Sam’s department showing the authorized limits on all company credit cards.
The owner could have hired an outside auditor to do an annual audit of the company’s financial records in the hopes that the fraud would have been uncovered.

Employee theft arises from five basic motivations, including a gambling habit. Another closely related motivation is a drug or alcohol habit. Employees experiencing any of these addictions may decide to steal an employer’s property in order to feed their habit.

Need help with HR issues? Corporate Compliance Risk Advisor can help you create HR policies that are appropriate for your company’s size and then serve as a resource to your staff when the policies are implemented.

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And Now…The New Year’s Resolutions.

Another update from the HR jungle….

Last year, while on her Christmas cruise, Sue, the HR director developed a brilliant plan to do something for her company and something for herself.

Her company has grown rapidly in the past two years and will grow even faster as the economy continues to improve. To continue growing smoothly, Sue knows that the company’s HR policies and procedures must also grow to ensure the company complies with applicable labor and employment laws. As the number of employees increases, so does the number of laws that apply to the company.

Sue also thinks about what she wants for herself. She decided to enroll at a local community college to obtain a 2-year degree in human resources administration. This degree will give her a theoretical framework for her on-the-job knowledge and it will validate what she has learned on the job. The degree will also enhance her chances of being promoted to more responsibility as the company grows.

What steps can Sue take to reach these goals?

1. Sue must create a list of the HR policies that need to be updated. Then she must create a budget calculating the estimated time and cost required to complete the updates based on her prior experience updating individual policies. She also needs to prioritize the order of the updates in case her boss decides to delay some due to budgetary constraints (i.e., lack of money).
2. Sue needs to gather information from the community college website about enrollment deadlines and tuition costs. The class schedules are designed for working adults, so the hard part will be setting aside time to study while working full time. Sue also needs to speak with a faculty advisor to see if she can get class credit for some of her real world experience. Credit for real world experience may allow her to get a degree in less than 2 year saving her time and money.

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Time & Money

Another update from the HR jungle….

Back in December, Sue, the HR director, decided she needed to review the employee handbook to ensure that all the information is still accurate. Now that her rum hangover from her cruise is gone, she’s focusing on this project.

Sue revised individual sections of the employee handbook over the past two years as the laws changed. For example, she changed the definition of employees eligible for health insurance. Under the old criteria, employees had to work at least 32 hours a week to be eligible. But under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), employees who average 30 hours per week are eligible for health coverage.

Of course, this piecemeal approach means that she may have missed something. She also knows that her company added employees since the handbook was last updated and she thinks that the increased number of employees means that additional employment laws now apply to the company. As she surveys the scope of the project, Sue worries about how she’ll manage to review and update the handbook while still keeping up with her regular duties.

What are Sue’s options?

She can research federal and state government websites to collect information about employment laws and regulations that apply to employers with the number of employees that her company has.
She can attend a seminar for HR professionals to learn about recent changes to federal and state employment laws, although the update won’t include existing laws that haven’t been revised and that may apply to her company.
She can convince her employer that it is a better use of her time and their money to outsource this project to a subject matter expert.

Join the HR Compliance Jungle today. Click here!

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Happy New Year!

Another update from the HR jungle….
Sue, our trusted HR director, is back from her cruise with a nice tan and a bit of a hangover from the rum. She’ll put in a couple of days at the office during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day after blowing all her paid leave on the cruise.

At her company, not much happens between Christmas and New Year’s Day. The only people working are the ones who blew all their paid leave earlier in the year or those who want to impress the bosses with their dedication to the job.

Sue plans to spend her time working on her goals for next year. She thought about these goals while on her cruise. First, she’ll start compiling the list of proposed updates to the company’s HR policies. This will take some time since she needs to estimate the cost to complete each project.

Then she’ll research the admittance requirements at the local college where she hopes to enroll in the spring. Getting a formal degree to confirm what she’s learned on the job is a big step in her career.

Whatever your work situation, have a safe and enjoyable holiday.

Happy New Year!

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Happy Holidays!

Another update from the HR jungle….

Sue, our trusted HR director, is still enjoying her cruise in the sun with the rum. It took her a week to stop thinking about the office, but she’s finally in full vacation mode. Her tan is coming along nicely and the cruise staff supplies never-ending refills of rum and fruit.

Sue will celebrate Christmas on the ship, far from irritations like some of her co-workers and (dare we say it) some of her extended family. She hasn’t had it this good in years.

Most of us won’t be able to take a holiday cruise or avoid (dare we say it) certain members of our extended families. Have an extra glass of eggnog or wassail and remember it is a once-a-year ritual. Mixed in with the annoyances are so many people we want to spend time with and many special seasonal events.

Happy Holidays!

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One for Them, One for Me…

Another update from the HR jungle….
Sue, the HR director, is finally on her cruise after a couple of weeks of clearing her desk. She’s sitting on the cruise ship deck sipping a rum drink and thinking about the office. She’s having trouble shutting off the part of her brain that thinks about work, as we all do when we finally get away.

As Sue works on her tan and sips her rum, she thinks about the company’s expansion and what it means for her career. As the company grows, its HR policies will need to grow too. That’s why she’s already decided to revise the employee handbook.

Sue also thinks about what she wants for herself. Sue got her job in HR years ago when the company’s owner decided he didn’t want to deal with employee problems. Sue’s had no special training for her HR duties; she learned on the job. She worries that as the company grows, they will look for someone with more formal education to replace her.

Suddenly, a scathingly brilliant answer to her problems presents itself. The rum helps, of course. What is Sue’s brilliant plan?

Sue will present her boss with a list of the HR policies that she believes need to be updated to ensure the company’s continued growth is smooth. Her list will include the estimated time and cost for each project and compare those costs to the past costs incurred when the boss waited until there was a problem. She believes he will agree to take a proactive approach and invest in upgrading the HR policies.
Sue wants to attend a local community college that offers a 2 year degree in human resources administration. A degree increases her chances of getting a pay raise and being the inside candidate for promotion as the HR department grows with the company.

As you come to the end of this year, think about your goals for your company and for yourself.

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Before the R&R…

Another update from the HR jungle….
Sue is the HR director for her company and last week she was working on her year-end checklist. Sue is trying to knock out all the items on her checklist before she checks out for a two week cruise in the Caribbean. Last week’s checklist covered last minute items related to the Affordable Care Act.

This week’s checklist is a general review of her HR domain. It’s good to be in charge, even if she has no minions to obey her every whim. First, she talks with the payroll service to ensure that they have all the information they will need to issue W-2’s in January 2105. This task went on her checklist after a “miscommunication” earlier in the year meant a new hire didn’t get paid on time. Now Sue obsessively re-checks everything.

Sue’s decided to postpone her second checklist item until after her vacation because it will be tedious and time consuming. She needs to review the employee handbook to ensure that all the information is still accurate. She revised a few sections of the handbook over the past two years as the growing workforce meant additional employment laws applied to her company. Now it’s time to do a general cleanup. Sue knows she needs some R&R (rum and more rum) before tackling this task.

Sue’s final checklist item is to complete a status review of the HR department when she returns to the office in January. Now she just needs to deal with any last minute crises before leaving for her well-deserved date with rum and the sea.

Do you have a year-end checklist to keep your HR duties on track? We can’t promise you a Caribbean cruise with (lots of) alcohol, but we’ve love to hear from you.

Join the HR Compliance Jungle today. Click here!

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Are you ready for 2015?

Another update from the HR jungle…

Sue is the human resources director for her company (because she’s the only HR department employee). She is frantically working her way through her year-end checklist so that she can take a two week, rum-infused holiday cruise in late December. Today she’s working on checklist items related to the group health plan.

First on her checklist is a note to update the on-line information about the company’s group health plan to show the new out-of-pocket limits for 2015. Her company has a high deductible health plan (HDHP) with a health savings account (HSA). In 2015, HSA contributions are limited to $3,350 for individuals and $6,650 for families. The maximum out-of-pocket limits are $6,450 for individuals and $12,900 for families. If she posts the information on-line, some employees may actually read it rather than calling her with their questions.

Second on her checklist is to confirm that the new ACA-compliant software is properly tracking the hours of employees. Sue was impressed by the software vendor’s ability to customize the software to track her company’s high turnover employees. Sue’s company is not subject to the employer penalty in 2015 because they met the transitional relief for employers with 50 – 99 employees. But Sue still worries about last minute glitches when new software programs are implemented.

Does your ACA-compliance checklist look like Sue’s? Can you think of any items on your checklist that Sue has forgotten?

Sue’s already dreaming about the rum and fruit drinks she’ll be enjoying on her cruise, but she’ll continue working on her checklist items in next week’s column.

Join the HR Compliance Jungle today. Click here!

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Be Kind, Not Nice.

Another update from the HR jungle….

“Be kind, not nice” is a favorite saying of one of my friends. Consider what that means for employers and their employees.

Leslie’s company has less than 50 employees, so the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) does not apply to her company. This fact became important yesterday when Beth revealed that she has breast cancer and needs extended leave while she undergoes treatment. Beth also says that she wants to return to work full-time after completing her initial treatment.

Leslie counts Beth as a personal friend as well as an employee and wants to help. Beth was one of the first employees she hired and has always been a stellar performer. But Leslie knows that if Beth is granted extended leave, other employees will demand the same treatment later. She also worries that her staff is too small to cover for an employee who is absent for an extended period of time.

Leslie considers her situation and how she can be kind, but not nice to Beth. What options are available to Leslie?

She can be kind to Beth by offering support as a friend and accommodating Beth’s treatment schedule as much as reasonably possible without disrupting the company’s work flow.
She can protect her company by documenting the business reasons for making an exception to the leave policy for Beth. For example, Beth’s work performance and length of service could justify making an exception to the leave policy.

Distinguishing kind from nice may not be easy particularly when creating HR policies. Corporate Compliance Risk Advisor can help you separate kind from nice in your employee practices with HR policies that are appropriate for your company.

Join the HR Compliance Jungle today. Click here!

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How Many Employees Do We Have?

Another update from the HR jungle….

David is the HR director for his company. He’s attended seminars about the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) but found most of the presentations confusing. He wasn’t sure what his company needed to do to comply with the law and, with all the delays in implementation, he moved this topic down his list of priorities.

Now David needs explain to the company owners what needs to be done to comply with the ACA. He knows the first step is to verify whether they are a “large” or a “small” employer. A large employer has at least 50 employees and is subject to an employer penalty if it doesn’t offer health insurance to its employees.

David’s company has 40 employees that work an average of 30 hours per week and so are full-time employees under the ACA. But his company also has 15 part-time employees.

How should David count the part-time employees under the ACA?

1. Add up the total hours worked during the month by the 15 part-time employees. Let’s assume that during the past month they collectively worked a total of 1260 hours.
2. Divide their aggregated hours by 120 (30 hours/week x 4 weeks = 120 hours per month). So David divides 1260 hours by 120. (1260 ÷ 120 = 10.5)
3. Round down to the nearest whole number. So David rounds down 10.5 to 10. During the past month the part-timers worked hours that are equivalent to 10 full-time employees. (That’s why part-time employees are called “full-time equivalents” or FTE’s).
4. Add the 10 FTE’s to the 40 full-time employees for a total of 50 employees. That means that in the past month, his company was a “large” employer under the ACA.

David should select 6 consecutive months in which to use the above formula to verify his company’s employer size. If during this 6 month counting period, the company has 50 employees, it is a “large” employer.

Is your company struggling to understand how the ACA will affect the employee group health plan? Corporate Compliance Risk Advisor can help you understand the basics of the ACA and how it affects an employer of your company’s size.

Join the HR Compliance Jungle today. Click here!

Visit us: http://www.complianceriskadvisor.com/

	Mae on Halloween Horror
	Mae on Freedom from Rules
	Genie Herron on Where Is He?
	Norma Shirk on Whose Side Are You On?
	Pat Brewer Hairston on Whose Side Are You On?

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