Employer Flexible Blog

All businesses are bound by law to provide at least the legal minimum of employee benefits. What qualifies as the legal minimum varies by state and your company's size. Regardless of the legal minimum for your company, however, it makes good business sense to offer employee benefits beyond the basics.

A Professional Employer Organization (PEO) like Employer Flexible is a third-party firm that manages a company’s administrative management tasks. Tasks such as employee benefits, payroll, and human resources are crucial to the success of any business. With a PEO, business-owners have more time to take care of what really matters: the bottom line.

As a small business owner or manager, you have probably gotten used to wearing a lot of hats during the course of a typical working day. At the same time, you should consider the amount of time and energy you waste on tasks that don't directly support your primary business goals. The American Psychological Association found that multitasking can lead to a drop in productivity of 40 percent.

From prestigious law firms to mass retailers, businesses of all sizes and in all industries suffer cyber-attacks on a regular basis. Constant breaches take their toll. Hiscox Chief Executive Steve Langan claims that cyber-crime cost the global economy a staggering $450 billion in 2016. 

When a sexual harassment allegation surfaced in 2017 with a Technology Firm, Employer Flexible took the lead in investigating and resolving the situation. As soon as allegations of this nature are reported from any client, strict measures are taken to ensure a fair investigation and a proper resolution.

On Jan. 5, 2018, the Department of Labor (DOL) published a proposed rule that would give small businesses and sole proprietors more freedom to join together as a single group to purchase health insurance in the large group market or to selfinsure. These benefit arrangements are called association health plans (AHPs).

The proposed rule would broaden the criteria for determining which employers may band together to form AHPs. Under the proposal, employers could form an AHP if they are in the same industry or have a principal place of business in the same state or metropolitan area.

The proposed rule would also allow working owners, such as sole proprietors, to join AHPs. The proposed rule includes requirements for AHPs that are intended to distinguish them from commercial insurance-type arrangements and prevent adverse selection.

ACTION STEPS
The DOL’s changes for AHPs are only proposed at this point. It is possible that the DOL will change the proposal before it is finalized, based on comments it receives on the proposed rule. Small employers and sole proprietors who are interested in AHPs should monitor the proposed rule for developments.

Starting Feb. 15, 2018, employers must use new tables to determine how much income tax to withhold from their employees’ paychecks. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued the required new tables, in Notice 1036, on Jan. 9, 2018. The notice contains early release copies of the “Percentage Method Tables for Income Tax Withholding” that will appear in IRS Publication 15 (Employer’s Tax Guide).

According to the IRS, Notice 1036 is the first in a series of steps that the agency will take to help employers improve the accuracy of their tax withholdings under changes made by a new tax reform law, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, enacted on Dec. 22, 2017.

HR departments must constantly adapt to new requirements from both internal and external sources. Unexpected factors like new regulations from the White House and additional workplace responsibilities commonly disrupt HR departments. These disruptors can influence HR’s trajectory for the rest of the year.

As we ended 2017, we all witnessed an incredibly public conversation about sexual harassment—one that included prominent figures in politics, entertainment and even the news media. Unfortunately, sexual harassment and sexual misconduct are an all-too common occurrence in the workplace. And for many employers, the topic is one of great concern.

Many of today's executives, managers and employees continually check their phone or personal laptop for work-related emails when they should be spending time relaxing with their family. Consider this 2016 survey from Deloitte that revealed that Americans collectively check their phones 8 billion times per day, which comes out to an average of 46 checks per day for each American.