News & Events

Employers are increasingly prioritizing employee burnout and their mental health as the COVID-19 pandemic trudges toward the 2-year mark.

“This is a historic time; we’ve never been through anything like this. Our mental health and our physical health are really being taxed,” Darcy Gruttadaro, director of the American Psychiatric Association Foundation’s Center for Workplace Mental Health, told ABC News this summer. “If there was ever a time to raise these issues, it’s now. If you’re experiencing burnout and you’re trying to ignore it, that will eventually catch up with you.”

CNBC reported in September that “how to deal with burnout – and prevent future burnout – is a challenge all businesses are now tasked with as many workers hit 19 months of working from home.”

The 87^th Texas Legislature met from January to May and then again in three more special sessions from July to October, giving lawmakers many opportunities to pass new bills in the Lonestar State.

There were a whopping 9,999 bills introduced in the regular session alone with 3,803 passed.

While many of the bills passed are ceremonial there are several new laws that affect Texas employers.

For most businesses the past two years have been quite the rollercoaster ride with the pandemic, inflation, tight labor market, and supply chain issues all making day-to-day operations challenging.

For 2022 it is important for businesses to have a plan in place to succeed in an environment where the unexpected is expected.

Compliance is a bit like flossing … you may not see immediate consequences from letting it slide, but the long-term repercussions ultimately reveal themselves.

Lax compliance protocols increase the risk that your small-to-medium size business runs afoul of local, state, and/or federal regulations.

For most business owners, compliance violations are more painful than the sound of any dentist’s drill.

In a world turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic, Texas small businesses are finding their way towards a workplace “new normal” as the coronavirus crisis nears two years.

And whether it is a return to office, work from home (WFH), or hybrid model that combines in-person and remote work, one thing for certain is that there is no going “back to normal”.

“Too many are asking whether we will go back to normal. To me, the problematic word is “back.” There is no going back to pre-COVID times. There is only forward—to a new and uncertain future that is currently presenting us with an opportunity for thoughtful design,” said Amy C Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School.

Employees are one of your businesses’ greatest assets, so it is important to maximize their potential and increase your company’s chance of success with strategic planning.

“Loyal customers, visionary leaders and quality goods and services all influence success, but usually a company’s best asset is its employees,” says the Indeed.com Editorial Team.

In a perfect world, December would be at least six weeks long as the month can roll by in a blur with business often buttonholed between holiday parties and ringing in the New Year festivities.

December can be a tricky month to navigate for small and medium-sized business owners with one survey finding that 68 percent of employees were “less productive throughout the entire month of December compared to other months.”

The Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) set the 2021 employer’s unemployment insurance (UI) tax rate in mid-June after a four-month delay as the state waited to see how the economic recovery progressed before setting Texas State Unemployment Tax Act (SUTA) Rates. The rate set is retroactive to January 1 for all employers in the state.

For more than a year the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to break all the old rules from government and public responses to medical treatment and vaccinations.

Now that vaccination rates are rising -- 56 percent of the U.S. with at least one dose and 48 percent fully vaccinated -- American’s are returning to public spaces, but it seems some have forgotten the “Golden Rule”.

The thing about inventing the wheel or discovering fire, is that you are in uncharted territory when it comes to your first flat tire or when a spark starts a wildfire.

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in an entirely new remote workplace culture, and it appears that it is not going away, even as the vaccine rate increases around the world, as many companies are embracing a hybrid model going forward that will feature some WFH (work from home) component.