News & Events

HR compliance checklists come in all shapes and sizes with the spectrum covering an alphabet soup of acronyms from COBRA to FMLA to ADA to FLSA.

The Society for Human Resource Management offers its members a whopping 39 compliance checklists that fall among 13 different categories.

“Ensuring your company is compliant with tax and labor laws helps create a safe and secure workplace for employees, provide fair compensation and ensure your company keeps up with its tax obligations.

Artificial Intelligence and the future of work is a hot topic, but when it comes to the future of leadership, automation and machines take a backseat to something much less esoteric: “human leadership.”

Gartner HR Research identified human leadership as the next evolution of leadership in a study released in June 2022.

When it comes to predicting the future, there is nothing like a worldwide pandemic, economic turbulence, and geopolitical turmoil to remind us that forecasting can be an activity with more pitfalls than curtain calls.

Yet business leaders understand that they must keep looking ahead because sailing their companies into uncharted waters blindly, without preparation or a sense of direction, is the surest way to end up wrecked on the rocks.

New Year’s Resolutions are easy to make … and very hard to keep.

In fact, a study a few years ago examined 800 million user-logged activities that showed most people are likely to give up on their New Year’s Resolution by January 19.

“The difficulty of the goal you set isn’t nearly as important as whether or not you develop the kind of habits that allow you to achieve that goal,” wrote Inc. contributing editor Jeff Haden. “Otherwise, you’re just wishing and hoping. Your intentions are great, but unless you develop new habits … your chances for success are basically nonexistent.”

While there are no significant employment law changes effective in 2023 from a federal mandate, employers still need to be aware of any legislative changes on state or local levels.

Nationally, no major changes are slated for 2023 with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) still establishing minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and youth employment standards affecting employees in the private sector, and in federal, state, and local governments.

A year ago the think tank the Conference Board surveyed American businesses and found that companies--  facing the gauntlet of rising inflation and a historically tight labor market – were setting aside 3.9 percent of their 2022 payroll budgets for employee raises.

When the pandemic hit in 2020 the business world turned topsy-turvy overnight.

In the earliest stages of the coronavirus crisis, safety and survival took center stage as businesses navigated through the treacherous waters of lockdowns and economic upheaval.

Dusting off the year-end HR checklist is a good sign for most small and medium-sized business owners as 2022 has been one of the most challenging years ever and cannot come to an end quickly enough.

“Employers that are considering offering abortion-related benefits, such as out-of-state travel to a jurisdiction where abortion laws are more accommodating, should keep in mind compliance and liability considerations, benefits advisors point out,” reported the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) after Roe was overturned. “Employers that operate in multiple states will also need to navigate a patchwork of different rules affecting abortion coverage, depending on where covered employees and dependents live, work and receive health care.”

It’s no secret that small business owners must wear many hats from CEO to sales to marketing to HR and all the way down the line to being the warehouse and logistics honcho who knows where the extra toilet paper is stashed.

Sartorial success, however, is often hard to pull off with not every hat a comfortable fit – Texans understand this every time they get a glimpse of any “dollar store cowboy” in an oversized 10-gallon hat.

“It’s a reality that we all deal with as we work to grow our businesses. We have to perform several different functions as effectively as possible. One day you might be working on your marketing plan. The next day, you might be negotiating with vendors. After that, you might find yourself being your own accountant,” Jeff Charles shared in Startup Advice.