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Business Payroll and HR Blog
Year-End Tax Planning for 2014
The end of 2014 is quickly approaching, so it’s important that everything is in order to ensure there are no surprises when the time comes to file taxes. Year-end tax planning for small businesses isn’t something to put off or ignore. It’s important to look at your...
2015 OSHA Reporting Requirements
On January 1st, a final rule from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) will take effect that will change the 2015 OSHA reporting requirements for injury and illness. This new rule adds to the number of situations in which...
401K Contribution Limits for 2015
According to the IRS, many pension plan limitations will change for 2015 because the increase in cost-of-living met the statutory thresholds that trigger their adjustment. The 401K contribution limits for 2015 that participants can elect to contribute on a tax...
Monitoring Employees at Work
Once upon a time, monitoring employees at work consisted primarily of sprinkling around a few video cameras in the warehouse to detect inventory pilfering. Times have changed: today you can harness "behavioral modeling" software to try to assess employee productivity,...
Preventing Unemployment Claims
Employers are often surprised at how easily a former employee can establish a successful unemployment claim. With respect to unemployment claims, the largest misconception among employers is that terminating an employee for substandard performance will disqualify the...
Employees Speaking a Foreign Language at Work
Question: We have some employees who regularly converse in their native Spanish language. This creates an issue because other employees are worried they are being talked about but can’t understand it. How should we handle employees speaking a foreign language at work?...
Enforcing Rest Breaks and Meal Periods
Restaurants, coffee shops, hair salons, call centers, and customer-focused offices often have “just enough” staffing on hand at any given time. Limited staffing makes it challenging to relieve an employee for a rest period or meal break. An employee who leaves the...
Health Insurance Marketplace Open Enrollment Begins Nov. 15
The Health Insurance Marketplace open enrollment begins on November 15 for individuals to enroll in non-employer sponsored plans for 2015. While employers are generally not greatly impacted by open enrollment for individual plans, there are a few reasons why employers...
