California, which has close to 40 million residents, is the most populous state and possibly the most complex when it comes to Payroll and Human Resources.
The “Eureka!” state has many laws and regulations to safeguard employers and employees. Almost every aspect of the workplace is covered, including meal and rest periods, vacation policies, itemized wage statements and final paycheck requirements.
Continue reading “California Moving to Online-only Payments for Child Support”
Worklio is an international company that has tapped into the power of globalization. The largest Worklio office is smack dab in the center of Europe in Brno, Czech Republic — a city that has attracted so many American and international technology firms that it has become known locally as the Silicon Valley of Europe.
Worklio has found ways to benefit from several advantages that Brno has to offer, including the advanced education of the large university city, its thriving technology sector, cost savings and the fact that the Czech timezone is six hours ahead of the U.S. East Coast for releases and customer support.
Continue reading “Worklio: In the Heart of Europe’s Silicon Valley”
Surprise! It’s time for a Minimum Wage Pop Quiz. Put away your books (and your smart phones) and take out a pen and paper.
(Don’t worry. It won’t hurt, much.)
Need another reminder for why you need to dot every “i” and cross every “t”? Here it is: the Department of Labor increased its civil penalties.
Pretty much every violation has been adjusted for inflation, including failures to comply with the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Family & Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the different versions of the Immigration & Nationality Act and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (MSPA).
Continue reading “Do Your Due Diligence: Department of Labor Boosted Civil Penalties for Inflation”
The sun is up a bit longer every day. The calendar is slowly creeping closer to springtime. And all of your W-2s are distributed and the data has been sent off. Life is good. Except:
Now it is time to really bear down on ACA documentation.
The important question is how much time and effort will it all take? The answer to that question depends on many things, not the least of which: paper or electronic?
One of the first documents that new-hire employees fill out when they get on the job and one of the documents that should be updated every year is the Form W-4. For more than three decades, it has remained largely unchanged.
Not any more.
This year, the W-4 has gone through a significant update to make the withholding system more accurate and more transparent. As the IRS says, it will “ensure (a) smooth taxpayer experience.”
Worklio, the powerful Payroll Software and HRMS for PEOs, ASOs and Staffing Firms with focus on providing extensive Security, expert Customer Service and Growth, has passed a full compliance verification audit for its ISO 27001 certification for information security management and its ISO 9001 certification for quality management.
TayllorCox, an international certification company, verified compliance with the ISO standards with the comprehensive audit last month.
Security is a huge issue in this day and age. Many PEOs and ASOs have been hurt by security breaches, like
In total, in 2019, a collection of 2.7 billion identity records, consisting of 774 million unique email addresses and 21 million unique passwords, was posted on the web for sale.
Clients, and potential clients, want to know that their business will be protected.
Worklio is a state-of-the-art Payroll and HRMS solution that bolsters all aspects of daily business. The Software-as-a-Service platform is built on the latest Microsoft® .Net Core and Microsoft® Azure SQL technology platform, designed and optimized for the Microsoft® Azure Cloud, and available 24 x 7 across all devices.
The International Organization for Standardization maintains standards for businesses that are respected around the world. ISO/IEC 27001:2013 provides requirements for an information security management system in order to enable organizations to manage the security of assets, such as financial information and intellectual property. ISO 9001:2015 sets out the requirements for a quality management system to provide guidance for companies that want to ensure that they consistently meet customer requirements.
To see the Worklio software in action and learn how it can help streamline your business, email demo@worklio.com or call 1-844-996-7554.
Whenever you make a big decision it is best to weigh the positives and negatives. Outsourcing your company to a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) or an Administrative Services Organization (ASO) would qualify as a big decision.
So which way does the scale tilt?
Every business is different so every situation is unique. For the positives, click here for a blog post with general information about about PEOs and ASOs and click here for a blog post with more specific benefits about using PEOs and ASOs.
For the negatives, read on because there are some potential rough spots that should be clearly understood prior to hiring a PEO or an ASO.
Some Loss of Control
The person who runs the company makes the final decisions. Often that person also wants to make all of the decisions. Outsourcing is, by definition, the delegation of a significant portion of the daily operations of a company. Even though supreme authority is maintained by the client company, it is not always easy to relinquish the day-to-day control.
Possible Insurance Alterations
One of the biggest strengths that PEOs and ASOs bring to the table is also a weakness. Economies of scale lead to good deals on health insurance, but that could mean that there may be carrier changes. Some companies choose to handle their health insurance separately to keep consistency. Also, savings are passed on to the clients, but there may be extra fees that cut into it.
Pricing Schemes
PEOs and ASOs use two basic pricing models: an itemized plan and a flat fee. Once a client has gone through the time and energy of partnering with an outsourcing company, it may be difficult to adjust when business success justifies a change. The flat fee model, which can take up to 10 percent of salaries, may not make sense when your success results in quickly rising salaries. Paying for individual aspects of an HR outsourcing company would be more predictable and not subject to salary fluctuations. Of course, often services are bundled, joining valuable and unimportant aspects together.
Reduced Personal Contact
The fact of the matter is that many problems will not be resolved face to face. Information websites, automated emails and phone calls are the more likely forms of communication. Response time will be longer than walking to the HR department down the hall to ask a question.
Reduced HR Intangibles
There is some value in having Human Resources on site. The department is often tasked with spreading holiday cheer and establishing relationships in the local community. Of course, using an outsourcing company does not mean that local HR cannot exist.
No On-Site Crisis Help
Times of crisis or chaos will, perhaps, be made more complicated. HR is where complaints — legal or otherwise — are officially lodged. Writing an email about sexual harassment is not the same as closing the office door and telling a real person about it.
Sharing Sensitive Data
Because business is so competitive, some companies may be justifiably wary about sharing payroll data and information about internal mechanisms. Outsourcing companies appreciate this concern and have high-level security with proper certification to prove it.
If you can live with these points and if the positives outweigh the negatives, then check out PEOs and ASOs.
Worklio is a software company that works hand in hand with PEOs and ASOs, providing the modern technology that leads to success.
There are hundreds of Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs) that take on all Payroll, Benefits and HR responsibilities, and there are hundreds of Administrative Services Organizations (ASOs) that handle parts of a company’s day-to-day workload.
A PEO or an ASO could help any company immensely.
However, every change comes with an inherent risk. Would it be worth the trouble to outsource your Payroll, Benefits and HR? Just how difficult would it be for a company to make the switch to a PEO or an ASO?
The glib answer: It’s easy.
The honest answer: Corporate and personal data is sensitive so an unprofessional migration would not be appropriate.
For more detailed information about the benefits of PEOs and ASOs, go to the following comprehensive blog post. Below is a rundown of some of the steps that such a change would involve.
The Migration Process
The actual nuts and bolts of outsourcing a small business are not complicated: Payroll, Benefits and HR are simply taken care of by an outside company instead of a fellow employee on the other side of the open-space office.
Nevertheless, the first time through any process has bumps. Fortunately, PEOs and ASOs have gone through the process of setting up new companies many times before.
There is a lot of data that needs to migrate. Each company has a lot of facts and figures and official paperwork, starting with the simple (e.g., physical and mailing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers) and progressing to the complex (e.g., Workers’ Compensation, Job Codes, General Ledger). The number of employees needs to be established. An allowance for growth should be prepared, and a naming scheme designed. A billing structure needs to be set up. Archives for older documents need to be established. Relationships need to be created and/or adjusted with insurance companies and benefit providers. COBRA needs to be set up. Contractors need to be introduced into the system. Simply establishing the initial automated emails will be time consuming. And this is just a quick, general list.
In the long run, everything will be more efficient, but the short run will require some adjustment.
Each employee is involved in the change, too, from providing personal information to learning to use new software. Each employee needs to add their own data, and some of it is sensitive. Addresses, email addresses, phone numbers are still there, but there is also Payroll and Time Off information, and each has a different level of Benefits that need to be transferred.
Outsourcing companies have done it all before and, like the eventual day-to-day benefits, the initial setup is streamlined and simplified to minimize errors.
Clearly there is a lot of work. But given the advantages of using an HR outsourcing firm, the initial migration and learning phase will grow into an efficient and effective system.
Technology Helps
The good news is that the best PEOs and ASOs have embraced technology. Computers have made business transactions quick and painless at the bank, and it has done the same for Payroll, Benefits and HR.
Worklio, for example, is a cloud-based platform that makes the transition efficient with a comprehensive data transfer and help with every additional step. The Worklio system connects the PEO, the client company and the worksite employees into one compatible and secure framework. Plus, customer service is always available to help.
There are many benefits to working with one of the hundreds of Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs) or Administrative Services Organizations (ASOs).
Just to name a few:
Simply streamlining the mundane tasks of employee administration is a significant step in the right direction for any company.
When deciding upon an outsourcing model, you must take into account several factors, including the type of business, the number of employees, the current HR administration costs, employee turnover, employee issues, lost opportunity costs and compliance issues. Then you will be able to reap the many additional benefits by using a PEO or an ASO.
Below are some additional detailed benefits that your company may enjoy by partnering with a PEO or an ASO:
Organized Growth
Young companies often grow faster than expected. Hiring a person dedicated to payroll or benefits or human resources is not always cost effective. Yet, nobody in the office has any background in employment law nor have they ever established a 401(k) plan or even a vacation policy. Outsourcing fills this gap, at least until the company grows to the point where it would benefit from an on-site specialist.
Shedding HR
An established company can reorganize and streamline operations by outsourcing HR. It may be a radical move, but saving or reallocating salaries puts the focus on the company.
Less Paperwork, Fewer Errors
You are an expert in your business. Outsourcing firms are the experts in their roles. PEOs and ASOs are designed specifically to take care of back office operations and they have established systems to streamline the flow of paperwork, anticipate problems and questions, and, therefore, limit mistakes.
Enhanced Legal Protection
When a company joins a PEO, it enters a co-employment relationship that provides shared responsibility for employees. According to the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO), the definition of co-employment is the contractual allocation and sharing of employer responsibilities between a PEO and its client. By partnering with a PEO and relying on its expert guidance, client companies transfer a substantial portion of the employee risks to the PEO. Many PEOs also typically provide their clients with an added layer of protection with their Employment Protection Liability Insurance (EPLI), in case a former employee, for example, sues for discrimination or wrongful termination.
Savings
Typically, outsourcing companies are able to reduce, contain and offset many employee-related costs for their client companies. For instance, PEOs enjoy large-group purchasing power by aggregating their client companies for the purposes of getting a lower rate for workers’ compensation and health insurance. This provides access to group rates that would be unavailable to small and mid-sized companies that make their own deals. Professional companies are also constantly looking for better deals, and they are often willing to change from one insurance carrier to another.
Due Diligence
Outsourcing companies keep tabs on the general workings of their client company to make sure that nothing falls through the cracks, from important details like contract expiration dates and insurance renewal periods, to something as simple as birthdays and anniversary dates for employees.
Compliance
Outsourcing companies assist in maintaining payroll, benefits, HR and tax compliance for their client companies so that they can focus on growing their business.
Legislative Oversight
PEOs and ASOs stay on top of the changing landscape of federal, state and local regulations to provide timely and expert information about requisite changes. The Affordable Care Act. Occupational Safety and Health Administration laws. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regulations. Should management spend time keeping track of all of the changes? Professional outsourcing companies even exert lobbying power in order to shape beneficial legislature.
Experience
Outsourcing companies have extensive experience. They have started and established many companies and they have seen it all. Fledgling companies benefit from this guidance to avoid the pitfalls that have stalled or finished lesser projects.
Recruitment
When a company is growing fast, adding the hiring process overburdens management. PEOs and ASOs can coordinate head-hunting for executives and scouring the workforce for employees so that company growth is not stunted by empty desks. Client companies, of course, are able to influence any part of the process and are brought in to make the final decisions.
Onboarding
Once the decisions have been made for new hires, the many steps of getting the new employee situated within the company starts: the paperwork, the rules, the office tour, the introductions. Much of this must necessarily be done on the job site, but a lot can be completed online with customized company administration software. Companies who hire a lot of people stand to save a lot of time and energy with online employee onboarding.
Training
Those first few days are when the new, wide-eyed employee is trying to figure out how things work. Very little of this helps the company move forward. Allocating an established employee to serve as a tour guide is even more of a loss of production that hampers the company. Outsourcing companies that are part of the hiring process are set up to provide the basic training that new employees need in order to get them through the learning process quickly and efficiently.
Attract and Retain Talented Employees
Leveraging size to get the best possible insurance leads to savings for the company but also better quality for the employee. There may be specific aspects that could be used as perks for higher level employees. Orthodontia, for example, is not often covered by basic insurance, but braces for Junior are very expensive. That coverage may mean the difference between getting an expert employee or losing her skillset to the competition’s better dental plan.
Employee Manuals and Forms
As a specific example, established outsourcing companies have created many manuals to outline procedures and regulations for companies. New companies shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel when customizing existing manuals or forms is easier and faster.
It’s definitely worth taking a look at partnering with a PEO or ASO.
Worklio is a software company that works hand in hand with PEOs and ASOs, providing the modern technology that leads to success.