Smallbiz Brainiac

Employee performance reviews are an important engagement tool. Employee performance reviews are super important to the success of your company because the success of your company, depends on the success of your employees. Employee physiological well-being, productivity, and job satisfaction, depends in part on knowing where they stand with you, with their employment, and what opportunities they have ahead…

OSHA thinks by forcing you to make your claims information public you’ll naturally want to focus more on safety to try and avoid being embarrassed. Behavioral economics: OSHA’s new final rule revising their Recording and Reporting Occupational Injuries and Illnesses regulation, takes effect January 1, 2017. The revised rule was designed to “nudge” you into making your workplace safer for your employees by making your workers’ compensation…

Just when I think government laws, regulations and rules can get any dumber, I come across yet another ridiculous one. The year isn’t over yet, but it will be before you know it. So on this episode I want to help you prepare for year end from the standpoint of reporting and paying payroll taxes…

The National Labor Relations Board is taking issue with handbook policies that get in the way of employee rights.   In episode 85 on employee handbooks I told you that your policies need to take NLRB regulations into consideration even if you don’t have union employees. It doesn’t matter that you don’t have union employees. The law…

Judge Mazzant stops DOL action by granting temporary injunction! Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I’m in Franklin, Tennessee visiting family. My wife and I, along with our two kids, drove 1,600 miles from our home in Gilbert, Arizona last week, to be here. Yes, that’s a lot of miles, but we split it up into three days. It was a long trip but we…

Creating and maintaining an employee handbook is a hassle, but well worth it. Should you have an employee handbook (“EH”)? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on your organization. They are a good idea and serve two valuable purposes, clarity and litigation defense. Not every business owner wants one, but you have policies regardless of weather or…

“Never let school get in the way of your education.” The child labor laws are made possible by the Fair Labor Standards Act. The purpose of the child labor laws are to keep children safe and prevent work from jeopardizing their education. I think that’s ironic because for many, myself included, work is a better educator than school.…

I don’t like getting involved with employees’ financial affairs A paycard is like a pre-paid credit card or a debit card. They’re funded the same way you make a direct deposit into your employee’s bank account. The paycard provider issues the card to your employees and you send an ACH transaction to your bank. The cards are funded…

“You can measure opportunity with the same yardstick that measures the risk involved. They go together.” Earl Nightingale In the aftermath of the earth shattering presidential election on Tuesday where the business-as-usual politics was clubbed over the head. There’s no shortage of opinions. You already know that I hate big government. I’m disgusted by the mount…

If you have a wellness plan or you’re thinking about implementing one, you want to make sure it focuses on disease management. In May 2016 the IRS issued a memorandum about the tax treatment of wellness plan benefits and premium reimbursements. And there are new EEOC compliance rules taking effect on January 1, 2017. What is a wellness plan?…

This is important information for you. It’s like checking the weather report before you head out on vacation.  The EEOC released their Strategic Enforcement Plan, or SEP, on October 17, 2016. This SEP declares what areas of compliance they’re going to focus on for the next 5 years. They call these “substantive area priorities” and it’s…

This rule change is bad for you and it’s bad for your employees.  On episode 33 published on May 23rd 2016, I introduced you to the change being made by the Department of Labor (DOL) to the minimum salary requirement for the overtime exemption under the executive, administrative and professional employee rule, and we are just…

HRAs are funded exclusively by employers. In the last episode I taught you a little bit about Health Savings Accounts. I said they’re a great tool for lowering your group health insurance costs and I explained how they work… but, I didn’t explain how they actually lower your costs A Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) is…

One of the best ways to lower your group health insurance costs is to incentivize your employees to change their behavior. On the next two episodes I’m going to teach you about Health Savings Accounts and Health Reimbursement Arrangements….two great tools for controlling group health costs. They are a little bit different from each each…

On October 5, 2016, Cook County, Illinois passed an “earned sick leave” ordinance that takes effect on July 1, 2017 Hey everyone welcome to episode 76. I want to update you on the recent changes to Form I-9 which take effect on January 21, 2017. I also want to update you on the latest paid sick…

You are automatically liable for your Supervisors harassment. In simple terms, the difference between discrimination and harassment is discrimination is a form of bias committed by the company. For example, you didn’t hire someone because of their race. Whereas harassment is bias committed by an individual within or an employee of the company. What is…

Do you have an accountable reimbursement plan that complies with IRS rules? Do you have employees that travel? Do you reimburse their expenses or pay them an allowance? Only qualified travel expenses can be reimbursed without being included as taxable wages. You might be reimbursing unqualified expenses because: The travel doesn’t qualify as a business…

Unintended consequences will soon follow implementation of this job killing law.     The incredibly astute and highly skilled business savvy City Council members of Seattle continue to outdo themselves with their utopia building. These geniuses have produced yet another set of handcuffs to shackle the greedy business owners and keep them from taking advantage…

The people who write tax code are masters of confusion. I often wonder if they do it on purpose or if they really are idiots.  Once you’ve decide the why, who, what, when, and how to bonus your employees you’ll need to look at the compliance aspects of your plan. What’s the right way to withhold federal income…

Make sure the Plan is measurable and not left to arbitrary interpretation or shady math. I recently had a listener write in asking how to bonus their employees without discriminating and I thought this would be a good topic for an episode (or two), especially with the holidays coming around. The right bonus plan will…