by Mike Yoder | Business Resource, Business Strategy, Legal Compliance, Outsourcing
Business owners have to take risks to grow, but not all risks are worth the gamble. When it comes to outsourcing HR services, as with all business decisions, smart entrepreneurs and owners take calculated risks — not leaps of faith.
Risks worth considering
The kind of risk business owners like and should be willing to take should feel more like opportunities to gain than to fail. A cost-benefit analysis should be applied to any situation from which you could lose. For example, insurance is a hedge against risk. You make payments to your provider so that you reduce liability for things such as property damage. Other such risks worth considering include things including
- moving into a new market
- purchasing new software
- changing processes or systems
- increasing your marketing budget
Risks to avoid — always
On the other hands, some risks are fraught with danger, with no benefits available. Anything in your business related to taxes or your company’s general welfare isn’t worth the gamble. If you don’t have general liability insurance, for example, serious company-killer risks can emerge. Simple errors and omissions can put your company at considerable risk.
HR Risk Management
If you are considering outsourcing HR services, the big questions to ask yourself are:
- What are my responsibilities and risks as an employer?
- What are my risks and responsibilities if I outsource?
From a HR professional’s perspective, employers carry three major areas of risk.
1. IRS/TAX COMPLIANCE. When issues of compliance and withholding funds for tax purposes come into play, there is no benefit to being risky. The short-term effects of mishandling tax issues include penalties and additional taxes. This is also where audits with employee classification come into place. If you have misclassified someone as an employee or contractor, you can owe back wages, benefits and taxes, and may be required to pay interest and penalties.
WHEN YOU OUTSOURCE: A full-service PEO collects and passes on payroll taxes, workers’ compensation payments and other IRS-related items so the employer doesn’t assume all of the risk involved. While you can’t outsource every aspect of IRS liability because you still have some control over your workers and workplace, you are receiving consulting advice on statutes, which helps you make smart HR decisions.
2. EMPLOYMENT LAW. Federal, state and local employment laws can be a hairy, complicated combination of rules and requirements. Compliance issues cover employee handbooks, required signage in workplaces — workers’ compensation, employee rights, minimum wage amounts, etc. — and processes related to hiring, disciplining and firing employees. If you aren’t diligent, you can end up with fines, penalties, lawsuits related to wage/hour issues or discrimination, attorney’s fees, lost business and opportunities. These are company-killer issues you don’t want to risk.
WHEN YOU OUTSOURCE: When you outsource these kinds of legal compliance items, you are obtaining access to the knowledge and experience to reduce your risks of legal liability.
3. COMPANY CULTURE AND RETENTION. If you choose to cultivate and manage your company’s culture and manage employee retention on your own, you should expect to spend a lot of time and money to do it well. You want to train your team to be their best, and you want to keep them on the payroll. A lot of studies show that replacing an employee is often as expensive as a full-year’s salary of that employee. Between ending a relationship with one employee, and recruiting, training and getting up to speed a new employee, you are losing precious time and opportunities — plus the financial burden of that process.
There’s a real financial cost to creating the right place to have the right talent. An engaged employee is going to be a more valuable employee. In fact, a Gallup poll of more than 17 million employees showed that engaged employees are more profitable, productive, customer focused and safer. If you aren’t doing everything right when it comes to support your company culture and retention rate, you are definitely carrying serious risk.
WHEN YOU OUTSOURCE: A PEO is a full-service human resources service provider, which means it doesn’t stop at legal compliance and payroll issues. It provides consulting and direction to ensure your company’s goals are being supported by a strong culture, and engaged employees are keys to that overall picture. If you outsource the risk related to building and maintaining a valuable culture, you are putting those responsibilities in the hands of professionals who know that the occasional ice cream social isn’t going to prevent employees from finding other employers.
What are your responsibilities and risks as an employer? What are your risks and responsibilities if you outsource? If you would like to learn more about how a PEO can reduce your risk, please contact me, Mike Yoder, at 317-585-1688.
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![Health Care Reform and Small Business: Part 2 (Types of Plans)]()
by Jeff Leffew | Business Resource, Business Strategy, Employee Benefits
For small businesses with fewer than 50 employees, the biggest changes health care reform will bring about are related to the benefits landscape:
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1. It will change how the rates of those plans will be determined. (Click here for Health Care Reform and Small Business: Part 1 (Rates), the first part of this discussion.)
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2. It will change the types of plans employers will offer employees.
Types of Plans: Slim Pickings Ahead
I predict that the time is coming where brokers will start breaking the news to small groups that they have fewer choices in benefits plans. Health care reform is dictating to large groups how benefits plans have to function. In order to meet the definition of what a plan is, carriers are going to have to redesign their plans.
The carriers for a short time will continue to have a wide variety, although they eventually will narrow the choices to meet what is called a “qualified plan.” The government is telling us all what is appropriate, and this increased pressure on carriers will lead to limited choices for consumers. Robust plans will be available, but they will be cost prohibitive for most employers.
A fascinating thought leader in this area is Dr. Ben Carson. Carson is a pediatric neurosurgeon who was raised by a single mother in inner city Detroit and eventually carried out work on the first separation of conjoined twins. To summarize his big idea, he argues that if the government is going to mandate anything, carriers should be set up as nonprofit organizations. It is an interesting idea to consider. If insurance companies were set up as nonprofits, it would take out the natural battle between a government mandating a product and a business’s focus on making a profit.
What’s a Small Business to Do?
So given the current and impending medical insurance landscape, what can a small group employer do? For companies that are around that 50-employee mark, I would recommend that you think twice about getting bigger or expanding right now. Before you begin growing, be sure you count the costs. We haven’t had to consider these costs in the past, but this is part of our new reality under health care reform. If you need to hire and doing so is cost prohibitive considering the growing costs of health care, you may need to think about increasing the prices of your own services or products.
At the end of the day, you need to know what is in the bucket of money you have to give your staff (wages, taxes, benefits, etc.) and be sure that benefits are still valuable because you will have to evaluate what makes sense. I encourage you to look at your position in the marketplace and the skill set of your employees; see if a salary increase is a better choice in place of health insurance.
Fifty is the magic number when it comes to employee counts. But for small groups under that 50 mark, health care reform still has repercussions. Be ready to tackle those today.
What questions do you have about health care reform? Contact me to see how Servant HR can help.
![Health Care Reform and Small Business: Part 2 (Types of Plans)]()
by Jeff Leffew | Business Resource, Business Strategy, Employee Benefits
There has been some confusion regarding news that came out July 2 about the Obama administration’s decision to postpone implementation of his health care program’s employer mandate. This change only affects large group employers — not those with fewer than 50 full-time employees. Small group employers have other issues to consider.
For small groups, the biggest changes health care reform will bring about are related to the benefits landscape:
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1. It will change how the rates of those plans will be determined.
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2. It will change the types of plans employers will offer employees.
Rates: Let’s Do the Numbers
Small groups aren’t currently required to offer health care benefits to employees. If they do offer it, they are offering it at will. The common worry among employers and analysts is that health care plans will be very expensive in the future, and projections are showing that this is a legitimate concern. Even if an employer is offering health insurance benefits now, the price tag could be prohibitive in the future as plan prices increase across the board. The result could be that employees are forced to find coverage at the individual level in the exchange market.
Why are rates expected to go up? For one, health care reform requires carriers to determine rates by a community rating. A community rating system (opposed to a system based on risk) is currently being used in New York, Maine, Colorado and several other states. It’s not a foreign concept, but it is not at a national level — yet. In a community rating system, a person’s individual health history and occupation do not help determine their rate. Today, when someone is in a higher-risk industry such as construction or commercial fishing in Alaska, their occupational risk is used to figure their rate. Likewise, if someone works in a slow-moving office setting that’s considered a preferred industry, that person may be able to earn credits to get lower rates.
Under health care reform, that kind of risk isn’t weighed. Under health care reform, employers or insurance companies may no longer ask if you or anyone in your family has a history of cancer, heart disease or other health issue. This may seem good for the employee and bad for the employer, but it’s not so cut and dry. Think about your driving history. Insurance carriers regularly reward safe drivers with less expensive rates, credits and better coverage because they can make an educated guess regarding what their risk is if they insure that driver. If someone has had multiple traffic violations and accidents over the past couple of years, that information is also used to determine rates. If all of us drivers are lumped together as just “drivers” without the benefit of a little driving history, there is much less incentive for us to drive safely. Similarly, it could be argued that under the community rating system, there is less incentive for your employees to be healthy.
The community rating does consider gender, whether the person is a smoker and where they live. If you live here in Indiana, where we are known as one of the unhealthiest states in the country, even running the Indianapolis Mini-Marathon every year, abstaining from alcohol and eating right at every meal won’t help you when the community rating system goes into effect.
Consideration by insurance companies of individuals’ preexisting conditions is going away as well. This has been the case for children since 2012. Last year, virtually all carriers in the state of Indiana pulled out of writing policies solely for kids. The result is that affected parents can either pay for children’s expenses out of pocket or go through the state to get a medical coverage policy. Medical Mutual of Ohio just pulled out of Indiana completely — for children and adults. With one less carrier, we have fewer carriers competing for Hoosiers’ business.
Helping everyone get coverage despite their health history seems like a good idea, but eliminating the ability to ask about preexisting conditions has negative repercussions for business. For example, employers would want to be aware if an employee coming onto a new insurance policy has had three back surgeries, because chances are good that person will need another one.
The bottom line is that when the insurance carriers can’t predict the kind of risk they may be covering, they have to think worst case scenario. As a result, rates are poised to increase under health care reform.
Look for Part 2 (Types of Plans) on the Servant HR blog tomorrow, July 26.
![Health Care Reform and Small Business: Part 2 (Types of Plans)]()
by Jeff Leffew | Business Strategy, Legal Compliance, Outsourcing
HealthCare.gov is a great source for more information.
The wheels of health care reform are constantly turning, leading to new and revised requirements being rolled out on a rather irregular basis. What was market driven up to this point will be directed by federal government health care reform in the future. In the past, employers of at least 50 full-time or the equivalent of 50 full-time employees had a choice whether to offer insurance. In the future, the choice will be laden with costly consequences. Health care reform is another large government regulation that will have an impact similar to that of Cobra and the FMLA on businesses. It’s a game of play or pay.
While there are still many unknowns, we do know several big changes business owners can prepare to see come to pass in 2014. Here are three ways you can prepare for health care reform in 2014 and one overarching “Bottom Line” choice to consider.
1. In light of the individual mandate, take a hard look at insurance benefits for employees.
The biggest thing to happen in 2014 will be the individual mandate. In 2014, virtually every American will have the “choice” to obtain health insurance coverage through one means or another. If they choose not to obtain health insurance, they will be subject to a related tax. Under this individual mandate, individuals will be able to purchase coverage on their own or through their employers.
If they don’t carry insurance, they will have to pay a tax. For example, if a 20-year-old male in excellent health chooses not to purchase insurance, he will have to pay a punitive tax. Other likely candidates who will choose to or have to pay this penalty include the superrich and the poor.
At this time, if you want to find private insurance, you have to go through a broker, which, some argue, is typically a rather clumsy process. As a result, the federal government is creating exchanges. These exchanges are essentially online sellers of insurance.
Unfortunately, creating a more transparent, fluid marketplace for insurance will not have the same effect this same approach has had on online sellers such as Travelocity and Amazon. The math needed to lower the cost of insurance simply doesn’t add up. The risk carriers take on is simply too high and unpredictable. In fact, projections are that insurance rates will go up as a result of the individual mandate. As insurance becomes more regulated, competition will likely go down.
2. Better understand upcoming market reforms so you can make smart decisions.
Another major change related to health insurance is market reform, which includes a number of changes. The Patient’s Bill of Rights falls under market reform and is designed to, among other things, protect children (and eventually everyone) from obtaining coverage if they have a pre-existing medical condition. The market reforms going into effect in 2014 also prevents annual dollar limits from being set on annual medical coverage of essential benefits such as hospital, physicians and pharmacy benefits.
Under the law, if a plan includes children, a parent can cover children on their health insurance plan until the child turns 26 years old. Prevention regulations in 2014 will require new private health plans to cover certain evidence-based preventive services. Rate reviews will be put in place to improve insurer accountability and transparency.
These are just few of the reforms coming down the pipeline for employers. It is important to familiarize yourself with these upcoming changes, as your employees will have questions about how these changes will affect them. Be prepared to help them understand why costs are going up and where the blame lies so you don’t feel the brunt of it.
3. Budget now to pay new taxes in 2014.
There are a number of new federally imposed taxes that will begin in 2014. These are being put into place to offset insurance premiums, which are projected to go up across the board.
- Reinsurance Assessment fee — A flat fee to be paid 2014-2016 that applies to both insurance and self-insured plans that provide major medical coverage
- The Health Insurance Industry fee — Created to help offset cost-generating provisions of health care reform
- Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) fee — Designed to fund research that will compare different medical treatments and interventions to determine what is most effective
- Federally Facilitated Exchange User fee — Put in place to pay for access to exchanges facilitated by the federal government
Employers can’t avoid having to pay these taxes. It doesn’t matter how healthy your team is or how robust your wellness programs are, these new taxes need to be in your budget in 2014.
BOTTOM LINE: Decide who you are in your marketplace.
The most far-reaching, strategic action that business owners can take regarding health care reform is to think about what role they want to play and what impact they want to make in this new group benefits world and then act accordingly. Look at who you are in your marketplace and what you’re trying to be for your people. Ask yourself what all of this means from an employee retention and morale standpoint. What should you do in order to recruit and keep valuable employees?
If your business is small (49 employees or fewer), you have a real choice whether to offer insurance. If you choose to offer it, something else in your business will have to give to pay for the future pay increases that are inevitable. Perks such as gym memberships and paid parking spaces might become things of the past. If you’re a large group (50 or more employees) and you don’t want to offer insurance, you will be liable for a significant tax.
Aside from advocating change, business owners need to know how to handle the changes. Having a partner such as a PEO professional who can help them navigate these choppy waters is critical.
I can offer much more insight into how health care reform will affect your business. Please contact Servant HR more for a free consultation.
![Health Care Reform and Small Business: Part 2 (Types of Plans)]()
by Mike Yoder | Business Strategy, Legal Compliance, Outsourcing
Many people look at human resources as one of those things you have to do in business. It’s just the way it is. Our clients understand that human resources isn’t just an obligation — which it is to a degree — but when it’s used strategically, it can be a means to unlock opportunities and grow your business. The bottom line is, when you use a PEO, you are being strategic.
Here are six ways a PEO helps you grow your business:
1. PEOs create the freedom for you to focus on your business. PEOs like Servant HR take projects off their clients’ plates. Administrative tasks are the obvious ones. For example, the State of Indiana requires you to report all new hires. This is one of the things that can easily slip through the cracks at businesses in growth mode. When you are focused on building your infrastructure, hiring the best people and moving into new markets, tasks like reporting a new hire can get lost — and get you in trouble. When you have someone else focusing on those things, you can keep growing your business. There’s no wasted time scrambling to figure what’s required and how to fulfill the requirement. A PEO simply does it, often without our clients even knowing it’s been done. Setting up workers’ compensation is another admin task that often goes overlooked — we just do it.
2. We can help minimize potential attorney fees and wasted time. You probably have an accountant, so when you have an accounting-related question, you call your accountant. In the same way, once business leaders understand their PEO’s areas of involvement, they begin to contact them first when they are dealing with a sensitive HR-related issue.
Going directly to your PEO when you have an issue may help prevent you from wasting money on attorney fees or wasting time researching issues on your own. If we can handle the issue, we will. If we need to work with a client’s attorney to help, we will, and we will have the background information needed to inform our client’s attorney of the issue. In this way, a PEO can help look out for your bottom line.
3. PEOs work strategically with your business goals in mind. Your PEO knows your employee handbook from cover to cover – it probably helped you develop it. And it knows your company philosophy and priorities. When you are dealing with risk issues, such as a discipline challenge, business leaders can turn to their PEO to help them figure out the next steps, and those handbook details and understanding of your business play key roles in how you should strategically respond to risk-laden circumstances. PEOs advise their clients with a full understanding not only of your employee numbers but also an understanding of where you stand financially and other seemingly non-HR matters.
4. PEOs minimize risk. Entrepreneurs recognize the depth and breath of HR today. Healthcare reform helps greatly accentuate that point. All employers are intimately aware of opportunities and threats related to legislation and regulations. If you don’t follow the rules, you could conceivably lose your business in a matter of months. That doesn’t happen often, but it can happen. When you work with a PEO and have a process in place related to payroll, benefits, risk management, workers’ compensation, employee coaching and counseling services, you can keep your eye on the ball in your particular area without worrying about potential penalties or threats related to HR legislation. It’s like using an FDIC-insured bank, as a PEO assumes some of the risk related to HR issues.
Take payroll for example, if you withheld moneys for taxes and didn’t submit them to the government, it’s a federal offense. I’ve seen this happen often. Most of the time, I believe it happens by accident, but there isn’t a risk of this happening when you work with an effective PEO. As another example, you might not know about some FMLA rules that you inadvertently ignored. An employee who bears the brunt of your ignorance might bring a suit against you for failing to comply. A PEO helps take on some of the risk related to these types of issues.
5. A PEO’s process adds value in the eyes of investors. When investors are shopping for opportunities, their due diligence process is thorough. When they see that you work with a PEO, you are demonstrating that you are focused on growing your business (not HR admin tasks) and you don’t have any HR skeletons in your closet. Having a PEO’s input as a third party also can appear as more reliable than information submitted to a potential investor directly from the business seeking funds.
6. Having a PEO in place is impressive for prospective employees. For businesses that want to grow, seeking out and hiring top employees is key. When a potential hire sees that you have health care plans, direct deposit, an employee handbook and other HR-related items in place, they regard you as credible. They can see that you have your house in order as it relates to one of the most important aspects of your business – your people. A PEO helps put that internal structure in place.
If you have questions about how a PEO relationship works, please contact me, Scott Ingram, at 317-585-1688.
![Health Care Reform and Small Business: Part 2 (Types of Plans)]()
by Mike Yoder | Business Strategy, Outsourcing
Outsourcing human resources isn’t the right choice for everyone, but it is an option that all business owners should carefully consider as part of their overall growth strategy. If you’ve ever asked, “Should I outsource my HR?” following are six of the Twelve Identifiers we at Servant HR use to help prospective clients figure out whether they are a good fit for our PEO services. These indicators would be useful for any business owner considering working with a PEO. (To get the complete “Are You a Good Fit: Servant HR’s Twelve Identifiers” digital workbook, download it now for free.)
Human resources can be tricky. If you don’t make it a priority for your business, serious legal and financial repercussions can result. When an employee termination is bungled, a tax change isn’t heeded or payroll is mismanaged, that’s an HR issue. When you add a new employee, revise benefits or are faced with worker’s compensation issues, that’s HR too.
Not everyone needs to outsource their human resource services. If you own a small company that isn’t going to grow, and you don’t mind managing the paperwork and compliance issues that come with having employees, then you’re probably okay. If you don’t fit into that mold, read on to see if you identify with one or more of the following Twelve Identifiers.
Ask yourself these questions and — here’s the important part — answer each one honestly. If your answers show that you do relate to one or more of these scenarios, contact us. We would be happy to discuss your situation and see how we can help.
No. 1
You aren’t spending as much time generating revenue as you should be. As a business owner, your energy is best spent carrying out revenue-generating tasks. Getting bigger and better requires focus and time. If you need to put more energy into capturing market share, increasing sales or flexing your marketing muscle, you may need Servant HR. Would product or service improvements make you bigger
and better? Would your people be more efficient and happier if you had time to dedicate to their development? If you know that you could be more effective and work more in depth with clients if you only had more hours in your workday, outsourcing your HR might be a good option for you.
What are you not doing to improve your business or your life because you’re taking care of HR tasks? List 3 things:
1.
2.
3.
Were you able to list 3 things? If so, you should consider outsourcing your HR.
No. 2
You have more risk than you bargained for. When you’re engaged with Servant HR, you get knowledge on demand. There are real deliverables, tangible tasks and constant access to HR resources and advice. There is also the peace of mind knowing that you aren’t solely responsible for all HR-related issues. As a “co-employer,” Servant HR partners with small and mid-sized companies through an administrative employment agreement. This arrangement makes Servant HR the coemployer of all of a company’s working staff. As a result, employment responsibilities are shared between Servant HR and the client. This allows the client to manage the work performed by employees and farm out the HR obligations. Servant HR assumes responsibility for a wide range of employer responsibilities and risks; pays and reports wages and employment taxes out of its own accounts; and administers clients’ benefits to employees. Are you taking unnecessary risks? Does co-employment sound smart to you?
ASK YOURSELF:
Are you…
1. Relying on your own knowledge to make wage and hour decisions?
2. Assuming job descriptions are not necessary?
3. Assuming your forms and documents are sufficient to reduce compliance risks?
4. Under the belief that your “good relationships” with employees are sufficient to eliminate risk of lawsuits?
If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions, you are assuming too much risk as an employer
No. 3
You want to be a top employer. Your internal and external audiences know that you make a high-quality product and provide a great service, but what about your reputation as an employer? Take a look at how your employees characterize you and how current and potential clients describe you as a leader of your team. Is your business considered to be a great place to work? Managing administrative HR tasks by yourself can give the impression that you aren’t as professional as you should be. Correct that false impression.
ASK YOURSELF:
What do others think about you as an employer? List 5 adjectives:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
If these answers aren’t what you want to hear, you should consider outsourcing your HR services.
No. 4
You manage multiple vendors who handle separate HR-related services. You’re proud that you are big enough to need all of this help, but managing relationships with more than one vendor isn’t worth the hassle. Streamlining not only simplifies the situation, but it also can help you identify areas that have been falling through the cracks.
ASK YOURSELF:
What services and areas of expertise are my HR vendors providing?
If you can’t thoroughly and confidently answer this question, that’s a red flag.
No. 5
You aren’t doing what you should when it comes to worker’s comp. This is a big one. If one of your employees gets hurt on the job, are you prepared? Do you want to carry all the risk if you aren’t completely sure of your preparedness? With a barrage of forms, compliance requirements and law changes, worker’s compensation management and reporting is best left to professionals.
ASK YOURSELF:
What are you doing when it comes to worker’s comp?
If you can’t thoroughly and confidently answer this question, that’s a red flag.
No. 6
You can’t answer your employees’ HR questions. As your company grows more sophisticated, so do your employees. Can you answer the questions they are asking, or are you wasting time tracking down answers that you’re only vaguely sure are accurate? Your workforce requires a more sophisticated process and sound HR knowledge.
ASK YOURSELF:
1. What is the IRS’s differentiation between employee and independent contractor?
2. When is an employee appropriately considered salary and exempt from overtime?
3. What is enough documentary proof to terminate an employee with minimal legal risk?
4. What is the difference between PTO and vacation or sick time?
5. What criteria do you use to prioritize employee benefits decisions and compliance?
6. How do you remove a long-term employee with integrity?
7. What are employers’ federal, state and local reporting requirements?
8. How do you discipline employees without setting precedent that ties your hands in future situations?
If you can’t thoroughly and confidently answer these questions, that’s a red flag.
Congratulations! You are halfway through this self evaluation. Don’t lose your momentum. Download the complete “Are You a Good Fit: Servant HR’s Twelve Identifiers” digital workbook for free now.
