In January of this year, the Federal Government began enforcement of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for those employers with 100 or more employees. Next year, those employers with 50 or more employees will have to begin compliance with the law as well.
In a recent article on workforce.com, HR managers in large companies talked about the difficulties in compliance when it comes to calculating hours. What was troublesome for them was people who took unpaid leave under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) or Re-employment Rights Act or even jury duty and how those hours would be calculated in determining healthcare eligibility. Because of that, “60 percent of large companies with more than 1,000 employees indicated that they aren’t prepared for penalty management under the ACA.”
Photo Credit: “Affordable Care Act” by Michael Havens is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0
If you’re under 100 employees, you may think this isn’t a concern of yours. Yet, as an employer with 50 or more employees, obviously you have to comply with the FMLA (you knew that, right?). You’re probably also a civic-minded person who doesn’t object to employees having to do jury duty. These are things that need to be factored into your equation. If a large company with the resources and manpower to address these things is struggling, what is the likelihood of your business struggling?
On top of that, you will need to have Finance involved to test for the accuracy of the data that you’ll be using to report next year. That calls for a level of communication between benefits and payroll that you may never have had to address before.
That’s where a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) like Group Management Services (GMS) can help. If you want to see how GMS has been helping employers brace for the coming effects of the ACA and how they can help you, give us a call at 888-823-2084 or contact us online.