A healthy and efficient workforce is paramount for business owners to keep operations running smoothly, yet injury in the workplace is all too common. According to the National Safety Council, a worker is injured on the job every seven seconds. It’s essential to create a culture of safety to minimize workplace injury as well as lower your workers’ compensation rates and limit violations for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Follow these workplace safety tips to build a more secure workplace for your company.

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It’s easy to recognize certain milestones, but it’s not as simple to think ahead and avoid growing pains. Reaching the 50-employee threshold is a momentous occasion, but it also means that it’s time to consider some potential changes. Aside from taking the right steps to make sure your company is compliant with federal and state laws – don’t worry, we cover compliance considerations in another post – here are five ways to prepare your business for growth.

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Payroll management is no simple task. Regardless of whether your workforce is 50 strong or you can count the number of employees on two hands, there are lots of employees and documents to keep track of and failure to do so could result in serious penalties and fines. To help, we’ve put together a guide for better managing payroll records.

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The 50-employee mark is more than just a milestone; it’s also an important number for some major regulation requirements. Once your business has 50 full-time employees, various federal and state laws become mandatory, which can wreak havoc on your business if you don’t prepare for them. Here’s what your business needs to do to stay compliant once it reaches 50 full-time employees. 

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Broken bones, muscle strains, burns, cuts, and lacerations—injuries at work happen all too frequently. According to the National Safety Council, a worker is injured on the job every seven seconds.

Does your organization have a workers’ compensation strategy? As a small or mid-size business, you might think you have it under control and can brush it under the rug until the unfortunate happens. Or, perhaps the very fear of “what if” keeps you up at all hours of the night.

Either way, business owners have a lot to lose when they don’t have the resources to properly handle a workers’ compensation claim. See what you can learn from these two real-life stories involving workers’ compensation claims below.

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When Donald Trump ran for the Presidency in 2016, a major plank of his platform was the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act. In fact, pretty much every Republican in 2016 ran on that promise.

In the summer of 2017, several Republican Senators and every Democrat Senator torpedoed that promise by not agreeing to a plan. Since then, this administration has made several attempts to sink the ACA where they could.

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As an employer, you have a responsibility to handle every step of your business’ payroll. One of the more notable steps is handling the tax deductions that are withheld from every employee’s gross wages. To help, we’ve put together some pointers on how you can calculate the various deductions found on each paycheck.

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The Department of Labor announced a proposal in early March to change the salary-level threshold for white-collar exemptions. This move comes more than two years after a federal judge blocked another attempt to update the threshold for overtime eligibility, although the details of the proposal differ from the 2016 proposal.

The current salary-level threshold for white-collar exemptions is $23,600 annually, which equates to $455 per week. The DoL’s new proposal seeks to increase the threshold to $35,308 annually ($679 per week) – nearly halfway to the DoL’s 2016 target threshold of $47,476 ($913 per week).

While the new proposal is notably lower than the blocked attempt, it still marks a nearly 50 percent increase from the current wage threshold. As a result, the DoL “estimates that 1.1 million currently exempt employees who earn at least $455 per week but less than the proposed standard salary level of $679 per week would, without some intervening action by their employers, become eligible for overtime.” That’s a notable change that can have a direct impact on your employee’s compensation.

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Human resources are one of the most important components of any small business. However, the responsibilities often fall to the owner or an executive, as many small businesses don’t have the capacity for a designated HR department or full-time employee. Often, managing these HR functions in-house creates many challenges. 

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Who doesn’t love payday? For many employees, payday makes them feel better than Christmas. As a small business owner, you have the freedom to decide how to handle payroll at your organization. Talk about a huge responsibility. It’s important to get it right, as payroll done wrong can cost a small business owner time and money. 

There are a few different methods for distributing employee pay, but savvy business owners find that electronic payroll methods like direct deposit and payroll cards streamline the process and keep employees satisfied. We explored the different types of payment methods to help you determine the best payroll solution for your business.

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