• The HR Specialist - Print Newsletter
  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
  • The HR Weekly

Compensation & Benefits

Warm thoughts and flip-flops: Plan for summer pay problems

04/17/2024
Before you start daydreaming about the former and wearing the latter, you need to consider how the onset of summer affects your payroll operations. Here are the key wage-and-hour rules you need to know.

New salary-level regs are coming soon

04/17/2024
For technical reasons, regulations raising the guaranteed salary you must pay employees to maintain their exempt status under the Fair Labor Standards Act need to be released by the middle of this month. You’ve been preparing for these regs for some time. This is your final check to ensure you treat employees who are reclassified as nonexempt properly.

Please don’t pet the frogs

04/17/2024
Employees who send their kids to day camp can reap a double bonus: Their kids will be entertained and their dependent care assistance plans can pick up some of the cost, up to the $5,000 annual limit.

Payroll pro & con: Switching third-party providers

04/17/2024
Outsourcing payroll operations to a third party is a common business strategy. Of course, you remain liable to the IRS and state tax agencies if your third-party payroll provider gets it wrong and there’s no indemnity clause in your service contract. You may also find yourself needing to switch providers. How do you evaluate a third party if you’re thinking of switching?

It’s a blizzard out there!

04/17/2024
Payroll managers whose companies take on summer hires know the feeling. Questions about W-4s and I-9s from new members of the tax-paying community are just the beginning. Use this checklist to bring order to the summer hiring process.

Direct deposit is a success; you should be worried

04/17/2024
Congratulations: Upwards of 90% of employees have their pay direct deposited. Your job now is to keep them there. To do this, you must confront four interlocking challenges: hacking, mistakes, technology and state laws allowing employees to opt out and receive paper checks.

Summer hires: Keeping it all in the family

04/17/2024
Family businesses usually don’t have to look very far for summer employees. And while hiring your kids can pay dividends for both of you, don’t make the same mistakes many family businesses make when they hire their kids: picking up their credit card bills or other personal expenses, calling them wages and deducting them as salary expenses.

Help employees build rainy-day funds by offering Pension-Linked Emergency Savings Accounts

04/15/2024
The precarious financial situation in which many workers find themselves is often reflected in high levels of stress, poor sleep and general worry—all factors that can negatively affect productivity and job performance at work. Fortunately, there’s a potential solution that employers can make part of their benefits package.

It’s America Saves Week!

04/11/2024
Let’s explore some of the financial wellness benefits employees say they want now. HR and Payroll should work together to offer the right mix of benefits to recruit and retain talented employees, with the correct tax outcome.

New college grads can expect higher pay than last year

04/08/2024
With an overall projected average salary of $76,736, engineering graduates are expected to be the class of 2024’s top-paid majors. That is a 3.1% increase over last year’s projections.