Senate Health Bill 1.2 and repeal of Obamacare both dead, but not buried:  Four Republican senators have publically opposed the updated senate health care bill.  That bill would have included some modifications to the original.  These modifications include the ability for insurance companies to see stripped down (skinny) plans as long as one plan covers all essential health benefits; maintains the high income earner taxation; allows insurers to consider pre-existing condition in plans offered as long as one does not; and allows for people to count the time on a skinny plan as part of the six month break in coverage.  The Medicare funding and healthcare taxes are dividing the Republican senators. Click here for an updated comparison chart.  Obamacare repeal was proposed by the senate Republicans as another alternative, and three Republican senators have opposed that as well.  Source: Washington Post 7/13/17

Form 5500 due July 31: The Form 5500 is an annual report that must be filed for every employee benefit plan that covers 100 or more participants. For calendar year plans, these forms must be filed by July 31, 2017.  There are penalties for noncompliance:  IRS penalties for late filing are $25 per day up to a maximum of $15,000; DOL penalties: Late filers: $50 per day (no maximum); Non-filers: $300 per day (up to $30,000 per year); Civil Penalty: up to $2,097 per day (no maximum) for failing or refusing to file a complete and accurate Form 5500; and Willful Violations: up to a $100,000 fine and/or imprisonment up to 10 years.  Source: Ford Harrison 7/6/17

If you don’t keep records, someone will:  Tricia Papesh was hired on May 23, 2012 by Watson & Taylor Management, Inc. to manage a self-storage facility in Webster, Texas. At that time she was paid $12.00 per hour. Watson & Taylor transferred its employees to Move It Management, LLC (MIM) in April, 2013. Papesh remained employed as the manager of the same self-storage facility, and her pay was increased to $14.00 per hour. Throughout her employment Papesh was required to enter her time through a computer timekeeping program managed by a professional employment organization.  On several occasions, Papesh requested corrections to her time sheets after submission. From January 2013 through April 2015, she was paid for approximately 720 overtime hours. She was terminated on May 22, 2015.  She sued for overtime not paid.  Under company policy, “off the clock” work was prohibited and employees were instructed to notify supervisors or an HR specialist if instructed not to properly record hours. The company moved for summary judgement and lost.  Based on a storage facility manager’s affidavit stating that she worked overtime but was discouraged from reporting all of it, as well as voluminous phone records she maintained of after-hours calls by supervisors, the court denied summary judgement.  Source: Papesh v. Move It Management, No. H-15-3195 (U.S. District Court, S.D. Texas, June 5, 2017)

Smart phones a hindrance at work? According to a recent CareerBuilder survey, 88% of employees have smart phones, and 77% of them keep their phones within reach at work. Workers admit to using them throughout the day – 39% check their phone several times a day. Employers are worried about the effect smartphones and other productivity killers have on the workplace. Over half of employers (53%) think their company loses between one and two hours of productivity a day because employees are distracted. According to employers, the biggest productivity killers are:  cell phone/texting: 49%; the Internet: 38%; social media: 37%; gossip: 35%; email: 29%; co-workers dropping by: 24%; and smoke breaks or snack breaks: 25%.  Source:  CareerBuilder 6/29/17

Family commitment helps getting through the boring job:   A study found that employees who feel their work helps support their families are more productive and energized about their jobs, even when they stand to gain little for themselves.  The study collected survey and diary data from about 100 women who perform rote accounting tasks in an office that processes coupon payments for merchants, just south of the U.S.-Mexico border. The workers scan bar codes on coupons shipped from American retailers to ensure the products have been accurately counted and categorized by the supplier and seller. The job involves employees manually processing hundreds of coupons each day with little variation.  Researchers interviewed the women about their motivation on the job and also tracked how many coupons each woman processed. The women also filled out surveys about their stress and energy levels over a period of two weeks.  The study found that workers who reported the most energy and processed the largest number coupons, despite disliking the work itself, were those who felt a strong commitment to family, which could include spouses, children, parents, cousins or other kin. Those women processed about 10% more coupons a week than employees who reported less family-driven motivation.  Source: The Wall Street Journal 6/20/17

Having a CEO with a law degree is more likely to avoid lawsuits: The authors of the study, who hail from the University of Chicago, Florida State University and SUNY at Stony Brook, looked at the educational background of 3,500 CEOs paired to 2,400 of the biggest public companies, then dug into the results of 70,000 lawsuits over a 20-year period.  “We find that firms run by CEOs with legal expertise are indeed associated with less corporate litigation. In our baseline analysis of nine types of common corporate litigation, these firms exhibit lower frequency of antitrust, employment civil rights, contract, labor, securities and personal injury litigation,” wrote Todd Henderson, Irena Hutton, Danling Jiang and Matthew Pierson. Moreover, lawyer-CEOs are “also associated with a lower proportion of lost and settled litigation.”  Does that mean lawyer CEOS are better bosses overall?  It turns out, lawyers make really good chief executives “only in settings where litigation is a significant concern or legal guidance is important,” like at pharmaceutical companies, having a lawyer at the helm is associated with higher corporate value. Maybe we all should go to law school.   Source: law.com 7/12/17