Payroll employees up in arms! It’s a leap year! 2020 is not just an election year but a year with an extra day (Sadie Hawkins day). That can be problematic as the extra day may result in one more payday than normal in the calendar year depending on when and how employees are paid. Affected employees include salaried employees who are paid weekly or bi-weekly because the number of payroll periods fluctuates based on the number of days each year. Specifically, in the year 2020, Wednesday and Thursday will occur 53 times, which means that employees who are paid weekly or bi-weekly on Wednesday or Thursday may receive an extra paycheck. Employers’ options to address this leap year payroll challenge may include (1) recalculating the annual salary in the year of an additional payroll period (i.e. smaller weekly or biweekly paycheck totals); (2) switching to a monthly pay schedule; or (3) pay as usual (perhaps considering the extra money as a raise for the current year). Employers should also account for how an extra pay period, and any employer actions taken to address the extra pay period, will impact payroll taxes or employee benefits, including 401(k) plans, Health Savings Accounts, Flexible Savings Accounts, and health plan and other premium payments. Source: Bowditch 12/12/19
Michigan issues 2020 withholding rates: Michigan has issued the 2020 withholding rate and wage-bracket tables for wages paid on and after January 1, 2020. The Michigan personal income tax withholding rate remains at 4.25% for 2020. The personal exemption amount will be $4,750.
2020 brings new minimum wages for many states: For a listing of all state minimum wage changes in 2020, click here. If you need to order new posters, click here and use the promotion code gn-ase at check out for a 15% discount.
Downside of arbitration – 5000 simultaneously? Arbitration agreements can be helpful to businesses that have lots of independent contractors, mainly because the agreements can include class action waivers. But there is a downside. The delivery app company Postmates is defending a claim of independent contractor misclassification brought by thousands of delivery drivers. They prevailed in showing that the drivers were bound by arbitration agreements with class action waivers. If the drivers wanted to proceed, they would have to arbitrate their claims one-by-one, all 5,225 of them. The plaintiffs’ firm representing the drivers filed 5,225 individual arbitration claims with AAA. Faced with having to pay $10 million in arbitration filing fees, Postmates has been trying to figure out how that would work. Can AAA even handle 5,225 simultaneous arbitrations? After Postmates missed an initial AAA payment deadline, the plaintiffs’ firm filed a motion to hold Postmates in contempt for not paying the AAA fees. As can be seen, arbitration requirements can be hazardous to a defending company’s health. Source: Baker Hostetler LLP 12/16/19
Labor shortage not limited to highly skilled workers: While there has been a lot of discourse around the shortage of high-skill workers in the U.S., a new study by TrueBlue shows a significant percentage of employers are also struggling with deficits in low-skill and middle-skill workers—and dealing with a host of business challenges as a result. According to the nationwide survey, which included nearly 1,500 managers (HR, operational, and business), skills shortages are widening across skills categories: 32% of managers can’t find workers to fill low-skill positions (generally classified as those that may or may not require a high school diploma and require little to no experience); 46% can’t find workers for middle-skill jobs (typically require some experience and continuing education such as college courses, an apprenticeship or certification, but don’t necessarily require a four-year college degree); and 35% can’t find workers for high-skill jobs (typically require a four-year degree or higher and specialized experience). Source: Trublue.com 12/6/19
Administrative jobs going away: The United States has shed over 2.1 million administrative and office support jobs since 2000, Labor Department data shows, eroding what for decades had been a reliable path to the middle class for women without college degrees. The job losses affecting administrative assistants, bookkeepers, clerks, data entry specialists, executive assistants, and secretaries have largely continued even as the economy recovered from the Great Recession, suggesting these jobs aren’t coming back. Employment in administrative support positions has fallen to 1986 levels, and the Labor Department predicts that secretaries and administrative assistants will see the largest job losses of any occupation in the coming decade. Administrative positions have been lost to automation and outsourcing. Nearly 20% of administrative assistants have moved into something else entirely, such as sales or customer service roles, LinkedIn found. “Up to about five years ago, the trend was to replace administrative work with cheaper labor in India or the Philippines,” said Phil Fersht, head of HfS Research, which works with clients on automation strategies. “The new trend is to actually replace administrative work with robotic software,” he said. “I saw a bank in Brazil recently replace 600 staff with basically a chatbot.” Source: Seattle Times 12/9/19
Federal employees to get 12 weeks of parental leave: Employees of the federal government will get 12 weeks of paid parental leave under the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act when the bill is passed and signed by the President. An agreement was reached after months of negotiations between House and Senate leaders on the National Defense Authorization Act, an annual defense spending bill. The paid parental leave measure was contentious and one of the last items to be finalized. Democrats offered resistant Republicans support for the creation of Trump's coveted space force in exchange for the parental leave measure. But the new family support measure falls short of what some advocates wanted: Paid leave to care for in-need family members beyond new children, such as a spouse or parent. Are the states next? Source: NBC 12/10/19
Penetration of noncompetes for employment requirement: The Economic Policy Institute says that at least 27.8% of the private-sector workforce—at least 36 million workers—are forced to enter noncompete agreements. That estimate confirms the pervasiveness of noncompete agreements. The new report also shows a substantial rise in noncompetes compared with a 2014 survey, which found that 18.1% of workers were covered by noncompetes. The report, authored by Alexander J.S. Colvin from Cornell University and EPI’s Policy Director Heidi Shierholz, uses data from a national survey of private-sector U.S. employers in which 49.4% of responding establishments indicated that at least some of their employees were required to enter into a noncompete agreement. Nearly a third (31.8%) of responding establishments said that all their employees were required to enter into a noncompete agreement. The report’s authors see the rise of noncompetes as a disturbing trend. "Noncompetes limit competition among businesses and stifle workers’ wage growth—given that changing jobs is where workers often get a raise," Colvin said. "These restrictive agreements are not only inflicted upon high-wage workers, but also low-wage workers living paycheck-to-paycheck. The rise of noncompetes is likely an important contributor to stagnant wages and declining job mobility in the United States in recent years." Source: CCH 12/12/19
Do you offer an unboarding program for those retiring? For financial wellness programs, when employees near retirement, the training tends to be superficial. What’s needed, then, is a thorough “unboarding” program for the end of one’s career that compliments the onboarding program experienced at the beginning of one’s career. In addition to the usual budgeting, goal-setting, and withdrawal logistics, an “unboarding” program should also deal with the psychological elements of retirement. These might include: recognizing the social aspect of fulltime work and identifying suitable replacement substitutes; determining your broader purpose of life so you grasp that you are living for something; and, last but not least, undergoing a process that allows you to accept that you are no longer in a savings mode, but in a spending mode. These types of programs can lead to greater retention and build employee brand. Source: Fiduciary news 12/11/19