It’s a staple of office small talk, one of the first things we check when considering a new job, and a necessary evil for an overwhelming majority of American workers: the commute. While more and more companies are offering remote positions and flexible work-from-home options, the U.S. Census Bureau recently announced that the average commute is still hovering around 25 minutes. The fact that this hasn’t decreased significantly with the rise of telework tells us that while more Americans are working from home, more are also hunkering down for longer trips to and from the office.
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Topics:
wellness,
workplace culture,
commute,
flexibility in the workplace,
Work Remotely,
Work From Home
Despite most companies implementing corporate wellness programs, bringing in the standing desks, and swapping out the coffee and donuts for more nutritional office snacks, the American workplace still isn’t the healthiest environment for us. The modern employee still spends most of a stressful eight-hour day sitting in a chair and staring at a screen—not exactly an active lifestyle—and employers are paying for it. In fact, the Center for Disease Control estimates that companies pay more than $3 trillion in healthcare costs to combat chronic illnesses and conditions.
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Topics:
productivity,
HR Elements,
Health Coaches,
HR
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released final instructions for both the 1094-B and 1095-B forms and the 1094-C and 1095-C forms and the final forms for 1094-B, 1095-B, 1094-C, and 1095-C. There are no substantive changes in the forms or instructions between 2018 and 2019.
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Topics:
ACA,
IRS,
compliance recap,
Penalty Relief
How does your HR department make key decisions? Your personal experience? Cold, hard data? An educated guess? Gut feeling? All of the above?
Making major HR decisions is difficult. There are countless dependencies and variables, especially when you’re unsure what the future holds. That’s why more and more companies are turning to predictive analytics to predict outcomes for their business and plan accordingly.
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Topics:
employee engagement,
recruitment,
HR Elements,
Workforce Analytics
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a proposed rule on the importation of certain drugs from Canada.
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Topics:
prescription drugs,
compliance recap,
FDA
In the late 2000s, major headlines concerning the economy and jobs were usually related to unemployment. Qualified people might struggle to get an interview or retain a position in a volatile job market. This was especially true for millennials graduating college at the height of the most recent financial recession in 2008. But unemployment is at a historic low here in the new decade, so it’s no longer the employee struggling to find a good fit—it’s the employer.
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Topics:
workplace culture,
employee benefit plans,
HR Elements,
attracting talent
With February’s arrival, we find ourselves in the midst of the winter doldrums: the holidays are far in the rearview mirror, the once-exciting sight of falling snow has lost its charm, and it feels like it's been ages since we’ve felt the sun.
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Topics:
wellness,
exercise,
healthy eating,
health,
outdoors
As background, in 2018, 20 states filed a lawsuit asking the U.S. District for the Northern District of Texas (District Court) to strike down the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) entirely. The lawsuit came after the U.S. Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) that reduced the individual mandate penalty to $0, starting in 2019.
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Topics:
ACA,
compliance recap,
Tax Cuts,
TCJA,
Constitutionality
In the not-too-distant past, an individual’s salary was a topic to be avoided. Bringing it up in the break room or at a dinner party was a major faux pas, almost taboo. But today, many HR departments are implementing more pay transparency into their policies—some even going as far as posting every employee’s salary.
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Topics:
HR Elements,
Pay Scale,
Pay Transparency,
Retention
On December 20, 2019, President Trump signed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020 (Act) to keep the federal government running through September 2020. The Act significantly affects provisions under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), largely though one fee extension and the repeal of three taxes.
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Topics:
FMLA,
ACA,
Consolidated Appropriations Act,
compliance recap
