Ban the box laws and fair chance hiring legislation is sweeping the nation and pretty soon, you’ll be told who you’ll hire. Think I’m crazy? I am….but I’m not wrong. If you are going to do background checks despite the risks, you’d better know the best practices so you don’t get sued! What is “Ban the…

Use of a criminal history in making employment decisions, might violate the prohibition against employment discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 In the last episode we talked about reasons why you should, and some reasons why you shouldn’t, conduct background checks. On this episode we look at the different types and what the government…

Once you decide to go into business, your rights are restricted and your responsibilities are rife. Background checks can be a valuable tool in the hiring process. Unfortunately, they can also lead to you unwittingly discriminating and thereby violating any one of the many, many federal laws designed to protect individuals who’ve had some type…

“How do you know your employees even understood that training?” Scott is co-founder of Safety Management Services, Inc., or SMS, an international provider of risk management services to a wide range of commercial clients and government agencies. This episode is part 2 (the final part) of my interview with Scott Genta. SMS Highlights: Recap from part…

Scott goes beyond the low hanging auditor fruit when he conducts a site audit. Scott is co-founder of Safety Management Services, Inc., or SMS, an international provider of risk management services to a wide range of commercial clients and government agencies. Scott recently spent over 2 years in Australia on a special project related to the…

Household debt is a major reason why so many Americans are in the financial ditch. It’s no secret that the majority of your employees live paycheck to paycheck, and not surprising that they’d suffer a significant financial setback if they missed just one payday. MarketWatch says most Americans have less than $1,000 in savings and…

Keeping track of actual time worked is crucial to compliance One of the hidden costs of employment is keeping track of who showed up, where they are, when they arrived, and how much time they spent working. Aside from the administrative expense of it, you’re also faced with costly unintentional errors and employee fraud, like…

Your best option, as a small employer, is to join a Professional Employer Organization. Do you know how much your “all-in” cost is to employ someone? It’s much more than you think. The obvious costs are wages, payroll taxes and insurance premiums. What’s not so obvious are your administrative expenses. Even before you hire someone…

The NLRB and DOL are battling franchisors over joint-employer status. I’ve been on this subject now for the past two episodes and I’m not ready to move on yet. The more I dig, the more I find. And what I’ve found is the National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB, is on a witch hunt to…

The NLRB has paved the way for other federal agencies to apply this joint-employer standard to the laws they regulate and enforce. Welcome to episode 61. Today, you’ll learn how the National Labor Relations Board (the “NLRB”) has expanded their interpretation of the pre-existing joint-employer definition to hold both temporary staffing firms and their clients, responsible for…