Managing your Salaried Workforce

HCM systems need to not only be effective at managing your hourly workforce, but your salaried workforce as well.   Your technology solution should automate managing your compliance risk and financial exposure.

Minimize labor compliance risk:  FLSA, FMLA and ACA apply across your entire workforce.   Technology should help you create a culture of compliance and accountability. 

Manage accrued benefits:  you need to track accruals for your salaried employees, not just your hourly employees.   Automating time off requests and tracking the usage of accrued benefits can help you control accrued benefits liabilities when employees leave your organization.

Automation is the key:   managing employees and assuring regulatory compliance is difficult.  Make sure your HCM solution addresses the complexities of salaried workforce management.

Mosaic’s Workforce One HCM system is a highly customizable platform that allows you to accomplish all those goals.  When you are ready to learn more about how your organization can benefit from a full HCM solution, contact us at info@mosaices.com or 877-749-1975.

Four Approaches to Managing the Impact of the DOL Overtime Rule Changes

To comply with the Department of Labor’s overtime legislation, all employers must decide whether their salaried employees will be exempt or non-exempt from overtime by December 1^st of this year.  The DOL predicts the new regulation will cost private employers in the neighborhood of $1.8 billion in 2017.

There are four basic scenarios that employees will encounter in the coming months:

1. They will be paid the exempt base salary of at least $47,476 per year
2. They will be reclassified as an hourly employee and eligible for overtime compensation
3. They will be kept at their current salary level and payed for any overtime hours
4. Their typical overtime hours will be factored into a 40-hour work week to convert their current salary base into an hourly wage

Although these four scenarios differ greatly from one another, employers can navigate each one of them effectively if they follow the corresponding four phase engagement process.

Phase I – Employee Reclassification Checklist

1. Initiate a formal review of job descriptions to confirm exempt or non-exempt status
2. Review employee benefits, eligibility, and plan design
3. Retool employee handbook and policies (meal breaks, overtime, working from home, etc.)
4. Analyze workload  and overtime alert procedures to minimize overtime exposure
5. Firm-up hours, tracking expectations, and engagement goals for exempt supervisors
6. Restructure commission and non-discretionary bonus impact (only 10% qualify as salary)

Phase II – Employee Perception

1. Foresee various reactions from employees
2. Acknowledge that some employees will see this as a demotion, while others will see it as beneficial
3. Combat the negative stigma that comes with being salaried and then having to track hours
4. Anticipate negative employee feelings and determine how the employees, who have converted to hourly, fit within the new structure

Phase III – Employer Messaging

1. Propose an introductory meeting prior to December 1^st to notify employees of impending changes
2. Address the group as a whole concerning fairness and equality issues
3. Encourage follow-up communications and be prepared for informal employee inquiries
4. Issue the new policy with an updated employee handbook
5. Sample pay-stub layout for each affected employee
6. Reinforce employee value to company operations, explain rule is mandated by federal law
7. Update Job Description and Employee Acknowledgment signature

Phase IV – Employer Opportunity

1. Increase employee transparency with hours tracking
2. Improve performance reviews, productivity, and job cost
3. Minimize the risk of missing important issues that typically come to light for hourly employees

Although there is a lot of negative buzz concerning The DOL’s new overtime legislation, there is potential upside for employers. The DOL has prompted the need for a formal reset of how time is tracked and how jobs get done. If employers are able to comply with this legislation and minimize employee unrest simultaneously, they will be able to increase productivity and augment their bottom-line.

If you have any questions about this new overtime legislation or would like to talk with an expert to learn how Mosaic can help you navigate it successfully, call (303) 645-4270 or visit www.mosaices.com.

       

The Growing Cost of Ever-Increasing Benefits Administration Complexity

Health insurance premiums are expected to continue to increase:

• 77% of employers expect the Affordable Care Act will increase their company's health care costs dramatically
• 2017 premium increases are projected to be the largest in recent history (InternationalFoundation Survey)

Benefits administration complexities and increasing premiums are elevating the risk that your benefits cost will rise faster than the rate of overall premium growth.  To avoid this risk, you must carefully manage your employee benefits.  

Inaccurate or missed premium deductions are expensive, but fixable.  Understanding the causes of increasing benefits cost is half the battle.  Some of the most common causes include:  

• Competing payroll timetables vs. carrier cut-off dates and retroactive limits
• Challenges recovering lost premium dollars after the fact
• On-going age-banded rate adjustments
• Carrier customer service challenges (poor communication and follow-up)
• Numerous carrier invoice delivery methods (electronic and paper), including confusing self-bill invoices
• Inefficient, outdated, and inaccurate carrier technologies
• Matching plan premiums with employee pre- and post-tax deductions
• Competing demands of payroll and carrier invoice deadlines
• Post open-enrollment and renewal invoice confusion

Mosaic HR Services delivers customized solutions that save you time, increase accuracy, and manage your premium costs.  Our benefits administration solutions are designed to complement your benefit administration strategy. To learn more and to see how Mosaic HR Services' benefits administration service can help, visit www.mosaices.com/mosaic-hr or talk with an expert at (303) 645-4270.  

The Power of a Single-Platform HCM System

Organizations are quickly moving away from disparate workforce management systems that attempt to share data through integrations that are slow and unreliable.  The best Human Capital Management systems are those that house Human Resources Information Systems, Payroll, and Time and Labor Management functionality on a single-platform with a single database and a single user interface.  Integration between disparate systems is not only inefficient, it is becoming impractical in today's complex employment environment.  A single-platform HCM system is now the industry standard for managing your workforce.  

Benefits of a single-platform HCM solution:  

• Electronic Forms - Deploy your forms and allow employees to complete and sign them electronically.  Schedule forms for completion and the system will manage employee compliance.  Save the forms in the system for easy retrieval from any functional area of the platform.  
• HR Actions - Automate process and activities so that the software guides employees through the process.  Automatically update payroll when HR actions change benefits or payroll information.  
• Workflows - Processes that require the involvement of multiple people, including approvals, can be automatically directed by the software using the workflows that match your requirements.  Workflows can be implemented for electronic forms, HR actions, applicant tracking, employee onboarding, and other processes you want to automate.  
• Applicant Tracking - Candidates can view your job openings and apply directly through your platform and track their progress to hire.  When an applicant is hired, you can automatically make the applicant an employee without migrating, or worse, manually entering employee data captured during the application process.
• Onboarding - When an applicant is hired, the employee can review and electronically sign forms directly within the system and be immediately activated as a hired employee.  Tasks can be assigned to other employees to provision the new hire's work environment.  
• Performance Management - Manage your employee review process natively within the system.  
• Other areas of an all-encompassing HCM platform:  
• Training and Certification Tracking
• Asset Management
• Online Benefits Enrollment and EDI Carrier Feeds
• Workers Compensation Tracking
• FMLA
• Turnover, Job History, and Position Management
• Skills, Education, and Credentials Tracking
• Compensation Management

Single-platform HCM systems are imperative to comply and thrive in an employment landscape that is increasingly complex.  To learn more and to see how Mosaic's Workforce One platform can help, visit www.mosaices.com or talk with an expert at (303) 645-4270.  

Department of Labor Overtime Changes and Automated Time and Labor Management

The Department of Labor recently increased the earnings threshold for employees to be classified as exempt from overtime compensation.  This will require that employers evaluate their systems for tracking time worked.  This change is just one of the many ways state and federal regulators are elevating their oversight of how employers compensate their non-exempt employees.  To minimize compliance risk, employers need to evaluate their systems for tracking time worked and appropriately pay overtime to eligible employees.

The complexity of managing and paying employees in today’s highly regulated employment environment requires a comprehensive system that does not rely on the integration of separate systems.  Mosaic’s Workforce One platform has the payroll, time and labor, and human resources capabilities employers need, all housed on one database and one application.

Workforce One delivers enterprise-class time and labor management capabilities including:

• Sophisticated Pay Calculation Engine supporting more than 250 calculation rules
• Multiple-EIN functionality that supports employees working in more than one legal entity
• Custom Overtime Flags
• Approaching Overtime Email Triggers
• Multiple Time Collection Profiles
• Overtime Requests
• Daily/Weekly Overtime Reports and Notifications
• Discretionary Bonus Calculations
• Quarterly Salary Level Reporting
• Catch-up Payment Support
• Blended Hours Overtime
• Weighted Average Overtime
• Tipped Overtime
• Multiple Pay Rates – Individualized or Global Rate Tables
• Workday Breakdown
• Scheduling Application

How will the Department of Labor’s Overtime Rule impact your organization and what steps should you take to ensure compliance by December 1^st? If you have any questions about this new overtime legislation or would like to see how Mosaic can help you navigate it successfully, call (303) 645-4270 or visit www.mosaices.com. 

6 Strategies to Retain and Engage Employees

In a recent study from the Energy Project (2013-2014) only 7% of employees have their core needs met at work with slightly over 59% surveyed not having any core needs met.  There were four core needs measured in this survey: renewal (physical), value (emotional), focus (mental), and purpose (spiritual).  These statistics are staggering given the fact that employees spend approximately 80% of their work week interfacing with clients.  If employees are not growing and being nurtured, can it be expected that they will be able to delight clients by helping them thrive?  Attracting top talent continues to be a key component of any company’s strategy.  However, the ways in which top talent is recruited and retained is a hot topic that is largely debated in today’s literature.  Too many companies hire good people only to let them flounder once they come aboard.

Quality onboarding practices embraces ideas such as making new hires aware of company history, their specific services that are unique to the marketplace, and intensive job-specific training.  Driving high performance, creating a common language across the company, and strong cultural buy-in are essentials in today’s employment landscape.

In the last several years, employee dissatisfaction has become a major hot-button issue for many employers.  This is supported by a Kelly Services survey that reports that around 44% of respondents feel valued by their employer, yet they actively are looking for better job opportunities.  Employees who are content with their current position are actively seeking greater meaning and engagement from their positions; an attitude and activity that must be nurtured and encouraged. 

Here are 6 strategies to increase retention and engagement amongst employees:

1. People want to be valued, cared about, listened to, appreciated, respected, and involved. These values directly relate to basic human needs that, if nurtured, will contribute to an employee that exhibits ‘leadership from the heart’.
2.  ‘Face to Face’ appreciation for a job well done carries clout and strengthens workplace relationships.  People need to feel that their work is valuable and makes an impact. 
3. Create a healthy work environment by committing to positively blend the different generational needs and values of the workforce to leverage their diverse strengths of knowledge and skills towards productive activity.
4. Set reasonable expectations for work-life balance and affirm them with positive reinforcement and incentives.
5. Communicate company values and strategy often to maximize employee buy-in.
6. Encourage creative out-of-the box thinking.  Let employees know you’re receptive to new ideas.

Your employees directly affect client experience and the bottom line. The moral of the story is if a company does right by the employees, they will do right by the clients, and new business will follow as a consequence.  A simple statement that requires a complex approach.  

The Ugly Truth about Affordable Care Act Compliance

Many employers do not have the systems in place to support efficient compliance with the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  Deploying the right solution is critical given the requirement that 1095-C forms need to be delivered to employees by January 31^st.  The ugly truth of ACA compliance is that it will remain painful for employers until they embrace technology that can make compliance truly efficient and accurate.

An efficient solution for ACA compliance must have four core capabilities:

1. Track the data necessary for reporting compliance:

• Group health premiums, coverage dates and, for self-funded plans, dependent information
• Compensation data (payroll)
• Time (hours worked)

2. Aggregate the data:

• If the required data lives in disparate systems (Human Resources, Payroll, Benefits, and Time Keeping) it must be aggregated to present a clear, timely, and accurate picture of ACA status in real time.  Aggregating this data is hard enough to do at the end of the year, not to mention continuously to support real-time decision making
• If employers are members of a control group (related employers that consist of more than one legal entity), data must be aggregated for the entire control group

3. Measure and analyze the data to support real-time decision making throughout the year:

• Alert the employer when employees attain or lose coverage eligibility
• Understand affordability to avoid substantial penalties for not offering affordable coverage

4. Report the required data to employees and the IRS each January for the preceding year:

• Self-insured plans must complete Section III of the 1095-C form and therefore must track and report dependent information
• Large employers (250 or more employees) must report data to the IRS electronically using the IRS AIR reporting system

Can your technology efficiently deliver on the requirements of the ACA during the 31 days of January?

Mosaic’s Workforce One platform is uniquely positioned to address ACA compliance.  Workforce One is a comprehensive workforce management system that has the Human Resources, Payroll, Benefits, and Time Keeping capabilities the ACA requires – all delivered on a single database with a single user- interface.  

If you would like to see how Workforce One can take the ugly out of ACA compliance, call (303) 645-4270 or visit www.mosaices.com.

5 Reasons to Outsource Benefits Administration Tasks

Employee benefits administration outsourcing is becoming a large and growing part of an employer’s overall business strategy.  Turning benefits administration from a back office function over to a trusted administrator can promote efficiency, increase compliance, and improve overall employee satisfaction.  If not done well, employees may feel the company doesn’t care about them and that can put a company at risk.

The following are 5 important reasons to outsource benefit administration responsibilities:

1. Right-sizes your staff. Outsourcing benefits administration can free up HR resources.  Existing HR personnel can now focus on more strategic activities, such as shortening response time for employee concerns, increasing employee engagement and retention, and recruiting top talent. 

2. Makes expertise affordable. A benefits outsourcing company can give you access to a superior level of talent and knowledge without taking on the expense of an in-house benefits expert.  Hiring in-house benefits expertise doesn’t come cheap and is often out of reach for small to medium sized businesses. 

3. Boosts efficiency. A great employee benefits administration outsourcing company can help employers streamline their processes and find ways to reduce over and underpayment of premiums for insurance plans and other programs. They can also help employers create effective employee benefit communications. 

4. Reduces exposure. Outsourcing benefits administration can reduce liability in the case of mistakes.  It also protects companies by implementing ‘objective checks and balances’ between management and those who make the day to day decisions about terminations.

5. Upgrading technology. Working with an outsourcing company gives organizations the opportunity to upgrade their technology without incurring big investments in IT infrastructure.  Consumer attitudes toward technology have become far more sophisticated in recent years, and those expectations extend to how workplace benefits are administered.  Employees expect well-designed online benefit enrollment systems that they can access from anywhere, 24/7.  Building such a site internally -- with the security headaches involved when managing sensitive healthcare data -- is a massive undertaking.  A benefits administration company has already done that work in advance.  The best companies can even tailor the site with your branding and messages.

Health and welfare benefits is one of the largest and fastest growing expenses incurred by organizations today.  From open enrollments, onboarding new benefited employees, managing payroll benefits deductions up to and including COBRA; outsourcing benefit administration tasks is increasingly becoming a compelling and viable strategy.

For more information regarding MosaicHR’s benefits administration outsourcing, contact us at (303) 645-4270 or visit www.mosaices.com.

The Trend Towards the Cloud Continues

It’s easy to forget that companies are still using on-premise solutions when you see cloud adoption rates over the past few years. In fact, according to Gartner, the traditional deployment model for on-premises software is expected to significantly shrink from 34 percent today to 18 percent by 2017. With this data, we can assume that 82 percent of all software deployments will be in the cloud in the next two years. And if you’re not providing a SaaS-based solution, you’re limiting your company to a fraction of the sales you could be generating.

We’re in the midst of something of a computing revolution. It’s comparable to how products were built and distributed prior to the industrial revolution versus after the industrial revolution. The cloud is continually a topic across the internet and it will not be losing traction anytime soon.

Cloud is constantly being covered as a trend – especially in the small and midsize business (SMB) space. But why?

Because it’s simple.

When we look at cloud vs. on-premise solutions, there are a number of reasons leveraging a cloud, or more specifically software as a service (SaaS), based solution is much easier not only for SMBs, but larger organizations as well.

Here are 7 reasons why cloud-based solutions are helping businesses thrive and how they will continue to do so into the future:

1. Upfront costs are minimal.
   • Outside of an implementation fee, there’s nothing to pay for upfront. SaaS uses the same model as your electric company or cable provider – it’s simply a month-to-month payment for the service you provide, which typically allows customers to cancel at any time. The perpetual license constraints no longer have to be a problem or risk for your prospects.
2. Installation isn’t necessary.
   • Leveraging a new solution no longer has to be the major undertaking it was in the past for customers. As a result, leveraging a new solution can provide an incredibly short time to value for the customer, allowing ROI to be realized much faster.
3. Hardware doesn’t exist.
   • Unless we’re talking about employees clocking in and out on a computer or a time clock, the need for hardware no longer exits. The entire solution is accessible on the web via a browser.
4. Maintenance isn’t required.
   • Security, reliability, availability, performance, and infrastructure, oh my! These don’t have to consume your thoughts and create that stress knot in your back anymore. They’re all covered by the service-level agreement (SLA) guaranteed by the vendor you partner with.
5. Data backups are no longer your problem.
   • The risk of data loss is mitigated with SaaS. With an on-premise solution, if your location was hit by a natural disaster and flooded for instance, the businesses solutions would be inoperable. With SaaS your data is always accessible from anywhere at any time, and if the vendor’s data center is taken down, you can confirm with the SLA that there is a warm standby facility ready to go that mirrors your and your customers’ data.
6. Upgrades are automatic… and free! 
   • Upgrades to the software simply happen with SaaS. You’ll see new features as they’re released typically every one to three months. There’s nothing your IT team needs to do in order to make them available. And the pay-as-you-go model mentioned above means that you’re already paying for you and your customers to get access to the latest and greatest version of the software – there’s no additional cost.
7. IT resources can focus on other initiatives.
   • With the vendor taking care of the software, support, and troubleshooting for you, your IT resources are suddenly freed up to focus more on high-value activities and work on the greater strategy of technology and the role it plays in your and your customers’ businesses.

The cloud and, more specifically, SaaS helps organizations of all sizes to operate more efficiently. Check out more information here or consult an expert at 303-645-4270. 

Single Platform vs. Integrated Platform – What does that mean?

Throughout our experience as a company, we have learned how cautiously vendors tend to phrase how their solutions are “integrated” with each other or with other vendors. The way it’s marketed can look fantastic on a piece of collateral or on a website, but when it comes down to actually using the solution, it can be far different.

With the success of our last blog post “3 Reasons Why Employers Are Requiring Single Platform Workforce Management Solutions,” we thought it would be prudent to continue to elaborate on the difference between integrated and single systems. 

It is very evident that the market is moving away from the integration of disparate systems to “play nice” with each other and towards the use of single systems that are architected and designed as a cohesive suite of applications.  If you ask five different people what integration means, you’ll likely get five different answers. Instead of trying to come up with a single definition of what integration means, we want to help you navigate through the marketing fluff and show you two of the ways you can expect your solutions to work with each other.

Single Platform – This is the most ideal scenario for your company. A single platform for multiple applications SHOULD mean that this is a platform built from the ground up on one database. In saying this, there would be only one database for the data housed within all of these applications.

What does that mean and why does that matter to you?

This kind of solution enables you to have a single record for:

• An employee in the case of workforce management or human capital management
• A prospect in the case of sales and marketing, or more specifically CRM and marketing automation
• A customer in the case of a support platform and CRM

All of these would result in only one field throughout all your solutions for a last name. The biggest benefit to this is really that there is no exchange of data that needs to take place – essentially all of these solutions can act as a single application. This kind of solution essentially goes beyond any formal definition of integration where separate applications or software solutions are connected together.

Beware, though! Vendors using this phrase may be talking about an integrated platform…

Integrated Platform – An integrated platform may be branded as a “single platform” or vice versa, but these are usually yesterday’s applications cobbled together with a common or similar interface that makes it seem like a single platform. We like to call this lipstick on a pig. One way to uncover this is by asking whether or not all these solutions were built on a single database from the ground up. If they were developed separately, that should be a red flag, as what you’re evaluating is likely just an integrated platform.

It’s not bad… but it’s not the best. And with all the consumer software technology we use today, we expect the best. There has to be an exchange of data with an integrated platform between applications. The main difference between this and the single platform mentioned above is that changes made in one application likely won’t flow over to the other application simultaneously, or in ‘real-time’.

What does that mean and why does that matter to you?

• Without a single database:
  • There are multiple employee, prospect, or customer records that need to be maintained. And as a result, this could mean having to enter the same data more than once.
  • Additionally, with these separate records, this would require separate implementations, and therefore, a longer time before you’re actually up and running with your solution.
• Also, if data isn’t exchanged in real-time, it impacts the integrity of the data and you may not necessarily be able to make your decisions in real-time because you’re waiting for a scheduled data exchange between Application A and Application B.

Integration can be overwhelming when we start uncovering the level at which the integration takes place, whether it’s simply a single sign-on or a tighter, more seamless integration, a one way integration vs. a two way integration, etc.

What does this all mean??? Your best bet is to just find a single platform of applications that all reside on a single database. It’s what we’ve all come to expect from software. The only problem is one vendor can’t specialize in all of these different areas… unless we’re talking about workforce management.

Click here to learn more about how Mosaic can help your business thrive with our single-platform, single interface, and single employee record workforce management solution.

You can also visit us at www.mosaices.com and call us at 303-645-4270. We look forward to an opportunity to speak with you. 

3 Reasons Why Employers Are Requiring Single Platform Workforce Management Solutions

You’re almost guaranteed to hear on any software demonstration the word “integration”, but what does that mean? Put simply, integration means having Software A and Software B exchange data between the two, though integrations do not have to be limited to just two systems.

Companies using multiple software solutions, such as HR, payroll, and time and attendance, are now demanding that these technologies be integrated. This has forced the software developers with disparate solutions to cobble together connections between their products, while developers with solutions on a single platform are already offering real time data integration. Integration sounds nice, but wouldn’t it be even better if all of your applications existed on a single platform that has been created to work together seamlessly? The great news is that this capability already exists!

In this blog article, we thought that it would be important to talk with employers to discuss exactly why having a single system is so important for their businesses and how they have experienced the power of a single-platform solution.

1. They now know that a single-platform solution is not only available, it is affordable.

A single system suite of all the needed workforce management solutions is not a new concept in the marketplace today. In fact, they’ve been utilized for years now by the enterprise corporations that saw the benefits and could afford the high price tag that came with them. But as technology has evolved, this deeper level of functionality has been made available to small and midsized businesses (SMBs) at a price they can actually afford.

Now that these SMBs are “seeing the light” on the benefits of multiple applications on a single platform, they’re beginning to demand these fully embodied solutions as a prerequisite. Service providers without the ability to offer this are simply unable to compete with those that can, and service providers offering single-platform solutions are in a unique position to grow market share and mind share within their space.

2. Drives easier and more efficient decision making with reliable data.

Data integrity is everything. You have data for a reason; it’s going to inform decisions that you’re making in your business. If you have the same data residing in multiple places, there’s always an opportunity for data to get out of sync and for it to be wrong in one or multiple of those places. When that’s the case, and you’re consulting one of those systems, you’re pulling the wrong data and making decisions based on the wrong information.

When data takes time to flow between disparate solutions, businesses are unable to get an instant snapshot of their workforce and make decisions on the fly. Having all of your information on a single platform also helps with efficiency by removing the need for data exporting, importing, duplicate data entry, as well as separate resources, software, and multiple logins. Clients simply access one solution sharing data across all of their applications.

3. Creates a competitive advantage and helps with compliance.

Through a more efficient system with reliable data, businesses with single-platform solutions are simply able to operate at a higher level than those with disparate solutions. If you had the choice between being able to proactively manage your business on the fly as changes and obstacles occur, or having to wait a day or two in order to make reactionary changes, which would you want to use? This example shows exactly how businesses with a single workforce management solution can easily gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Are you concerned about managing your Affordable Care Act (ACA) compliance? A single suit of solutions enables businesses to analyze real-time labor data and make the necessary changes to ensure they remain compliant before issues arise. Workforce management solutions such as these are the best way to manage your workforce in today’s world of employment, and we’re seeing that the ACA is especially responsible for driving the demand for single-platform solutions on the workforce management front.

Are you in need for a single-platform workforce management solution? What are some of the issues that you could see yourself living without by moving away from disparate solutions?

Please share your experiences and learn more about how Mosaic can help your business thrive with our single-platform, single database, and single user-interface.

Visit us at www.mosaices.com and call us at 303-645-4270 today!

Health Coverage Information Reporting Deadlines for Applicable Large Employers are Approaching

Who Must Report?

As a governmental, Tribal, tax-exempt or for-profit employer, if you are an applicable large employer you are subject to the Affordable Care Act information reporting requirements. These requirements apply to you whether or not you offered health coverage to your employees.

You are an applicable large employer for 2015 if you had 50 or more full-time employees, including full-time equivalent employees, in 2014.

What Must You Report?

If you were an applicable large employer in 2015, you must file information returns with the IRS and provide statements to each employee who was a full-time employee for at least one month of the year about health coverage you offered or to show that you did not offer health coverage.

What Forms Must Be Used To Report?

Form 1094-C, Transmittal of Employer-Provided Health Insurance Offer and Coverage Information Return: used to report to the IRS summary information for each employer and to transmit Forms 1095-C to the IRS.
Form 1095-C, Employer-Provided Health Insurance Offer and Coverage: used to report required information to your employees and to report information about each employee to the IRS.

What Are The Due Dates For Reporting?

Forms 1095-C must be provided to your employees by February 1, 2016.
Forms 1094-C and 1095-C are due to the IRS by February 29, 2016, if filing on paper, or March 31, 2016, if filing electronically.

More Information

For more information, visit our page about what our ACA manager can do for you or give us a call at 303-645-4270.

Also, make sure to check out the questions and answers about Reporting of Offers of Health Insurance Coverage by Employers on IRS.gov/aca.

Time and Attendance – What’s the ROI?

As we continue to hear questions regarding time and attendance return on investment (ROI), we started to think to ourselves “What is the ROI of time and attendance – Does everyone really know?

With payroll typically taking up 50-60 percent of businesses’ operating expenses, companies want to ensure that payroll dollars aren’t being wasted and that the highest return possible is achieved from that investment. This is where automated time and attendance applications, also known as time and labor management applications, come into play… But how do companies quantify the ROI of their on-premise or SaaS-based software purchase?

That’s a great question – thanks to all of you who have brought that up!

There are three core areas in which time and attendance applications return much more than what is paid for them:

1. Control and reduce labor costs

In order to achieve this, the first step is getting insight into exactly where payroll dollars are being invested. Companies need to see which employees are in and out of work – they need visibility into who’s coming or leaving early and late, or who’s absent entirely.

There are several areas of workforce management that can be improved in order to manage labor costs accordingly – here are a few big ones:

• Absence – According to Mercer, the direct and indirect costs of absence alone can make up 34.2 percent of payroll expenses. From planned absences like vacation to unplanned absences like sick time, managing absence in an automated fashion allows companies to track accrued time off accurately and make staffing adjustments to cover for absent employees.
• Overtime – Unplanned overtime can be a huge, and often unforeseen, payroll cost. By keeping tabs on employees’ timesheets and getting alerts for employees who approach overtime, companies can easily reduce this cost by finding alternative coverage for the position.
• Accuracy – There are tons of companies out there that simply pay employees for the time they’re scheduled to work. However, what if they’re continuously coming in late and/or leaving early? How about if they continuously take long lunches? They’re still being paid for that time they are not working, which is a cost that’s easily controlled. By simply automating the collection of time worked, companies can ensure employees are getting paid accurately for the time they actually work – no more, no less.
• Demand – By having the ability to manage a workforce in real-time, companies gain the ability to make staffing adjustments based on the external factors of that business – either proactively or as they happen. For example, companies should be able to plan for historically slow or extremely busy shopping days in retail. And if the forecast calls for inclement weather, and shopping is typically reduced in these instances, schedules can be adjusted accordingly.

2. Improve productivity

Another area companies can track where payroll dollars are being invested is what employees actually work on, and how much work they do. By tracking the departments, jobs, and tasks of employees, companies can get a great understanding of what’s actually being invested in with their payroll dollars. Perhaps they’ll gain insight that sales people are spending more time on administrative functions then they are on actual sales, and be able to address it accordingly from there.

Alternatively, in a manufacturing business, management should be able to track the piece work of each employee (i.e. how many widgets they can produce), which will give them insight into the most effective and productive employees they have. On the flipside, they’ll also see who the least effective employees are and can invest in training for these employees and/or open up new job requisitions to find better talent.

Time and attendance solutions also provide a great avenue to make management and administrators more productive, allowing them to spend less time on manual processes like creating schedules, approving time off, monitoring employee time, etc.

3. Minimize risk of noncompliance

There are virtually endless pieces of legislation that companies must comply with from the FLSA to the FMLA to the ACA. And if there’s one thing that can be said about non-compliance, it’s that non-compliance costs big bucks! The Department of Labor (DOL) has people employed in the agency that are solely responsible for finding non-compliant companies. If accused of non-compliance for the FMLA, for instance, the cost for a company can range from $78,000 to $150,000, and that’s just to get to trial! And then let’s say that company loses the trial, additional fees can include:

• Employee reimbursement for any monetary loss incurred
• Equitable relief
• Attorney’s fees
• Expert witness fees
• Court costs
• Liquid damages

When you think about the cost for automated time and attendance, it seems pretty nominal when you start thinking about the potential ROI. At Mosaic, we also provide an automated system that helps our clients comply with ACA requirements and reporting. Check out our video highlighting all of the capabilities that our ACA Manager can do for your business here. 

Looking for more details on this topic? Hear it from the experts and give Mosaic a call at 303-645-4270 or visit our website at www.mosaices.com