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.

       

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

Helping Businesses Manage Overtime Costs in the Wake of FLSA Changes

You’ve likely heard a lot in recent news about the Department of Labor’s (DOL) proposed regulations that are expected to affect the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regarding new white-collar exemptions in the near future.

With minimal revisions since the FLSA was enacted almost 80 years ago, significant adjustments regarding overtime pay and minimum wage requirements have been proposed by the DOL. The DOL has proposed these updated regulations to better align with the present-day workforce and economic climate.

To put things into perspective, the current FLSA requirement states that an employee that makes at least $455 per week ($23,660 per year) either hourly or salary and who meet a duties requirement test is considered “exempt”. These exempt employees do not qualify for overtime pay. If passed, the DOL’s new regulations would require that:

• The minimum salary threshold to be $970 per week ($50,440 per year) in order to be considered exempt from receiving overtime pay.
• The salary threshold be updated annually to stay level with rising inflation and wage costs.

These new regulations would undoubtedly have a significant impact on most US businesses within the coming months. It would require employers to reassess their entire workforce classification as exempt/non-exempt, increase minimum annual wages of exempt employees, and track all hours worked by non-exempt employees. As a service provider, it is critical that you help to guide these businesses during these potential changes. By providing your expertise in conjunction with a workforce management solution, you can help your clients keep in compliance with the new FLSA regulations and control overtime costs.

You can reduce a business’ compliance risk and overtime costs by offering them a workforce management solution, complete with Time and Attendance, that accurately tracks and documents all employee hours worked, delivers proactive alerts that notify employers of employees breaching overtime, and includes insightful reporting capabilities for both ongoing analysis and proof of compliance.

In this recorded webinar, held on August 20, 2015, by ChrysMarie Suby of the Labor Management Institute and titled “Overtime Best Practices”, you’ll learn 10 helpful strategies to bring to employers for minimizing their overtime costs.

1. Define the department budget and address OT in hours & percent of Total Worked hours.
2. Identify a pattern for the use of resources developed from workload demand data.
3. Define and standardize terms & formulas with division of direct, indirect, education, orientation, and paid not worked benefit hours and FTE’s.
4. Clearly identify pay incentives, premium pay, bonuses, on-call/call-back.
5. Monitor OT for both “regular” and “EOS” or incidental occurrences & trend for use & abuse patterns.
6. Publish schedules with at least 85% of work from “core” employees in the unit.
7. Require managers to publish schedules with <5% “holes” where shifts didn’t meet target requirements.
8. Monitor for the 6 underlying drivers for OT bi-weekly & compare to specific criteria.
9. Identify a pattern for the use of resources developed from workload demand data.
10. Monitor for the Labor Management Institute’s Target Thresholds to Total Worked Hours.

To get more information on the Labor Management Institute’s 10 overtime best practices, please watch this recorded webinar.