Why Should I Offer Ancillary Benefits?

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Ancillary benefits are health benefits offered by employers in addition to a standard health plan. Examples include dental, vision and accident/injury benefits, as well as non-insurance products such as retirement plans.

Over the past few years, many employers have been working toward decreasing costs and limiting spending, so you may be wondering why you should offer your employees additional benefits on top of their standard health insurance plan.

Here are just a few reasons:

  • Offering a health plan is not enough to keep employees healthy. An all-encompassing plan promotes a healthy and productive working environment.
  • Rich benefits packages also help attract and retain top talent.
  • Research shows that ancillary benefits (especially dental and vision) are helpful in the early detection of diseases and/or conditions and therefore support lower medical claims in the long run.
  • Ancillary benefits are AFFORDABLE! Purchasing at a group level is much less than purchasing an individual policy. With group ancillary insurance products, the risk is spread out amongst your company, which keeps premiums reasonably priced.
  • Many premiums are paid with pre-tax dollars.

The cost of ancillary benefits doesn’t necessarily need to be picked up by the employer either. It can of course be completely covered by the employer, but it can also be shared with the employees by arranging an employer/employee split.

To learn more about ancillary benefits and what will work best to complement your standard health plans in 2013, contact Employer Solutions Plus.

Benefits: How Small Franchise Locations Gain Large-Company Purchasing Power

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Franchising is an attractive way of doing business, there’s no doubt about it. Rather than relying on a new brand or concept to “take off,” franchisees utilize corporate image and power as a tool to expand their market share more rapidly and less expensively.

With a brand that’s already recognized, franchise owners reap many benefits when it comes to hiring and marketing services and sometimes even an overall business model and/or growth plan. It’s already been established, and that certainly beats starting from scratch!

However, franchisees could face some challenges when it comes to: employee benefits. While you may be part of a very large “corporate image,” you may not be part of a corporate policy for vendor services such as health insurance. Large companies tend to get more attractive (and cost-effective) health insurance options because there are hundreds, sometimes thousands, of employees on their policy. You may only be a small employer but realize the importance of offering health insurance benefits to attract and retain quality employees.

So, where does this leave you? A great solution is a Professional Employer Organization (PEO). PEOs present purchasing power for health insurance due to the overall population size of their employee base. They pool employees from numerous client companies on to a single company policy (the PEO’s policy) through the co-employment relationship.

Employer Solutions Plus has established partnerships with many national PEOs who understand the unique needs of a franchise owner. With a PEO, clients gain better service, better pricing, and more options – beyond health insurance and into payroll processing, employee administration and more!

If you are with corporate… Providing health insurance options (such as master group health) to new franchisees makes your business model and franchising set-up much more attractive. You help new locations get off to the right start by keeping their vendor expenses as low as possible. Suddenly, “corporate benefits” is added alongside the value of a franchisee’s corporate image … further ensuring their success!

If you are an individual franchisee… If corporate doesn’t currently offer PEO or health insurance options, give Employer Solutions Plus a call to discuss your employee benefits. We work with many PEOs interested in providing you with economical options for health insurance!

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Small Business Knowledge: What is ERISA?

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What is ERISA?

ERISA stands for the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, and is enforced by the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration. It is a federal law that sets minimum standards for pension plans in the private sector.

As a Business Owner, Why Should I Care About ERISA?

While ERISA does not require any employer to establish a pension plan, it does require those that do to meet certain minimum standards including:

  • Providing participants with information about plan features and funding
  • Establishing minimum standards for participation, benefit accrual, and funding
  • Accountability of plan fiduciaries (trustees)

Is your company in compliance? You should be. In addition to penalties business owners may face for violating compliance, ERISA also gives participants the right to sue for benefits and breaches of fiduciary duty. But, before compliance issues scare you aware from offering attractive benefits that will help your employees (and future employees) set aside money for retirement, contact a professional. Compliance is sometimes scary, but it doesn’t need to be.

A Happy Medium?

For businesses engaged in a PEO relationship, expert help with risk management and compliance protects the client from costly fines and lawsuits. PEOs also assume much of a business’s risk through the co-employment relationship.

For businesses that are not engaged in a PEO relationship, Employer Solutions Plus provides benefits and human resource management services such as wage and hour compliance, ERISA, FMLA, COBRA, HIPAA and ADA options. As it relates to pension plans, we provide business owners with all the necessary information they need to make better employee benefits decisions, and most importantly, stay in compliance.

To learn more about PEO options, or employee pension plans and ERISA compliance, contact us today.

New Year, New Options …. It’s Time to Review Your Vendors

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It’s that time again – time to reflect on the past year and plan for the future. Whether you’re searching for an all-inclusive approach to managing your organization’s vendors in 2013, or just looking for a more cost-effective employee benefits plan, Employer Solutions Plus has you covered!

Do you currently have a vendor budget? Establishing an itemized budget for vendor services such as payroll administration, employee benefits and more provides you with projected expenses for the coming year, and is a simple tool for evaluating and monitoring your performance. Where are your current weaknesses? Where is there too much risk? Is your workers’ compensation policy the very best coverage you can afford?

Even if you are currently satisfied with your organization’s vendors, there may be more competitive options out there for you; such as authorizing a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) to manage all employee management services and set up a more economical, streamlined approach. It certainly does not hurt to shop, especially if you have a valued partner to do it for you.

At Employer Solutions Plus, we review your existing vendors and provide recommended alternatives at no cost to you, which not only saves you money, but time as well.

Our New Year’s Review covers:

  1. Payroll Administration
  2. Employee Benefits
  3. Human Resource Management/Administration
  4. Risk Management (Including Workers’ Compensation Insurance)
  5. PEO Options

What will you do in 2013 with the money you save on vendor expenses? Hire someone and expand your team? Invest a few more dollars into marketing initiatives? Lease a larger space?

At Employer Solutions Plus, we represent multiple providers in each product category listed above. This allows us the flexibility to customize a cost effective solution to meet the individual needs of our clients. Contact us today for your New Year’s Review.

HIPAA: A Quick Checkup for Medical Practitioners

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If you’re a medical practitioner, you’re probably well aware of HIPAA, but you may not be up to speed on every aspect surrounding HIPAA compliance.

HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) protects the privacy of individually identifiable health information. HIPAA also comprises of the HIPAA Security Rule, which sets national standards for the security of electronic protected health information and confidentiality provisions of the Patient Safety Rule, which protects identifiable information being used to analyze patient safety events and improve patient safety.

Medical practice owners or employees who are delegated to manage compliance need to be fully aware of the HIPAA policy and procedures, since a single violation of compliance can result in fines capable of crippling your cash flow. These necessary yet time-consuming compliance checkups are a crucial component to any business.

Can you or your compliance-responsible employee answer the following 5 questions?

  1. What kind of personally identifiable health information is protected by HIPAA privacy rule?
  2. Who do HIPAA security and privacy regulations apply to? Is it just you, the practitioner? Or your entire office including administrative support and nurses?
  3. A patient of yours was transferred from your facility to the hospital 4 days ago and the hospital just called requesting the patient’s information. Are you permitted to release patient information to the personnel at this hospital over the phone?
  4. How do copies of patient information need to be disposed of?
  5. Are you permitted to access your own medical record through the office computer?

If you missed even one of these questions, it may be time to engage a professional employer organization (PEO). In order to stay up to speed on compliance and human resources management, you may need to dedicate up to 25% of your day if not more on non-patient activities like administration!
Worst of all, HIPAA is just one area of compliance amongst 180 federal laws that the Department of Labor (DOL) administers and enforces.

Many medical practice owners choose to engage a PEO for the sole purpose of ensuring employer compliance. In addition to the many other benefits PEOs provide, PEOs protect – against costly lawsuits, against compliance failure, and against preventable workplace mistakes/accidents.

To learn more about HIPAA, compliance, and other employment-related administration and management solutions, contact Employer Solutions Plus. We’ll help you determine which areas of your business require the most attention, and whether or not those areas need to be managed by a PEO.

 

Selecting a Payroll Service Provider

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The time has come. You want to avoid tax penalties that can easily affect your bottom line, and stick to what you do best, which is not payroll! Selecting a payroll service provider will streamline the payroll process and significantly limit your personal investment of time and effort toward administrative tasks.

But where does one begin? There are countless options for outsourcing when it comes to payroll. Employer Solutions Plus recommends the following when selecting a service provider.

First, make a list of payroll-related services you believe your company needs. Below is a list of examples:

  • Calculation of payroll and tax obligations for each employee (how many employees do you have?)
  • Direct deposit
  • Automatic check signatures
  • Check printing
  • Quarterly and annual tax form preparations
  • 401k/Section 125 fund plans
  • Integrated or specialized software

When meeting with a payroll service provider:

  • Ensure the company offers all payroll services requested
  • Request client references
  • Request a written contract stating who is responsible for penalties due to late or non-filed taxes
  • Confirm how local taxes are calculated and who is responsible for paying them
  • If you are filing electronically yourself, what assistance will be provided by the payroll company?

Pricing: Beware of the fine print! Payroll service providers typically charge a standard fee per pay period in addition to a small fee per check issued, but employers may find themselves faced with additional fees when it comes to year-end W2s, set-up fees, adding employees, dropping employees and more. Be sure to request a proposal that outlines any and every cost including future costs for services that are not needed at this exact time.

A PEO may be a more cost effective solution than a payroll-only service provider if you have other HR and employee administration related tasks to be outsourced, since PEOs often build payroll administration into their all-encompassing HR support contracts. Whether or not your company can benefit from PEO services can be determined upon an analysis of your employee management needs. If a PEO solution is in fact a good fit, Employer Solutions Plus has a separate list of recommendations for selecting a PEO.

Running through this process with multiple service providers is a lot to handle on top of your current day to day operations, which is why Employer Solutions Plus manages the entire vendor selection process on behalf of its clients.

Employer Solutions Plus is skilled at determining which payroll outsourcing solution is the best fit for your company – whether that is a payroll-only solution, or a comprehensive full suite employee administration solution such as a PEO.

We represent multiple providers in each product category– This allows us the flexibility to customize a cost effective solution to meet the individual needs of our clients.
Please contact us today to learn more about payroll administration solutions.

Wage & Hour Compliance in Tampa

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Are you a Tampa business owner foggy in the field of wage and hour compliance? You’re not alone.

The United States Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division (WHD) oversees the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and youth employment standards affecting employees in the private sector and in Federal, State, and local governments.
But, some states have minimum wage rates higher than those outlined in the FLSA, while others have minimum wages rates that are the same or less than those outlined in the FLSA.

Did you know:

Nationwide: Non-exempt workers are entitled to a minimum wage of not less than $7.25 per hour. Overtime pay at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate of pay is required after 40 hours of work in a workweek.

State of Florida: Minimum wage is increased annually based upon a cost of living formula and is currently $7.67 per hour with a minimum wage of at least $4.65 per hour for tipped employees, in addition to tips.

Employees who are not being compensated fairly have the right to file a complaint about an employer’s alleged noncompliance with lawful minimum wage requirement as well as inform any person about the employer’s alleged noncompliance. Employee rights are protected under the State Constitution, but, who’s protecting you, the employer?

Many Tampa businesses rely on the support of a professional employer organization (PEO) when it comes to wage and hour compliance. In addition to HR administration, benefits, payroll, and insurance, PEO clients gain increased protection from ever-changing wage and hour compliance.

Partnering with a PEO gives you the advantage of working with a well-informed team of HR professionals each and every day, and PEOs often bring more streamlined and integrated technology to the table, for improved wage and hour reporting. Many PEO’s also provide EPLI Insurance to help protect employers against wrongful lawsuits pertaining to wage and hour disputes.

To learn more about PEO and wage and hour compliance solutions in Tampa, contact Tampa-based Employer Solutions Plus at 727-698-6207.

Adding Attorneys to Your Practice in Various States

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Does your law firm operate in multiple states? If so, you’re well aware of the strict guidelines that come alongside practicing law in each particular court system. Each US state has its own court system and sets its own rules for bar admission, which can lead to different admission standards among states. For the owner of a law firm trying to grow his/her business and add employees in multiple states, this process can quickly become a headache.

You may be thinking “I should simply hire an attorney that is already admitted to the bar in whatever state I’m looking to do business in.”  That will certainly save you some time from having to ensure an existing employee can pass the bar in the new state, and then relocate to serve the clients of that state.

But, bar admissions aside, adding an employee in a new state comes with its own laundry list of HR and compliance-related tasks. Each state has its own reporting requirements surrounding new hires.

Did you know that PEOs can eliminate half of the burden?  Through the co-employment relationship, the owner of a law firm focuses on growing his/her business, and the PEO manages all compliance and HR administration.

PEOs provide integrated services to effectively manage employer risks for law firms. PEOs help offset certain risks to their clients’ businesses by contractually assuming certain employer rights, responsibilities, and risk.

A PEO will provide guidance on employment regulations and reporting requirements in addition to answering any questions regarding hiring, firing, compliance and recruitment. They will also put together employee handbooks and employment procedure manuals for your new employees.

If your practice is interested in expanding and operating in multiple states, contact Employer Solutions Plus first. You may be able to eliminate an HR headache before it ever exists!  Employer Solutions Plus provides critical information to business owners regarding new hires and PEO support.

Employee Discipline at Your Law Practice

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It’s no secret that lawyers work long hours at the office. These long hours often induce stress in many lawyer’s lives. As an employer, it’s important to be aware of this. Workplace stress often leads to workplace conflict.

Although conflict in the workplace is not uncommon, dealing with conflict as an employer is never an easy task. Disciplining employees without extensive experience often opens the door to employment litigation.

In order to avoid such litigation, employers should have clear disciplinary standards, and evidence that the employee was given notice of these standards. Does your firm currently have a discipline policy that will not limit your right to enforce appropriate disciplinary measures?

Many PEOs also provide EPLI (Employer Practice Liability Insurance) which helps protect and defend your firm from employee lawsuits such as wrongful termination. For more information on PEO solutions, contact us today.

 

How to Become an Employer of Choice

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That’s right; a competitive employee benefits package has the power to differentiate you from fellow employers within your market or industry. An attractive benefits package can be an excellent way of retaining the talent you already have, and recruiting your market’s cream of the crop.

In a great article released by Inc.com, “How to Build a Competitive Employee Benefits Package,” the author addressed endless options to include as part of your package. But how can the small to medium sized business owner afford all of these great options?

There are many reasons we love the PEO/co-employment solution; but the benefits they bring to the table is definitely one of our top reasons. Every day, PEOs help companies put together benefits packages that are powerful enough to blow their competition out of the water.

Because of their size, PEOs have the power to negotiate more competitive benefit packages than your small business may be capable of. As they say, there’s power in numbers. The results are rewarding: employers save money on competitive benefits packages, and employees gain access to better benefits surrounding health care coverage, other various medical benefits, and even lifestyle benefits such as recreation access, credit union membership, and financial counseling.

Want to learn more? Contact Employer Solutions Plus today for a complimentary consultation. We can quickly help you determine if the co-employment solution is a good fit for you. And with a stronger benefits package, you’ll be attracting top talent in no time!