Compensation & Benefits

New rules: Minimum wage for piece-rate workers in California

01/15/2016

Under a law that took effect in January, piece-rate and commission-paid employees in California must receive at least the minimum wage. Piece-rate employees must also be paid at least the minimum wage for all time spent on tasks not specifically included in the piece rate.

Signs you have a drug problem at work

01/14/2016

When drugs don’t seem to present a problem within a company, it’s easy to develop a cavalier attitude about them. That’s not smart.

Employees allege employer cut hours to avoid ACA liability

01/13/2016

Can you zero out the Affordable Care Act’s mandate to provide 95% of full-time employees—those who work at least 30 hours a week—with group health benefits by cutting their work hours, so that they’re no longer considered full-time employees? One employer that allegedly did so is now defending itself against a class action lawsuit.

Employers tackle spiraling prescription benefit costs

01/07/2016

Employers are working hard to rein in prescription drug spending, according to new research by Towers Watson.

Deadlines extended for health insurance forms

01/05/2016

In an act of year-end kindness, the IRS announced in late December that it’s extending the time you have to provide employees with Form 1095-C or 1095-B and the time you have to file those forms. The IRS stressed, however, that if you can furnish and file on time, you should still do so.

Unemployment: Workplace threats are grounds to quit

01/04/2016

Employees who report being threatened at work can quit and collect unemployment benefits if their employer doesn’t act fast to provide a safe workplace. Such a “compelling and necessitous” reason to quit makes the employee eligible.

Must we pay for employees’ online training from home?

01/04/2016

Q. “Our company has a policy of completing mandatory compliance training by a certain date every year. Can hourly employees who cannot complete these trainings during work hours (when they are clocked in) be asked to complete these trainings from home by logging on to the company’s training website? Will they have to be paid for this time? Is this legal?”

January 2016: Employer’s business tax calendar

12/31/2015

Here’s your monthly guide to critical payroll due dates.

The Tax Court takes a snow day

12/23/2015

It snowed a lot during the winter of 2015. In fact, it snowed so much that the Tax Court ruled that a taxpayer’s petition was timely filed even though it was one day late, because the federal government was closed for a snow day on the day the petition was due.

Obamacare ‘Cadillac tax’ rolled back until 2020

12/22/2015

The much-maligned “Cadillac tax” on high-value employer-provided health insurance plans has been delayed for two years after President Obama signed a massive budget bill in late December that funds the federal government for the coming year.