There is no shortage of compliance hotspots for companies entering 2017.
With this in mind, finding compliance gaps is a must as the new year approaches. This can be done through a complete assessment of best practices, as well as guidance from federal standards and legislative mandates. The assistance of experienced HR and employee benefits professionals can also be vital in this regard.
As December winds down, here are a few areas firms might want to check up on:
Overtime rules on hold – for now. Just before Thanksgiving, a federal judge issued an injunction putting a halt to new guidelines expanding overtime eligibility for millions of workers. For now, overtime eligibility remains limited to non-exempt workers making $455 or less per week, or $23,660 per year. However, if the new rules are enacted, many workers making $913 or less on weekly basis ($47,476 per year) would be eligible to draw overtime. Firms will need to ensure they are following the current overtime rules – and need to be ready if circumstances change, thus expanding overtime eligibility to many, many new workers.
Wage-and-hour compliance. This goes hand-in-hand with playing attention to the overtime rules. In Fiscal Year 2015, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found wage violations in about 4-of-5 investigations undertaken by the regulatory body. In short, firms that draw the interest of regulators could be in for headaches.
Filing of IRS Forms 1094-1095. This is a big hurdle growing companies must clear. If your firm has increased in size to 50 or more full-time employees, you will have to complete IRS Forms 1094-1095, which document compliance with the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act. Filling out Forms 1094-1095 can be time-consuming even for firms staffed and ready to prove they have offered health coverage to their full-time employees. For firms not ready for the compliance and the sheer work of getting the forms done? It’s a real challenge.
If you would like more information on compliance strategies, or would like to know about the many human resources and employee benefits solutions Plexus provides, contact us at 847-307-6100 (Deer Park / Chicagoland), 312-606-4800 (Chicago/Loop), 972-770-5010 (Dallas) or 405-840-3033 (Oklahoma City), or visit us on the Web at plexusgroupe.com. We’re here to help – and we’re happy to help.