Monitoring the Risks and Tracking Cases of COVID-19 Exposure in the Workplace
Business in the time of COVID-19 Whether you were an essential business that stayed open throughout the mandatory state closures, are a business that recently opened under new restrictive guidelines or are one of the companies still trying to weigh the pros and cons of opening in these uncertain times,… Read More
Our Experience Applying for a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Loan
by Joshua Robinson, President, CheckmateHCM Solutions Last Friday morning, April 3, 2020, I submitted Checkmate’s PPP loan application to our banking partner. The application package included: The SBA PPP Loan application Copies of Checkmate’s articles of incorporation and bylaws. Copy of a completed Loan Application Checklist with all items marked… Read More
Business Continuity / Emergency Response Plans for Coronavirus, Flu and Other Pandemics
As the Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, continues to spread across the globe and now within the United States, many business owners are worried about the impacts it could have on their workforce and overall operations. If you are scrambling to put a Business Continuity / Contingency Plan in place… Read More
Give Your Time and Attendance System a Performance Review
If you are like most employers, your HR and management teams make a concerted effort to ensure your employees receive regular feedback and performance reviews on a timely basis. Assessing people and their performance can be challenging, but employers see the benefit in both employee engagement… Read More
USCIS Released a New I-9 Form: How and When You Must Use It
On 10/21/2019, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released a revised version of the I-9 form. The new I-9 form replaces the previous version dated 7/17/2017 and must be used starting 5/1/2020. Changes to the form include: Adds the countries of Eswatini and Macedonia in the countries of issuance field. Read More
New Year, New Strategy: “Stay Interviews” to Avoid “Exit Interviews”
We all keep hearing about the highly-competitive wars for talent in today’s job market. Quit rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics provide a visual demonstration of this story (see chart below). Until an employer is directly impacted, though, it always seems to be someone else’s problem. The point quickly… Read More
The New 2020 Form W-4 Is Available and It’s a Whole Lot Different
On December 5th, the IRS released its much anticipated new Form W-4 for 2020. There are some very significant changes to the new form that are intended to aid taxpayers in more accurately determining their appropriate withholding amounts for federal taxes from their paychecks in accordance with the 2017 Tax… Read More
2020 Vermont Labor Law Poster Updates
Effective January 1, 2020, the required labor law postings for Vermont will be changing. The Vermont Earned Sick Time poster is changing to include a website that workers can access for more information on the law including exemptions for some employment types. The posting is included on Vermont Combination Labor… Read More
Vetting Your Payroll Service Provider to Prevent Fraud and Employee Losses
In September, many employers and employees suffered significant hardships due to the alleged fraudulent activity of MyPayrollHR and its CEO, Michael Mann. The suspected misdeeds of one person have caused a ripple effect that caused the demise of a financial institutions – Cachet Financial – and potentially others. This has… Read More
Is Your Use-It-or-Lose-It PTO Policy, Using and Losing Your Employees?
As many companies face their year-end crunch, many employees are facing a critical crunch of their own under their employer’s Use-It-or-Lose-It PTO policy. And with employers grappling with workforce shortages, existing employees are left shouldering greater workloads and that extra work can make it seem like there is no feasible… Read More