How is Overtime Paid? A Small Business Guide to Overtime Laws

Are you at a loss wondering, "How is overtime paid?" Find out everything you need to know in our comprehensive guide.

UPDATE:  Effective January 1, 2020, salaried employees should earn $684 per week (or $35,568 per year).  Please click HERE for updated information.

Of course, you already know to pay your employees at least the minimum wage. But the laws surrounding overtime are complex and quickly become confusing.

Employees who work longer than normal hours are dedicating extra time to help you continue building success, so you want to make sure you do right by them. Plus, it's important to know the overtime laws to prevent legal trouble for yourself and your business.

If you're wondering how is overtime paid, you've come to the right place! In this guide, we'll tell you everything you need to know about federal overtime laws and how they pertain to your state.

Overtime Laws and Regulations

Although there are sta...

4 Company Culture Ideas that Will Bring New Life to Your Business

Company culture is an important element in every business. Does yours need a makeover? Read these 4 company culture ideas for a renewed environment.

Depending on the industry that you're in, the cost of onboarding an employee can cost you upwards of $25,000. If you're not working to keep everyone you have and help your most talented employees thrive, you're not working to build a stable company culture. If you're searching for company culture ideas, don't run to order ping pong table and beanbag chairs when it's your employees that make the culture.

Here are four ideas you should consider to build a better company culture.

1. Make Collaboration a Must

If it's not already baked into what you do, you need to create a culture by having your team collaborate more often and more effectively. Without a team building effort and an atmosphere that inspires people to work together, you won't have much of a culture at all. On...

Dress for Success: How to Create a Dress Code Policy

Creating a dress code policy ensures that your employees look professional at all times. Learn how to create a dress code policy with this useful guide.

Dress code policies might seem like overkill for a small business. But every company needs a dress code, including yours.

Why? Today, business wardrobes are leaning more towards casual dress. Some companies forego dress codes altogether. They feel that workers do best when they're wearing clothes that are comfortable.

But not having a dress code is an open invitation to future problems. If there is no dress code, someone is going to push the limit. This could cause safety problems or customer service issues. It could even end with a lawsuit for discrimination.

These are all reasons that it's better to have a dress code policy for your business. For tips on how to create the best company dress code, keep reading.

Why You Need a Dress Code Policy

When it comes to managing a l...

This is the usual reaction I find when a small business of twenty employees or less is approached about employee health, dental or vision benefits.

Many believe it’s too expensive. Well, it may be. But too expensive for who? The employer? I think not. The employee, maybe, but let the employee decide that for themselves. Offering benefits can only enhance an employer’s image to recruits regardless of the expense to either side.

Employee benefits, in the last five years, have become much less stringent on the rules regarding what an employer must contribute, how much paperwork an employer must complete and who can enroll, save for the ACA guideline regarding husband and wife groups but we’ll get to that later.

In today’s benefit marketplace many carriers have relaxed the regulations regarding employer contributions to be so minimal it allows for any employer to at least make a benefit offering. For example, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, here in Colorado, requires no contribu...

Do You Need a Recruitment Tip? Here Are 9 Tips From the HR Pros

Does your company have a successful recruiting strategy? If you think you need a recruitment tip or two, click here! Here are 9 recruiting tips from the HR pros.

Statistically speaking, every corporate job opening gets 250 resumes for a single job. For your business, this means a lot of CVs and resumes to sift through in order to find the one stellar candidate that fits the role.

How exactly does your business go about recruiting for job openings in order to find that perfect candidate? Have you always attracted the right type of people you're looking to hire, or do you need a little bit of extra help when it comes to creating the best staff you possibly can? Do you need a recruitment tip or two to get things going?

Read on for 9 awesome recruitment tips from some of HR's best.

1. Use Social Media to Promote Job Openings

Nearly 2 in 3 employees stated that their employer did not know how to use social media in ord...

5 HR Tasks That Need to Be Done By Every Company

Every company has human resource issues they need to sort out, even if they don't have an HR department. Here are 5 HR duties every company should stay on top of.

It's 2018, and your small business needs to get with the times. No offense to the dedicated and kind people who work in small business now, we mean the industry as a whole.

Within a small business, there are still HR duties many companies aren't doing and some that needed to go a long time ago.

Is your company with the times? How are you using employee programs? Do you still have punitive programs in place?

What about new technology? All these things need a makeover or at least an upgrade. Lucky for you, we've done most of the research.

Learn how to get HR modern below.

See our recommendations for HR software that will make your life easier: HR Software

Start Internal

Before you go and use our expert tips, you should start with your experts: your current managem...

7 Ways In Which HR Solutions For Small Business Can Save Your Company

When running a small business, it's as difficult to stick to your budget as it is essential. HR solutions for small business can help you pinch those pennies. Here are 7 ways in which HR experts can save you money.

A small business is only as good as its management and budgeting when it is first getting started. No matter what kind of industry you operate in or how good of a product you have, these are the things that keep you on track. You can easily find yourself in some serious trouble without such leadership to guide the business and the resources to fund everything.

These skills develop as time goes on, leading you to more opportunities to make your business increasingly efficient and profitable. A great opportunity to look into is how you manage your small business human resources. Rethinking how you approach HR can save you a significant amount of time and money, in more ways than you might think.

Ke...

6 Small Business HR Nightmares You Should Try To Avoid At All Cost

Human resource errors can be costly, and some of them may even be completely out of your control as a startup owner. It helps to be on the lookout for situations that can turn into small business HR nightmares. Here are 6 situations you should try to avoid at any cost.

Small business HR can be a nightmarish experience. It's an area often wrought with legal issues and the potential to damage your hard-earned reputation.

Small businesses and startups don't usually have a huge HR team to help them. Rather, they're forced to navigate the complexities of workplace politics and legal requirements alone. They must rely on research or learning the hard way.

From hiring to firing and everything in between, a single error in the HR department could prove costly.

Don't let these six small business HR blunders become your worst mistakes:

Mistake #1: Not Prioritizing Your Small Business HR Needs

HR in small businesses i...

HR positions are among the fastest growing in America with an expected hike of 9% between 2016 and 2026.

This is due to the value a quality HR team can bring to a workplace. HR professionals are in charge of many administrative functions within companies. They oversee recruiting efforts, conduct interviews and are instrumental in the hiring process.

If you own or help manage a small business, one of the main questions you may have is how to incorporate a quality HR presence into your company in a cost-effective fashion.

A solution to this that many companies have explored is HR outsourcing services. By outsourcing HR, small businesses are able to delegate some or all essential HR functions to external parties.

The focus of this article is to discuss some of the advantages of HR outsourcing as well as some of its pitfalls to determine if it's right for you.

1) Consider The Size of Your Company

How many employees you have should inform your thought process when considering outsourc...

Everyone knows that starting a small business is never easy. Between hiring new employees and keeping up with payroll - owning your own business can get hectic if you don't have everything in order.

A functioning Human Resources department is perfect for preventing this kind of chaos.

It's no secret. Behind every successful business is a solid human resources department. A good HR department is able to set the moral, find the right candidates, and set the culture for your small business.

But what does it take to develop a solid HR department structure? What steps should you take when wanting to implement an HR department in my small business?

Here the ultimate list of what it takes on starting an HR department.

1. Be Deliberate With Your Descriptions

Job descriptions are everything when it comes to your human resource startup.

A job description is going to be a list that describes the general tasks and duties that inform applicants and current employees what skills are required ...