Even though workers in their 20s have decades of investing ahead of them, they want guaranteed income when it comes to their 401(k) plans.

Ninety-five percent of workers under 30 who don’t have access to a guaranteed income option at work said that they would like to have access to one as part of their 401(k) plan, according to a poll by The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc.

That desire diminished somewhat as the individuals surveyed increased in age, as only 77 percent of people over 60 wanted guaranteed income through their workplace retirement plans.

The large numbers of young people seeking lifetime income seems to be tied to their attitudes toward Social Security and their belief that it won’t be around by the time they are ready to retire.

“This [lifetime income option] is only part of a whole diversification strategy; it’s not something you look at without weighing all the other options in a plan’s offering,” said Patricia Harris, assistant vice president of product management for The Hartford’s retirement plans group. “The amount of risk an employee should take in his or her retirement plan depends on the person, and you need good tools to look at different investment mixes over time,” she added.

Though young workers are extremely interested in guaranteed lifetime income plans, they should still make sure to diversify their investments. These workers have time on their side and ought to take advantage of some market risk to up their returns in the long run.

More information: http://www.workforce.com/article/20120514/NEWS01/120519987#

Last week it was discovered that Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson lied about his education on his résumé. Apparently, Scott does not have bachelor’s degrees in accounting and computer science as he has claimed. He has a bachelor of science degree in business administration with a major in accounting, but no degree in computer science at all. This revelation makes him the latest executive to be targeted for falsely claiming to have a college degree.

It may sound insane that high-ranking executives would lie about experience or their credentials in the age of Google searches, but it happens more often than you may think. From white lies about time spent as a call center rep to claims about earning an MBA, résumé padding occurs regularly, experts say. In a 2010 survey of 1,818 organizations, 69% reported catching a job candidate lying on his or her résumé, according to HireRight. That large statistic doesn’t even include those who got away with lying on their résumé’s.

Résumé “embellishments” among leaders of industry have led to mixed results:

• Former RadioShack CEO Dave Edmondson resigned less than nine months after taking his post after the revelation that he did not have degrees in theology and psychology.
• Bausch & Lomb’s Ronald Zarrella offered to resign when it was discovered that he had not earned his MBA from NYU, as he’d claimed. The board did not accept his resignation, but he was forced to give up his bonus that year.
• Former Notre Dame football coach George O’Leary resigned after five days on the job when it came to light that he did not have a master’s in education from NYU or play football at the University of New Hampshire.

What does resume embellishing say about these titans of industry and their companies? Is there a point in one’s career when what undergraduate degrees you have stops being relevant? Or does it reflect a much larger ethical issue?

Tell us your thoughts below in the comments section.

For a more in-depth look at this topic, please refer to this CNN article: http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/07/living/resume-padding-scott-thompson/index.html?hpt=hp_c3

There are various ways to structure an administrative or HR outsourcing arrangement, and each has its strengths and weaknesses. Most full-service PEOs can structure their offering to match your needs, but before you can uncover the power of sharing certain liabilities through co-employment with a PEO, it is helpful to understand the distinction between the various models.

Comparing outsourcing models

• Administrative Service Outsourcing (ASO): Under an Administrative Service Outsourcing (ASO) arrangement, a service provider performs the administrative duties associated with one or more of your back office functions. Outsourcing tedious tasks, like payroll, HR or benefits administration, is very common. An administrative service provider can collect payroll data and cut checks or make direct deposits to your employees’ account. They can also conduct open enrollment for insurance benefits and assist in submitting benefit premiums on time. This can alleviate an administrative burden, but you and your company are still responsible for seeing that everything is done correctly and fully liable for any mistakes that might occur in the process.

• Human Resource Outsourcing (HRO): Using the Human Resource Outsourcing (HRO) model, a professional service provider essentially becomes an adjunct HR department for your company. Not only can they assist with administering payroll and benefits, but they can also help with hiring, training, compensation, succession planning and termination of employees. Outsourcing HR provides companies access to a breadth and depth of HR expertise that they often can’t sustain within their own in-house HR departments, but many of the responsibilities and all of the risks associated with employment still remain.

• PEOs & Co-Employment: Unlike other HR outsourcing arrangements, in a co-employment relationship, a PEO becomes the employer of record to your workers. So in addition to assuming much of the responsibilities for your company’s complex employee matters, such as employee relations, health benefits, workers’ compensation claims administration, payroll administration, payroll tax compliance, and unemployment insurance claims, a PEO also shares some of the risks of employment with you. That means that the PEO can share certain liability for monetary fees, penalties, or settlement obligations that can result from administrative mistakes and missed deadlines. (But thankfully, because the PEO is managing those administrative processes, such mishaps are rare.)

For more information on this topic, check out this whitepaper: Share Your Liabilities With a PEO.

Photo: Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/2586017959/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Delta Air Lines Inc. has agreed to put seat belts on its baggage handling vehicles as part of a settlement with OSHA.

OSHA refers to the Occupational Safety and Health Act (http://www.osha.gov), under which employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees.

This agreement came after Delta was issued a citation following a workplace fatality in which an employee operating a baggage vehicle without wearing a seat belt was ejected from the vehicle and died. OSHA cited Delta for violating a federal regulation that requires employers to provide employees with protective equipment, including — in this case — seat belts.

OSHA said the settlement covers about 90 of the carrier’s airport sites, plus 16,000 Delta employees and 6,000 baggage handling vehicles.

Delta agreed to full compliance within two years. During the first year, Delta will train employees on the proper use of the seat belts and install seat belts on equipment that currently lacks them. During the second year, Delta will enforce seat belt use among its employees and hire safety consultants who will monitor implementation of the program and report results to OSHA.

In addition to entering into the agreement with Delta, OSHA has stated that it will examine this problem throughout the airline industry. The agency recently sent a hazard alert letter to airlines across the nation reminding them that they are obligated to comply with applicable seat belt use requirements.

Additional Sources:

Department of Labor

http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/osha/OSHA20120711.htm

Atlanta Business Chronicle

http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2012/04/18/delta-adding-seat-belts-in-osha.html

Photo Courtesy of Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/caribb/5548241523/sizes/m/in/photostream/

The California Supreme Court has ruled in Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior Court that companies are not obligated to make sure that their employees take legally mandated lunch breaks. Companies must give nonexempt workers 30-minute meal breaks, but do not need to ensure their workers actually stop working during the breaks. Companies must give a meal break no later than the end of the fifth hour of work and a second break no later than the end of the 10th hour of work.

A publication from Seyfarth and Shaw LLP summarized the Court’s findings as follows:

• Meal breaks. Employers must “provide” their non-exempt employees with 30-minute meal breaks in the sense of relieving the employees of all duty, but need not ensure that they actually cease to work during those breaks.
• Meal break timing. Employers properly time meal breaks by providing the first break no later than the end of the fifth hour of work, and the second break no later than the end of the tenth hour of work. (The court rejected the plaintiff’s proposed “rolling five-hour rule,” by which a violation would occur if more than five consecutive hours of work occur without a meal break.)
• Rest breaks. Non-exempt employees are entitled to a single 10-minute rest break for a shift from 3.5 to 6.0 hours in length, two 10-minute rest breaks for a shift of more than 6.0 and up to 10.0 hours, and three 10-minute rest breaks for a shift of more than 10.0 hours and up to 14.0 hours.
• Rest break timing. Rest breaks ordinarily should be permitted in the middle of each four-hour work period, but need not be provided before a meal break.

The Court’s descision sets an interesting precendent for other states to consider in future labor law cases.

Please see the following resources for more information:

http://www.seyfarth.com/publications/ma041212a

http://staffingtoday.net/2012/04/13/daily/

Photo courtesy of Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/93755244@N00/4136725536/

The following is a special guest post from an HR Expert at G&A Partners.

Can you imagine being fined almost $800 because your employee forgot to sign a piece of paper? Multiply that one mistake by thousands of employees and the result is a huge headache for business owners who fail to pay attention to I-9 forms.

The purpose of the I-9 is to help employers verify the identity and employment authorization of each person they hire. Every new employee hired after November 6, 1986 is required to have an I-9 form. Not having a properly completed I-9 form can result in fines of $110 to $1100 per I-9.  Over the past few years the number of I-9 audits has increased dramatically, so it’s important to make sure I-9’s are being completed accurately and on time for every new employee.

Recently, Ketchikan Drywall Services (KDS), a drywall and framing company in Washington state, was fined $173,250 for 225 separate I-9 violations; That’s an average fine of $770 per I-9 form. Many of the violations were a result of simple mistakes, such as failing to check a status box, checking more than one status box, checking the wrong status box, failing to sign the I-9, not listing all required information for List A, B, or C, accepting improper documentation, and a failure to complete Section 3 of the I-9 when necessary. This just goes to show that even clerical errors can add up to huge fines and cost a company a lot of money.

So what can you do? Take a few minutes after completing an I-9 and look it over. The few minutes you will spend reviewing the I-9 could potentially save you thousands of dollars in the future. These are some of the most common mistakes we see:

• The employee not checking a status box or checking more than one status box
• The employee not signing or dating the I-9
• Not completing List A, B or C correctly or not completing at all
• Not filling in the employee’s hire date in the Certification section
• Not completing the Business/Organization name and address section completely

Not sure if your I-9’s are compliant or think you need I-9 training? Then call your HR advisor.

Sources:

http://www.immigrationcompliancegroup.com/immigration-compliance-blog/?p=1398

http://www.ilw.com/articles/2011,1018-buchanan.shtm

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/37815348@N00/2444109608/sizes/m/in/photostream/

It all ends today. The NCAA champions of March Madness will be decided during a fierce matchup between Kansas and Kentucky this evening in New Orleans.

While fans will be sad to see it all end, many employers will secretly be rejoicing; not because they are fans of the winning team, but because they are looking forward to restoring productivity in the office.

March Madness may affect the workplace more than you realize. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas CEO John Challenger, “It is not just a matter of watching the games during the workday that threatens productivity.  Starting the Monday before the tournament begins, workers are likely to be distracted by filling in their brackets for the ubiquitous March Madness office pools.”

The impact of March Madness distractions will likely be “at the micro level”—office Internet might be slower due to streaming video, some workers will be slow responding to e-mails, and lunch breaks might extend beyond the usual time limits.

“Ultimately, March Madness will not even register a blip on the nation’s economic radar, and even the smallest company will survive the month without any impact on their bottom line,” he stated.

Activities tied to sports events can actually be good for office morale as long they don’t interfere with work, OfficeTeam Executive Director Robert Hosking said in a news release.

OfficeTeam offered the following tips to employees before tipoff:

• Review company policy before engaging in game-related activities at work, such as checking scores online, to know what is considered acceptable.
• Review company policy about whether decorating your workspace in support of your favorite college is allowed.
• Show sportsmanship, and leave your overly competitive streak at home.
• Don’t let March Madness sideline your work.
• If you want to take a day off to watch the event, ask your supervisor in advance so workloads can be managed.
  “Watching a game together or holding a friendly contest provides opportunities for employees to build team spirit,” Hosking said.

Some employers remind workers to practice moderation in their tournament viewing but do not take steps to suppress participation, provided that March Madness does not create “an overt and significant problem,” Challenger stated.

Source: SHRM: http://www.shrm.org/Publications/HRNews/Pages/EmployersCourt.aspx

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/idreaminir/439015785/sizes/m/in/photostream/

What Employers Are Doing

In the past few months, an increasing number of employers have been demanding access to job candidate’s social media pages as a requirement in the application process. Facebook has seen what it calls a “distressing increase” in the number of people being asked to give employers their passwords over the past few months.

Facebook’s Response

Facebook’s Privacy Officer, Erin Egan, said Friday, “This practice undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user’s friends. It also potentially exposes the employer who seeks this access to unanticipated legal liability.”

She further noted that the practice “…may cause problems for the employers that they are not anticipating. For example, if an employer sees on Facebook that someone is a member of a protected group (e.g. over a certain age, etc.) that employer may open themselves up to claims of discrimination if they don’t hire that person.”

Egan concluded her statement (posted on the Facebook and Your Privacy Page) by saying that the company is willing to take legal action against companies that require job applicants to share their Facebook passwords or to “friend” managers in the organization so they can access posts and pictures on the applicant’s profile. She cited the fact that it is already against Facebook’s terms of service to share passwords with anyone.

Lawmakers Take Action

Two US Senators, Democrats Charles Schumer and Richard Blumenthal, have asked the Justice Department to investigate whether companies who require applicants to hand over confidential passwords are in violation of federal anti-hacking laws. They also said that they will ask the EEOC to investigate the practice as well, stating that it “may be used to unlawfully discriminate against otherwise qualified applicants.”

What’s Next

Unfortunately, the law has not caught up to the digital age. It will be up to the courts to decide if Americans possess a reasonable expectation of privacy online when they have social media profiles that are only accessible to approved “friends”. For now, the legality of the practice remains unclear.

This topic will be discussed in-depth during G&A Partners’ next webinar, “Living With Social Media in the Workplace”. Join us on Wednesday, March 27^th to hear from HR Advisor Rebecca Regard. If you miss the webinar, a recording will be posted at the link above for your convenience.

To read more about this topic, please see these resources:

Bloomberg News: Lawmakers Call for Facebook Password Probe

CNN Tech: Facebook speaks out against employers asking for password 

FoxNews: Senators call for federal probe over employers asking for Facebook passwords

Facebook and Your Privacy Page

Facebook’s Terms of Use 

Photo Source: Flickr

When it comes to wage and hour violations, the stakes are rising higher than ever. In three recent court cases, the government has cracked down on company owners, imposing stiff fines and even jail time for violators.

Malcom et al. v. Franklin Drywall

For example, in Minnesota, Phillip Franklin, the president of a sheetrock company, was sentenced to two years in jail and a potential $3.3 million fine for intentionally underpaying employee overtime as well as union benefit and pension contributions.

The company, Franklin Drywall, had collective bargaining agreements with several unions in Minnesota. CEO Phillip Franklin admitted that he ordered employees to under report hours, falsify time sheets, and submit false information to union pension and benefit funds. He then ordered administrative employees to tell the pension and benefit funds that union employees never worked more than forty hours per week. Employees who did work more than forty hours were paid for excess hours on separate paychecks at their straight hourly rate (no time-and-a-half)

In just 2006, Franklin evaded payment of at least $190,000 owed to employee pension and benefit funds.

Solis v. International Detective & Protective Services

In Illinois, the owners of a security company were fined over $200,000 for violating overtime and record keeping provisions. In the case, the Department of Labor accused the owner’s of International Detective & Protective Services of purposely misclassifying fifty-seven security guards under FLSA as independent contractors in order to avoid paying them overtime.

The judge in the case noted that the defendants tried to classify the guards as independent contractors through an employment contract. “Such an effort to avoid responsibility under FLSA to pay overtime premium is ineffective,” the judge wrote in the ruling. “Defendants violated the FLSA and therefore are liable for unpaid overtime compensation.”

Solis v. Hogar La Bendición Inc.

The owner and officers of a nursing home in Puerto Rico were ordered to pay nearly $200,000 in back wages for FLSA violations. It was the second time that Elba Garcia Hernandez, owner of the Hogar La Bendición nursing home, had been under FLSA investigation. Also, the US Department of Labor charged the defendants $1,540 in civil penalties for willful and repeated violations of the law. The judgment also prohibits the defendants from future violation of FLSA.

For more information on FLSA and the court cases mentioned above, please see the resources below:

Employees Paying the Price for Wage and Hour Violations- via AccountingWeb News (article source)

G&A Partners Webinar: Understanding FLSA and Employee Eligibility

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomswift/5987729222/sizes/m/in/photostream/

How Chewing Gum Could Make You a Better Employee

In the past few years, various scientific researchers have conducted studies on the effects that chewing gum can have on mood, memory, alertness, anxiety reduction, appetite suppression, and learning, to name a few.

Why, you ask? Well, it all began with a hunch that the simple act of chewing gum increases blood flow to the brain, which could, in turn, spark other healthful benefits.

Following are just a few of the benefits of chewing gum discovered by researchers:

• A study at Cardiff University in the UK found that both alertness and intellectual performance were increased in gum-chewing subjects
• Research journal New Scientist found that some aspects of memory seem to be improved by chewing gum, especially word recall
• A 2011 study from Live Science found that chewing gum before taking a test improved performance, but chewing gum throughout the test did not.
• Apparently, chewing gum for about 20 minutes is on par with mild exercise in terms of sending more blood to the brain. But continuing to chew after the warm-up required too much jaw-work, negating any added benefits.
• This 2009 study found that chewing gum reduces anxiety, although it is unclear why.
• Finally, this study conducted inTokyo suggests that prolonged gum chewing could actually reduce feelings of depression.

While it is too early to speculate why gum has these effects on people, the benefits can’t be ignored. There are few things cheaper or safer than popping a stick of gum in your mouth to achieve the benefits described above.

So go ahead and chew that gum in the office- you’ll be better at your job and have the freshest breath of anyone around.

Source: Forbes http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2012/03/08/chew-yourself-a-better-brain/

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/indrarado/4328201402/sizes/m/in/photostream/