It can be easy to make a contribution to an IRA and put the idea of retirement in the back of your head — especially if you’re a younger employee.

But simply making that contribution isn’t enough. It’s very easy for employees to make a mistake that’ll end up costing them down the road.

USA Today consulted different financial planners and found several commonly overlooked aspects of retirement planning. It’s worth bringing up with your staff.

Do you have a budget when you retire?

Some financial planners say that retirees will spend 80% of what they spend during their working years. This is misleading. It assumes that you’ll be spending less on the commute, work supplies and clothing, dining out, etc. But in reality, retirement is the time when you could easily spend more.

Think about it: It’s easier to spend eight hours a day in an office and not spend money than it is to have a bunch of free time to shop, travel, eat out, etc. Plan to have a budget when you retire and stick to that budget.

How are you preparing for inflation?

Conservative retirement contributions are often a product of not calculating inflation. A good rule of thumb is assume you’ll have 25 years of retirement, plus 3% inflation. Plan accordingly.

Why are you so sure you can work in your retirement years?

Some employees purposely will plan to save less and assume that they’ll continue working in their retirement years. That’s a nice optimistic view to have, but how many 70-year-olds do you see in a typical workplace? It may seem callous but you can’t assume that you’ll be able to keep working into your sixties or seventies, or that jobs will want to readily offer you a job. You can’t predict the future.

How about health care costs?

Medicare doesn’t cover everything, including vision, dental and hearing. Experts say, retirees typically need help in at least one of those areas — and it could mean spending a huge chunk of your retirement to take care of. Plan accordingly.

Do you have tips for your employees when it comes to retirement planning? Let us know in the comments below.

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Don’t feel bad if it’s more than a few times. Meetings are considered to be a real burden in the workplace by virtually all employees.

It’s not so much the meeting itself, but the stress that comes with expecting the worst: Offtrack discussions and a lack of a set timetables to name just a few grievances.

However, constructive meetings do exist. Matthew May, author and founder of EDIT Innovation, recently wrote his keys to holding more “lean” meetings.

He first suggests asking yourself these questions about your last meeting that was held:

• “Did it add value for everyone, or was it mostly arm-waving?”
• “Was there a focus on a critical issue, or did we simply brush the surface of too many subjects?”
• “Did we start and stop precisely on time, or were we waiting?”

If those answers aren’t good ones, then it’s time to reform your idea of meetings.

Keys to the lean meeting

Hold meetings around a single decision

Do your best to get information regarding that decision beforehand with one-on-one conversations with others. For example, you don’t need a meeting to tell marketing you need certain figures. Get the figures beforehand and use that information to prepare for the decision that should be made in the meeting.

Keep it to 12 minutes

Use this as a strict time limit for all meetings. Everyone should be able to get in and know immediately why they’re there. If everyone is prepared, arriving to that decision shouldn’t take so long.

Don’t be afraid to be unsocial

As mentioned, you should be getting the information for this meeting from the key players before the meeting ever even starts. So when you’re in the actual meeting, don’t assume you need a chit-chat about irrelevant matters. It’s important to not treat the meeting as a break from work.

What tips do you use for lean meetings? Let us know in the comments below.

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You know there are ways employees can take some little liberties with the hours they work to pad their paychecks at your company’s expense. But what happens when it’s your supervisors who are shaving employee hours?

That’s the situation fast food giant McDonalds is currently accused of.  An employee at a Syracuse, New York area restaurant is claiming his manager altered his timecards to avoid paying him overtime.

And it stands to get worse: The employee is now seeking a class action status for his claims.

That could prove very expensive for the employer.

When the heat is on they make the wrong choice

Unfortunately it’s easy to see how this could happen these days. Supervisors have been under pressure for years now to operate as lean as they can. Some of them even have their own compensation packages riding on it. Overtime represents a major expense.

So a less-than-scrupulous supervisor looking to come across as a cost-conscious leader may be tempted to take a little time off his or her people’s hours.

However, there are plenty of other ways companies may run afoul of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) – and they’re a lot more innocent.

The McDonalds situation serves as a great entre to start this conversation with supervisors and to review the scenarios that could possibly land your organization in hot water.

These three behaviors can be considered pay shaving and aren’t allowable under federal pay laws, remind the folks at FindLaw.com:

Scenario 1: Paying less than time and a half for overtime hours

Mary is working some extra long hours for a few weeks during W-2 time. She tracks and records all the time she worked and your company pays her for it, but at her regular hourly rate.

No go, say the feds. You must pay that employee at a rate of time-and-a-half for the hours worked beyond her regular workweek.

Scenario 2: Supervisors offer time off or gifts instead of overtime

Tim worked some extra hours over a span of several weeks during a special project. Instead of overtime, your company “pays” him in comp time to use whenever he wants.

Another no-no. Yes, some companies offer their people comp time, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But it can’t be used to escape overtime responsibilities. After all, overtime is paid at a 50% higher rate than the usual rate of pay. Compensating with time would fall short of the appropriate pay rates.

Same goes for substituting gifts of any sort for overtime pay. More “creative” compensation solutions don’t pass muster in the feds’ eyes.

Scenario 3: Not paying for work done during breaks

James is required to take two breaks during the course of his workday. But when a large order needs to be fulfilled, he worked right on through on the production floor. However, he isn’t compensated for that time.

That’s a violation as well. Granted, federal law doesn’t require employees to be paid for breaks. But if they work during them, supervisors must understand that they have to be compensated.

Offer scenarios as a training tool

Of course if you ask supervisors they’ll tell you that everyone is being fairly and correctly compensated.

Think about adapting scenarios like the ones above to your specific company situations. When people can see just how things would pay out in their own company, you just may catch something before it becomes an expensive headache.

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That notion plays into the takeaway from a recent New York Magazine story, “The End of Wall Street as They Knew It” which shows that more people in general aren’t looking to be employed at big corporations but would rather join the ranks in Silicon Valley. The vehicle that gets them there? The latest and greatest start-up business.

In a column by Deloitte CEO, Barry Salzberg, he says that millennials treat finance, consulting and corporate jobs as a “a tragedy of wasted minds” and would rather have a career that matters to them.

Focus on recruitment strategies

So if your company is looking to get young talent into the office and keep them around for a while, it’s time to leave any stuffy corporate recruiting strategies at the door.

Here are some key factors from the Harvard Business Review to keep in mind when trying to recruit and develop millennials:

• Recruiting materials should focus on the company’s vision and goals. Part of the appeal of start-ups is just how wide-eyed they are, so if your company is passionate about its mission, vision and goals, young workers will take notice.
• Involve candidates and young employees in strategic talks about bettering the company with those same goals in mind. For candidates, ask them during the job interview how they feel about the company’s vision. For young employees, have a regular talk with them about this and include veteran employees in the conversation, too. It shows the company as a whole takes it seriously.
• Offer room to advance, not just in the company, but in their personal lives, too. It helps if you have unique benefits that allow for self-exploration, like volunteer opportunities.
• Work on identifying young talent right away. An early promotion for consistently great work is a surefire way to keep them around.
• In addition to self-exploration benefits, think about low-cost perks that start-ups usually employ. Here’s a good place to start.

Do you have a strategy for finding and developing young talent? Let us know your ideas in the comments below.

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A new study shows that 71% of data breaches at companies involved attacks on employees’ devices, compared with 54% of attacks being aimed directly at a company’s servers. Also, 76% of the attacks exploited weak or stolen log-in information. Those credentials are often stolen from users with malware, phishing and other scams.

But the more interesting part of Verizon’s 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report, which analyzed 621 data breaches investigated in 2012, reveals which type of employees are most often targeted.

The two most common targets? Managers and executives.

In 69% of attacks studied by Verizon, the target was unknown. But the next two categories on the list were executives and managers, targeted in 16% and 11% of attacks, respectively.

This makes sense as managers, executives and any high level employees usually have access to highly sought-after data. Leaders of companies also have higher profiles — it’s easier for a hacker to do their research.

Get them trained

Though many companies train their lower- and mid-level employees to avoid cyber attacks and suspicious emails, studies like this show that it it’s just as important to train higher-level members of the organization — from the CEO, all the way down.

That’s why training is absolutely essential for executives. Coordinate with the CIO or head of IT to set up training presentations for executives and managers. It doesn’t need to be a fancy hours-long presentation with all the bells and whistles, but it should get everyone educated on the risks higher-level employees face with their devices.

It’s important to emphasize responsibility here. It may be tough to get other execs to listen to basic IT training, but frame it as their responsibility to the company — and to the bottom-line.

What types of IT training does your company employ? Is there a focus for specifically training executives and managers? Let us know in the comments below.

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…the wrong person for the job.

It happens – frequently. And it costs. Two thirds (66%) of U.S. employers admit a bad-fit employee has had a measurable negative impact on their workplace.

That’s according to a recent survey from the folks at CareerBuilder.com.

We’re not talking about little consequences either. Among those employers struggling with this situation, more than a quarter (27%) say a single bad hire resulted in losses greater than $50,000.

And considering all the sensitive responsibilities your finance staffers have, your department is particularly at risk for these high-stakes hits.

So what can you do to ensure you make the right call when putting someone new on your payroll?

6 strategies that find just the right fit

We’re scoured the Web for the best advice on zeroing in on just the right hire for your department. (Some of which just may fly in the face of what you thought you were supposed to be looking for.)

1. Pick the specialist over the generalist. “Jack of all trades and master of none.” Unless you’re a one-person operation, you may be better off picking the candidate who’s really good at a specific skill you need rather than merely proficient at all of them.  Think about your finance staff more like a football team: You want someone who’s a whiz at Excel, another who can schmooze any customer, internal or external, another who’s worked in a bank and very familiar with electronic treasury functions.
2. Skip the ads. You’re better off starting with your own network when seeking someone new for Finance. Here’s why: 77% of top biz leaders find their top performers by tapping their own professional (and personal) networks.  Odds are you may already have a great fit in your contact list – or at least the person who can put you in touch with that individual.
3. Take enough time. Too many companies jump the first time they see someone who seems to fit the bill. But that could lead to one of those costly hiring mistakes. Best guide: Interview 3-5 well-qualified people for a given position before you make any decision.
4. Consider your corporate (and Finance) culture. This has sunk many a promising new hire – they looked great on paper but just don’t fit in within the organization. What does your company value most? Are you performance-driven? Also consider the culture within Finance itself: Is it an we’re-all-in-this-together kind of atmosphere where staffers all jump in to help each other? Then you have to make sure the person you’re hiring can thrive in that kind of environment and isn’t an every-man-for himself type of employee.
5. Don’t let HR lead the process. Many companies have Human Resources conduct the initial screening of candidates. But really, how much do they know about how Finance works day in and day out? Who does: your finance staffers. Consider letting some of your top performers perform first-level reviews of candidates. They narrow down the field and then you’re ready to bring those 3-5 best fits in.
6. Make those reference calls yourself. One other task you don’t want to hand off to someone else: reference checking. Many hiring managers treat this step as a mere formality – as long as you don’t hear something extremely distressing, you’re good to go. But this is a real opportunity for you, as this person’s potential new boss, to learn a lot about this person. And talking manager to manager you’ll get a lot more insight than a call from HR can produce. This may be your last chance to find out about this person before you put him or her on your payroll. Make the most of it so you don’t make an expensive mistake.

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Grammy-winning singer, songwriter and actress, Lauryn Hill, was sentenced to three months in prison and three months of house arrest for failure to file tax returns for five years. Hill failed to report over $2.3 million worth of income.

Hill, who scored eight Grammy awards for her album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, pleaded guilty to three counts of failure to provide tax returns. During the hearing, Hill compared her situation to that of slavery:

“I was put into a system I didn’t know the nature of,” she said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “I’m a child of former slaves. I got into an economic paradigm and had that imposed on me,” she said. “I sold 50 million units … now I’m up here paying a tax debt. If that’s not likened to slavery, I don’t know what is.”

But if you had asked Hill at the time the charges were first levied, she would have had an even lengthier explanation. She explained on her blog that she had gone “underground… in order to build a community of people, like-minded in their desire for freedom and the right to pursue their goals and lives without being manipulated and controlled by a media protected military industrial complex with a completely different agenda.”

Welcome to the club

Hill isn’t the only celebrity who has trouble with Uncle Sam. Check out these famous figures who couldn’t be bothered:

• Richard Pryor: 10 days in jail for tax evasion in 1974
• Sophia Loren: 18-day prison sentence in 1982 for tax evasion
• Chuck Berry: three months in prison and 1,000 hours of benefits shows for unreported tour income in the 1970s
• Ronald Isley: 37 months in federal prison for tax evasion and $3.1 million in back taxes
• Richard Hatch: 51 months in prison for failing to pay taxes on his $1 million in Survivor winnings
• Wesley Snipes: sentenced to three years in prison for failing to file tax returns

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