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What Is Workplace Culture and How Do We Get It?

What is Workplace Culture?

Culture is the learned behavior, norms, and routines a group of people share. Sometimes it’s more of a feeling or experience than anything else. In the workplace, culture is influenced by three things:

Rules
Traditions
Personalities

Rules are the formal procedures, policies and expectations your company creates. Often these are categorized in employee manuals or other official documents, and they illustrate how the company views itself as a business and an employer. Examples of written rules include your sick leave policy or dress code. You probably have unwritten rules too, like the proper way to answer the phone or the understanding not to discuss client details outside of the office.

workplace culture

10 Team-Building Strategies for Every Type of Office

Great management is just as much about guiding your employees as it is about inspiring them to come together. Team building activities help coworkers find common ground, generate new ideas and bridge the gap between their unique learning and communication styles.

culture

FSA vs. HSA: What's the Difference?

Attracting and retaining the best employees goes beyond competitive pay. In the modern job market, employees set out to achieve work-life balance with the help of a supportive health and benefits package. A 2018 study found that over half of employees consider their employer-sponsored health benefits when making a long-term commitment to their company. How do you design an attractive insurance package? Flexible health plans can be the key.

benefits

Is Fair Work Scheduling In Your Future?

You don’t need a crystal ball to see the latest trend in employment law today: Fair work scheduling. Also called predictive scheduling, it means employers must give their employees stable, predictable hours and compensate them for last-minute changes to their work schedules. While municipal-level legislation has been on the books in California since 2014, the list of state and local laws is growing.

Fair Work Scheduling Predictive Scheduling

Keep Your 2018 Tax Return Handy! Now’s the Best Time to Plan for Next Year.

How did your 2018 taxes turn out? Hopefully you were able to check withholding allowances and make any needed adjustments to avoid a tax liability. If not, you might be wondering how to end up in a better position next year, especially if owing taxes came as a surprise.

Taxes

Coping with Unemployment Benefit Claims

No one enjoys employee termination: there’s bad news to deliver, unpleasant and awkward conversations to notify coworkers, paperwork to sign and file. Once the tasks of termination are finally finished you’re probably anxious to move forward, reassign job duties, and begin the search for a replacement. But few things derail that momentum like receiving notice that a former employee has filed an unemployment claim against your company.

unemployment claims

eLearning for Onboarding: How to Engage and Inform New Hires with Online Training Tools

You probably know that onboarding correlates to employee retention. In fact, according to Wynham Group research, new employees who went through a structured onboarding program were 58 percent more likely to still be with the organization after three years. Thoughtful, comprehensive onboarding is one of the best ways to get new hires engaged and integrated into your company culture and community fast.

onboarding

Are My Seasonal Employees Entitled to Overtime?

Facts about the FLSA, state requirements, and OT exemptions

Is hiring seasonal employees part of your strategy for surviving your busy season? Chances are you’ve come to depend on these workers each year, and they probably rely on you for the opportunity to earn extra money in a set period of time.

There’s no doubt it’s a profitable, if short-term, relationship between employee and employer. Don’t damage it by failing to pay overtime when it’s due. Read on to see if your seasonal employees qualify for overtime pay.

overtime seasonal employees

5 Benefits That Show Employees Their Financial Wellness Matters

benefits BenefitEd

Making Sense of Industry 4.0

You’ve probably heard of Industry 4.0, the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Often accompanied by tech buzzwords about optimizing production, becoming more agile, and predictive analytics, the term comes from a manufacturing strategy developed by the German government to increase computerization in factories. Digital automation in industry and manufacturing has also been discussed at the well-known German trade and technology show Hannover Messe since the early 2010’s.

Industry 4.0 smart factory

Employee Experience Underlies These 5 HR Topics to Watch in 2019

In 2019 improving employee experience will top many organizations’ to-do lists. When you think of the resources companies devote to studying and improving customer satisfaction and overall experience, it makes sense to do the same with employees. After all, these are the people that make or break a company’s success, so their experience is critical to its welfare.

onboarding Hiring culture

14 Work-themed Holidays to Observe in 2019

As you wrap up 2018 and look ahead to 2019, be sure to check out these work-related, unofficial holidays. They can be a fun way to interact with your coworkers on topics other than work, while taking care of some important tasks (like cleaning off your desk or backing up your computer files). They’re also a great way to build a positive, team-centered workplace culture.

holiday culture

What Is a PEO and Is It Right for You?

A Professional Employer Organization, or PEO, specializes in ubiquitous HR tasks like payroll, tax filings, benefits and retirement package administration, and more. Some companies turn to them to outsource this work so they can focus on growing their business, especially if they lack the internal expertise or the funds to hire dedicated HR staff. In fact, the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO) says 175,000 small and mid-sized businesses currently work with a PEO, which represents about 15% of employers with 10 to 99 employees.

HR payroll peo

Ready or Not, 2019 is Almost Here!

It might be hard to believe, but 2018 is drawing to a close. Right now your company may be preparing for a slow-down during the holiday season, ramping up for your busiest time of year, or rolling along with business as usual. In any case, it’s time to start thinking about 2019. Our revised and updated checklist will keep you on track as you look ahead to the new year.

FLSA IRS minimum wage

This Cold and Flu Season, Be Smart about Sick Leave

As leaves and temperatures fall outside, employee illness rates often rise. At this time of year, managers and HR personnel are thinking about sick leave just a little more than usual. Keeping your policy up to date and in compliance, tracking sick leave accrual and use, and filling in gaps in the schedule are a big part of your regular recordkeeping and compliance duties. You can’t cut corners, but as we’ll show, there are some ways to make the job easier.

From Opening Day to the Playoffs: Managing an MiLB Seasonal Workforce

"It is a worker's market," said Jocelyn Mangan (Chief Operating Officer of online employment platform at Snagajob) to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). "Employers are having to work harder."

Why? For one thing, unemployment is historically low, just 3.7 percent. That means job seekers have many options to consider. And they are taking this opportunity to comparison shop and influence the job market.

onboarding milb seasonal employees

Does Employee Training Time Affect Payroll?

In 2017, on average, “employees received 47.6 hours of training per year, nearly 4 hours more than last year,” reports the magazine Training. Clearly employers understand the value of training for things like job performance and employee retention. But are employees paid for the time they spend in training? Your exempt employees get the same salary regardless of the number of hours worked, but non-exempt employees are paid only for hours they work, so when exactly does training count as paid work time?

FLSA paid training

Tax Time Already? Check Your W-4 Now, Avoid Surprises Later

Do you rely on a tax refund to pay for a big, recurring expense like a vacation? Are you counting on a refund for a home improvement project? Do you keep close tabs on your budget and can’t afford to owe on your taxes?

Taxes

A (Benefit) Package Deal: Attract Talent You Need with Perks They Want

With unemployment at 3.9 percent in July 2018, it’s clearly a job candidate’s market. If you can find qualified candidates, they’re probably considering several employment options. While competitive salaries are still crucial, the benefits you offer are growing in importance. According to research by Glassdoor, “57 percent of US job candidates say benefits and perks are among the top things they consider when accepting a job offer.”

benefits BenefitEd Millennial

Why Us?! Preparing for a Workers Compensation Audit

Most people think of the US Internal Revenue Service when they hear the word audit, but there are other types of audits that affect your business. Let’s look at what employers need to know about workers compensation insurance audits.

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