Horizon Payroll Blogs

Sending employees out on the road has countless benefits. Quite often, it’s the best way to connect face-to-face with clients and partners or seek out training from experts in the field. In other industries, daily travel is simply part of the job. Maintenance and utility workers, for example, rarely work on their homebase without a trip to a customer’s home on a weekly, if not daily, basis. So, how do you compensate employees for travel, especially when they have nonexempt, hourly contracts?

Building and maintaining trust with your employees is always a top priority in your business. An easy and error-free payroll process makes employees feel supported in their work and eager to grow with your company. Statistics show that accurate payroll is one of the top retention tools for gaining employee trust. So, it‘s only understandable that you have fears about passing this crucial task to someone else.

Every business has one-of-a-kind payroll needs. A local coffee shop doesn’t require the same payroll schedule, timekeeping system or HR support as a 50-person marketing agency. 

If the words “payroll fraud” make you cringe, you’re not alone. Perhaps you’ve seen a recent story in the national news, but unfortunately, it’s not an isolated incident, as seen in Maryland and Indiana. If you’ve recently started to outsource this task or are just starting to consider it, you might be wondering if it’s a smart, and safe, decision.

If you’re like many employers, you’ve been following the developments about the DOL’s long-anticipated final rule regarding overtime eligibility. The law is critical to correctly classifying exempt and non-exempt employees, and many employers have been left in a holding pattern since updates were first suggested in 2016.

Updated March 29, 2020.

This blog post reflects the current state and local minimum wages in effect as of January 1, 2021, as well as future enacted increases. Read on to prepare to update your payroll and learn what you need to know.

After the recent management shift at the Department of Labor, experts are encouraging businesses to prepare sooner than later for upcoming changes to overtime laws. Many suspect that the white-collar exemption salary threshold could increase with only several months’ notice. What does this mean for businesses? Employees that meet certain job duties and fall within a specific salary range will be reclassified to non-exempt employees, making them eligible for overtime hours.

Managing an active HR office is demanding work on a typical day. When a new employee arrives for orientation, an already-hectic day gets a bit busier. So how can you simplify the onboarding process to handle these transitions with greater ease?

Employees depend on your payroll system to be concise and on time every pay cycle, but avoiding issues is not always easy. Business owners—especially of small and mid-sized companies—often have too much on their plate to double back and check their work or fix mistakes. Precision is not always possible without a little help.

Every new employee wants to make a strong impression on their first day. The HR team plays a key role in setting each new worker on the right track so they can succeed. At the same time, hiring managers rarely have the time to organize an official onboarding process. Doing so, however, could save significant time, energy and transition complications. It welcomes the new team member with a sense of efficiency and enthusiasm that would otherwise get lost without a plan.

Supporting a strong team of employees can be just as challenging as finding a new candidate. Even top employees can steer off course and require guidance to do their best work. In some cases, encouraging the employee to move on may be the best course of action. But disciplining or terminating an employee is never an easy job for a manager. There are the personal delicacies to consider – hurt feelings, damaged work confidence and office morale – as well as the feared legal retaliation should the firing not follow the right process.

Accurate timekeeping is undoubtedly one of the top ways to ensure your company’s financial health. Small errors, even those that affect several dollars each week, can accumulate into a significant loss in just a few months. Though manual timekeeping has served companies for years, our digital world provides a much more professional and succinct solution to tracking employee compensation.

Making the Connection Between Data, the Cloud, and Cybersecurity

How many of these situations are familiar?

• You write down a password so you won’t forget it
• You wonder where your documents really go when you back them up to the cloud
• You receive an unexpected email from your supervisor or CEO asking for personal information
• You share your login with a coworker because one of you is in too much of a hurry to look up the info

What is Workplace Culture?

• 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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.