California is a great place to live but a difficult place to be an Employer and let’s face the reality – it’s just getting worse. This year is a perfect example of how rule changes can just suck the energy and resources out of a business. The rules for 401k plans have changed, requiring three new notices. And, January is shaping up to be a perfect storm of other rule and tax changes. Then we have the granddaddy of all changes; the Affordable Healthcare Law with its list of deadlines. All of this draws the attention of the management team away from running the company.
The pace of changes in the specialized areas of HR and Benefit Administration is mind numbing and in many businesses it is distracting from the core mission of the organization. The issue becomes one of focus for your management team and how to remove the other items. In HR/Benefit Administration, one strategy is to engage the services of a PEO (professional employer organization) and outsource most of the employer responsibilities. Everyone knows that the next year is going to have lots of decisions and with those decisions will come tons of details that will have to be evaluated, selected, and implemented. So if there was ever a year where you need advisors in this part of this business, it’s this year.
There are lots of ways to cover this – including internal staffing, consultants, or service partners. The internal staff solution is problematic because of the fixed cost and the variable amount of work. It is also difficult for an internal person to be an expert on all the areas that a business will need expertise. So even if you have a full time HR staff they might not be the best advisors in some areas. Consultants are a cost challenge because they typically bill by the hour and they cover a narrow area of the business. This leaves the service partner who is more likely to understand the issues unique to your business. They can leverage the research work over many clients making them more cost effective in most situations.
Regardless of the strategy you take for the business, you need to make sure that over the next few years that you have an expert in your pocket on these issues because there will be lots of decisions you will need to make. Now is the time to start meeting with and engaging those experts.
If you need help with any decisions in HR/Benefits Administration that will need to be made due to all of this chaos, pick up the phone and give YPP a call, and let’s talk about adding the HR Divas to your team of experts.