The Challenge of Processing Wage Theft Notices for a Multi-State Contingent Workforce
Posted on May 14th, 2016 Read time: 2 minutes
By Katherine Duru
“Wage Theft” regulations are proliferating in cities and states across the United States. One important and often overlooked aspect of these laws require employers to provide new hires with written notice of their rights under the laws and the details on how and when they will be paid. Generating these written notices can be complex for multi-state employers with high volume hiring, especially for those who employ both exempt and non-exempt employees, or employees on bonus or commission plans. Each state has a different flavor for their required notice, although they all contain common elements such as regular and overtime rates of pay, pay days, and pay frequency. Developing a cost-effective and accurate method for generating these notices can be a challenge even for those with the most sophisticated onboarding systems.
This article shares how Innovative Employee Solutions, a nationwide employer of record, drafted a comprehensive system of wage theft notifications that is flexible enough to adjust as new state regulations are introduced, and complex enough to handle all the variations required by employee type and jurisdiction.
First, our Human Resources, Legal, and IT teams analyzed the variables required to provide accurate information to our new hires, and the frequency with which new Wage Theft laws were being introduced. We determined that our best course of action would be to develop a template that would include all of the information required by various state and local laws, and to send the information to all newly hired or rehired employees, regardless of whether the notice is required in the area where they work. This makes sense from an employee relations perspective because it provides all employees with clarity on what and when they will be paid, and from a legal perspective because it ensures compliance. From an IT perspective, it reduces complexity by allowing us to develop and maintain one communication rather than tailoring individual notifications by state.
Next we determined which system to use to generate the Wage Theft notices. As an employer of record providing payrolling services, we already had a system in place to record the required data. Our system of choice is Microsoft CRM, a highly configurable and flexible application which allows us to generate workflow based emails. Some of the factors we had to consider were how to generate new notices when there is a change to an employee’s rate of pay or exempt status while still on the same assignment, as well as how to handle breaks in service for our variable hour workforce.
The end result was what we call our Consolidated Wage Notice, a comprehensive written notification to all new hires, rehires, and employees with changes to their wage and hour status. The business impact of the new process is: considerably less time spent maintaining individual notices; peace of mind that due to our national program, we are already in compliance as new Wage Theft regulations are rolled out; and, better communication with all of our employees regarding the terms of their employment.
An experienced employer of record can help you avoid expensive issues that may arise with your contract or contingent workers. Reach out to the friendly experts at Innovative Employee Solutions for further assistance today! – See more at: Innovative Employee Solutions.
Related Articles
Posted on May 14th, 2016 Read time: 2 minutes
By Katherine Duru
“Wage Theft” regulations are proliferating in cities and states across the United States. One important and often overlooked aspect of these laws require employers to provide new hires with written notice of their rights under the laws and the details on how and when they will be paid. Generating these written notices can be complex for multi-state employers with high volume hiring, especially for those who employ both exempt and non-exempt employees, or employees on bonus or commission plans. Each state has a different flavor for their required notice, although they all contain common elements such as regular and overtime rates of pay, pay days, and pay frequency. Developing a cost-effective and accurate method for generating these notices can be a challenge even for those with the most sophisticated onboarding systems.
This article shares how Innovative Employee Solutions, a nationwide employer of record, drafted a comprehensive system of wage theft notifications that is flexible enough to adjust as new state regulations are introduced, and complex enough to handle all the variations required by employee type and jurisdiction.
First, our Human Resources, Legal, and IT teams analyzed the variables required to provide accurate information to our new hires, and the frequency with which new Wage Theft laws were being introduced. We determined that our best course of action would be to develop a template that would include all of the information required by various state and local laws, and to send the information to all newly hired or rehired employees, regardless of whether the notice is required in the area where they work. This makes sense from an employee relations perspective because it provides all employees with clarity on what and when they will be paid, and from a legal perspective because it ensures compliance. From an IT perspective, it reduces complexity by allowing us to develop and maintain one communication rather than tailoring individual notifications by state.
Next we determined which system to use to generate the Wage Theft notices. As an employer of record providing payrolling services, we already had a system in place to record the required data. Our system of choice is Microsoft CRM, a highly configurable and flexible application which allows us to generate workflow based emails. Some of the factors we had to consider were how to generate new notices when there is a change to an employee’s rate of pay or exempt status while still on the same assignment, as well as how to handle breaks in service for our variable hour workforce.
The end result was what we call our Consolidated Wage Notice, a comprehensive written notification to all new hires, rehires, and employees with changes to their wage and hour status. The business impact of the new process is: considerably less time spent maintaining individual notices; peace of mind that due to our national program, we are already in compliance as new Wage Theft regulations are rolled out; and, better communication with all of our employees regarding the terms of their employment.
An experienced employer of record can help you avoid expensive issues that may arise with your contract or contingent workers. Reach out to the friendly experts at Innovative Employee Solutions for further assistance today! – See more at: Innovative Employee Solutions.
