Total Team Solutions “Pay as you go workers compensation” is becoming more popular with our clients thanks to a number of benefits that it provides.

The old, traditional method of workers comp involves paying upfront costs based on estimated payroll and then suffering through annual audits.  Pay as you go workers compensation is a more common sense approach to the issue, and one that can save you time and money.  Workers compensation is mandated by law and Total Team Solutions “pay as you go workers compensation” offers you the best way to stay compliant.  Here are five of the biggest benefits that pay as you go workers compensation can deliver:

1. No Up Front Payment – Pay as you go workers compensation eliminates the huge up-front payments that traditional policies include.  With pay as you go workers compensation you'll pay into the account in real time, giving you the ability to better manage your cash flow.  Pay as you go workers compensation lets you keep more money in your bank account, paying out only when you must.

2. No Estimates – Pay as you go workers compensation allows you to avoid the archaic estimated payment method that other policies use.  With pay as you go workers compensation your payments are based on actual data and figures from payroll and the insurance company.

3. No Audits – For most, this is the biggest benefit of pay as you go workers compensation policy.  Even though they could end in a return on your payments, audits can be expensive to deal with.  And having other parties review all of your company data can be stressful, as well.  Pay as you go workers compensation eliminates the need for costly year-end audits and allows you to keep your company moving forward instead of dealing with the hassle of audits.

4. Real Time Management – This feature of pay as you go workers compensation was touched on earlier, but is a benefit all its own.  With pay as you go workers compensation you can review data as you need to and get an accurate look at premium payments, claim data, and more.  And with pay as you go workers compensation you can do so without having to wait until quarterly reports or other requirements are reached.

5. Saved Money and Time – These benefits of pay as you go workers compensation encompass all of the above and more.  Pay as you go workers compensation saves your company money by eliminating audits and up-front payments, and saves you time by eliminating audits and letting you manage your information quickly.  In short, pay as you go workers compensation is the best way to solve your workers compensation needs.

Total Team Solutions offers pay as you go workers compensation to its clients, helping them reduce their costs and still provide coverage to their employees.  If you're tired of audits, estimated payments, and huge up front charges, then switching to a pay as you go workers compensation plan could be the best move you make.

Please contact Rob Lynn at 203-459-1777 ext. 11 or via email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Wage and hour litigation is a growth industry with a significant increase in case filings over the last ten years.  Wage and hour cases can be of significant risk, given that a compliance problem often affects an entire class of employees.  If an employer has paid one employee incorrectly, it is likely that others were paid incorrectly as well.  Under the FLSA, a plaintiff can collect 100 percent of unpaid overtime pay going back up to three years, plus a penalty amount determined by the court of up to 100% of unpaid overtime, plus attorney fees.  Risks are significant and can be avoided by making sure that employees are classified correctly based on their job duties and if entitled to overtime pay – then pay it.

Most employees have job duties that would entitle them to overtime pay.  Some employees may qualify for one of the narrow exemptions from overtime pay and would deem to be “exempt”. Unfortunately, employees are frequently misclassified as exempt when they are not.  One of the most common misconceptions is that paying employees on a salary basis automatically makes them exempt from overtime pay, which is not the case.

Total Team Solutions can help our clients by providing compliance guidelines when it comes to defining exempt vs. non-exempt and making sure that overtime is paid correctly.

Return-to-work programs are only effective if they are implemented with the support of all levels of management.  As with all programs that impact employees, they are much more successful when one allows the frontline employees to assist in the development of the overall return-to work plan.

Six Essential Components to be considered before an injury occurs:

• Create a written return-to-work policy.
• Review the policy with new employees during their orientation or with existing employees during their annual review.
• Write a detailed job evaluation that identifies the specific tasks and physical demands associated with each job within the company.
• Create a detailed job description for every position.
• Establish a working relationship with a walk-in clinic or occupational medical center.
• Assign a specific person in your organization that will be responsible for administering the return-to-work program. This person should have a thorough knowledge of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the Workers’ Compensation Statutes.

In many of the HR articles I’ve read in the past week, the one area that strikes me the most is that

Employers continue to combat the toughest economy in decades and deal with an explosion of Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) charges and employment lawsuits in the following key areas:

1. Sexual orientation, religious and disability discrimination. While many employers only train on sexual harassment, discrimination trends are moving farther away from just sex-based claims.
2. Violence and bullying. Twenty percent of all violent crime in the US occurs in the workplace – approximately 1.7 million employees are injured yearly because of workplace assaults.
3. Wage and hour. The number one employment law risk, wage and hour class action lawsuits, are exploding and outpacing all workplace discrimination claims combined. These claims now account for an astonishing 84 percent of all employment class-action filed. The Department of Labor (DOL) estimates that more than 80 percent of employers are out of compliance with federal and state wage and hour laws

Helping our client’s reduce the risk of employment is one of Total Team Solution’s critical functions.  To learn more about how we can help, please contact Rob Lynn at 800-836-9678  ext. 11

U.S. manufacturing is on a nice upswing as foreign goods have become more costly to produce due to US currency weakness and a sharp increase in foreign labor costs.  So while our manufacturing base is making a comeback there is one significant drag to the industry and that is finding workers with the right skills.  

The news should be great for job seekers here in the United States but employers are saying that they are having a “somewhat” to “very” difficult  to finding qualified candidates for open positions, according to a February 2012 small business survey conducted by Wells Fargo/Gallup.

Providing appropriate job training is critical to our ability to maintain and strengthen our manufacturing base.  Total Team Solutions does not provide this type of job training but we do help our clientsretain their employees by providing quality cost effective and a quality HR foundation.

Many companies are using social media as part of their recruiting, candidate selection process, and everyday business operations.  Many recruiters and managers can gather a great deal of information with a search across the social media.  The search should not influence their decision to interview or hire a potential employee, but it just could.  If someone "likes" a cancer research association, does that mean the candidate may have cancer?  Once that seed is planted, it is hard to remove it from the process.

That type of unintended influence is where the potential risk for social media discrimination could set in.  Many employment law attorneys advise their clients to avoid using social media channels as part of their hiring practice so that they can minimize the risk altogether.   However, this is not the answer as 36.6 million job seekers used social media as part of their job search strategy.   Some suggestions would be:

1. Have candidates sign a disclosure document
2. Treat informal social media checks as Formal
3. Use a third party to conduct a separate check

Total Team Solutions has been providing payroll, employee benefits, and HR services to help our small & mid-sized clients focus on more revenue critical responsibilities.

With 2011, we experienced an economy getting back to its’ feet with a renewed optimism that this moderate GDP growth will be sustainable for the foreseeable future.   With a decreased workforce, business owners have focused more time on delivering competitive products and services to their clients and not enough time on the business side of their business.  As a result, the crucial internal process of a company does take a backseat and doesn’t get the required attention.  Add in the changing business environment, government regulations, and healthcare reform, and it becomes overwhelming the attention required to stay competitive and out of trouble.  On top of it all, smart business owners know that a good business is built with great employees.   One of the most common challenges in today’s environment is that lack of time and resources to handle the employer-employee relationship effectively so that one can be the employer of choice in their community.

Maintaining and attracting the best employees in your community requires that processes and procedures be in place to keep employees satisfied.  Offering competitive benefits, opportunity for advancement, flexible work schedule, consistent acknowledgement of performance, are all very important in creating an effective workplace.  When a company’s best employees are engaged in their work, they will generate 40% more productivity that those that are disengaged.

Total Team Solutions has been helping small & mid-sized companies with their HR needs.  Our payroll, employee benefits, benefit administration, along with our human resource services have provided our clients the opportunity to not only retain their top talent, but the ability to focus more time on the revenue generating portion of their business.

The difficult economic conditions over the past three years have provided business owners the unparalleled opportunity to attract, retain, support and fully engage their most important employees.  What does keep the best employees devoted to their jobs in this difficult economic environment?

The answer according to Sylvia Hewitt is surprisingly not a steady salary or hefty bonus.  What truly satisfies employee’s needs and wants are:

1.      Formalized Flexibility – Remote Work Options, staggered hours, reduced schedules and mini-sabbaticals can provide the employee greater value than a bigger paycheck.

2. Career Development – With a reduced workforce, giving capable employees more challenging assignments or cross-functional roles that boost skills and expand their professional capabilities is of greater value.

By revising rewards, smart employers can turn this economic challenge into a talent incubator.  For over twenty years, Total Team Solutions has provided payroll, employee benefits, and HR services to small & mid-sized companies.  To learn more, please contact Rob Lynn at 800-836-9678  ext. 11

Many small companies are continuing to look to the outsourcing of basic HR Services in order to reduce operating costs and to help force a company to consolidate and simplify basic employer functions.  According to the Society of Human Resource Management, the top four services that are outsourced are the administration of Healthcare, Flexible Spending Accounts, Retirement Benefits and Payroll.  Outsourcing of these functions will not only help one to simplify, but it will help a company take advantage of current technology.  Business owners are outsourcing to have parity in the market and relief from thinking of the day to day details of these essential but non-revenue generating functions.   HR outsourcing becomes beneficial because one can spend more time visiting customers and prospects, and less time focused on non-productive employer responsibilities. 

Also, most business owners and controllers don't have time to keep up with constantly changing regulations such as the new hire tax credits or cobra reimbursements, changing withholding rates, and newly mandated government forms. By outsourcing payroll & employee benefits to a company like Total Team Solutions, a small business can take advantage of expertise that was previously available only to big companies.

According to the IRS, 40% of small businesses pay an average penalty of $845 per year for late or incorrect filings.  Total Team Solutions provides a tax guarantee, ensuring that customers will incur no penalties because the provider takes responsibility for penalties when they do occur. In many instances, this cost-saving immediately justifies outsourcing payroll