It has become fairly common to take an outgoing employee and rebrand the employee as a consultant / independent contractor — either as part of a severance plan or to phase the employee into a retirement status. Continue reading
Category Archives: Tips
Lessons from Bob Seger’s “Against the Wind”: 5 Clues Your Independent Contractor May Be Misclassified
The all-time best song lyric is Bob Seger’s “I wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then,” from Against the Wind. This is based on a comprehensive survey of 1 registered voter, but good enough.
Too many companies assume they don’t have an independent contractor misclassification problem because they have not yet been sued, audited, or investigated.
Remember how you could cover the eyes of small children and convince them you’ve disappeared? 
You didn’t disappear, though, did you? (Or, did you?!!) This is a fun little game but bad risk management strategy.
The better strategy is Continue reading
Four FMLA Traps When Using Temp Workers — and How to Avoid Them
The FMLA is full of traps for companies who use staffing agency workers, both for staff augmentation and temp-to-hire. Here are a few of the most common mistakes and how to avoid them:
photo credit: ransomtech Chimney Bluffs State Park via photopin (license)
1. Mistake: Not counting staffing agency time as service time, when determining whether the worker has worked for 12 months.
Tip: Staffing agency time counts. Add staffing agency time plus regular employee time to determine whether the worker has 12 months of service time. Accumulate all time worked during the past seven years. Continue reading
Can You Pay a Contractor Overtime? Should You?
Let’s talk about good old-fashioned 1099 Independent Contractors — you know, those individuals who are happy to be called contractors until they’re released and then decide they should have been treated as employees.
When retaining a contractor, one of the goals, of course, is to ensure that the contractor is properly classified and is not really (factually) an employee. A secondary goal, however, is to limit liability if the contractor is misclassified.
Today’s question sits at the intersection of these two goals. Continue reading
Who Is My Employee? 