Ep 41 - The IRS Says Your Employee Classification Is Wrong - Workology

Ep 41 - The IRS Says Your Employee Classification Is Wrong - Workology Ep 41 The IRS Says Your Employee Classification Is Wrong Welcome to the new Workology Go Podcast. In just under five minutes, we get you the HR and workplace news you need before you start your day. Get ready, get set and go with the Workology Go Podcast. Here are today’s HR and workplace news headlines from Workology Go Podcast. I’m Jessica Miller-Merrell. The Workology Go Podcast is sponsored by Workology. Ep 41 The IRS Says Your Employee Classification Is Wrong Between 2010 and 2015, the number of taxpayers penalized for underpaying estimated taxes increased nearly 40%, according to IRS data, and the rise of the gig economy is often cited as a contributing factor to these numbers. As a writer, speaker and consultant I’ve spent a lot of time as a freelancer. As a corporate HR leader, I understand how classifications can be a challenge. As the gig economy continues to grow, it’s interesting because the IRS and the bureau of labor statistics really have no idea how many gig workers there actually are in the U.S. Forbes reported in 2018 there were 57 million gig workers in the U.S. and 29% of US workers have side gigs and alternative employment. But back to employee misclassification, solving the problem of worker misclassification starts with having the right policies and regulation in place. Today, states, government officials, and individual businesses are working on a variety of initiatives to help combat this issue. Many states have created task forces, commissions, and research teams to investigate instances of employee misclassification and gather data. Targeted audits conducted by some of these task forces have helped to recover millions of dollars. In 2013, for example, New York’s Joint Enforcement Task force on Employee Misclassification identified nearly 24,000 instances of employee misclassification, discovered over $333.4 million in unreported wages, and assessed over $12.2 million in UI contributions. Today’s featured article comes from MBO Partners and is titled, “Employee vs. Contractor: Worker Classification and the IRS.” Why is working as a freelancer so attractive to this workforce? I talked with Heide Brandes, a freelancer writer on why she left the comforts of being a traditional employee and go freelance. Honestly, its the absolute freedom I have. When you say you are you are your own boss. I really am my own boss. I can choose to sleep in that day and not get any work done, i.e. not get paid that day. Or I can I can work from anywhere. I spent a month in Africa, but as long as I have Wi-Fi, I can still work. And, you know, thats what I really love about it is the absolute freedom to be able to do the amount of work I want when I want to do it, where I want to do it and not have the traditional constraints as an off environment. I remember there are times when I was working in non-profit, Id be done by noon. But I wouldnt to be able to leave because, well, traditionally Im supposed to stay there till 5:00. Thats what theyre paying me to do. And Im a very fast worker. So that was always very frustrating to me. I honestly, I love the freedom of being my own boss and I can choose which articles I write in newspapers. Sometimes you get to have to write articles feel like I really dont wan t to write this, but youd have to because its your job now as a freelancer and a contractor I can accept the work. I can deny work. I pick and choose which pieces I want to. And thats very satisfying as well. Its a lot more control over your work hours, your flexibility and the work that youre doing. Oh, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. But there is a downside to it as well. Well talk a little bit about that. So the downside. What what is that? Well, the downside is the lack of security. You know, if youre in an office environment, your traditional employee, you know exactly how much youre gonna get every paycheck, every two weeks. I start every month. I have no idea where Im going to make this month. It would be nice to have more retainer clients where I know I have, you know, X amount of money coming from this client, X amount of money from this client. I usually do. But, you know, I think that is one of the scariest things when people start considering freelancing is the total insecurity of your finances. Some months I make, you know, X amount of money and some months I fall way short and I start looking at whos hiring for Uber, you know? Freelancing offers great flexibility for those workers. However, many employers like to hire freelancers instead of employees because of the cost savings for them. Misclassification of employees is expensive. It’s 50 for each W-2 that the employer failed to file. Penalties of 1.5 percent of wages, 40 percent of FICA taxes not withheld from employee, and 100 percent of the employer FICA taxes. A Failure to Pay Taxes penalty equal to 0.5 percent of the unpaid tax liability for each month, up to 25 percent of the total tax liability. I’ve included some resources in the transcript of this podcast to determine if your contractors are really employees. You may remember what was called the 20 factor test. It is now been compressed into three general categories: 1) behavioral control,  2) financial control, 3) relationship of the parties. Have you done an audit of your freelance workforce to see if they might be misclassified? What is Workology Go Podcast? And that’s this episode of the Workology Go Podcast sponsored by Workology. We’re your go to for HR and workplace news. To learn more about the Workology Go Podcast, subscribe to us on Apple, Google, and Stitcher. Our podcast is also available on Alexa and Google Home. Learn more at workology.com/gopodcast and access this episodes resources, links and reports for more information. Featured Story Employee vs. Contractor: Worker Classification and the IRS More Great Resource Ep 110 â€" Who Is Really the Freelance Workforce? Work with Independent Contractors? How to Avoid an IRS Crackdown How to Subscribe to the Workology Podcast Stitcher | PocketCast | iTunes | Podcast RSS | Google Play | YouTube | TuneIn You can also click here to find out how to be a guest on the Workology Podcast(s).

5 Exorbitant Costs of Making a Bad Hire

5 Exorbitant Costs of Making a Bad Hire 5 Exorbitant Costs of Making a Bad Hire The director is a basic piece of an association. Their duties become increasingly various relying upon how expound their associations hierarchy of leadership is. However, every administrator has three key obligations. These duties include: Recruiting Great EmployeesDeveloping Great EmployeesRetaining Great Employees On the off chance that you don't get number one right, the rest becomes almost unimaginable. A director is in an ideal situation spending more time hiring extraordinary workers. Organizing time towards recruiting extraordinary representatives implies there will be a littler possibility that youll need to go through time dealing with troublesome workers. While there are numerous approaches to calculate the cost of turnover (recruiting costs, preparing costs, severance, and so forth.), I would contend that the expense of not firing a awful representative far exceeds the turnover cost. This article plots the significant expense of making and keeping an awful recruit in your association. Dont Fall for the Warm Body Fallacy At the point when confronted with open positions and compelled to recruit, or enduring a poor entertainer as a result of a stop on employing substitutions. I've heard various administrators state: All things considered, a warm body is superior to no one. I would tend to disagree. As a rule, a warm body (or terrible recruit) is far worse than leaving a position empty until you can locate an incredible recruit or terminating a poor entertainer, despite the fact that the individual can't be supplanted. At the point when a chief recruits a terrible worker, they are regularly oblivious in regards to the representative's weaknesses in light of the fact that the recruit is an impression of their capacity to choose representatives. They want that representative to succeed, and will regularly miss the admonition indications of horrible showing and become guarded in the event that another person calls attention to it. Its conceivable to get real to life feedback if you speculate that you may have a vulnerable side. What's more, dont be stressed over doing this on the grounds that different chiefs have done this before you. Furthermore, business will be business, particularly when theres a financial plan to consider. The Five Costs of a Bad Hire Effect on the Rest of the Team: When one representative is failing to meet expectations or hauls around a reliably terrible demeanor, it devastatingly affects the remainder of the group. They need to get a move on, conceal mix-ups, and set up with a wide range of unsavory work propensities from their slacker colleague. Great representatives will dislike enduring the jabber, assurance will endure, principles will drop to the least denominator, and in the long run, extraordinary workers will quit.Impact on Customers: Bad enlists can't get a handle on their activity duties, and regardless of whether they can, are continually searching for alternate ways, or making clients upset because of their absence of client assistance. The expense of increasing another client is much more costly than continuing existing clients, and one negative connection with an awful recruit may make that client leave. In the long run, your image and notoriety will endure. Time Spent on Performance Management: A terrible recruit will suck up the time and focal point of a supervisor. Rather of coaching and creating different representatives, they get sucked into a perpetual pattern of tuning in to protests from others, give restorative feedback, micromanaging, distributing discipline, and inevitably being hauled through an excruciating disciplinary procedure. Attempting to get a terrible recruit to meet even least desires resembles playing the executives whack-a-mole. One issue (appearing late) may briefly leave, however it is before long supplanted with another issue (phoning in debilitated). The Manager's Reputation: Every director makes a terrible recruit once in a while. Nobody is great. Be that as it may, on the off chance that a supervisor sets up an example of terrible recruits, at that point they get a notoriety for being an inept director. No administrator can compensate for a group of terrible recruits, so soon the supervisor is the one being instructed out of their job.The Cost of Turnover: This is the quantifiable cost that most allude. These expenses are genuine: enlisting costs, movement expenses and preparing costs all signify large numbers. Sadly, it's these sunk costs that regularly makes directors buy in to the warm body hypothesis. The Bottom Line These are only a couple of the costs you cause from making and keeping an awful recruit. I'm certain there are more, contingent upon the kind of association and worker jobs. It doesn't make a difference in the event that you are recruiting a passage level the lowest pay permitted by law representative or senior official. The expense of a terrible recruit is noteworthy and can cut down a group, supervisor, or whole association. While there are no ensures, setting aside the effort to cast a wide net and doing your due ingenuity in choosing employees is definitely justified even despite the exertion and will limit the odds of a terrible recruit.

Federal Resume - Some Things to Remember When Applying for Federal Jobs

Federal Resume - Some Things to Remember When Applying for Federal JobsFederal resumes are like applying for any job - it is really important to have a well-planned, professionally designed resume. And I can tell you that there are dozens of ways to create an effective Federal resume.First of all, you should avoid federal resume templates. Federal resumes are not like resume templates, which can be created online in a few minutes. In fact, most federal jobs are still not requiring a resume. So you can use the federal resume templates if you want to save yourself some time and money, but don't expect your resume to look exactly like the ones on most federal job sites.Second, don't forget that federal resume templates are just plain old resumes. Even if you are an experienced professional in the field of federal government and have been working in that career for a while, you will still need to tweak your resume for a federal job.For instance, if you have a new business that you starte d with a bunch of investors and customers, you will want to include this on your federal resume. And if you really do know how to market your business on its own, you will also want to give the agency a call and ask them to approve your business plan.Third, remember that federal career advice is really important. You will want to consider what kind of career you want and why you want it. If you have a strong desire to work in the federal government sector, your resume needs to be geared towards that kind of career.Fourth, remember that when it comes to federal government jobs, you can't waste your time trying to write something that you think people will want to hire you for. The government doesn't like to be written by anyone except their employees. And they don't write their resumes, or request for resumes, by random applicants.Fifth, find out if your desired career path will allow you to pursue another one. If you want to be a senior official, then you might be best served by get ting your professional resume approved first, before sending it out to anybody.Sixth, remember that a good federal resume is a well-designed, professionally written resume. If you do all of these things, you will get your job faster than any other means available.

The Best Career Advice From Successful People Who Made It to the Top

The Best Career Advice From Successful People Who Made It to the Top Article by Bruce Harpham To fabricate a fruitful vocation, you have to draw on a few significant controls. These respected practices, demonstrated to work in each industry, are crucial to the accomplishment of achievement. Regardless of whether you need motivation to begin another training or some motivation to get back on your profession track, you can use these four chiefs encounters to support your own. 1. Self-Knowledge Is the Foundation Without self-information, the quest for progress is disappointing. In the antiquated world, thinkers urged their devotees to reflect. Todays pioneers utilize their self-comprehension to characterize and arrive at progress. - At a few focuses, my tutors have filled in as a mirror for me and helped me to comprehend myself better, says Kim Ulmer, territorial leader of Royal Bank of Canada. Ulmers duties incorporate overseeing in excess of 170 branches and 3,000 staff members. - Dave Kasabian, head promoting official at Tagetik, an administration programming organization, says, My way of thinking of development is to glimpse inside myself: What do I appreciate? What are my aptitudes and interests? In view of that information, I settle on choices on the most proficient method to create. - Assessment apparatuses give supportive experiences into understanding our qualities. For example author and business visionary Michael Hyatt, alluded to the book StrengthsFinder 2.0, a self-awareness top pick, when he exited a corporate vocation to begin another part as a business person. His qualities, as indicated by the model, remembered a concentration for accomplishment and what's to come. Self-information requires thinking about your encounters, great and terrible. Consider a week ago and observe when you felt the best fulfillment. You may take more noteworthy fulfillment from taking care of prickly business issues, or you may savor the test of managing another alumni through their initial not many months at work. 2. Interest Is Powerful An open and inquisitive brain is essential to benefiting as much as possible from learning openings. Interest implies searching for chances to learn and to apply new thoughts outside of the study hall. Commitment and center are incredibly powerful in positions of authority on the grounds that your activities and words will unobtrusively impact numerous around you. - I for the most part take a couple of courses for each year at a business college to keep my aptitudes sharp, says Rich Crawford, CEO of Global Integrated Services. - I have a hunger for information and consistently go out to meet with entrepreneurs to comprehend their circumstance, Ulmer says. As of late, I discovered David Zinger's 10 Principles of Engagement and have seen that as a supportive asset. It has supported [reflecting] on my work a few times each day to check whether I am genuinely locked in. - One of the most important books Ive read in my profession is Peter Druckers The Effective Executive, says Ben Sawa, chief of promoting at GEI Consultants Inc., one of the biggest building firms in the U.S. - Entertainment official Brian Grazer â€" maker of Apollo 13, The Da Vinci Code, and J. Edgar â€" attributes quite a bit of his expert accomplishment to interest and gaining from everyone around him, all of which he depicts in his book, A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life. 3. Guides Provide New Perspectives and Better Questions Effective pioneers reliably connect with coaches over the span of their vocations. The discussions may begin with business, however the exercises are regularly appropriate to a scope of concerns and issues. - I have had a few tutors over my profession, including family coaches and those in the business network, Ulmer says. Guides have helped me to embrace a more extensive point of view and pose inquiries, for example, Have you set aside the effort to comprehend the circumstance before acting? - Every significant mistake I have ever constructed has included poor correspondence. [That's] an exercise I gained from a CFO who guided me. That was a significant understanding, Sawa says. I additionally think it is important to look for coaches who are not quite the same as you since they can give a new viewpoint. - My tutors have helped me to get outside of the everyday progression of work to pose greater inquiries, Kasabian says. In 1994, I was given an amazing [command] from a guide: Draw where you need to be in five years. That activity helped me to consider my vocation and a mind-blowing heading significantly more profoundly. I wound up making a transition to another state, among different choices, therefore. It was an amazing encounter. - Im an enormous adherent to tutors, Crawford says. At present, Im working with two tutors, and Im gaining much from them two. I find out about industry best practices from one and work life matters from another. YPO [Young Presidents' Organization] had an amazing mentorship program that I discovered important. 4. Stay with the Right to Achieve Your Goals The organization you keep majorly affects your prosperity and self-idea. Jim Rohns perception that you are the normal of the five individuals you invest the most energy with sounds valid for some pioneers. - My investment in Young Presidents Organization has been enormously significant. It is uncommon to discover such huge numbers of different officials and CEOs who are confronting comparative difficulties, Crawford clarifies. Notwithstanding casual systems administration, Crawford has profited by YPOs mentorship program and concentrated instructive projects that serve the necessities of officials. - It is critical to pick attentively with regards to joining associations, Ulmer says. Im presently engaged with Junior Achievement since they work on a national level and work on serious issues. Im additionally engaged with the Manitoba Business Council. Where do you discover companions to challenge you and help you develop? â€" An adaptation of this article initially showed up on SUCCESS.com. Bruce Harpham is a vocation master who adds to Profit Guide, SUCCESS.com, and an assortment of business distributions. He runs the ProjectManagementHacks.com site where perusers increase useful bits of knowledge to develop their vocations. He lives in Toronto, Canada.