Anchor Payroll Blog

In the 2009 movie Up in the Air, George Clooney and Anna Kendrick play corporate downsizers—HR consultants that companies across the country hire to terminate employees for them. The practice wasn’t exactly common at the time, and fortunately never took off, but it was believable.

Generally not. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) grants all non-supervisory employees (not just those in unions) the right to organize and engage in “concerted activity” for the purpose of mutual aid or protection. Concerted means “in concert,” meaning more than one employee is involved. Activities for mutual aid and protection could include discussions about wages, benefits, treatment from managers, safety issues, and just about anything else that two or more employees might have a stake in. As a result, the protections provided by the NLRA are broad. Here are a few examples of protected activity:

You’ve probably been hearing about the Great Resignation (or however you want to describe it) for months now. Even if you’re not dealing directly with increased turnover, your employees know they have options. Their friends, family, and people they know peripherally or on social media have made the leap and are gleefully announcing it on LinkedIn.

Small business compliance has never been more complex. This blog post will introduce you to the leading challenges and solutions that will help you to stay on the right side of the law. It’s important to understand regulations and create compliant processes. This way, you protect your employees, customers, and your entire business. Managing compliance allows you to focus on the work that matters, and to leave the worrying behind.

Many Americans get their first job working at a fast-food chain. You may have been one of them. If so, you probably remember your first day. Maybe you started at a register. Or perhaps you began in the kitchen. Either way, you had a lot to learn in a short amount of time. Everyone was counting on you to help keep the lines moving. Patience isn’t a virtue in this business, after all.

No, enrolling in Medicare does not cause COBRA to start. Under the federal rules, COBRA must be offered to persons enrolled in the employer’s health plan only if they lose coverage because of certain specific events. Termination of employment is an example of a COBRA qualifying event. Becoming eligible for Medicare, or enrolling in Medicare, is not a COBRA qualifying event.

Running a business comes with no shortage of perks: the freedom to be your own boss, invest in an idea, steer its trajectory, and, with a little luck, create wealth. It has its challenges, too. Competition may be fierce. Demand for what you offer may be low. Costs may not be sustainable. But even if everything else is going your way, there’s one challenge that’s ever-present. We’re talking, of course, about HR compliance.

A year ago, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that employers may not discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity in employment. The decision was a response to three separate cases, all of which were about employment discrimination based on “sex” under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which applies to all employers with 15 or more employees.