Author Archives: CorpStrat News

SBA and Treasury Simplify Forgiveness for PPP Loans Under $50K

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On October 8th, the U.S. Treasury Department issued new rules simplifying forgiveness for businesses who took out PPP loans of $50K or less. Back in March, Congress passed the CARES Act, which established the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), an SBA loan designed to help small businesses maintain their workforce during the COVID-19 crisis. It offered SBA-backed loans that could be forgiven as long as the business met conditions such as retaining full-time employees for eight weeks and using a minimum of 60% of the loan towards payroll costs. However, a number of amendments and seemingly conflicting rules have left many business owners confused about how to go about getting their loans forgiven.

Prior to last week, no loan forgiveness applications were being approved by the SBA. This past Thursday night, a new forgiveness application, Form 3508S, and a new Interim Final Rule regarding loan forgiveness was unveiled.

What this means:

The SBA and the Treasury Department intends that this new application will simplify the forgiveness and loan review process. Under the new rule, PPP borrowers of $50,000 or less won’t have the amount of their loan forgiveness reduced based on reductions in full-time-equivalents or reductions in employee salary or wages. This means that borrowers who received small PPP loans likely won’t be penalized for laying off staff members or cutting employee hours due to financial hardship. The changes are estimated to cover approximately 9 million forgiveness applications. It should be noted that even with the new rule, borrowers are still required to provide additional information to the lender, certify how it’s reviewed, and calculate their payroll and non-payroll costs .

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Have questions about your PPP Loan Forgiveness? Call us at (818) 377-7260 or email us at marketing@www.corpstrat.com

Is Better Workplace Tech the Secret to Higher Employee Retention?

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Chances are your employees have the latest phones packed with futuristic apps that work seamlessly to support their daily tasks—from working out to purchasing meals. It’s no secret, modern workers have come to expect the same flexibility and convenience in their professional lives as they encounter in their personal lives. Unfortunately, Human Capital Management (HCM) technology hasn’t exactly kept up, leaving employees with subpar apps that are neither intuitive nor effective. 

This can quickly lead to a lackluster employee experience. In fact, 48% of employees surveyed said they wished their workplace technology performed the same way as their personal technology. Technology is a major component of the employee experience and being able to deliver well-designed solutions where and when your team needs them is becoming essential to maintaining high retention rates. Better workforce automation technology is linked to better work/life balance, increased job satisfaction, and stronger feelings of team unity. 

Why is it important to learn from the success of popular apps?

Many popular apps feature a savvy combination of convenience and problem-solving. Many current HCM solutions are neither convenient for employees nor do they actually solve a problem leading teams to revert back to outdated solutions. For example, if a mobile app isn’t robust enough, HR teams can often be forced back into relying on paper or asking employees to stop what they’re doing and sit down at a desktop computer. With many “deskless” workers, like those in manufacturing or retail, this can become a huge hassle and cut into valuable work hours.  

Delivering a consumer-grade, responsive HR experience to your employees is a must-have in today’s competitive employment environment. With a diverse workforce that includes remote employees, contractors, gig workers, and more, responsive HCM solutions let you reach and engage workers in a meaningful way — whether they’re in a traditional office, coffee shop, vehicle, or working on site. When all employees have access to modern, flexible solutions to common HR questions and problems, organizations can realize demonstrable increases in productivity and engagement.

Why our Workforce Ready platform can improve your employee experience:

We believe that our Workforce Ready HR solution is able to deliver your team responsive, convenient, and robust technology that aligns with your company goals, will improve your employee experience, and increase your bottom line. Here’s what’s great about Workforce Ready: 

1. It simplifies and streamlines tasks.

We believe that no matter what device is being used, it should be easy for employees to find specific, day-to-day actions they need to complete. Workforce Ready’s easy to use mobile app ensures there isn’t any confusion about which area of the app does what or how to get there.

2. It empowers employees.

With Workforce Ready, employees are able to carry out all tasks on any device, giving them autonomy and making them feel engaged in their work

3. It keeps teams unified.

Having a slew of different apps and separate systems is confusing for you and your employees. Workforce Ready offers a unified platform for all your HR activities that can translate seamlessly to any device.

Giving employees convenient access anytime, anywhere to key processes like benefits enrollment, direct deposit, timesheet submission, and vacation requests allows them the flexibility to make requests and submit important information in a timely manner, rather than having to wait for access at the office. It’s great on the managerial side as well, managers can quickly get actionable, visual displays of key workforce metrics, letting them catch and address changes quickly and reward top talent immediately. It also frees up HR to focus on bigger strategic company goals rather than administrative tasks and push forward innovative employee programs rather than becoming bogged down by approvals and paperwork. 

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Want to upgrade your team’s HCM tech? Schedule a call with us today.

6 Reasons Why Workforce Ready Just Works

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We’ve told you how Workforce Automation can help your company operate more efficiently, helping ensure that nothing falls through the cracks. However, be advised, not all human capital management systems are created equal. 

We’ve done our homework and vetted hundreds of different softwares before choosing Kronos’s Workforce Ready for our clients. Workforce Ready’s state-of-the-art technology automates all administrative processes, making it easier for you to hire, onboard, track performance, administer benefits, and everything in-between. 

Here are some of the reasons why we think Workforce Ready is the best in the market:

1. Talent acquisition driven by data.

Talent Acquisition Dashboard Mobile App

No more losing track of where top tier applicants are in the hiring cycle, especially when hiring for multiple positions. Workforce Ready help you effectively source, track, hire, and evaluate talent so you can fill your positions quickly and with the right people. Plus their streamline applicant portal helps reinforce your brand and makes it easy for applicants to search for available positions, on the go. 

2. Seamless onboarding.

Onboarding made easy

Once you’ve acquired top talent, you want to ensure that your onboarding experience is clear, consistent and engaging for each and every new hire. The days of new employees wasting their first week trying to decipher a barrage of confusing documents are over. Workforce Ready employs an effective onboarding approach that includes an overarching onboarding checklist to ensure all key documents are completed plus they offer a mobile-friendly experience so new hires can address sensitive onboarding items from the comfort of their home. Ultimately, seamless onboarding leads to better new employee retention, reduced turnover, and faster time to productivity. 

3. Performance management that gets results.

Performance Management

Continuous feedback is an essential component of an effective performance management strategy because it helps provide managers with real-time feedback tools so they can nip even small problems in the bud, nurture growth, and recognize stellar employees. Managers have full visibility into whether their team is on track for quarterly goals, all without the use of cumbersome paper forms.

Want to learn more? Download our “CorpStrat for Human Capital Management” to dive deeper into our cutting edge HCM solutions.

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4. Employee benefits management that just makes sense.

Benefits Management

Administering benefits can be complicated and costly for employers and confusing for employees when not done right. This is where technology plus industry know-how really comes together, we have created a mobile-friendly benefits management tool that presents benefits in a clear, organized way to help employees easily understand and choose the best package for them. It goes even further, with our data-backed approach, employees can input their preferences and receive personalized benefits recommendations.

5. Automated, accurate time & attendance that you can rely on.

Time and Attendance TLM

Accurate time and attendance records are so important in ensuring compliance and keeping labor costs down. With Workforce Ready, you’re not working with disparate systems that need to talk to each other. Instead, time and attendance data is collected into a single database, reducing errors and eliminating the need to do ad hoc calculations. With Workforce Ready’s mobile app, employees can gain immediate access to their HR, schedule, and pay data. Employees can punch in and out with GPS coordinates, submit time sheets, view their schedules, and more, all from the app. 

6. Efficient payroll management that makes compliance easier than ever.

Payroll

Maintaining payroll accuracy is vital for building trust with new employees, adhering to compliance, and boosting efficiency within the company. With Workforce Ready, unified HR, time and attendance, and Payroll puts the power of “single source of truth” into your hands. This means that your people are able to make more informed business decisions in the moment, Payroll information is synced across all channels, errors are eliminated, and employees and managers are aided by charts and graphs to help make sense of all the data. Payroll has to take into account thousands of federal, state, and local codes that are updated quarterly in order to remain compliant. In Workforce Ready, these calculations are done automatically so there are no computational or filing errors.

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Have questions about how Workforce Ready can transform your business? Schedule a call or email us at marketing@www.corpstrat.com today!

8 Things to Include in Your Work From Home Benefits Plan

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If your team has gone remote due to COVID-19, you already know how difficult it can be to make sure employees are feeling valued and appreciated. Even though employees are saving time on their commute, studies have shown that, on average, the lockdown workday is 48.5 minutes longer. Which means it’s more important than ever for employers to get creative when it comes to commending their team’s hard work. Including a Work From Home Plan as part of your benefits package can help you make sure your remote employees are being rewarded for their efforts.

Here are 8 things to include in your Work From Home Benefits Plan:

1. Monthly Lunch Stipend for Managers

Pre-COVID, many companies would have perks like free lunches a few times a month. Company-wide lunches aren’t feasible in the current climate however, giving managers a monthly lunch stipend to treat their team to take-out or delivery meals is a great way to ensure team members feel appreciated.

2. Delivery Lunch for Employee of the Month

In the same vein, you may not be able to take your star employees out for a one-on-one meal but you could surprise them with a Postmates or UberEats gift card so they can treat themselves.

3. Monthly Coffee & Tea Stipend

Gearing up for the day by sipping on coffee with your co-workers is a delightful aspect of working in an office. Keep the caffeinated delight going by sending employees monthly credit to a coffee shop or coffee bean subscription service.

4. Virtual Gym Membership

It’s easy to get so overloaded when working from home that employees aren’t incentivized to move, which can be detrimental to their overall health. Since most gyms are currently closed or limited, offering a virtual gym membership can help keep your team healthy and happy. Hosting a group Zoom class with a certified instructor could be a fun way to keep each other motivated and give employees permission to step away from their emails in order to work out.

5. Mental Health App Subscription

Lockdown can be especially difficult for people who are living alone—people across the country are struggling with feeling isolated and depressed. Long-term, this can mean employees feel unmotivated, listless, and less productive. Including a mental health app like TalkSpace for therapy or Headspace for meditation in your Work From Home plan will help employees stay on top of their mental health.

6. Telemedicine and Wellness Checks

Telemedicine has been growing in popularity the past few years, for good reason—it can reduce medical costs and save patients a trip to the clinic or hospital. Now with the pandemic in full swing in the US, telemedicine has exploded in popularity and it’s helping people across the country keep hospital waiting rooms clear for COVID-19 patients while limiting their own exposure to the virus.

7. Wifi or Cell Phone Bill Reimbursement

Instead of using a company phone line or logging onto office internet, employees are taking on the burden of these expenses themselves. Consider offering reimbursement for a percentage of their home internet or cell phone bill to offset the expenditure.

8. Send a Care Package

When it comes to care packages, a little bit of thought goes a long way. Whether you’re sending special company swag or a customized basket of their favorite snacks, getting a little something at their door can help employees feel connected to company culture even when they’re working from home.

BONUS

If your employees live locally, take a few hours to show up (masked-up, of course) to their door with a thoughtful physical gift or care package. The personal touch of seeing their boss in person, even from a distance, can be incredibly meaningful.

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Need help doing an Employee Benefits Audit? Email us at marketing@www.corpstrat.com.

Effective Ways to Manage Employees in a Remote Environment: Company Culture

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In order to create and maintain great company culture, employers are focused on ensuring their staff is motivated, team-oriented, and happy to stay with the company for the long haul. A mere six months ago, this meant company culture was all about happy hours, off-site team outings, and in-office communication and rapport. Essentially, creating ways for employees to interact with one another in positive ways, both within and outside of a work context. Cut to today: employees are no longer in shared spaces, teams can’t gather for meetings or activities, and all communication occurs virtually. Read on as we discuss how to maintain company culture when the workplace landscape has transformed so drastically.

The Danger

Zoom meeting fatigue. Lowered productivity. Ineffective communication. Unmotivated team members. These are all the dangers that occur when teams go remote. Underlying all these symptoms is the larger problem: company culture may be at risk of dying. As teams around the world are planning to stay remote for the foreseeable future, the question on everyone’s mind is: how can you maintain company culture in a remote environment? 

How to Avoid

Everything we’ve mentioned so far may sound dire, but we promise there are ways to adapt your company culture so it can thrive even in a remote environment. Some of these tweaks may not alter things overnight, we all have to work together to gradually adapt to our changing world. However, our aim is to help you develop a mindset so you can find creative solutions to kickstart your company culture in these uncertain times.

Our first suggestion is to have meetings with meaning. It makes sense why many people find giant, 20+ person Zoom meetings exhausting—it’s hard to focus, they have to constantly fight to be heard, and technical errors can make meetings run long. Our solution is to get creative, perhaps you can break your team into smaller pods. Then you can keep larger team meetings succinct and smaller pods can break out into separate meetings in which they can feel seen and heard and be given clear instructions. This way, employees can feel more comfortable asking questions and continue building rapport. 

Second, never underestimate the power of employee feedback. We know employers are doing everything in their power to maintain culture but blindspots occur despite the best intentions. It may be scary but don’t hesitate to ask your employees about what’s working and what’s not. Their honest feedback can illuminate seemingly small issues, which you can address before they become problematic.

Opportunity

Just because you’re not in the office anymore, doesn’t mean the old office shenanigans can’t still be in play. Some of the goofy and fun things you used to do can be translated into a virtual environment. For example, if you used to buy the employee of the month lunch, send them a meal via a delivery service like GrubHub or Postmates. If managers used to grab coffee with their team members, give them a monthly coffee stipend from Starbucks that they can use to send drinks to their team. When we’re all apart, small acts of care can go a long way. Also, keep having fun! During team meetings, play a game like “Two Truths and a Lie” so you can continue getting to know each other and not have every interaction be solely about work. 

Tip

Have fun with it and be easy on yourself. We all have enough going on, especially right now.  Bring some good positive energy to the group and take care of your employees. In turn, you’ll continue to have a motivated, hard-working team that enjoys working with one another. 

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See how CorpStrat can help you transform your Company Culture. Contact us at marketing@www.corpstrat.com.