Letters from government agencies can be real scary sometimes. Especially when they contain words like "Warrant" and penalties with commas in them. By all means, take these letters seriously. But don't let them scare you.

But what passes for “security” in these agencies is a cruel joke. It is no more realistic for you to expect me to tap Mr. or Ms. Business Owner on the shoulder and hand them the phone than it is for me to demand that you tap the governor on the shoulder and get him/her on the phone. 

Nearly everything that happens in the company goes through payroll. And the person managing it needs to have the skills of an accountant, IT, lawyer, insurance agent, and operations manager, all rolled into one.

It drives me crazy when people treat a company’s FEIN (Federal Employer Identification Number) like it’s a big secret. FEINs are public information. 

But why would someone take a 40+% pay cut by choice? That time must be more valuable than money. There are plenty of reasons besides laziness why this might be true. 

Unless you fired them for something super unethical or illegal (like sexual harassment, fraud, violence, or microwaving cabbage soup), there’s no need to report it. Let the state make the call.

Your organization isn’t a spreadsheet. You can’t just delete the cells with numbers you don’t like.

Is it okay for an hourly employee to work 30 hrs/week (instead of 40) for 3 weeks due to illness without taking intermittent FMLA? Their manager is cool with it and the employee doesn't want to take PTO.

One month your paycheck covers 9 workdays. The next month, it covers 12. You get paid the same each time. If you leave in the middle of your next pay period, how is your pay prorated?

There is something that payroll administrators can do to mitigate the Big Check Suckerpunch. It’s not shady and doesn’t expose the departing employee to risk.

Let's get one thing straight: It's perfectly fine for your company to reimburse people for having a life. But if there's no business purpose or tax-preferred program for it (like an HRA, commuter benefit, or 401k), it has to be taxed as income. 

If you think that looking up worker’s comp codes is boring, you’re missing out. If you give me a list of thousands of obscure jobs, I’m going to lose at least 20 minutes going through it. 

A PEO is an insurance broker, a guardrail, and a payroll provider. But it’s not a brain. Some people need a PEO. Some need a person. Most don’t know which they are.

Certifications like SHRM and HRCI that over-rely on recall without nuance only magnify this false sense of authority. Like passing the exam makes you Solomon or something. 

I spoke to someone last week who was confused about how to administer her company’s sick leave policy. This HR person (or should I say “truancy officer”?) was essentially blocking people from using their time and then deleting it before they could. That’s not how that works.

Did you know: Payroll doesn’t update tax settings automatically when someone moves. If you live somewhere where it’s common to commute across state lines, having different settings for where someone lives and works seems natural.

Somewhere between two weeks and thirty years, it has to become something else. 

Most teams treat FLSA salary exemptions as a payroll hack. But you need to do more than pay someone a flat rate for them to be exempt from overtime.

As someone who’s familiar with the tools and regulations/processes they manage, it’s painfully obvious that most of these complaints are user error. Not because the user is incompetent. Because people underestimate the difficulty of driving an HRIS. 

And yet, if 50 of your employees can’t meet at Applebees after work, someone taking leave might not have legal job protection. Even if the work is covered. Even if the team has capacity. Even if the impact is minimal.