New York SBDC Research Network

By Linsey Knerl From NAV There was a time, not long ago, when businesses in every industry grew with the labor and talent of workers classified as independent contractors. Even before the “gig economy” and “side hustles” were buzzed about (and companies like Lyft and Uber made them newsworthy) small businesses everywhere relied heavily on contract workers provide the bulk of their services. Hairdressers, construction workers, writers, and dog walkers were all classified as independent contractors with little to no challenge to their status, but all of that is changing. A recent California Supreme Court ruling, along with a handful of state and local ordinances have made some strict interpretation of who can—and who can’t—be called a contractor. Washington state has even produced a "step by step guide" for businesses to classify and hire their workers with the appropriate classification. While the exact rules differ slightly from region to region, there is a common thr...

By Max Abelson From Bloomberg Inside the enigmatic system of corporate justice, where proceedings are secretive and the odds of workers winning are long. Millions of American workers sign away legal rights without knowing what they’re in for. A lot of employers are forcing employees into arbitration hell. Here's what that looks like, and why it's a complicated mess (especially if you're the employee).

By Dominic J Bartolone From the Coleman Report Each day, over 10,000 Baby Boomers turn 65, with a majority of America’s small businesses being owned by this generation, many are choosing to close the company rather than sell it when they retire. Some of these businesses provide core services to underserved and economically vulnerable areas, and their closure could significantly impact the lives of not only the workers but also the community as a whole. One strategy to save these community businesses is to convert ownership to their employees. The approach of cooperative conversions builds equity for employees, helps save jobs, and encourages employees to invest in their future by excelling at their jobs. Cooperative conversions can help address both these issues by providing an outlet for aging owners to sell their companies while offering a retention strategy that helps anchor much-needed services to local communities.

By Kate Ashford from Monster It’s the start of a new year—time to evaluate how you’re doing and set goals for the future. For many companies, it’s also performance review time. If the thought makes you want to hide in your coat closet, there’s good news: Evaluations don’t have to be painful. You can structure the review process a variety of ways, but the key to making everything easier is to treat it like a rolling conversation. "Companies are moving away from an annual performance review, [going] to regular check-ins and ongoing feedback conversations throughout the year," says Todd Cherches, CEO and co-founder of executive coaching firm BigBlueGumball. Above all, employees need to understand what you want from them. "Throughout the time that I’m working for you, I need to be totally aware of two things: the expectations and whether I’m meeting them," says Laura MacLeod, an HR expert and consultant with From The Inside Out Project, an employee-morale company...

From Gallup : Fear. Anxiety. Stress. Anger. Not exactly the emotions we're hoping to invoke in our employees, right? Not exactly the key to motivational management, anyway. Unfortunately, those are the emotions many people feel when it's time to discuss their work metrics. Employees dread the idea of their manager reducing them to a number. A number that might be accurate and important but doesn't accurately reflect all they bring to their job. And no matter the niceties of how it's all delivered, people get defensive and deflated. Why? "The very act of measuring communicates distrust, power, control and dehumanization." That's what one fellow student said when the topic of performance measurement came up in my Ph.D. class. He was right. And he was wrong. He was right because measurement can be dehumanizing. Managers, intentionally or not, end up using measurements negatively in an attempt to motivate people. But it doesn't work. How ...

From Gallup : Which of your employees are most likely to quit? If you follow Gallup's analytics, you might answer that the least engaged employees quit more often. That is true -- improving engagement among your employees is one of the best ways to slow down turnover. However, there is a group of employees that merits particular attention: your most talented employees. In our recent work with organizations across various industries, we discovered something really interesting and somewhat unsettling: Highly talented employees who are not engaged were among those who had the highest turnover in each organization -- on par with low talent, disengaged employees. In other words, when your best employees are not engaged, they are as likely to leave your organization as your employees who tend to have performance issues and are unhappy. Why do they leave so quickly? We speculate that your most talented employees are more likely to have high expectations of their workplaces... But ...

From LinkedIn : According to three basic truths, praising people motivates them, praising people encourages them, and praising people inspires them to even greater heights. Impossible to argue with those statements? Maybe not. Depending on the approach you take, praising an employee -- or praising anyone -- can actually have the opposite effect. The difference lies in whether we assume skill is based on innate ability or on hard work and effort. Put another way, are people born with certain talents, or can talent be developed?

From MarketingProfs : Imagine you just invested a lot of time and resources in your next content masterpiece. You did third-party research, interviewed industry experts, carefully crafted the copy with your target persona in mind, and pulled out all the stops to design a visually compelling piece. You then released it into the wild through all your Web and social channels and sat back, waiting for it to become the next viral sensation. But then the unthinkable happened: No one shared it (gasp!). What happened? Even the greatest content sometimes needs an early boost to gain traction in social media. Paid promotion and influencer marketing can certainly help, but those can be costly. Fortunately, virtually every organization has a captive audience that's willing—and even happy—to share content with their networks for free... Look to your left, look to your right, look at Bob in accounting: I'm talking about your fellow employees (bet you didn't know Bob has 3,000...

From ThomasNet : Recently unveiled during the National Safety Council’s Congress and Expo this week, are findings showing how a lack of proper rest is hurting the competitive efforts of U.S. companies. The research was conducted by the National Safety Council and Brigham Health Sleep Matters Initiative. The report’s findings show that a company with 1,000 workers stands to lose $1.4 million annually due to absenteeism, diminished productivity, and healthcare costs stemming from tired employees. A key point of the survey is the growing number of these individuals with undiagnosed and untreated sleep disorders. These conditions contribute significantly to the $80 million in fatigue-related costs that can accrue on an annual basis for the average Fortune 500 company. Additional data can be obtained by utilizing an online resource correlating with the research, entitled the Fatigue Cost Calculator for Employees .

From Mediapost : A Wisconsin company had its planned ‘chip party’ Tuesday and 41 employees had microchips implanted into them. Those employees, all who volunteered to have an RFID (radio frequency identification) chip implanted between their thumb and forefinger, now can use their hand to unlock doors, log on to computers and pay at kiosks or terminals that take credit cards. “It went really well and was a lot simpler than I thought,” Tony Danna, vice president of international sales at Three Market Square, said. “It hurts more when pinching the skin than the syringe implanting the chip. It takes about two seconds.” There were about 20 employees in the company who did not want them and no one, either those who initially did or did not want them changed their mind, Danna said.

From ImpactBnd Managing employees is never easy, but managing employees who aren’t even in the same room can be a whole different ball game. Consider some of the most common questions people have about managing remote employees: “How do I tell if my remote employees are actually working?” “How can we make sure our remote employees feel part of the culture?” “How do I foster communication with all the challenges of being remote?” “How do I manage in-office and remote employees effectively?” If any of those thoughts have crossed your mind, read on. That’s exactly what we will address.

 From:  The Balance What skills are most important for companies that are hiring? There are some skills and qualities that employers require of all applicants for employment, regardless of the position they are hiring for. These are called soft skills, and they include the interpersonal skills and attributes you need to succeed in the workplace. In addition, there are the more tangible skills you need in order to do the job effectively. These are called hard skills, and they are the specific knowledge and abilities required to do the job. There's a difference between hard and soft skills.  You’ll need both for most jobs, and it's important to show employers that you have the skills they need when you're applying and interviewing for jobs.

From the Small Business Administration It’s awards season! Here at SBA, we believe that small businesses should also set aside some time annually to honor their "shining stars." Just like the Oscars, you can create categories that will award the various aspects that exist within your small business. From the "behind the scenes" nominees in Human Resources to the "frontline" nominees in Sales, the opportunities to celebrate your team are endless. Below are a few categories to help you get started: Best Picture – Think over the last year and ask yourself the following: What was your company’s biggest accomplishment and who was responsible for it? Was it an internal or external initiative? Did you connect with your target audience as you hoped? Once you decide what it is, be sure to award this individual or team with the "big picture" award for a job well done! Best Director – When it comes to gaining sound advice or feedback, whom do your ...

From the Harvard Business Review Bringing new technology and tools into your organization can increase productivity, boost sales, and help you make better, faster decisions. But getting every employee on board is often a challenge. What can you do to increase early and rapid adoption? How can you incentivize and reward employees who use it? And should you reprimand those who don’t? According to a study by MIT Sloan Management Review and Capgemini Consulting, the vast majority of managers believe that “achieving digital transformation is critical” to their organizations. However, 63% said the pace of technological change in their workplaces is too slow, primarily due to a "lack of urgency" and poor communication about the strategic benefits of new tools. "Employees need to understand why [the new technology] is an improvement from what they had before," says Didier Bonnet, coauthor of Leading Digital and Global Practice Leader at Capgemini Consulting, who worked ...

From BizJournal : The unexpected resignation of a valued staffer can feel like a gut punch. Even as you’re reading her resignation letter, your head is filling with questions. What about that upcoming deadline? Who’ll take over her projects? What about her clients? How am I going to explain this to my boss? They’re all worth careful consideration, but as you ponder your options, there’s one you can reject immediately... While it’s tempting to focus on averting a departure, your best approach is to vow to never be surprised by an employee’s resignation again. That means asking questions focused on the people who remain and learning what job satisfaction means to them.

Employee Handbooks The company employee handbook is one of the most important communication tools between your company and your employees. Not only does it set forth your expectations for your employees, but it also describes what they can expect from the company. It is essential that your company has one and that it be as clear and unambiguous as possible. Make certain that it is written in an understandable language which makes the company's policies accessible. The company employee handbook and related personnel policies are usually the first formal communication that you will have with an employee after they join your team. Make sure the first impression is a good one. Similarly, in the event of a dispute or poor performance review, this will be the first place that the employee turns. What Should an Employee Handbook Include? See BusinessUSA

Most of us aren't that engaged at work, as it turns out. Even a few years ago, we were wasting tens of billions in wasted meetings and unnecessary distractions at work. Today, some survey takers admit to wasting up to half the day on non-work-related distractions. If that's you, you may just be a bad employee — and admitting that is the first step. For the rest of us, those that are wasting a paltry 30 minutes or so, who feel generally disengaged, the solution may seem a lot more superficial: you're underpaid. This is a major shift from the sentiments of yesteryear, when boomers could pride in barely having two nickels to rub together but still work their way up to a leadership role. Today's reality is that while the economy has made strides toward recovery, wage growth over the last generation has taken a prolonged coffee break. More from Payscale

Generally, the employer must withhold income tax in the state where work is performed (there is an exception that is explained later). If an employee who resides in another state works exclusively in that state (different from the employer’s state), then taxes are usually withheld only in the employee’s state. (The employer is in State A and the employee lives in State B and does all the work for the employer in home State B, so the employer should withhold State B tax for the employee, assuming State B has an income tax.) I say “usually” because there are exceptions that permit the employer not to withhold state income taxes in the employees’ state. If the employee resides in the employer’s state, tax for that state must be withheld even though the employee works exclusively in another state. And there may be additional withholding obligations in the state in which the employee works. Already confused? If an employee works a few days in each location, things become even more compl...

It was only a week ago that I saw a request for information on how Uber drivers were defined. This appears in today's New York Times:   TECHNOLOGY California Says Uber Driver Is Employee, Not a Contractor By  MIKE ISAAC  and  NATASHA SINGER JUNE 17, 2015 ... ... The classification of freelancers is in dispute across a number of industries, including at other  transportation  companies. And the debate is set to escalate as the number of online companies and apps like Uber and others rises. Venture capitalists have poured more than $9.4 billion into such start-ups — known as on-demand companies — since 2010, according to data from CB Insights, a venture capital analysis firm, spawning things like on-demand laundry services and hair stylists... ... “Today’s ruling from the California labor regulators demonstrates why federal policy makers need to re-examine the 20th-century definitions and employment classification we’re a...

Proximity to employment can influence a range of economic and social outcomes, from local fiscal health to the employment prospects of residents, particularly low-income and minority workers. An analysis of private-sector employment and demographic data at the census tract level reveals that: *Between 2000 and 2012, the number of jobs within the typical commute distance for residents in a major metro area fell by 7 percent. Of the nation’s 96 largest metro areas, in only 29---many in the South and West, including McAllen, Texas, Bakersfield, Calif., Raleigh, N.C., and Baton Rouge, La.---did the number of jobs within a typical commute distance for the average resident increase. Each of these 29 metro areas also experienced net job gains between 2000 and 2012. *As employment suburbanized, the number of jobs near both the typical city and suburban resident fell. Suburban residents saw the number of jobs within a typical commute distance drop by 7 percent, more than twice the decline e...