Ascentis Blog

Information to help HR and payroll managers, recruiters, and compliance officers become more effective.

Electronic I-9s are a go!

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued a final rule confirming that employers and recruiters who are required to complete and retain the Form I–9, Employment Eligibility Verification, may sign this form electronically and retain this form in an electronic format.  “E-Verify” is the electronic system facilitated DHS for this purpose.  The final rule makes minor changes to an interim final rule announced in 2006.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, all U.S. employers, recruiters and certain other entities are required to verify the employment authorization and identity of all employees hired to work in the United States after Nov. 6, 1986. To comply with the law, an employer, or a recruiter or referrer for a fee, is responsible for the completion of a Form I–9, Employment Eligibility Verification (Form I–9), for each new employee, including United States citizens.  The completed Form I–9 is not filed with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).  Rather, the Form I–9 is retained by the employer who must make it available for inspection upon a request by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigators or other authorized federal officials. Employers are required to retain a Form I–9 in their own files for three (3) years after the date of hire of the employee or one year after the date that employment is terminated, whichever is later.

In this final rule, DHS makes minor modifications to 8 CFR 274a.2 to clarify certain provisions that:

• Employers must complete a Form I–9 within three business (not calendar) days;
• Employers may use paper, electronic systems, or a combination of paper and electronic systems;
• Employers may change electronic storage systems as long as the systems meet the performance requirements of the regulations;
• Employers need not retain audit trails of each time a Form I–9 is electronically viewed, but only when the Form I–9 is created, completed, updated, modified, altered, or corrected; and
• Employers may provide or transmit a confirmation of a Form I–9 transaction, but are not required to do so unless the employee requests a copy.

To view the final rule in the Federal Register, please click here.   For more on the federal E-Verify system, please click here.

New Walking-Working Surfaces and Personal Protective Equipment Standards

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has proposed a rule to require improved worker protection from tripping, slipping and falling hazards on walking and working surfaces. A public hearing on the revised changes will be held after the public comment period.

The proposed rule describes revisions to the Walking-Working Surfaces and Personal Protective Equipment standards to help prevent an estimated annual 20 workplace fatalities and more than 3,500 injuries serious enough to cause people to miss work.  According to OSHA, the current walking-working surfaces regulations allow employers to provide outdated and dangerous fall protection equipment such as lanyards and body belts that can result in workers suffering greater injury from falls. Construction and maritime workers already receive safer, more effective fall protection devices such as self-retracting lanyards and ladder safety and rope descent systems, which these proposed revisions would also require for general industry workers. The current walking-working surfaces standards also do not allow OSHA to fine employers who let workers climb certain ladders without fall protection. Under the revised standards, this restriction would be lifted in virtually all industries, allowing OSHA inspectors to fine employers that jeopardize their workers’ safety and lives by climbing these ladders without proper fall protection.

Comments on the proposed rule can be submitted through regulations.gov.  To view the proposed rule in the Federal Register, please click here.  To view the press release, please click here.

HIRE Act materials starting to surface

Remember the HIRE Act? Well, it looks like there’s some material slowly starting to trickle out of Washington.
The IRS has released a new form that will help employers claim the special payroll tax exemption that applies to qualified newly-hired workers during 2010.

New Form W-11, Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act Employee Affidavit, is now posted on IRS.gov, along with answers to frequently-asked questionsabout the payroll tax exemption and the related new hire retention credit. The new law requires that employers get a statement from each eligible new hire, certifying under penalties of perjury, that he or she was unemployed during the 60 days before beginning work or, alternatively, worked fewer than a total of 40 hours for anyone during the 60-day period. Employers can use Form W-11 to meet this requirement.
For more information on the HIRE Act affidavit and exemption, including a Draft Form 941 revised for employers to use beginning with the second calendar quarter of 2010, please click here.

Do you need a social media policy?

media

The boundaries between personal and professional have become increasingly blurred due to the growing prevalence of internet-based social media, including Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter. While social media outlets may be excellent platforms for employees to network and promote their employer’s business, a myriad of problems may result from an employee’s improper or unlawful use of a company’s name, reputation or confidential information while using such social media.

If an employee uses an employer’s name or a company e-mail address to communicate with or otherwise use social media, a third-party may be led to believe that the employee is speaking or writing on behalf of the company. A third-party may think that the employee is acting in an official capacity with authority to bind the employer, or that certain views espoused by the employee are also the views of the company.

For this reason and others, the FTC has implemented rules effective Dec. 1, 2009, regulating the use of testimonials in advertising. Under these rules an employer may be held responsible for employee maintained blogs or other employee postings about the employer’s products and services. In an effort to avoid these problems, a social media policy may direct employees in such situations to use a disclaimer explicitly stating that his or her views are not those of the employer. Continue reading →

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