Ascentis Recruiting Webinar Series

Just last week we announced the arrival of Ascentis’ newest addition to our human capital management (HCM) suite of software, Ascentis Recruiting, which is designed to help recruit, qualify, hire and onboard the best people for your organization. Ascentis Recruiting automates the entire hiring process, making it easy for you collect, track, and analyze applicant and requisition data. Ascentis Recruiting helps your hiring and management teams track open positions, create and score pre-screening questions, encourage employee referrals, review resumes, schedule interviews and more. Hiring teams can greatly enhance the applicant experience by offering an applicant portal that matches your corporate brand and encourages applicants to share job postings through social networks and RSS feeds.

As a part of the Ascentis human capital management (HCM) suite, Ascentis Recruiting automatically shares new hire data gathered during the recruiting onboarding process with HR, Payroll and Time. New hire data, including contact information, resumes, I-9 forms, W-4 forms and more are automatically shared with HR eliminating dual data-entry. The Ascentis HCM suite provides all your employees and managers a single portal to view payroll, HR, time & attendance, and now recruiting information.

Ascentis Recruiting’s external career portal enhances the applicant experience by providing an intuitive interface that matches your corporate brand, automatically notifying candidates when desired positions open, and allows prospective applicants to share openings through social networking gadgets. Jobs on the branded career site can be automatically posted to any job boards your organization uses, thereby expanding your reach to create a great applicant pool.

Many of you have asked for for a sneek peak into Ascentis Recruiting – and now you can have one. Register today for one of the four dates in our June/July Webinar Series “How Ascentis Recruiting Can Automate your Hiring Process.”

June 14

July 6

June 22

July 12

If you’d like to know more sooner, or would like to schedule a private viewing of Ascentis Recruiting, contact us.

Employee’s preparing for a wage and hour lawsuit? Now there’s an app for that.

Today, the DOL released an iPhone application geared at employees who want to independently track their own hours and wages, to make sure their employers are compliant with appropriate regular and overtime pay.

According to the iTunes page for this FREE application, “This is a timesheet to record the hours that you work and calculate the amount you may be owed by your employer. It also includes overtime pay calculations at a rate of one and one-half times (1.5) the regular rate of pay for all hours you work over 40 in a workweek.” The DOL adds a disclaimer for the application, stating “DOL is providing this App as a public service. The regulations and related materials reflected in this App are intended to enhance public access to information on DOL programs. This App is a service that is continually under development and it does not include every possible situation encountered in the workplace. The user should be aware that, while we try to keep the information timely and accurate, there will often be a delay between official publication of the materials and their appearance in or modification of this App.”

With an average of 450 employment related lawsuits every single day, and with 57% of companies being named as defendants in at least one employment related lawsuit in the last five years, applications like this make it even easier for employees to know if and when they are not being paid properly, and gives them easier access to report violations. This iPhone app is free to download, but for employers who don’t have a timekeeping solution in place, not having that solution could cost them millions.

STOPPING POTENTIAL VIOLATIONS IN THEIR TRACKS

Employers: It is critical that your company have in place a timekeeping solution like Ascentis Time which prevents violations of wage and hour laws by ensuring that requirements are automatically monitored and fulfilled. The best defense against an alleged violation is an accurate reporting system and automated documentation of everything related to each employee.

READ: Google Sued over unpaid overtime.

READ: AT&T settles class action misclassification suit for 12.5 MIL

READ: Apple settles Enginners FLSA suit for 1 MIL

Ascentis Time is a part of Ascentis’ full suite of fully integrated human capital management solutions, including Ascentis HR, Ascentis Payroll, Ascentis Recruiting (soon to be released), and Ascentis Self Service.

Unpaid Internships: What Employers Need to Know About the Fair Labor Standards Act

With summer just around the corner, many employers are preparing to hire seasonal interns. If your company sponsors an internship program, you may be wondering if you are obligated to pay these individuals for work performed for your business during the course of the internship. The following guidelines provided by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) can help you determine whether interns must be paid the federal minimum wage and overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act for the services that they provide to “for-profit” private sector employers.

Background

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which sets standards for the basic minimum wage and overtime pay, affects most private and public employment. Unless specifically exempted, workers covered by the FLSA are entitled to a minimum wage of not less than $7.25 per hour and overtime pay at a rate of not less than one and one-half times their regular rate of pay after 40 hours of work in a workweek.

Covered and non-exempt individuals who are “suffered or permitted” to work must be compensated under the law for the services they perform for an employer. Internships in the “for-profit” private sector will most often be viewed as employment, unless the test described below relating to trainees is met. Interns in the “for-profit” private sector who qualify as employees rather than trainees typically must be paid at least the minimum wage as well as overtime compensation for over 40 hours worked in a workweek.

The Test for Unpaid Interns
There are some circumstances under which individuals who participate in “for-profit” private sector internships or training programs may do so without compensation. This may apply to interns who receive training for their own educational benefit if the training meets certain criteria.

The determination of whether an internship or training program meets this exclusion depends upon all of the facts and circumstances of each such program. The following six criteria must be applied when making this determination:

The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;
The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern;
The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;
The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern, and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;
The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and
The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.

If all of the factors listed above are met, an employment relationship likely does not exist under the FLSA, and the Act’s minimum wage and overtime provisions do not apply to the intern. This exclusion from the definition of employment is necessarily quite narrow because the FLSA’s definition of “employ” is very broad.

For a more detailed explanation of the factors used in the test for unpaid interns, please review the DOL Internship Programs Fact Sheet. You may also contact the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division, at 1-866-487-9243 for help in determining the employment status of your workers.

Stay informed about the latest in HR and payroll news, trends, best practices and evolving legislation. Sign up for the monthly Ascentis HR, Benefits and Payroll News.

EEOC Issues Final Regulations for the ADA Amendments Act

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has issued its final regulations to implement the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA). Like the law they implement, the regulations are designed to simplify the determination of who has a “disability” and make it easier for people to establish that they are protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The regulations are effective as of March 25, 2011.

The ADA Amendments Act

The ADAAA overturned several Supreme Court decisions that Congress believed had interpreted the definition of “disability” too narrowly, resulting in a denial of protection for many individuals with impairments such as cancer, diabetes or epilepsy. The ADAAA states that the definition of disability should be interpreted in favor of broad coverage of individuals. The effect of these changes is to make it easier for an individual seeking protection under the ADA to establish that he or she has a disability within the meaning of the ADA. The ADAAA went into effect on Jan. 1, 2009.

Definition of “Disability” Remains the Same

The ADAAA and the final regulations keep the ADA’s definition of the term “disability” as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities; a record (or past history) of such an impairment; or being regarded as having a disability. But the law made significant changes in how those terms are interpreted, and the regulations implement those changes.

Changes to Interpretation of “Disability”

The regulations provide a list of principles to guide the determination of whether a person has a disability.

For example, to be considered a disability, an impairment may not necessarily prevent or severely or significantly restrict performance of a major life activity.

Additionally, whether an impairment is a disability should be interpreted broadly, to the maximum extent allowable under the law.

The principles also provide that, with one exception (ordinary eyeglasses or contact lenses), “mitigating measures,” such as medication and assistive devices like hearing aids, must not be considered when determining whether someone has a disability.

Impairments that are episodic (such as epilepsy) or in remission (such as cancer) are disabilities if they would be substantially limiting when active.

The regulations clarify that the term “major life activities” includes “major bodily functions,” such as:

Functions of the immune system,
Normal cell growth, and
Brain, neurological, and endocrine functions.

The regulations also make clear that not every impairment will constitute a disability. The regulations include examples of impairments that should easily be considered disabilities, such as:

HIV infection,
Diabetes,
Epilepsy, and
Bipolar disorder

The regulations also make it easier for individuals to establish that they are “regarded as” having a disability. Under the new law, the focus is on how the person is treated rather than on what an employer believes about the nature of the person’s impairment.

Additional information

To To read more about the ADA Amendments Act, please click on the EEOC links below:

EEOC’s Notice Concerning the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) Amendments Act of 2008
Final Regulations Implementing the ADAAA
Q&As on the Final Rule Implementing the ADA Amendments Act of 2008
Q&As for Small Businesses: The Final Rule Implementing the ADA Amendments Act of 2008
Fact Sheet on the EEOC’s Final Regulations Implementing the ADAAA