How the Right Small Business HR Solutions Keep You Safe
Gone are the days of instant success merely because you are a skilled craftsman. Today’s business owners need the right small business HR solutions and people to manage these challenges.
In my role as an insurance broker, I have the pleasure of speaking with hundreds of small business owners every year. Some of these people are new business owners, entering the world of business with just a marketable skill and a dream. Whatever their level of experience, they are all up against the ever changing landscape of exposures that put their new businesses at risk.
Let’s take Joe, a skilled artisan subcontractor. By all measures, he is a wildly successful contractor who can hardly keep pace with the demands for his services. Responding to that demand, he hires two or three full-time people and picks up a few seasonal workers during the summer. Earlier this week, he was hit with an EEOC complaint filed against him by a former employee alleging wrongful termination, discrimination, and improper payment of over time wages. Joe needs to respond to the complaint yet is unsure how to do so or even if has the wherewithal to properly defend himself.
While Joe was busy growing his contracting business, he missed a few crucial steps that would have protected him from exactly this type of claim. He did not have formal employment practices and hiring procedure in place. He did not use formal job applications. He did not have proper employee files with signed employment documents. And he did not have a signed acknowledgement that the employee had received and read the employee handbook. Joe never got around to putting the right small business HR solutions in place.
At KMRD Partners, we can take some of the human resource personnel burden off of our clients and allow them to focus on running their business. Some of what we do is assist them with developing employee handbooks, qualified job requirements and employee hiring checklists. Having these formal procedures and practices in place would have given Joe the documentation and defense needed to successfully respond to the complaint from the former employee. But instead, Joe had to have his attorney answer the complaint, and is now nervously awaiting a response from the EEOC – and an very large bill from his attorney.
KMRD Partners provides much more than insurance policies. Our database of risk management tools and documents used to help you operate the business is available to all clients, regardless of size and complexities. We include many of the tools you’ll need to manage your small business HR issues. Managing risk this way, not only lets you sleep more securely at night, but it has the added benefit of lowering your overall insurance costs.
Partner with KMRD Partners and we’ll help to keep your small business out of trouble!
Bob Lickfeld, CPCU is a Partner at KMRD Partners Risk & Insurance Solutions, a leading risk management and human capital solutions firm, and works out of the Limerick, Pa. office.
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