Quiznos free sub offer may be all that and more

The following is an article I wrote on the Quiznos free sub promotion. I'll paste some text in here and a link to the site for the few article. -- CR

The Athens $timulus: Quiznos promotes free subs

By Corey Ryan
Athens NEWS
February 23, 2009

You know the place with the oven toasted subs that make you go um, um, um, toasty? Well, they're offering you the chance at a free sub with minimal effort.

Just go to their site and give them your name and e-mail address. They're going to put it in their "Q-Club" marketing database to send you e-mails about sub deals.

But that's not all they may do.

By signing up for the sub you give Quiznos permission to use cookies to track what they refer to as "non-personal information."

What is that non-personal information? Well, that could be anything ranging from the Web sites you visit, what operating system you use or what Web browser you use.

That all sounds pretty personal to me, Big Brother Quiznos.

Continue reading

Ryan Staffing President Weighs In On Fair Pay, Social Security and Independent Contractors

Fair Pay Act of 2009
President Obama recently signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 into law. This law extends the starting point for determining the statue of limitations on pay discrimination issues. Until passage of this law the meter began when the initial pay discrimination decision was first made. The new act institutes the "paycheck rule" effectively starting the meter over with the issuance of each paycheck received by the troubled party.

As a result you may need to re-visit past pay policy decisions and record retention policies at your company with counsel.

Social Security Benefits Estimator

Did you know about Social Security's online retirement estimator for a personalized estimate of how much you might expect to receive in benefits when you retire?

The calculator is interactive and allows you to create different retirement scenarios. None of your personal information is revealed.

Now we only have to hope and pray the money will be there to pay us when we do retire!


Be Careful About Independent Contractors

These days the importance of saving a buck takes on an added significance. Avoiding the payment of payroll taxes by classifying or converting employees to independent contractor status is a very risky strategy.

Improper classification of employees can cause business owners to be assessed with hefty tax penalties for not paying various employment taxes. Before you take a gamble on classifying people as independent contractors consider these factors developed by the IRS:

1. ICs do not receive instructions about how to complete a job.
2. ICs do not receive training from the hiring company.
3. ICs have the right to hire others to do the work.
4. The work of an IC is not essential to a hiring company's success.
5. ICs do not use use time clocks.
6. ICs do not have a continuing relationship with the hiring company.
7. ICs have control over their work hours.
8. ICs have time to pursue other jobs.
9. ICs control where they work and are not under the hiring company's supervision.
10. The sequence of work is determined by the IC.
11. ICs are hired for the final result. They are not required to provide progress reports.
12. ICs are paid for the job and not on an hourly basis.
13. ICs work for more than one firm at a time.
14. Business expenses are the responsibility of the IC.
15. ICs have their own tools.
16. ICs have significant investments in their trade and do not rely on the company facilities.
17. ICs services are available to the general public via such things as advertising, signs, licenses, etc.
18. ICs have the ability to make a profit or loss based on such things as employees, cost of materials, pricing, etc.
19. ICs cannot be fired as long as they do the job they are hired to do in a satisfactory manner.
20. ICs don't get paid until the job is done right.

Certain exemptions from these rules do exist and as always you should consult your Tax Attorney before making your decision.

For more information visit the IRS.gov website.

Tip of the Month: Choose Your Service Wisely

Selecting a company to provide staffing services at face value seems like an easy task. You pick one from the phone book, call the one that has bugged you the most for business in recent months or use the service you've always used in the past. Some base the decision by picking the one with the lowest bill rate. While all these strategies have there own merit there are several other factors to consider before you choose a service to staff your plant.

Consider the following:

1. Financial Stability: Did you know that your company can be held responsible if your staffing provider fails to meet its obligations to its employees working at your facility? A good example of this involves payroll taxes withheld from the temp's paychecks.

If the staffing company fails to deposit these with the relevant government body, your company can be on the hook. Workers Compensation Claims, UC Payroll Taxes, FICA, FUTA, etc. can all become your responsibility should your provider not make good.

The solution is to do your due diligence on the financial status of your provider. While large public companies are easier to check, the smaller independents require a bit more work.

If you're not comfortable we suggest you perform such things as credit checks or solicit business references. You can Google New Stories and check the courts for lawsuits involving the supplier and its owners. Don't be afraid to ask for financial statements after signing a non disclosure statement.

Remember, there is nothing better than certified audit statements. Protect your self!

2. Insurance Coverage: Make sure your provider has adequate insurance coverage's. I would suggest the following limits:

General Liability--------$5,000,000.00
Professional Liability----$5,000,000.00
Non-Owned Auto--------$1,000,000.00
Employee Dishonesty---$1,000,000.00

You want to make sure your provider supplies up to date certificates of insurance including a certificate for Workers Compensation Coverage from the BWC.

3. Know your Supplier: It can be a good idea to check out the ownership status of your supplier especially if you are using an independent supplier.

While there are many legitimate reasons for companies to change their legal status (i.e. name changes, selling the business, tax reasons etc.), there are just as many shady reasons for this practice as well. The most common example involves Workers Compensation Fraud. A provider that runs up an astronomical Workers Compensation experience may try to start over by forming a new company. While this practice is not legal it is often hard for the BWC to detect.

By going on the Ohio Secretary of State website you can identity by ownership name, company name or identification number just how many versions of your supplier are out there. Be especially wary of companies that exist in numerous versions.

4. Hidden Charges: Staffing suppliers have a number of creative ways to present their bill rate to perspective clients. Some use a percentage markup of the rate paid to the temps including payroll taxes... some exclude payroll taxes.

Many staffing providers use a flat hourly bill rate based on the type of work done regardless of the hourly wage paid to the temp. They profit more by paying the temp less. Some services add on charges for doing background checks or drug testing and make you pay liquidation fees should you want to hire the temp.

As with most these days, cost is a driving factor in your selection process. When you compare bill rates presented by different suppliers you need to make certain that you are comparing apples with apples.

The easiest way to do this is by comparing an all inclusive hourly pay rate/bill rate between service providers. Have the service provider include all incidental services in to their bill rate. This way you can avoid surprises.

5. Customer Service: Most all staffing providers can find you live bodies to fill your staffing needs. Those of us that have been around a long time are pretty good at sending you qualified people that meet your requirements. What separates the "Men from the Boys" so to speak is how your provider handles your problems and concerns when the heat is on. The suggestion here is to interview potential suppliers much like you interview job applicants and get answers to the following:

* Do you have non-traditional hours?
* How do you solve turnover problems?
* What is your plan to recruit qualified employees?
* What training do you provide your full time staff?
* How long have you been in business?
* What is the level of experience of you full time staff?
* Do you process your own payroll locally?
* This is just a start. With a staffing company it's not how fast you start but how strong you finish.

The main point of all this is that all staffing providers are not the same. While price is always a concern, you do get what you pay for when it comes to your final selection of a provider.
Happy Hunting!

Temps Save Money, Check Out Our Salary And Fringe Benefit Conversion Guide

So you need to cut costs to keep your business afloat. But without employees, there can't be a business. As Ryan Staffing president Tim Ryan pointed out in last month's Corner Stool, hiring permanent workers has many hidden costs. By hiring through with "temp to perm," companies can minimize those costs.

Check out our Salary and Fringe Benefit Conversion Guide to see just how much actual employer costs are:

The left of this guide calculates actual employer costs for wage workers. The right calculates for salary employees.

If an employee is paid $7.50 per hour, it actually costs an employer $10.85. Here are some more examples for hourly workers. :

Employee Wage --- Employee Annual Earning --- Employer Annual Cost

$8 --- $16,640 --- $23,978.24
$9 --- $18,720 --- $26,975.52
$10 --- $20,800 --- $29,972.80
$11 --- $22,880 --- $32,970.08
$12 --- $24,960 --- $35,967.36
$13 --- $27,040 --- $38,964.64
$14 --- $29,120 --- $41,961.92
$15 --- $31,200 --- $44,959.20

For your own copy of our Salary and Fringe Benefit Conversion Guide, call our corporate office at 800.665.5627(JOBS) or your area's Ryan Staffing office.

Ryan Staffing Sponsors Alzheimer's Dance

Going Green To Save Some Green

I came across this story on the Wall Street Journal's Web site. It's worth a look. -- cr

How to Go Green in Hard Times
You want to cut your carbon footprint. But you can't wait years for a payback. Here are 10 ways to help the environment -- and save money.

By YULIYA CHERNOVA and SARI KRIEGER

It's tough to be green when money is tight.

Lots of big environmentally friendly changes look good in theory, like buying solar panels or switching to a hybrid car. The trouble is, many of those fixes take years to make back their cost -- and most people can't afford that luxury in these tough economic times.

The good news: There are plenty of energy-saving changes you can make that will recoup their cost fast. Some are cheap and simple, like replacing the air filters on your central air conditioning. Others are costlier and more complicated -- such as insulating your attic -- but they're so effective they'll pay for themselves quickly.

We've chosen 10 changes and laid out how much they'll cost you and how much they'll save, as well as the payback time. In most cases, it's less than a year or two.
continue reading at WSJ.com

Tim Weighs In On Bailouts, Layoffs and OSHA

Are you Sick of Bailouts, Politicians and Unions?

If you are like me, you find all the bailout and rescue plans going down very troubling. It's not how capitalism and the free market are supposed to work. And certainly politicians are not supposed to be picking the winners and losers in the business world.

Here's a section examining the financial crisis the New York Times has been running on the Web called The Reckoning.

This being said, what is equally disturbing is how our government wants the survivors to become more like those begging for handouts (and like those public sector employees). Think about what's coming down the pike in 2009:

1. Mandatory Health Care - The goal here is to force everyone in business to provide womb to tomb health care just like big auto. If you don't do it you'll be taxed.

2. Healthy Families Act - This will mandate paid time off for all your employees for virtually any reason and with little or no notice. Aside from the expense try running a business when you don't know who will be at work. Even Governor Strickland thought this was a bad idea, yet it promises to be back as a Federal issue soon.

3. Employee Free Choice - Unions in this country haven't done enough already to send jobs overseas so why not make it easier for unions to take over representation of all businesses. High on labor's list of priorities, this law if passed will eliminate secret ballots and allow unions to be certified when a majority of employees sign the cards now used to gauge only interest in voting on participation.

4. Minimum Wage - It keeps going up despite its impact on small business. In Ohio with our annual inflation adjustment it has now reached $7.30/hr effective January 01, 2009. The unemployment rate in Ohio is now at the highest level in about twenty years and the UC benefits fund is broke. Is it a coincidence that Ohio is now on the list of bailout beggars?

5. FMLA - Too complicated to go into detail about so just be aware that new FMLA regulations go into effect on January 16, 2009.

Had enough? I for sure have! Did you know that in Ohio businesses have over 50,000 rules and regulations to follow?

Ask yourself why our elected leaders are hell bent on running us out of business so they can take over? Perhaps the answer is in the question. Let your elected officials know how you feel. For a list of their names and contact information go to the Ohio General Assembly (here's state representatives) directories and the Ohio U.S. Congress directory.

Layoffs and Closures

With the recent problems facing our economy I'm sure most of us have had to layoff staff or close facilities. Before you do it might be a good idea to familiarize your self with the Worker's Adjustment and Re-Training Notification Act (WARN).

You can do this by visiting the winter 2008 edition of the Water Cooler at www.bricker.com.

OSHA Record Keeping

As our annual reminder to all those that use Staffing Services, all OSHA recordable injuries experienced by employees supplied by Staffing Companies must be recorded on the OSHA 300 Log of the party that provides the employees day to day supervision.

The details of this record keeping regulation are covered in Section 1904.31 of the act.

RAS President Tim Ryan Gives 6 Tips On How To Up Production

When the economy picks up (and it will) using a contingent workforce strategy can be a cost effective way to amp up production levels. Here are a few things to think about:

1. Hiring permanent workers has many hidden costs. Not all of these costs are easy to put a dollar figure on. One example is the cost of recruiting that includes such things as placing ads, interviewing, running drug and background checks, verifying references, etc.

2. The cost of hiring mistakes can be minimized by using a "temp to perm" approach. We've all had the new employee that worked like gangbusters the first thirty days only to become that permanent problem you could never get rid of after the probationary period passed. And you should be able to negotiate away liquidation fees from your staffing supplier (see December tip) using this approach.

3. In most cases there are significant savings on wages and fringe benefits costs. Using temporaries can save you on health care and retirement plan costs. It also creates an opportunity for you to create a two tier/entry level wage that is lower than what you might pay a permanent hire. To get an idea of these savings you can request a "Salary and Fringe Benefit Conversion Guide" by sending us an e-mail at tryan@ryanstaffing.com.

4. The costs of layoffs and terminations of permanent employees can be felt for years. Just a 2% increase in your UC payroll tax will cost you $20,000 per million in payroll taxes. And these increases can stay with you for years. Using temporaries can help lower your UC costs and you avoid all the administrative headaches these claims bring.

5. Payrolling contingent staff coming out of a slowdown can save you even more bucks. With unemployment high you may already have identified qualified people that you want working at your facility. At Ryan Alternative Staffing you can use our payrolling service for these people and save up to 20% off the conventional bill rate. And you have all the other saving benefits already discussed.

For more information on how payrolling can benefit your company visit RyanStaffing.com.

6. Using contingent /temporary staffing as part of your overall staffing strategy provides an added level of security to your permanent workforce. This can lead to lower turnover, less absenteeism and higher productivity.

So, when things get better you may want to consider using Ryan Alternative Staffing to help build your workforce.