Category Archives: Business Reports

By Noreen DeWire Grimmick, Esq.

An important piece of new legislation was executed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in April 2016 providing paid family leave.

Paid leave will be phased in over a 4 year period beginning in Jan. 1, 2018. To be eligible, employees must work a minimum 26 consecutive weeks prior to applying for paid leave.

Paid leave may be taken to provide care to a family member suffering from a serious health issue; to bond with a child during the first 12 months after birth, adoption, or foster care placement; or to attend to obligations because a spouse, parent, or child is on active duty or has been notified of a pending call into active duty in the U.S. armed forces.

Notably, this law does not provide coverage for an employee’s own serious health condition, but that event would likely trigger already existing disability insurance coverage and is, of course, subject to FMLA under federal law.

Phasing in of these new regulations begins in 2018. Employees who qualify for paid leave under the act will be entitled to 50 percent of their pay (with a pay cap equal to 50 percent of the statewide weekly average pay) for a period of 8 weeks. When fully phased in, in 2021, eligible employees will be entitled to 12 weeks of paid leave at 67 percent of their weekly pay (capped at 67 percent of the statewide average weekly pay).

By Rick Gallup

One of the many challenges facing business owners and managers today is the transformation of documents from paper to digital. Although most people agree that this change is necessary, implementation is not a simple process.

Why go from paper to digital? Remote workers have access to information on many devices from virtually anywhere. If important documents are trapped in paper format, you are not fully utilizing the tools that mobile technology provides.

Another reason is that digital documents make it very easy to store and retrieve large volumes of data. Other reasons include cost savings, security, and sustainability, to name a few.

What are the challenges? First there is acceptance. Most people are resistant to change. Getting everyone on board is essential to a successful digital transformation strategy.

Then there is the process. Some companies will choose to eliminate printers, or install software that restricts printing. These can be effective measures, but only if you have a good understanding of the workflow, and how this action may impact it.

The path to transformation can be divided into four stages (understand, educate, execute, and improve). First you must understand how and where you use paper today. The distinction between “good” and “bad” paper can identify areas where you really need to use paper, and areas where you don’t.

By Michael Cruz

Hiring the right people for your organization is critically important, right?  And, interviewing people is the way we determine if they are the people you want.  Typical questions often include – Where do you see yourself in 3 years?  How do you handle conflict?  What are your strengths (or weaknesses)?  These are terrible questions.  Don’t ask them!

I often work with clients on hiring issues.  We work on ways to ensure new hires are a 90% fit to their company.  Good interviews take preparation.  Few people take the time to prepare to ask purposeful questions.  Before we figure out what to ask, we need to understand why you should not ask the questions above.

Where do you see yourself in three years?  What do you want them to say?  How does their answer tell you much about them?  If I meet you somewhere, could you answer that question?  Don’t ask it.  Focus your questions on what you want them to do in the next three years.

How do you handle conflict?  This one is a little different.  We all need to handle conflict at work.  The phrasing of this question is hypothetical. People will answer based on what they think you want to hear.  Whoever told you that they scream at people?  Or that they will pout?  Instead, ask them to Give me an example of a time that you had a conflict with a coworker?  Tell me the situation and describe how you handled it.  This change in phrasing allows you see what they do in that situation.  It is no longer hypothetical.  It is behavioral.  It describes their actual behavior in that situation.

By Jamie Wallace

Chimneys and dryer vents are a mystery to many homeowners and even experienced contractors. Both vent flammable or toxic gases to the exterior of your home, and both are horribly ignored.

This information is especially important when living in or managing apartments or condos.

Let’s start with dryer vents. There are codes and standards for how they are built. Many times, a heating element in the dryer will fail, causing the need for replacement. In some cases the dryer was never the problem, it was incorrect installation of the vent or heavy lint accumulation. This essentially overworks a dryer and shortens its life span significantly.

In 2010, the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) stated that over 15,000 dryer vent fires occurred in the U.S. due to dirty dryer vents.

The good news is: it is 100 percent preventable.

The NFPA also recommends a dryer vent be inspected and cleaned as needed on an annual basis, which would drastically reduce risk. When an experienced professional comes out to service a dryer vent, they should also make sure it was installed properly. There should be no vinyl hose connections, no PVC venting, and certainly no screws holding it all together, which act like lint catchers.

By Breanna lundy

It’s graduation season again. If your child is graduating from high school or college, you have reason to celebrate. But what should you give to your newly minted diploma holder? You might want to consider offering a combination of financial gifts and tips, which, taken together, could set your graduate on a path toward a successful, independent life.

What sort of gifts and tips should you consider? Here are a few ideas:

• Give a few shares of stock.

Everyone should understand the financial markets and how they work. One great way to encourage this interest is to give your child a few shares of stock. Young people enjoy owning a piece of a company that makes the products and services they like – and the very act of ownership can inspire them to learn more about investing and to ask questions:

What causes the stock price to go up or down? How long should I hold this stock? Should I own several stocks like this one, or is it better to branch out to find new opportunities? Over time, in learning the answers to these and other questions, your child can become familiar with investing and how to make the best choices.

• Encourage your graduate to open an IRA. Your child can open an IRA as long as he or she has some earned income. You might want to suggest that your child consider a Roth IRA, which, at the child’s age and income level, may be a good choice.

With a Roth IRA, children can access their contributions at any time, tax- and penalty-free. They can’t touch the earnings without incurring both taxes and penalties, however, until they reach 59½. But you will want to encourage them to keep the money in their IRA intact, giving it the chance to grow.

• Provide some financial education.

By David L. Cumming

During the day, the next generation of wealth is busy building startups or running projects for major corporations. If you are an individual coming into wealth for the first time from a low- to middle-income background, a unique set of challenges presents itself as you attempt to both manage and enjoy your hard earned-wealth.

One of these challenges may be student loan debt. Besides navigating yourself out of debt, it can be tough to navigate relationship dynamics and commitments when you are new to wealth. You may feel an understandable pull to give back to your family and community, but have a hard time balancing these commitments with those of your own self-care and personal investment.

As your financial position improves, it is common to experience guilt and overwhelming feelings as you notice your improved position relative to your family and friends. These feelings can have an impact on how you relate to your family and community and how you understand your role and function in those relationships.

Couple these feelings with others’ new perception of you as a “wealthy” person, and it can be easy to fall prey to a perceived responsibility for others that exhausts your emotional and financial resources.

Here are a few ways to take care of your own financial health as you navigate this exciting but challenging new position of wealth.

Start Saving Now

When we’re young, it is easy to feel as if retirement is a lifetime away. We may spend very little time, if any, thinking about practical ways to prepare for our golden years. “I’ll take care of that in a decade or two,” one might think. But if anything teaches us that the time to start saving is now, it is the importance of compound interest on your retirement contributions.

By Rose Miller

Congratulations. You’ve been promoted to a management role. It’s a big job with important responsibilities. But wait. Just how much do you know about being a good manager?

I remember what my wise dad told me. He was an amazing carpenter, who said he was only as good as his tools. Do you have the right tools to manage others? Here’s a little test. How many statements are true?

Your success as a supervisor depends more on your technical knowledge than on people skills. You should delegate only tasks you don’t have time to do yourself. To get the best results, promote competition rather than teamwork.

All those statements are false. Management by definition is the ability to get things done through the efforts of others. A good manager does this by empowering and motivating others. They lead teams to work together towards a common goal.

Here are seven basic tips that can help you make the successful transition from employee to manager:

1. Empower employees to feel they are responsible for their own performance.

2. Use an employee’s personal drivers to fuel their achievement.

To understand why the hiring process is so important, we need to examine what it costs when we make a mistake.

There are hard dollar and soft dollar costs. There is the cost of advertising and recruiter fees. These are Direct Hiring Costs. When you must replace someone, you need to do this all over again, and the original costs are never recovered.

Then there is the issue of what you paid that person while they were in your employ. The actual salary or hourly rate PLUS the 20-30% benefit load PLUS any expenses they incurred that were reimbursed. Add in what you paid to have their computer and cell phone set up, and costs for other tools. Add in what you spent for outside training courses. Add in any severance expenses. Severance can be minimal if they were not there long. However, when you linger in your decision, you are “running up the meter”.

Indirect costs are harder to quantify. Yet, they are far greater. You will need to take time to coach these people. And to listen to complaints about them. That negative energy, drags us all down. Not only is the actual time spent wasted, it makes us less productive at the work we like to do.

It affects not just managers, but other employees as well. They will spend time complaining about your mis-hire. Often, they will have figured it out before you finally admit it to yourself. If they are in a customer facing position, they may have made life bad for a customer or client. You need to spend time repairing that damage. Lastly, they probably missed signals and lost some opportunities to pursue better initiatives that a productive hire would have seen.