How Small Businesses Can Harness the HR Resources of Much Larger Companies

Small business owners are used to wearing many hats: marketing, production, supervision, growth plans, and so much more. But trying to take on too many tasks related to human resources not only can become time-consuming, but it can lead to expensive mistakes:

• A bad hire can cost up to $50,000 in lost productivity, rehiring, onboarding, and training expenses.
• Violating the wage and hour provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act can result in a $10,000 penalty.
• An Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) violation can lead to a $7,000 fine.

Thankfully, the New Jersey Business & Industry Association offers two solutions that can help your company stay on top of human resources issues even as company needs grow and evolve.

The HR Support Center is free with NJBIA membership and includes a policy library and law alerts, an employee handbook builder, resources on common employer laws (ACA, FLSA, and FMLA, etc.), extensive COVID-19 content, HR webinars, and HR forms, documents and templates.

For more personalized assistance, you can upgrade to HR On Demand for an additional $300 per year. HR On Demand provides unlimited live advice through chat, telephone, or email 5-days per week from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. The advisors have an average of 16 years of experience and a 4.9/5 client satisfaction rating.

It's an economical way to have access to human resource professionals and expertise you'd expect to find at much larger companies. They can help you answer questions such as:

• We received a complaint about harassment. How should we respond?
• Does an I-9 form need to be updated when an employee has a name change?
• Should we ban romantic relationships in the workplace?
• Can the same person be both an employee and an independent contractor?
• How do we calculate whether we’re covered under FMLA?
• Can an employer legally make their employees use their accumulated vacation hours?

To learn more about the New Jersey Business & Industry Association's HR solutions, visit njbia.org/why-njbia/benefits/hr-support.