At Helios, we are often asked to recommend how to best structure an organization’s HR Department. You may have heard the rule of thumb is 1 HR professional for every 100 employees. Unfortunately, it is not that simple and there is no “one size fits all” solution. There are a lot of factors that go into determining the right solution for your organization.

There are thousands of government contractors who hold Service Contract Act contracts, yet so many of them are confused about the requirements. It’s understandable; the requirement guidelines are complicated and difficult to navigate. As an HR consultant with GovCon subject matter expertise, I often interpret the guidelines for many of our federal contracting clients to ensure they are in compliance. Here are a few tips to help clarify some of the most frequent misunderstandings I have discovered over the years consulting on the McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act of 1965, now known as the Service Contract Labor Standards.

Just as you think about all the hard work of whether or not you are going to change the plan design and/or carriers and what the employee/employer premium split is going to be is done, it is time to communicate those decisions to employees. This step is not one that should be overlooked. Communication is just as important as the actual decisions. This is your time to not only let employees know they have the opportunity to make changes to their elections, but to let them know how much you care about them personally through the benefit packages you have designed for them. You have to carefully craft each communication so while ensuring they understand the plan changes and what is available to them they also feel like an individual and not just a number.

As a government contractor with 50 employees and $50,000 in government contracts, you are required to have an Affirmative Action Plan (AAP). Much of the information that goes into your AAP is collected from your applicants and employee population by providing them with an invitation to voluntarily self-identify.

I recently worked with a client to conduct an employee engagement survey. The results of the survey indicated that employees felt they were not paid competitively and that the bonus opportunities available to them were not incentivizing. The leadership did not really understand why employees feel this way because they felt they had done all the right things.

At Helios, we are often approached by current and prospective clients to conduct compensation benchmarking for their organizations. Typically, it's because they are losing talent to the competition or having conversations with their employees about salaries they found online.