Taking care of your employees in the #GovCon Market

As a growing federal contractor, you've spent lots of time creating policies and procedures, the employee handbook, negotiating benefits and setting up payroll systems. It takes constant effort in recruiting to build a resume database, and you're always waiting for the "go-ahead" from your customer to issue an offer letter.

You've had to learn about pay rules and overtime and think about whether to stay under 50 employees. When they were getting ready to change the wage limits on the Fair Labor Standards Act, you dreaded how much work it would be to reclassify your employees and also find out if your contracts could be modified since some of those employees would then fall under the Service Contract Act. You're still not sure what they are doing about federally mandated sick leave, but for now you think it's on hold.

Your biggest concern now is what the Obamacare vs Trumpcare issue is going to cost you. It's not something you can control, and you need help from your benefits provider and your attorney to navigate the issues. You want to take care of your employees, but you didn't bid all this extra cost into your proposal pricing!

At the same time, if you win that new contract that has both SCA and Collective Bargaining agreement employees, you might have to revamp your entire benefits plan to cover those requirements, unless there's a way to carve them out into their own benefits and 401K. Someone also told you that the incumbent employees you're bringing on are used to getting their $4.27 in benefits paid in cash. You are worried about how they'll react when you tell them their "cash in lieu" will now go toward required benefits and 401K, since apparently between the Affordable Care Act and the way you priced the proposal, there's no other way to handle it.

If you have to change your retirement plan for the new employees, you're also going to review both the company retirement plan and your own retirement strategy. As a company owner, there must be ways that you can structure the plan so it meets both personal and business goals, possibly even having some tax and investment benefits.

You're not the only company owner, so there are other considerations. When you started the company, you were all on the same track. Over the years, you have different ideas about where you want the company to go, and what you want to get out of it, and when. You'd really like to bring in someone to help facilitate some group discussions, so you could get the team to make some decisions together.

You've also made a commitment this year to creating a mentoring program, because you want to keep the family atmosphere you've developed. You've got lots of veterans in the company so you may start with that, since you're committed to hiring veterans. You plan to update your website, and make sure that your applicant tracking system isn't discouraging people from applying.

Does this sound like the kinds of thoughts that go through your head as you realize what a team you've built? Your company supports lots of families and you want to keep it that way.

Where do you find answers to these questions? At the Florida GovCon Summit, we've got a panel of subject matter experts called "Taking Care of Your Team."

Panelists include:

Michael Valdez, Synergy Wealth Alliance

Mike Devaux, Keystone Benefits Group

Sheryl Hunter, Hunter Law Firm

Marnice Miller, Human Capital Resources & Concepts

Carmen Scanlon, Insperity

Juli Lopez, Streamline Defense

This panel will go to a smaller breakout sessions to allow for discussion.

The Florida GovCon Summit focuses on small businesses in federal contracting, identifying ways to Team for the Bigger Federal Deals. Florida GovCon Summit March 29-30 in Tampa, FL ? ?Build relationships and learn from experts. Register at govconconference.com.

for questions or more information, please connect with me, Jenny W Clark, and message me over LinkedIn.