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Brinkerhoff, an associate in the Las Vegas office of law firm Holland & Hart LLP, offered her tips at BLR’s Advanced Employment Issues Symposium, held recently in Las Vegas.
Recent Joint-Employer Test—National Labor Relations Board
The August 2015 Browning Ferris ruling brought a new, broader joint-employer test:
- Is there a common-law employment relationship?
- Does the purported joint employer have the authority to exercise control over the terms and conditions of employment? (Note: The purported joint employer need not actually exercise that control, says Brinkerhoff.)
Essential terms and conditions can include:
- Hiring;
- Rejecting new hires;
- Training;
- Discipline;
- Setting pay and benefits;
- Establishing working conditions;
- Firing or demanding firing of workers;
- Assigning tasks; and
- Providing oversight or evaluations.
Bottom line, if the staffing agency and client share responsibility or if the client retains the right to exercise control over these terms and conditions, a joint-employment relationship exists, Brinkerhoff says.
As a joint employer, check to be sure who is taking care of obligations that are related to:
- Form I-9 and employment verification
- Wage-and-hour laws
- Title VII and discrimination laws
- Laws pertaining to the Family and Medical Leave Act
- Laws pertaining to the National Labor Relations Act
- Workers’ compensation
- The Occupational Safety and Health Administration
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Brinkerhoff’s Best Practices for Avoiding Liability Related to Contingent Workers
Brinkerhoff offers the following tips for avoiding liability:
Independent contractors:
- Make educated and realistic determinations to determine if an individual is an employee or not.
- Use contracts that specify the employment relationship and the factors of that relationship.
- If you want or need to exert more control or to have a long-term relationship, consider converting the independent contractor into an employee.
Staffing and temp agencies:
- Choose the agency wisely—vet its knowledge and compliance with employment laws.
- Research the agency’s track record of violations, complaints, lawsuits, etc.
- Check references of the agency, and determine if it belongs to associations or other HR-related groups that keep them up to date.
- Use of a written agreement will help protect against joint-employer status.
- Identify that the agency is the sole employer and that no joint-employer relationship exists.
- Do not retain authority over essential terms and conditions of employment.
- Establish production requirements and quality control via nonemployer methods (e.g., inspection of product rather than oversight of daily duties).
- Do not engage in typical employer conduct, that is:
- Do not participate in interviews, testing, hiring decisions, discipline, terminations, etc.
- Do not pay, approve raises, or provide bonuses or benefits.
- Avoid assigning and supervising work.
- Do not keep personnel files on nonemployees.
The definition of employee has drastic consequences for your organization both monetarily and legally. That’s enough to handle without having to worry about the state of your recruiting arm. Are you making the most of the latest technology?
Given the speed at which technology is evolving, and all the new tools for recruiting, if you don’t start somewhere, you will get left in the dust. How to get there? Fortunately there’s timely help in the form of BLR’s new webinar—Recruiting Technology 101: What It Can Do and How to Use It. In just 60 minutes, on Tuesday, January 12, you’ll learn everything you need to know about contemporary recruiting technology!
Register today for this interactive webinar.
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Tuesday, January 12, 2016
2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. (Eastern)
1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. (Central)
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11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. (Pacific)
Approved for Recertification Credit and Professional Development Credit
This program has been approved for 1 credit hour toward recertification through the Human Resource Certification Institute (HRCI) and 1 credit hour towards SHRM-CPSM or SHRM-SCPSM.
Join us on Tuesday, January 12, 2016—you’ll get the in-depth Recruiting Technology 101: What It Can Do and How to Use It webinar AND you’ll get all of your particular questions answered by our experts.
Train Your Entire Staff
As with all BLR®/HR Hero® webinars:
- Train all the staff you can fit around a conference phone.
- Get your (and their) specific phoned-in or e-mailed questions answered in Q&A sessions that follow the presentation.