HR Resources

The core of the HR Resource Center, the HR Topic Library, is full of information on various aspects of HR. A quick summary of each of the 12 topics is listed below.

1. Benefits
   • Benefits are a crucial part of being an employer. Admins can learn about their legal obligations and best practices for providing benefits to employees.
2. Culture
   • Organizational culture is important. Building and sustaining a dynamic, engaging and compelling culture can be a big competitive advantage in any industry.
3. Diversity & Discrimination 
   • The workplace is becoming increasingly diverse, making it important for admins to understand both the issue of diversity and how to manage it effectively in the workplace.
4. Employee Management
   • Employees are the key to successful organizations. Admins can learn about tools and techniques for managing them effectively, including topics such as Training & Development, Conflict Management, and Corrective Action.
5. Health Care Reform
   • Although the requirements vary from employer to employer, Health Care Reform affects nearly every organization. Admins can choose to learn the basics or become an expert.
6. Hiring
   • A thoughtful, compliant, and strategic hiring process can create long-term benefits for an organization. In Hiring, admins can learn how to find and hire the right candidate, handle immigration and work eligibility issues, and onboard new employees.
7. HR Administration
   • Administering employees and records is as important as it is fundamental, and includes keeping employees' records organized and up-to-date.
8. Leaves & Accommodations
   • From disability accommodations to Family and Medical Leave Act compliance to personal, military, and state-mandated leaves, leaves and accommodations can be among the most complicated areas of Human Resources.
9. Money Matters
   • Money matters, including payroll administration, wage & hour compliance, and compensation issues, can be complex and delicate. With the right tools, however, admins can manage them like a pro.
10. Safety
    • From federal and state requirements, including workers’ compensation, to best practices, keeping employees safe and healthy are the markers of a great place to work.
11. Technology & Privacy
    • Technology has dramatically changed the workplace, created new privacy issues, and is an emerging issue for Human Resources.
12. Terminations
    • Managing and administering employee departures and unemployment issues effectively can help minimize the disruption and costs to an organization.

Not seeing a topic you have a question about? Visit the HR Resource Center from your Gusto account and use the search bar in the portal to look for related information. 

In order to contact the HR Pros, you must be the designated HR Resource Center admin in Gusto. The HR Pros will not speak directly with an employee unless that employee is also the designated HR Resource Center admin in Gusto.

• Reminder: The HR Pros are there to help coach the HR Resource Center admin from the company on best practices for situations, but cannot speak with employees about their specific situation(s).

  • There can only be one HR Resource Center admin at a time per Gusto account. The Primary admin on your Gusto account can change this at any time, as many times as desired.

To view or change the HR Resource Center admin for your company:

1. Click the Settings section.
2. Click the Permissions tab.
3. Select the Gusto admins tile. 
4. Review the Permissions column to identify the current HR Resource admin.
5. Click change HR Resource Center admin.
6. Select the admin you would like to designate as the HR Resource Admin.
7. Click Save.

With a variety of support options available, you may be wondering who to contact to best answer your question—your Dedicated Support team, the HR pros, or someone else. 

Use the information below to determine who is best suited to answer your specific question(s).

HR Pros

Contact the HR pros when looking for compliance-related HR advice and general HR guidance. They’re the experts in state and federal law compliance and HR best practices. The HR Pros cannot provide legal or tax advice.

The HR Pros are available Monday-Friday from 5am PT to 5pm PT. Head to the Dedicated Support section of your admin profile to get their phone number.

• Keep in mind: You must be the designated HR Resource Admin in order to contact them.

Submit a ticket to the HR Pros

1. Click the HR Resources tab in your Gusto account.
2. Click any of the tiles to enter the HR Resource Center portal.
3. Click the HR-On Demand tile in the portal.
4. Select Ask the Pro.
5. Scroll to the field where you can submit your question.

Check the status of a ticket submitted to the HR Pros

1. Click the HR Resources tab in your Gusto account.
2. Click any of the tiles to enter the HR Resource Center portal.
3. Click the HR-On Demand tile in the portal.
4. Select My Tickets.

Here you can view the ticket submission, ticket status, and review responses.

HR Pros handle questions about:

• Information in the HR Resource Center.
• State and federal laws surrounding the termination of an employee
• State and federal laws surrounding PTO/Sick time/Holiday pay requirements and payout
• Employee performance or employee relation issues.
  • Get guidance on how to approach these scenarios and document them correctly. 
• Employment law compliance assistance
  • Get a list of required workplace posters, and learn about harassment prevention training requirements.
  • Statutory paid sick leave, Affordable Care Act (ACA) requirements and key provisions, state family and medical leaves (including paid leaves), leaves of absence and group health benefits, annual benefits limits, and benefits notices (general).
• COVID-19 employee leave and other business complications brought on by COVID-19.

Once you’ve gotten guidance from the HR Pros, you can work with your Dedicated Support team to take any related/necessary steps in Gusto.

Dedicated support

Contact your dedicated support team for Gusto-specific questions about payroll and benefits. They’ll be able to assist with taking actions in Gusto but cannot provide legal or tax advice.

Dedicated Support handles questions about:

• What’s shown in your Gusto account
• Taking actions in Gusto
  • Examples: Payroll edits, setting up PTO policies, exemptions, pay schedules, new hires and dismissals, custom docs, and more.
• Running reports
• Benefits–confirmation of coverage, plan implementation, and plan status.
  • Contact the carrier directly for coverage-specific questions about employees.

A specialist 

For some issues, you may need to work with an employment lawyer, CPA, or another specialist in the relevant field.

A specialist will be best for questions about:

• Reviewing an existing employee handbook
  • The HR Pros can help create an Express or Professional employee handbook, but cannot review existing employee handbooks.
• Legal advice
  • Creating or reviewing any type of legally binding contract or agreement 
    • Examples: Employment contract, severance agreement, non-compete agreement, non-disclosure agreement, liability waiver, release of claims. 
      • The HR Pros can provide general guidance on what such items are, but we recommend speaking with an attorney to create or review the document to ensure compliance with applicable law(s) and enforceability should the employer need to rely on it.
  • Risk analysis 
    • Example question: “We terminated a pregnant employee, what is my liability if I do/don’t do this?”
  • Lawsuits
  • Non-profit rules and regulations
  • Public accommodations with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
  • Corporate organization and structure planning 
    • Example question: “Should we incorporate?”
  • Data security/data breach
  • In-depth government contracting or collective bargaining (e.g., union agreements)
• Industry-specific guidance
  • Food handler’s card 
    • Contact a state restaurant licensing agency and/or public health department.
  • Detailed OSHA safety questions or training 
    • Contact your state or federal OSHA (depending on whether you have a state-approved OSHA plan).
• Immigration or international HR questions 
  • Example questions: “How do I sponsor a visa? What are employment laws in other territories/countries?”
  • Contact an Immigration Attorney. 
• Tax guidance
  • Contact a CPA or tax professional.
• Detailed benefits guidance
  • Examples include: ERISA compliance legal advice, Medicare questions, plan contribution strategy and design, retirement plan administration, and retirement plan design. 
  • Contact your carrier about billing, coverage network, covered services, etc.
• Tangential HR issues
  • Examples include: 
    • Affirmative Action Plan
      • Contact an attorney.
    • Salary data analysis or benchmarking 
      • Contact a compensation specialist
    • Translation services

An employee handbook is a powerful tool used to communicate an organization's policies and practices, values, culture, and vision. 

If you’re a Gusto customer on the Concierge plan you can request an employee handbook right from your HR Resource Center portal in Gusto. In order to contact the HR Pros, you must be the designated HR Resource Center admin in Gusto. 

• Additional detail about the types of handbooks available can be found below.
• The HR Pros can not review handbooks created outside of the HR Resource Center. 

To get started:

1. Click the HR Resources tab.
2. Click the Employee Handbook tile.
3. Select the type of employee handbook you’d like to create:
   • Express
   • Professional (recommended)
     • Limited to one professional handbook per year.
4. Complete the questionnaire about the company.

Once the employee handbook is complete it will be provided as a Microsoft Word document that can be downloaded and edited. You can also upload the handbook in Gusto for employees to review in their account.

Employee Handbook options

• Express Handbook
  • Takes about 30 minutes to create and become available.
  • Answers a series of questions about your company to drive the handbook creation.
  • You can have as many Express Handbooks as you'd like, however each handbook is specific to only one state.
  • No consultation from the HR team.
• Professional Handbook (recommended)
  • ~3-5 business days time to completion.
  • In-depth and comprehensive handbook.
  • Limited to one professional handbook per year, per account.
  • The HR team will build and customize a handbook tailored to your organization.
  • One-on-one consultation with an HR Pro after creation to review, question, edit, etc.
• Handbook Update Manager
  • The HR Pros will not review or update an existing handbook in its entirety unless it was created in the HR Resource Center. However, the HR Pros will review individual policies from a third party handbook.
  • You can use your handbook tools like a real-time policy advisor to understand when and how to update your handbooks.
  • You can submit up to eight policy review or customization requests per week by uploading an editable Word doc.
  • Handbooks created in the HR Resource Center can be downloaded from the Handbook Management tab.

Once a handbook is created from the HR Resource Center, you can edit existing policies, add new sections, review recent state-specific policy changes, and get guidance around HR pain points and policy opportunities.

The HR Support Center houses a great deal of blank word document templates that you can download and use. These range from performance review docs, to employment agreements, and a wide variety of others.

Checklists

We provide a catalog of step-by-step checklists for the most important Human Resources issues:

• Conflict Management (Harassment)
• Culture
• HR Administration
• Health & Safety
• Health Care Reform
• Hiring, Recruiting, & Retention
• Leaves of Absence
• Termination
• Training & Development
• Wage & Hour

Forms

You can browse a comprehensive database of state, federal, and general business forms to help you administer your Human Resources functions. Some examples of categories are as follows:

• Benefits
• Forms about COBRA and much more
• Disability
• Forms related to the Family and Medical Leave Acts, Non-FMLA Health Leave, Reasonable Accommodations, and a Fitness for Duty Certificate
• Hiring, Recruiting, & Retention
• Forms on the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Sexual Harassment Brochures (in English and Spanish), and Background Check Notice and Authorization
• Wage & Hour
• Forms on the Alternative Workweek, Lunch Break Waiver, Make-up Time Request Form, and a Second Lunch Break Waiver

Guides

The Guides section of the HR Resource Center has several categories of common HR themes. Within each category, there are guides that you can follow in order to help you efficiently and effectively run your business. The following categories and guides are available:

• Conflict Management (Harassment)
• Guides on topics such as CA DFEH Workplace Harassment and Complaint Investigation
• Technology & Privacy
• HIPAA Covered Entity Charts, HIPAA Overview, and Notice to Furnishers of Consumer Reports
• Workers' Compensation
• A Workers' Compensation Guidebook for Injured Workers in CA

Letters

Human Resources often requires communicating with employees, the government, or third parties about employment-related issues. Browse a complete catalog of letters to find a template that meets your needs.

The following categories and letter templates are available for download and distribution:

• Compensation 
• Employee Overpayment Acknowledgement, Employee Reclassification, Pay Raise Recommendation, or Pay Rate Change Notification letters
• Health & Safety
• Sample Communication to Employees (COVID-19 Infection in the Workplace)
• Termination
• Employee Resignation Letter, Employer Reference Letter for Former Employee, Employment Verification Letter

The Learning section of your account gives the you resources to not only educate yourself, but also to create supportive and compliant environments for your employees. The Learning section includes 7 different categories on HR needs and practices. 

The HR Admin will have sole access to these from their Learning section, and can register for their one free seat at the HR-administered seminar. Extra seats cost $45/person if the admin would like to request an extra spot. To do so, the HR admin will need to create a new ticket from their Ask a Pro tab.

1. 2-Minute HR
   • Offers trainings that serve up important HR topics in segments that you can watch if your don't have a lot of time on your hands. Each video takes a couple of minutes, and you'll learn about HR basics, tips, and best practices. Browse the recent trainings, or filter them according to the HR topic that you're most interested in.
2. Articles
   • Stay up-to-date on the latest guidance and best practices by reading the articles written by our HR Professionals. The HR team features the most recent article, as well as several recommended articles. The entire article library is displayed below the most recent article, and you can browse the articles by HR Topic by using the filter boxes.
3. HR Cast
   • Podcasts which cover best practices and key issues in the field of Human Resources. 
4. Infographics
   • Infographics and white papers take important, and often complex, HR topics and boil them down into a clear graphic representation that will make the information easier to remember.
5. News Desk
   • The world of HR is constantly changing with new state and federal regulations, not to mention best practices. Read the latest analysis of the most important developments in the field.
6. Training On-Demand
   • Learn the most important HR issues of the day, as well as simple steps you can take in your organization to address them. Trainings are available in a slide/video format for you to go through, and can be filtered by topic.
   • For example, take a training on creating an effective onboarding program. Each training varies in length, and you can replay a training as many times as you'd like. When viewing a training, you'll be walked through the different topics by a real HR Pro.
7. Q&A Stream
   • The HR Pros help you with your HR questions and issues everyday. Read a live stream of questions and answers the HR Pros have selected as particularly important.
   • For example, one of the questions that was posed to the HR team had to do with remote employees, and whether or not they were eligible for FMLA. 

HR admins can choose a primary state to be alerted to for updates to compliance changes and new laws. The HR admin can also add other states or the entire federal government in order to receive an update when a law is changed, released, or made effective.

Set up law update alerts

1. As the HR admin, click the HR resources tab.
2. Select the Law Update Alerts tile.
3. Choose At a Glance from the Laws dropdown.
4. Select the state(s) you'd like to follow.
5. Click Follow State from the top right.

While the alerts will notify the HR admin of new changes to laws in your state, there may be instances in which you just need to refresh yourself on what a specific law is. If this is the case, you'll have access to a full list of state and federal laws within the Resource Center by using the Federal Laws, Law Finders, and State Laws options from the Laws dropdown. You can sort laws by Category/Topic, Region, and Employee Count.

If you don't have time to review the full list of state specific laws, the HR Resource Center also has a functionality that gives state specific compliance and labor law information at a glance. Admins can get a quick snapshot of several pieces of information, such as:

• Minimum Wage
• Overtime Laws
• Final Wages Laws
• Breaks Laws
• Vacation Laws
• New Hire Procedures Laws

Calculators

Oftentimes employers need to crunch numbers in order to get a better idea of how employees may affect their bottom line. This section of the Tools area can help with a number of different HR issues. See below for a description of each available calculator:

1. Cost Per Hire
   1. Hiring and training new employees can be a huge cost for employers. Use this calculator to determine your average cost per hire. Knowing your current cost per hire can help you better budget for both hiring and retention programs.
2. Overtime
   1. Calculating overtime rates can be complicated when an hourly employee has multiple rates. Use this calculator to determine the applicable overtime rate for your hourly employees. Be sure to double-check the calculations in your payroll system.
3. Employee Turnover
   1. Monitoring your employee turnover is an important step for organizations looking to increase employee performance and retention, and reduce turnover costs. Use the calculator below to determine your average turnover rate.
4. Absenteeism
   1. Absenteeism can be expensive and demoralizing for an organization. Use the calculator below to determine your organization's absenteeism rate. The rate can be calculated for the entire organization or for smaller subsets such as functional or regional groups.
5. ACA Full-Time Equivalent
   1. The Affordable Care Act’s Reporting Requirement and Employer Mandate only apply to employers with 50 or more Full Time Equivalent employees*. These employers are called Applicable Large Employers (ALEs) under the Act. The calculator below will determine the number of FTEs in your organization and, thus, whether your organization would be considered an ALE.
6. ACA Safe Harbor
   1. The Affordable Care Act requires health insurance plans subject to the Employer Mandate be "affordable." Under the ACA, employers may not charge more than a certain percentage of an employee's income. This rate is calculated and announced by the IRS annually. Because employers often don’t know their employees’ household incomes, the Act provides three safe harbors to qualify as “affordable.” Use the calculators below to determine whether your plan qualifies as affordable under one or more of the safe harbors.
7. ACA Penalties
   1. The Affordable Care Act's Employer Mandate carries penalties for employers who do not comply, often referred to as the Play or Pay penalties. Use this calculator to estimate your potential penalties under both the A Penalty and the B Penalty if you choose not to comply.

HR Fitness Test

This tool only takes a few minutes to complete and gives you a comprehensive look at your organization’s HR strengths and vulnerabilities.

Using the HR Fitness Test:

• You'll be asked a series of questions regarding your current HR practices and policies. After the test is complete, your company will receive a score and report card detailing what you do well, and what your company could be doing better.
• If your company is brand new, this test gives you insight into what you may already know, and what you may need extra help with during your transition into a full fledged business.
• If your company is more established, this test helps give insight into what you're doing well, and reinforces best practices. It also alerts you to any potentially non-compliant practices you might have implemented previously, potentially saving you from HR violations or claims in the future.
• While not as widely used as the handbook tools, we suggest that all new Concierge companies go through the HR Fitness Test so you can establish a plan to optimize your HR policies and practices.

 

Job Description Library

Job descriptions communicate the responsibilities and expectations for staff. They provide a crucial tool for managing both new hires and existing employees. You'll have access to a number of job description templates that are fully customizable. There are several categories of jobs, such as: Accounting/Finance, Business/Executive/Management, Construction/General Labor, and Legal Services. Within each category is a list of positions that have pre-populated information.

For example, within the Accounting/Finance category, these are just some of the available templates:

• Accountant
• Accounting Clerk
• Accounting Manager
• Accounting Manger - Advanced
• Accounts Payable (A/P) Clerk
• Accounts Receivable (A/R) Clerk

Minimum Wage Map

This is an interactive map to see minimum wage rates across the country, including notes on when they are scheduled to change.

While the Federal minimum wage has sat at $7.25 since 2009 - there are state specific minimum wage requirements that you may not be aware of. This section of your account helps you determine what the minimum wage is within your state. Localities with their own minimum wage laws will be listed on the righthand side, but you'll need to go to that state’s minimum wage entry in the Laws library for more detailed information. Alternatively, you can submit a ticket for guidance from an HR Pro.

Policy Library

The policy library contains recommended language for a comprehensive list of policies that could be included in an employee handbook. Review the full library or filter by topic, then copy and paste the policy you need directly into your employee handbook.

The policy library has different categories such as Benefits, Culture, Health & Safety, and Leaves of Absence. Within each category is a list of policies that you can use.

For example, within the Leaves of Absence category, you can get policies on the topics and more:

• Bereavement Leave
• Colorado Emergency Paid Sick Leave for COVID-19
• District of Columbia Declaration of Emergency Leave - COVID-19
• Family and Medical Leave Act
• Jury Duty

It's recommended that you consult with an HR Pro to ensure the policy meets the compliance obligations applicable to your specific business and jurisdiction. You can also request the HR Pros create a custom policy that the company can use in their handbook.

Switching to a different Gusto plan (downgrading) or canceling your account will cause you to lose access to the HR Resource Center. 

If you’d like to retain copies of your tickets and documents in the HR portal, you must save them prior to the effective date of your downgrade/cancellation.