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Engaging Independent Contractors in Washington

CMMA Blog

While California is the state that makes headlines for its frequent legislation and tough employment guidelines, Washington is very similar. It’s considered a risky state to bring on independent contractors due to its strict worker classification rules. The high stakes for mistakes mean it’s important for businesses to take care to stay in good standing. 

Worker Classification

Federal rules around worker classification continue to make it harder for companies to classify workers as independent contractors. Each administration has its own approach to worker classification, but democratic administrations tend to have their sights set on prioritizing misclassification. 

In addition to the federal legislation, states have their own rules. Washington has some of the strictest requirements surrounding worker classification and it’s important for companies to pay attention because violators risk strict penalties such as fines, possible jail time, and damage to their reputations. 

Why Does The Government Care About Worker Classification?

It depends on who you ask. Governing officials are quick to say their first motivation is watching out for workers. Beyond that, it’s clear that there are serious funds on the line, too. Independent contractors write off business expenses and sometimes underreport income while small businesses can avoid certain taxes with fewer W2 employees. In addition, independent contractors are more difficult to track and tax accurately than W2 employees. 

What Does it Mean For Business?

Properly classifying workers is a highly-complicated task. The distinction can depend on factors such as the ability to hire or fire a worker, the kind of occupation, the method of payment, location of the worker and more. Some employers lean toward hiring employees, feeling it gives workers more ownership in the company’s success. Others say leaning on independent contractors makes their business model sustainable. Either way, some companies have had to restructure operations completely or bolster their Human Resources departments to make sure they’re above board. 

What About The Workers?

Washington’s approach to worker classification (among other topics) purportedly intends to protect workers and provide reasonable protections, which is why many consider it one of the most worker-friendly states. Still, some independent contractors find such an approach makes it difficult for them to operate.  

Independent contractors set their own schedule and manage their own businesses. While they are still responsible for paying taxes, they can also take advantage of many write-offs. Along with the perks, they do have the responsibilities that come with owning their own business. They run their own books, pay quarterly taxes, advertise, purchase their own equipment, and deal with the seasonal nature of business. Independent contractors also don’t get paid time off and are responsible for purchasing their own health insurance.

Some workers prefer the stability and possibility for advancement that come with being an employee and having a greater presence at the office and familiarity with the ins and outs of the company.

What Best Practices Mitigate a Company’s Risk?

Unless a company is made up 100% of full-time employees, this subject is relevant to operations. Failure to classify employees correctly could result in fines, back taxes, and even jail time. To stay well on top of worker classification rules, businesses can first determine if their operations are exempt from applicable laws. From there, they can follow classification news and observe how changes play out in practice. For those without the capacity or interest in having an internal team dedicated to the task, engaging a partner can be a great option. Working with an Employer of Record (EOR) or Professional Employer Organization (PEO) is standard best practice in this evolving freelancer economy. 

While both provide payroll and insurance services, the differentiating factor is that an EOR relieves employers of much of the regulatory risk involved in working with independent contractors while a PEO operates as a co-employer and does not assume the employment risk.

What Are The Stakes for Mistakes? 

Big companies like Uber make headlines for their missteps and pay equally big fines for their worker classification choices. Still, it can be a costly mistake to think it’s only the big companies that face consequences. By rescinding the Trump Administration’s Worker Classification Rule, the Biden administration made it easier for workers to argue for minimum wage and overtime protections/compensation. In addition to having to pay back 100% of the matching FICA taxes they would have paid had they classified the worker correctly up front, employers can end up subject to additional penalties.

Misclassifying workers does not save money in the long run. Perhaps scarier than the possibility of monetary damages, misclassification has landed some business leaders under house arrest. 

In addition, class-action lawsuits, failed audits, and negative headlines can damage a company’s reputation to the point where both workers and consumers are hesitant to engage with the company. It’s just not worth it!     

Bottom Line 

With the increasingly narrow definition of an independent contractor, the US is embarking on the real-time evolution of the economy. The most common mistakes when engaging contractors in Washington are misclassifying workers, (of course!), being lax about training requirements, or making privacy and meal wage/overtime errors. 

As the economic landscape shifts and independent contractors rise in prevalence, the financial stakes and potential for missed revenue rise, too. In response, government agencies have been ramping up their focus on the subject. The IRS and DOL are not alone. States are attempting to crack down on misclassification while tightening the reins on training requirements as well as payroll guidelines.

Where the money goes, lawyers follow. There’s big money in class action lawsuits and new cases are always being filed. While fear is never productive, companies should be very, very conscientious when engaging independent contractors in Washington. Companies must be very vigilant to protect their business, stay compliant, and reduce the risk for fines and unpleasant attention from the IRS.

When is Engaging a Partner a Good Idea?

If you don’t have the in-house team to do the job right, it’s worth considering working with a partner. The bottom line is that doing business in Washington is complicated and the consequences for errors can be very damaging. While the onus is on employers to classify workers correctly and stay in line with the state’s changing requirements, it’s possible to navigate a rocky landscape with relative ease.

In our world, accurate worker classification and top-notch risk management when it comes to overtime, meal wage, and other laws are always the priority. We are the first to be aware when change is in the air. We track rules in every state as well as on a federal level and offer services to help clients stay compliant. Curious where your business stands? Reach out for a free consultation on your risk profile . 

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Enhancing Employee and Customer Experiences with Streaming

CMMA Blog

Video dominates our online lives in ways that seemed impossible just a few years ago. The ill-fated “pivot to video ,” based on overinflated viewership numbers from social platforms looking for their next monetization strategy, turned countless media companies away from experimenting with the format. But the pandemic brought video back in new and unexpected ways.
Marci Maddox, Research Vice President of Digital Experiences at IDC , shared just how true this is in a PLAY Season 1 episode. “By 2024, 80% of the world’s population will be online—many of whom are Gen Z with an affinity toward video. In 2024, consumers will spend upwards of $10.5 trillion online, of which video will be a growing factor in influencing those buying decisions.”
And it’s reaching people in more places than ever before, too. “The pandemic accelerated the use of video by 32%,” said Maddox. “This was everything from virtual events to personal messages. Video content continues to expand its reach to consumers in their everyday lives, at work, at home, or at play.”
As a result, the prevalence of video will require more companies to “think and act like a media company,” Maddox explained. “Video is entertaining. It’s informative. It can also be a way for us to communicate with one another—and try to communicate to our customers, employees or partners in a new, immersive way.”
Embracing the Media Company Mindset
The time is ripe for companies to start on this journey, because interest in video’s capabilities has expanded beyond marketing teams. “We saw interest in employee recruitment, in learning, in communications, and even in onboarding—some cases for employee onboarding and others for customer onboarding,” said Maddox. “Now, with remote workers, there was a spike in video usage to accommodate executive town halls. And salespeople turn to video to help in their communications in lieu of those traditional in-person meetings.”
To manage these growing use cases, companies have new technology at their fingertips. “More personalized video is going to allow us to use machine learning and real-time data to generate specific calls to action and to drive additional emotional connections,” said Maddox.
One use case for Maddox is in insurance policy renewal. “The marketing team could create a video with the client’s name, plus include historical claims that were made against the policy,” she explained. “You also may be aware of additional purchases of cars or jewelry that would benefit from additional coverage.”
From a customer’s perspective, it’s a no-brainer. “Who wants to go look up the number to call their agent? If we give the users all of that information at their fingertips, now we have not only an instructional video, but we have one that can be a call to action to close a sales deal.”
Further, what used to require expensive hardware and grand production studios now only needs a smartphone, a desktop computer, or cloud-based services. “Ten years ago, organizations that produced video, likely for marketing or entertainment purposes, still found it difficult to handle video consistently,” explained Maddox. “How do I find it? How is it searched? Can I stream it? Does it need to be cached? Does it have geographical reach? Today, organizations can work beyond physical boundaries to capture and produce video content faster.”
Developing a Video Content Strategy
Brightcove’s approach to video content strategy focuses on answering the questions behind “why” and “how” an organization should put video to work. The market tends to get too wrapped up in technology, but our customers ask for advice on how to get more from the video platforms they’re implementing. Our goal is to help organizations realize the business benefits from video, and Maddox offers some helpful tips on where to start.
First, companies need to look at who is creating and who is supporting video within their organizations. “The adoption of video content falls to multiple stakeholders within the company,” said Maddox. “C-suite users are in an ideal position to use video themselves to communicate information to external stakeholders, investors, customers, and to their internal employees.”
Customer support and education teams can also use video more. “Sales, field workers, and other lines of business can look at replacing email, which has been a common method to communicate with their customers,” Maddox added.
Second, review the types of communications that are being sent to customers and to their employees and identify whether or not video would enhance that experience. “It’s just getting into the mindset that these things are possible,” said Maddox.
“Think back to the idea of the renewal of the insurance policy. Would I rather have read a lot of documents on what that renewal looks like, or be guided in the renewal and click to buy at the very end? The latter is more immersive, still informative, and at the end of the day, the level of effort on the customer goes down.”
What does the future hold for companies who make the leap? According to Maddox, “media-oriented companies will work with a variety of video content, from single messages to full, on-demand streaming delivery. And it’s all for the purpose to engage audiences and to achieve specific business outcomes. As you advance, think about using AI and machine learning to assist.”
Creative teams and business users alike will be able to gain insight to customer preferences, said Maddox. “And they will find it just as easy to have a video-based conversation as they did with email, but now with added value for more visual and emotional connection.”
Finally, Maddox advised to continue to evolve your content strategy, using insights that further advance a company’s maturity in thinking and acting like a media company. “Push yourself to understand how video can support you and your customers in this next evolving relationship that you’re building between yourselves.”
At Brightcove, we help you break through the digital noise. Whether your goals are to build followers, drive brand recognition, create pipeline, grow revenue, or communicate with employees, you need a streaming-first strategy and a streaming-first partner.

To view our Partner blog, click here

Event Management And The Key to Making 1+1 Equal 10

CMMA Blog

The adage goes “If you want something done, ask a busy person.” But what about when you’re the one known for getting it all done? Whether you’re managing a massive event or a one-camera production, it’s time to think about multiplying your time. Engaging a partner who specializes in event management works out well for clients and workers alike. That’s because the right partner has all the tools and skills to be efficient in the worker management and payroll pieces of the process. Those skills require a huge learning curve, but when you engage someone who specializes in it, you skip all of that! It’s one of the quickest ways to increase bandwidth. When you delegate the pieces you don’t specialize in, everyone wins. Go ahead: Take some of that time saved to order yourself a World’s Best Boss mug to celebrate your victory.

Easy Events 

The right partner can handle any event, whether you’re payrolling thousands of workers, sending a crew to an NBA game, or something in between. Knowing some of the major details are handled frees you up to focus on other details (of which there are always plenty!).  

Events don’t operate on a nine-to-five schedule and neither do we. The right partner needs to be able to operate with the reality of your schedule. An after-hours phone number to provide speedy answers can come in clutch in time-sensitive situations. Our online system allows clients to take care of just about anything—and at any hour! PayReel handles all the paperwork and the bonus is that we do it without any actual paper. Not having to sift through piles of identical paperwork cluttering up your desk and your headspace makes the process quicker and easier for you and for your workers.

Speedy Payment And Paper-Free Paperwork Makes Happy Workers

Happy workers make smoother events. By managing all the payment details, including the mountains of W-4s , payroll becomes a non-event. Workers submit timecards on Mondays and we pay them on Fridays. When they’re paid quickly, they don’t need to call your office, which frees you up to do your job better. Of course, it also keeps workers happy so they are free to focus on your project and happy to come back for your next event. 

The last thing you need once you’ve hired people is to lose their loyalty on the back-end details. Whether they’re working for one day or over multiple events for months, we make sure workers get paid quickly and accurately so if you want to bring them on again, they’ll be ready to pick up the call.

We’re devoted to making every single client and worker interaction a good one, which makes working with you mighty attractive for workers.

The Bottom Line

In short: the key to multiplying your time is delegating/engaging partners whenever it makes sense. Clients work with PayReel because we make event management easier and free up clients’ time for the things they do best. Our team manage event payroll and payroll taxes and, as the employer of record, we even take on much of the risk associated with a variable workforce. Think you might benefit from hiring a payroll service? Contact us at 303-526-4900.

The post Event Management And The Key to Making 1+1 Equal 10 appeared first on PayReel .

To view our Partner blog, click here

Driving E-Commerce with Video Streaming

CMMA Blog

E-commerce continues to be a major contributor to overall global retail sales, and all indicators point to significant growth over the coming years. From 2014 to 2022 alone, e-commerce sales grew by 327% to $5.7T . Forecasts show no signs of slowing down and expect that figure to reach $8.1T by 2026.
While e-commerce has grown rapidly, it has always faced one significant challenge. Consumers have to purchase from online shops and marketplaces without ever touching, feeling, trying on, or experiencing the product. Thus, it’s critical to communicate the value, features, and benefits of a product so the customer can come as close as possible to experiencing it.
When selling through bulletin boards or during times when image quality was low, communicating and creating an experience through words was paramount. As marketplaces took off, getting the perfect set of photos has been a top priority for businesses and independent sellers alike. And now with the explosion in social commerce and the extraordinary growth of platforms like Shopify, video is quickly becoming e-commerce table stakes.
Benefits of Video in E-Commerce
We regularly discuss the benefits of video marketing, but many of these benefits are amplified when strategically used for e-commerce. According to our research, 84% of consumers are convinced to purchase after watching a video.
E-commerce videos bring numerous benefits beyond simply selling a product. They can introduce your brand story to new customers and help build familiarity and loyalty for existing customers. In both cases, there’s a clear emotional connection that video fosters between your businesses and your audiences.
Video also provides the closest thing to creating an in-person experience. It gives customers around the world, on any device, up close and personal access to your product and brand. Whether showcasing the product in use, giving a 360-degree view, or broadcasting a live shopping event, video can break down barriers in ways that photos and text simply can’t.
For marketers to truly reap the benefits of e-commerce video, they need a video tool that integrates with their existing tech stack and the channels they use to market to their customers. Brightcove has the integrations you need to make this easier than ever.
Using Video to Boost Shopify Conversions
Shopify is the world’s leading e-commerce platform. Millions of merchants across 175 countries have used the platform to drive over half a trillion dollars in sales . While these figures show the vast opportunity the platform provides, it also means they face stiff competition from sellers across the web.
Luckily, Shopify merchants have several options for using video to boost sales, increase brand awareness, and grow their businesses. From a brand perspective, videos are a great way to introduce new customers to your company while building community and loyalty with existing customers.
One of the most obvious benefits is that videos provide an enhanced way to showcase your products. They allow you to go more in-depth about functionality, specifications, and other details that text and images simply can’t communicate. From feature highlights to visual storytelling to showcasing the product in use, an on-demand library of product videos allows users to truly experience the product before purchasing it.
Brightcove makes it easy to manage your videos in Shopify. Through our integration, you can connect to your video library and publish your videos directly to your Shopify e-commerce store. The integration eliminates the need for additional tools or apps by allowing you to seamlessly publish and manage your videos all from a single platform.
As with all video initiatives, understanding how your videos are being consumed will allow you to continuously optimize and boost performance. Using Brightcove analytics, you’ll be able to better understand which Shopify videos are most effective at engaging customers and driving conversions.
Using Brightcove to Power Social Commerce
Social commerce has seen its popularity skyrocket in recent years. Between 2020 and 2022, social commerce grew by almost 70%, and the social commerce market is expected to top $2 trillion by 2025 . According to Sprout Social, 68% of people have already used social media to make a purchase . They also report that an astounding 98% of users indicated they planned to make at least one purchase through social shopping or influencer commerce in 2022.
You may already be using Brightcove to publish content to social platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. With our Instagram integration, you can also leverage video to build brand awareness, increase conversions, and drive advocacy there as well. If you’re not already using Instagram for social commerce, there’s no better time to start than now. According to Instagram, 44% of people use Instagram to shop weekly , and as the stats above highlight, you can expect this number to continue to grow.
The Brightcove Instagram integration allows you to seamlessly manage, distribute, and track videos with the security and reliability that our platform is known for. In addition to the analytics from Instagram, you’ll also be able to dive deeper into key performance metrics through Brightcove’s native analytics.
Leveraging Salesforce to Extend the ROI of E-Commerce Video
Beyond boosting sales on Shopify and social media, e-commerce videos can provide you with valuable insights to both increase conversions and attract new customers.
For example, when you combine your video analytics with a powerful marketing automation platform (MAP) like Salesforce Marketing Cloud, your approach to e-commerce video becomes much more strategic, honed, and effective. Instead of simply asking which videos get the most engagement, you can take a much more targeted approach with questions like, “From whom specifically are particular videos getting the most engagement?” In a data-driven world, insights from the video performance of key segments or individuals are a competitive differentiator.
Extending the value of e-commerce videos through Salesforce Sales Cloud and into Marketing Cloud starts with audience segmentation. Salesforce allows you to segment audiences by a variety of criteria that make the most sense for your efforts. These could include purchase history, location, customer lifetime value, demographics, product pages visited, or any other information you collect on customers and website visitors.
Using the Brightcove Salesforce Sales Cloud integration, you can analyze the video viewing behaviors of customers as they engage with your content. All of that data syncs with your instance of Salesforce, allowing you to see which videos resonate with your highest-intent audience and leverage them with other potential buyers.
With Brightcove’s Audience Insights solution, you can further enrich Salesforce and turn all of this great data into actions:

Repurpose top videos. Top-converting videos can be reused in several places: your Shopify or Salesforce Commerce Cloud product pages, your Instagram Story Highlights, email promotion landing pages, or YouTube ads. This approach also works with top-engaged videos by customers with repeat purchases or high customer lifetime value (CLV).
Reach more customers. By understanding which videos are most popular with specific segments, you can create lookalike audiences and target them with ads that drive to these same videos. Similarly, you can use the video in email promotions to other members of that same segment who haven’t seen it yet.
Retarget or nurture customers. Customers who have viewed specific pages, products, or videos are particularly valuable because you know they are actively in the buying process. By retargeting them with paid promotions or emailing them those promotions, you can encourage them to take the next step in their journey.
Re-engage or convert customers. Identifying customers who didn’t complete most of a video (let’s say less than 20%) allows you to offer them a different video that may resonate better. You could also isolate people who watched more than 70% of a video but didn’t purchase. Since they expressed interest, you have an opportunity to offer them additional discounts or promotions to complete the purchase.

Centralize Your E-Commerce Video Strategy with Brightcove Marketing Studio
Using video for e-commerce offers a wide range of benefits. Not only does it help drive sales, but it supports brand building, community development, and increased conversions.
Using Brightcove Marketing Studio, you’re able to manage all of your video e-commerce efforts, from Shopify to Instagram, through a single platform. Combine these with the power of Salesforce, and you’ll have an effective omni-channel approach for your e-commerce video initiatives.
The ease of use and additional layer of insights will position you to maximize the opportunities that marketplaces and a quickly growing social commerce landscape provides.

To view our Partner blog, click here

Meet Our New Compliance Specialist

CMMA Blog

We are very happy to welcome Jamie Pavlunenko, our new Compliance Specialist, to the team! 

Jamie has owned her own Professional Branding and HR Consulting business for the last decade with a prior history in HR leadership roles. She leverages a strong attention to detail to guide businesses in crafting policies and programs that comply with local, state, and federal regulations. Additionally, she utilizes robust written and verbal communication skills to deliver HR-related communications that are clear, concise, and understandable for all stakeholders. She is passionate about helping individuals and businesses reach their maximum potential. Jamie resides in Summerville, SC with her husband, two teenagers, and three dogs. She loves reading, camping, rodeo (she let her baby grow up to be a cowboy), and softball (with her travel-baller). She holds an MBA in Organizational Development and the Certified Professional Resume Writer credential.

Something else: Jamie is a violinist and volunteer for a local coonhound rescue!

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