How To Make Sure Your Business Complies With Employment Law (Guest Post)

The process of setting up a business can be exciting, since it involves having the necessary management skills, industry expertise, technical skills, finance, and a long-term dream to grow and succeed. An important part of running any business, big or small, is legal compliance with employment law. Labour and employment laws are among the most carefully scrutinized being governed by Federal regulations. One of the biggest errors an employer can make is underestimating the significance of complying with employment laws. This can have negative consequences, especially if the business is audited and are found to be non-compliant. To get everything right will often mean keeping in touch with current developments, thinking out company policies and implementing them carefully. To get something wrong could be particularly expensive.

Know the Law

The first thing that anyone can do to determine if the business complies with employment law is getting acquainted with them. Employment law covers a wide range of subject matters, it generally covers

• The recruitment process

• The rights of an employee
• Employment terms and conditions
• What to do when things go wrong

When in doubt, refer to experts and specialists in the field

Most businesses use the services of a law firm to help ensure that they stay within the law. Although large business can afford to keep the up to date and in compliance with labour laws, the same cannot be the same for small businesses. However, the lack of resources is no excuse from dealing with these issues.

Furthermore, the umbrella of labour laws that covers all businesses is quite extensive. Every employer needs to be aware of this, even before hiring the first employee since it brings with it new areas for compliance in employment and labour laws, covering everything from discrimination and harassment, the number of hours worked, wages and workers compensation.

Always Keep Up to Date

The number of regulatory agencies has grown over in the last few decades and still show no signs of slowing down, add so have their associated regulations which covering everything from employment contracts to dismissal and anything else in between. It is then important to be aware of these changes that regulatory agencies have made such as:

• Overtime pay laws
• Employee privacy laws
• State and federal leave laws
• Record keeping requirements
• Workplace safety and health laws
• Anti-discrimination and anti-harassment laws
• Payday laws like payroll deduction rules and final pay rules
• Keep everyone informed

Both small business and large corporations are subject to the same collection of rules and regulations. These rules and regulations need constant monitoring as they are being revised and kept up-to- date. Using guidelines found in federal and state employment laws, businesses must make sure that they comply with employment laws and then make sure to inform their employees about any changes. Even if a company is not necessarily affected by an amendment or new regulation, it is still a good practice to keep employees informed and become involved. Compliance with employment laws keeps the workforce happier and productive.

New Way To Look At Money (TED Video)

As the saying goes, MONEY is the root of all evil, but there is also another Chinese version of saying to counter it : 钱不是万能，没钱万万不能 (loosely translated into : Money isn't everything, but everything need money)！

So, let's talk about MONEY today. 

Recently, I watched an interesting TED Talk pertaining to the future of money (i.e. the programmable money or the cryptocurrency aka those Bitcoins etc...). What interest me more is about the Yap Economy that shared by the speaker (Neha Narula) i.e. using the bulky and heavy Rai Stones as "money". Fast forward to present, money is becoming more and more invisible i.e. just plain 1s and 0s in the system.  

Now, check out the TED Talk below :

In fact, Bitcoins made the headlines in local news one or two years ago with the installation of our first ever Bitcoins ATM, but it has been uneventful since. By the way, 1 Bitcoin is equivalent to SGD 814.43.  

Do you invest in Bitcoins? If yes, what is your experience so far?

Cheers!

3 Non-Wealth Things That I Treasured Dearly!

I AM BACK!

Yes, I am back to Singapore after a short getaway with family at Southern Thailand (Dannok and Hatyai). As this is the first time that I went Thailand by car, it's quite an experience which I will trasure.

Some highlights of the trip:

1. First hand experience of the laxness of Thailand custom, it is truly eye-opening. We literally drove through the border (and stop our car over at Dannok, Thailand), then walk back to the custom (short distance) to stamp our passport. Yes, this is a true story... 

2. If you like theme-park with mixture of Western and Eastern themes, can consider the Asian Cultural Village situated at Dannok, Thailand (just within 5 minutes drive from the border). Lots of amazing lighting and statues etc..and they also throw in a couple of dinosaurs to please the kids. 

3. Have a sumptuous dinner at the lake side (Water View Restaurant) whereby the food were served by boat... unique and great atmosphere! Oh, it comes with live band too but sang mostly in Thai Language. 

OK, now let's get back to the topic that I am about to share today. As a follow-up to my earlier post on Wealth Quotes, which I agreed wholeheartedly, I thought it would be good to do some soul searching myself on what are the non-wealth things that I treasured most. 

Here is the result (I am excluding those obvious things like family, friends and health) :

1. Memories - I always believed that when we are getting older, besides money and/or physical wealth, we will constantly digging back to rekindle with all the fond memories throughout the journey of our life. The sad thing of course is that our memory usually fading as fast as age (which is happening to me right now, slowly but surely). Hence, it is important to preserve such memories in one way or the other. That's why in the recent years, I like to take photos or videos and upload them into my Facebook as a back-up. I can't really trust my memory that much nowadays, but fret not, I always has Facebook to rely on ;-)

2. Positive Energy - I am glad that I belongs to the category of people who always look at the cup as half full (or always look at the bright side), it does make the journey of my life a little bit less eventful (or smoother sailing) as I don't usually over monsterise the DOWNs or over excited with the UPs. My motto in life is : Keeping Going ; Keep Smiling! I do believed that smiling is a very powerful "tool" to ignite positive energy.. So, try it, it's FREE anyway!

3. Knowledge/Wisdom - This is something that we all should continuously harness, either through reading, attending courses (online or offline) or just learn from friends. There are so much to learn and the more we know, the more we know we don't know. As for the wisdom, I guess it grows with your experience in life and ultimately we kind of know a bit of "life Hacks" here and there which forms the "wisdom". Still long way to go for this one but I do treasure what I've learnt and shared so far. 

What about you? What do you treasured most (exclude the wealth and the "by default" thingy)?

Cheers!

Best Quotes On Wealth

For the next few days, I will be away from Singapore and spend some time with my families back at my home town and road trip to Southern Thailand. It also means that I will be away from this blog for a few days ;-P

In any case, thought of sharing one of the best quotes on WEALTH that I've read a couple of days ago. the reason why I like this quotes is because it is on WEALTH but also not about WEALTH. 

Confusing? 

Nah, it's kind of a very logical one too... 

Here you go...

"You aren't wealthy until you have something money can't buy"

Many a time, when we are too focused on amassing wealth (for our future good), we tends to neglect what the wealth cannot buy (even if you successfully amassed them ultimately), for example, the relationship with your family or kids, your health, your youth, your laughter etc... 

Of course, I am not encouraging you to YOLO (You Only Live Once) all the way but do still ensure to focus on living the NOW instead of just focusing on the future.

Cheers!

Summer Is Over And Global Market Are Heading North! What's Next?

Today (5th Sep 2016), STI "chiong" (rise) 47.82 points (or 1.71%) to close at 2,851.74. Effectively, all the regional market are in the green green land today. What is the cause(s)? 

Is it because summer is just over? 

Is it because of the weak US jabs data? (I know, this is kind of contradicting)

Is it because summer blockbuster movies are over? (just joking...)

I guess no one can say for sure but whatever the cause(s), it doesn't means anything the for future performance, my friend, STE, put it greatly in his recent blog : The Greatest Gambler Fallacy. Also, this is the irrationality of the market movement (during the short term) that most Value Investor gurus talking about. 

Whatever it is, I will just try to "ignore" the short term volatility while focus on the long term as well as the dividend income. Hopefully I won't fall for the "present-focus bias" ;-)

Oh, since we are talking about the summer blockbuster movies, recently I've watched the latest sleeper hit, Don't Breathe (horror thriller genre), small budget but damn effective in making the audience stop breathing... 

If you are an horror movie fan and haven't watch it yet, don't miss it!

Don't Breathe - Top the US Box Office for the second week!

Cheers!