HR Strategy Group, LLC Newsletter

A Limited Liability Corporation

January 2010

Providing Human Resource Solutions at the Speed of YOUR Business!

Greetings!

Happy 2010! I hope that you had a wonderful and joyous holiday season - and that you are gearing up for a profitable and productive year!

There are some new changes to our newsletter this year.

In 2010, we are debuting an ongoing series of conversations designed to help you protect your business assets. These discussions will feature the expertise of Jim Bechtel, Principal of Intellectual Assets Consulting, LLC. Jim & I will discuss important questions and answers that help you understand how to protect your company's intellectual property assets by proper attention to your human resource systems.

Additionally, each month, we will feature an expert from the world of employee benefits or payroll who will explain or highlight a particular new development occurring in this fast-paced arena. Employee benefits & payroll have a dramatic impact on your bottom line, so I'm sure you won't want to miss this information! This month, we feature "3 Tips to Reduce your Business Costs with Employee Benefits" by Milton Hall, President of Human Capital Consultants, LLC.

Please let us know how we can we help you with the human resource issues facing your company. Our business is to provide human resource solutions at the speed of YOUR business!

To YOUR Profitable 2010!

Amy Polefrone, President
HR Strategy Group, LLC
amy@hrstrategygroup.com
410-505-8723

P.S. Please forward this email to friends & colleagues who may be interested in this information. Thank you for helping to spread the word!

In This Issue

Protecting Your Company Assets

3 Tips to Reduce the Costs of Your Employee Benefits Plan

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2010: The Year of Protecting Your Company Assets
By Amy Polefrone, President, HR Strategy Group, LLC
and

Jim Bechtel, Principal., Intellectual Assets Consulting, LLC

As a business owner, you undoubtedly have important information that you don't want your competition to know about, right? Of course you do! As a business owner, you have processes and products in your business that you need to safeguard and protect. What YOU do distinguishes you from your competitors and gives you a valued-added proposition to your clients/customers. It is critical that you protect your company's processes and products to protect your financial and intellectual investments in your company. This can help you protect your company secrets from walking out the door or and being posted all over the internet due to unintentional or intentional employee misuse.

I am pleased to introduce you to Jim Bechtel, Principal of Intellectual Assets Consulting, LLC. Jim will share important information with us about intellectual property for your business and how strategic human resources systems can help you save money and protect your business. This month sets the stage for our 2010 conversations to help us understand the important terms in intellectual property and what they mean to business owners.

AMY: Jim, we hear terms that can be confusing about levels of security in safeguarding company intellectual property. Can you define for us 1.) Public Domain; 2.) Company Sensitive; and 3.) Company Confidential or Proprietary Information?

JIM: The term "Intellectual Property" may be used when discussing a company's trade secrets, patents, copyrights or trademarks, or other valuable company information. Security levels for how the company wants to protect information, such as Public Domain, Company Sensitive, and Company Confidential or Proprietary, are suggested titles of categories of information set up in increasing order of importance to the Company. There are no laws specifying use of these terms, but they are commonly used in industry and have appeared in court decisions, so there is agreement as to their definition. Think of these terms in a hierarchy, from least sensitive to most sensitive, to protecting your company's business interests.

Public Domain is always at the bottom of the hierarchy since this category considers information available to anyone and everyone - there is no competitive advantage for the company with information in this category, and it should be the category with the largest amount of information. Companies should be mindful of information that appears to be freely available, and seems to be in the public domain, but is copyrighted. Always be mindful that copyright protection, whether a document is marked or unmarked with the copyright notice, gives the owner the right to (among others) make copies and derivative works (or changes to the original).

Company Sensitive is set up to hold information that may have Privacy concerns, such as personnel information like telephone numbers or home addresses, but would not do serious damage to the company from a competitive point-of-view if someone outside of the Company learned of it. This information may be available to select persons in the Company, but should be given a minimum level of security to prevent unauthorized persons from getting it.

Company Confidential or Proprietary Information are pieces of information that the Company MUST protect and prevent its competition from getting. Information such as research and development work, custom or customized software and inventions and improvements, manufacturing processes and techniques, formulas, algorithms, marketing plans, product plans and compositions, business strategies and all Company financial information probably fits in this category. Access to this information and data should be tightly controlled to make it available only where authorized persons have access. It should definitely be maintained in locked storage devices and rooms and only select computers should have access to it.

Companies (and their employees) should be careful and protect their information at ALL levels, not just their trade secrets, and take care in what information they designate at each level. Have well thought-out company policies on how to take care of information and inform your employeesabout these various levels of protection. Be sure to have clearly stated rules for each category - and that your employees understand their roles & responsibilities for maintaining company confidentiality in each level. I recommend clearly stated policies for handling information in each level and how it is to be protected.

At a minimum, this information should be broadly addressed in a company's employment handbook, and the company may even want to provide training seminars on this information.

Additionally, specific procedures should be developed to handle the particularities of each level and the information covered.

NEXT MONTH'S QUESTIONS: What types of important business information should a business owner/executive team safeguard for intellectual property considerations? Where should this information be stored?

About Jim Bechtel, Principal, Intellectual Assets Consulting, LLC:
Jim Bechtel runs Intellectual Assets Consulting, LLC (http://iacllc.biz/), a business that advises companies on value and protection and transfer of trade secrets, patents, trademarks, copyrights and other intellectual property and on Technology Transfer matters with the Federal Government. He also advises companies on protecting their Technical Data when contracting with the Federal Government. He has more than 30 years of experience in the military, federal government, and private sector intellectual property arenas. He received his Juris Doctor degree from the Widener University School of Law, is a member of the Bars of Pennsylvania and Virginia and is licensed to practice in front of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO). Jim can be reached at 410-703-8482.

Benefits Spotlight: 3 Tips to Reduce Employee Benefits Costs for 2010
by Milton Hall, MBA,President Human Capital Consultants, LLC
Guest Columnist

Want to Reduce Employee Benefits Costs for 2010?

By all accounts, 2009 was a challenging year. Unemployment rose to record levels, the credit markets tightened up, and one of our largest industries, the autos, nearly collapsed. Thankfully, it's a new year, the economy is showing signs of promise, and the unemployment rate recently inched down to 10%. Given the challenges that employers have navigated, perhaps it's time to turn the focus towards relief.

Unknown to many employers, financial relief is hidden in your employee benefits program! Employee benefits are often the second or third largest operating expense next to salaries and one that isn't always carefully evaluated for saving opportunities. Whether you are a small, mid-size or large employer, consider this careful evaluation of your employee benefits plan.

1.    Premium Bill Audit. Review the premium rates listed in your insurance company renewal letter vs. those shown on your premium bill. Occasionally there are errors and overcharges.

2.    Enrollment Roster Audit. Review the roster of actively enrolled employees vs. those that terminated coverage over the last 6 months. Occasionally after you've submitted an employee termination form to an insurance company, the terminated employee remains on your bill for several months. Those terminated employees still showing as active on your bill should be given a premium credit. Often insurers will only go back two (2) months for credits - but insurers are demonstrating greater flexibility in an effort to keep clients happy.

3.    Re-bid Your Coverages Annually. The Health and Dental benefits marketplace changes annually and as such employers should engage the assistance of a qualified insurance broker to review the options available, comparing them against your inforce coverages and cost. Savings almost always exist even with a slight change of copays or deductibles.

For more tips on how to identify cost savings, contact Milton Hall at Human Capital Consultants at (410) 480-3200 or via the web at www.HumanCapitalLLC.com.

About Us

HR Strategy Group, LLC provides management and HR advice to small and mid-size companies. HR Strategy Group, LLC is led by Amy Polefrone, MPA, SPHR, an experienced leader in management and human resources consulting. Amy and her team of consultants have extensive experience working with clients in government, telecommunications, insurance, education and other "Main Street" businesses.

Our expertise includes helping clients with day-to-day HR issues, hiring & firing issues, employment law, non-compete agreements, family leave policies, employment handbooks, performance reviews, HR record audits, workplace initiatives, interviewing guidelines, and employee & corporate communications.

We can help you grow your business with sound and smart attention to the people and issues that drive your growth.

We are passionate about helping you grow the people side of your business. How can we help you today? Call us at 410-505-8723 or email amy@hrstrategygroup.com to get started TODAY!

1 Session of Consulting

Got tough HR issues that you want to discuss with a confidential sounding board? Call us for 1 complimentary telephone consulting session about an issue of your choosing: tough employee issues, independent contractor status, HR Policy Review, recruitment & hiring ideas, etc. Call us at 410-505-8723 to see how we can help you jumpstart your HR plans for 2010! Mention this coupon to get this complimentary 1 session! (Good for new or existing clients).

Offer Expires: February 15, 2010