 Start Assembling Your Best Print Pieces It's time to start assembling your best print pieces for the exciting return of the Print Excellence Awards! You know you have them - outstanding examples of ink on paper and other substrates, projects that wowed your customers that you are proud of, campaigns that differentiated you in the marketplace. This year's Print Excellence competition is truly a regional competition with printers from Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming all competing to be the best of the best. Winners of WSPA's Print Excellence Awards are also automatically entered in PIA's Premier Print Awards Competition, the largest in the world. Call for entries will soon reach your desk - the rest is up to you! Deadline for entries is January 31, 2015.
Award ceremonies will be held on April 23, 2015 in Phoenix (Rustler's Rooste) and April 30, 2015 in Denver (Embassy Suites Downtown). Mark your calendars!
|
Employee Recognition Awards
We all know that our people are our greatest assets yet how often do we let them know just how valuable they are - particularly in front of their peers?
This year's Print Excellence Awards events will also feature the WSPA Employee Recognition Awards where member companies can single out exceptional performance by team members.
Start thinking now who has made a difference in your shop and nominate them for a WSPA Employee Recognition Award. Recipients will receive a beautiful certificate at the Print Excellence Awards and be recognized before their peers at the event.
Deadline for nominations is March 15, 2015.
|
 IRS Delays Health Care Minimum Value Requirement By One Year
The IRS has announced that large employer group health care plans that do not provide the ACAšs minimum value (MV) requirement will have a one-year reprieve. To pass the MV test, plans must pay for 60 percent of covered services. If a plan does not pass the minimum value test and a lower-income employee goes to a public insurance exchange to obtain coverage, with the federal government subsidizing their premiums, then the employer is liable for a $3,000 penalty for each employee who obtains coverage. Why did the IRS grant a one-year delay? A flaw revealed in October in the IRS's MV calculator showed that low-cost plans that excluded coverage for hospital services were able to pass the minimum test. But in its announcement, the IRS said plans excluding hospital coverage fail the minimum value requirement. The IRS recognizes that firms relied on it's online MV calculator and thus the delay.
|
 Your Evolving Makeready
There is a great video on YouTube which contrasts a Formula 1 Pit Stop from the 1950s to the present. In this two minute video, you'll see how radically pit stops have evolved in 60 years. To view the video CLICK HERE. It is fascinating how the sport has changed in technologies, processes, personnel, tools, metrics, and attitudes. Sound familiar? In his book Lean Printing: Pathway to Success and Setup Reduction for Printers, Malcolm Keif notes we have seen similar changes in the printing industry over as many decades. Printing technology has improved tremendously, especially from the standpoint of process control Even with makereadies, equipment manufacturers have done a great job of focusing on quick-changeover improvements. CIP4, servo technology, inline register and color control, and many other improvements have brought printing into a science. However, in some ways the entire printing system (all interdependent processes working together), including our material staging, methodology for changing plates and inks, use of strategic personnel, as well as our sense of urgency about the makeready, are more similar to the 1950s version than the 2014 version. How often do we rehearse a makeready...or even discuss a strategic approach, for that matter? Those who are lean proponents liken the pit stop to a press or bindery makeready, mostly because it speaks to where crucial seconds can be picked up in a competition. We acknowledge that no progress is being made to reaching the finish line when the car is in the pits. It is not a value-add process, though it is necessary to keep the car running. Isn't that true of a makeready? It is not a value-add process - but it is necessary to complete the job. So, why not approach a makeready with the same strategy and urgency as a Formula 1 pit stop? The best way to improve makereadies in a company is through an intentional human development approach (education and training). It should also be part of a larger lean thinking initiative. You are really teaching your employees how to think lean. It involves reiterating your vision about value-add and providing the tools your employees need to rethink the makeready. It is simple, but not easy. Our tendencies are to do things the way we have always done them, even when we get new equipment - it may be faster on the racetrack but just as slow in the pits. Let's face it, if a Formula 1 team came to a race with 1950s pit stop strategies, they couldn't possibly finish anywhere but last. Why then do we sometimes approach makereadies with those same outdated approaches? When thinking about Lean don't forget your national association Printing Industries of America. There are online lean courses in the I-Learning Center and the annual Continuous Improvement Conference.
|
 Colorado To Raise Minimum Wage Colorado will increase the state minimum wage from $8.00 to $8.23 per hour effective January 1, 2015.
The minimum wage for tipped employees will increase from $4.98 to $5.21 per hour effective January 1, 2015.
In addition, record-keeping requirements are amended to require employers to retain information contained in the employee's itemized earnings statement for a period of at least three years after the wages or compensation were due. Currently, employers must keep such records for at least two years. The records must include (1) the employee's name, address, social security number, occupation and date of hire; (2) the employee's date of birth, if under the age of 18; (3) a daily record of all hours worked; (4) a record of allowable credits and declared tips; and (5) the regular rates of pay, gross wages earned, withholdings made and net amounts paid each pay period.
Violations are subject to the administrative procedure prescribed under Colorado Wage Act, Sections 8-4-101 et seq. For recovery of wages, the Order is amended to provide that an employee receiving less than the minimum wage applicable to that employee would be entitled to recover in a civil action the unpaid balance of the full amount of the minimum wage, together with reasonable attorney fees and court costs, notwithstanding any agreement to work for a lesser wage, pursuant to Section 8-6-118. Alternatively, an employee would be able to elect to pursue a minimum wage complaint through the division's administrative procedure.
The statute of limitations for filing a complaint is also changed. Currently, a person may register a written complaint with the Division alleging a violation of the Minimum Wage Order within two years of the violation. Wage Order Number 31 provides an exception that all actions for a willful violation must be commenced within three years after the cause of action accrues and not after that time.
|
|
|
|
|
