HR compliance strains horticulture industry

For the longest time, greenhouse growers and the federal government had what amounted to a handshake agreement when it came to human resources: The growers could take care of things the way they always had, and the government will accept that the industry just does things differently, according to Marc Fowler, the Sage HRMS implementation manager with Practical Software Solutions.

This interesting agreement worked because of the unusual labor force needed to make the industry work, says Fowler. As the United States moved away from its agrarian roots over the last century, many Americans lost both the knowledge of large-scale horticulture at the ground level and the ability to work in sweltering conditions, Fowler said.

After Sept. 11, 2001, the relationship started to change. Because of the terrorist attacks, a spotlight shined on illegal immigration, and the federal government began to crack down on this potential security breach. Changes imposed by the federal government weren’t directed at the horticulture industry initially, he said.

“Growers weren’t being audited by the government,” Fowler said. “Companies like Walmart were being audited, so Walmart started auditing their vendors to make sure they were in compliance. Some greenhouses were getting in trouble with Walmart, and they didn’t even know they were in violation.”

With the downturn in the economy, many state and local governments passed legislation that fills gaps in federal immigration laws, which has put an unintended strain on the horticulture industry. Now, immigration is the number one HR issue that greenhouse growers have to deal with, Fowler said.

This is causing many greenhouse growers – many of which are still small, family-run businesses – to scramble to comply. Also, Fowler said, many greenhouse growers do not have HR departments.

“Greenhouses were allowed to focus on agriculture for so long they never thought they had to be compliant, and now they do,” Fowler said. “A lot of greenhouse growers don’t track HR. They think all an HR system does is track benefits, and most growers don’t provide benefits for their greenhouse workers, so they don’t think they need one. But it’s much more than that.”

Along with the main issue of immigration tracking, another compliance issue that greenhouse growers deal with is seasonal employees, especially when it comes to tracking their hire dates, their termination dates and their wages. Fowler said that many growers don’t realize they need to track all of these for compliance.

“A lot of times, companies will get sued if an employee finds out that someone else in their same position gets paid a lot more,” Fowler said. “Or, why did this employee get four pay raises and this one didn’t and they had the same evaluation?”

Also, any time an employee is terminated, COBRA, unemployment compensation and other documentation must be tracked.

“A lot of companies don’t understand that they better have their documentation together or their employee may be denied unemployment,” Fowler said. “If that happens, there may be an employee with a lawyer with a lawsuit on the other end of a phone call.”

And now with the Affordable Healthcare Act signed into law, there are many more issues that companies will have to deal with in the coming years for HR compliance, Fowler said. “If you were giving employees insurance and you drop it, you’re going to be fined tremendously.”

Fowler said a solution like Sage HRMS, formerly Sage Abra, can help greenhouse growers stay compliant with all of these HR issues.

“Sage HRMS is going to track all employee documentation, and that’s a big thing,” Fowler said. “When a worker comes in, the system is going to make sure they have the proper work authorization. It does visa tracking, and tracks when all documentation expires. It tracks hire dates, termination dates and pay rates. A regular payroll system doesn’t track that level of detail. Federal I-9 forms and other documents are attached to their file, and that’s a big help if they have to go back through all of an employee’s documentation.”

Fowler said the biggest reason for needing to keep up with compliance is because of government audits.

“Everything they need for HR, they need to do it because of audits,” Fowler said. “They may think they’re never going to be audited and when they do, it’ll be a mess.”

Practical Software Solutions is a Sage Authorized Partner. For more information, contact Greg Lafferty at 704-721-6800 ext. 3019 or glafferty@practicalsoftwaresolutions.com.