A Clear Path to Thirty

A Clear Path to Thirty

            In slightly more than nine months, The Affordable Health Care Act, (AHCA), colloquially referred to as Obama Care by most of our population will become in practice the law of the land in the United States of America. As in many vocations, those of us in the hospitality industry will face unique challenges and be forced to review our management styles and focus. Citing The Readers Digest version of the AHCA, those businesses which carry a seasonal adjusted fifty employees working over a total of thirty hours weekly each will be compelled by penalty to offer employees and their children up to the age of twenty six years old an “affordable” insurance plan. Despite the fact that in an industry where by some estimates, thirty three percent of employees eligible for already existing plans decline participation, due to harsh realities involved in their day-to-day existences a business may still be liable for a non deductible penalty of up to $3,000 if an employee were to decide that they might purchase a plan from the proposed “exchange”, or that a government who has operated without agreeing on a Federal Budget since 2009 has yet to define the term “affordable”. In addition, those business that are required to do so has been led to believe that by the conclusion of April 2013, our seemingly ubiquitous Federal Government will have completed the review of scores of plans and deemed them acceptable or not. Whether the administration can accomplish such as task notwithstanding, managers in the Hospitality industry, as in others, will be face with a unique set of new parameters and metrics to administer. It will be necessary for a business to establish a clear concise list of job profiles and a transparent path for an employee to achieve the magic number of thirty hours per week. It is conceivable that in some instances due to the unique parameters of the hospitality industry that restaurants in addition to borrowing register paper, romaine lettuce, sour cream, or garlic; may also share staff who have not yet qualified for their thirty hours at a home restaurant or hotel as some experts have predicted that the AHCA may cause many individuals to work at two jobs which would supply them with twenty six hours each. In addition to coaching an employee to their thirty hour slot, a manager will now have to act as a collection agent for the Federal Government. Tipped employees who often have a paycheck which totals zero dollars due to the fact that servers and bartenders take their check home every day in the form of gratuities will find themselves in a position of owing monies to their employers as surely the business will have to pay insurance premium and then seek remuneration from their employees. As corporations and state governments ratchet down the hours for part time employees, it will be essential for hospitality managers and their companies to become more transparent in regards to their current and prospective employees. When reviewing budgets, it is now not just a matter of an errant schedule, or a laps in allowing employees to switch schedules resulting in employees obtaining overtime, but rather expensive federal penalties and potential legal action for not being a standard bearer of company culture.