StaffScapes, Inc

09/01/2026

Nobody hires an office manager and tells them they are now the HR department.

It happens anyway.

Somebody has to answer the question about the FMLA request. Somebody has to figure out whether the new hire in Cheyenne changes anything. Somebody has to sit with the employee who is upset about their deductible.

So it lands on whoever is closest. Usually the office manager, the controller, or the owner. All of whom already had a full job.

Here is what that actually costs a 30-person company:
- Roughly 15 to 20 hours a month of senior time spent on HR admin
- Decisions made under time pressure, without anyone checking the compliance angle
- A person who is good at their real job slowly getting worse at it

That is not a discipline problem. It is a structure problem. HR grew into a real function and nobody was given the role.

At StaffScapes, our clients keep the person. They just stop making that person guess.

Curious what those hours are actually costing you? Our HR cost calculator takes about two minutes.

Why Outsource? Learn the reasons outsourcing HR can take your business to the next level. Review the success stories of other businesses and the benefits outsourcing can provide for your people, your profits, and the security of your enterprise. How Outsourcing Can Help You Your people are your most...

08/31/2026

Can you require an employee to burn their PTO before using FAMLI leave?
Short answer: no.

Colorado employers ask us this constantly — and getting it wrong is an easy way to end up on the wrong side of a claim.

Here's what you can and can't require:
→ Use PTO or sick leave before/during FAMLI leave — No, you can't require it
→ Exhaust FMLA before using FAMLI — No
→ Use FAMLI before employer-paid parental leave or short/long-term disability — Yes, but only with written notice

One thing employees CAN do voluntarily: "top off" their FAMLI benefit with PTO or sick time, as long as the combined total doesn't exceed their average weekly wage.

Small stuff like this is exactly why leave policies trip people up — the rules aren't intuitive, and getting them backwards can cost you.

What's the leave policy question you get asked most by your employees?

08/27/2026

CO Adds New Notice Step to Form I-9 Process

CO has enacted HB26-1283, a new law restricting employers from demanding, confiscating, or retaining workers’ government-issued identification documents. Although aimed principally at preventing exploitation of vulnerable workers, the law may create a significant compliance issue for employers because it adds a CO-specific notice and acknowledgment requirement to the Form I-9 process.

Employers may continue to review identity and work authorization documents for I-9 purposes and make copies where permitted, but they generally may not hold original documents for more than ten hours. In addition, employers must provide written notice of the law’s protections during the I-9 process, obtain the individual’s acknowledgment, and retain that acknowledgment in the employee’s records.

While the law includes criminal penalties for knowing violations of the ID-confiscation prohibition, the consequences for failing to provide the notice or obtain the acknowledgment are less clear. Employers should nonetheless treat the notice and acknowledgment requirements as mandatory and maintain documentation of compliance.

My friend Gordon over at Pierson Ferdinand provide this legal update.

08/25/2026

Remember that Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) report you may have filed last year? Good news — you're off the hook.

FinCEN just made it official: U.S. small businesses no longer have to report beneficial ownership information under the Corporate Transparency Act. If you already submitted your info, FinCEN is deleting it, you don't need to do anything.

A couple things to keep in mind: this doesn't touch your other compliance requirements (state filings, licenses, taxes still apply), and foreign-owned companies operating here still have some reporting duties. But for most small business owners? One less thing on the list.

Filed a BOI report last year and just now finding out you didn't need to keep tabs on it anymore? You're not alone.

08/20/2026

There's a Colorado payroll number coming in the next few weeks that most business owners won't hear about until it's already changed their paychecks.

Colorado's FAMLI premium rate for 2027 gets set on or before September 1. Right now, in 2026, it's 0.88% of wages — split evenly, 0.44% from you and 0.44% from the employee. Where it lands for 2027 is about to be announced.

Here's why I'm flagging it now instead of in January:

The rate isn't fixed. When FAMLI launched it was 0.9%. It dropped to 0.88% for this year. Starting in 2027, the director resets it every fall based on what the fund needs to stay solvent — six months of reserves, by law. It can't go above 1.2%, but anywhere under that ceiling is fair game.

So this is the first year the number genuinely moves. And it moves on a September announcement for a January paycheck — which means the gap between "the rate changed" and "your payroll has to reflect it" is about four months, most of which lands during the holidays when nobody's watching payroll settings.

Three things worth doing before the number drops:
1- Know your current split. If you have ten or more employees, you're paying half. Under ten, you can pass the full premium to employees — but you still have to file and remit it quarterly.
2- Flag it for whoever runs your payroll. Whether that's a person, a platform, or us — someone has to update the rate before the first January run. A wrong rate means either under-withholding you have to claw back or over-withholding you have to refund.
3- Don't panic about the direction. It could go up. It could hold. It's capped either way. This is a "know the number early" post, not a "brace yourself" post.

I'll share the actual 2027 figure here once the state posts it.

That's the whole game with Colorado compliance, honestly. Not any single rate. It's that there are a dozen of them, they all reset on their own schedule, and the announcements never arrive when you're paying attention.

Who updates the FAMLI rate in your payroll system — and do they already have September on their radar?

08/18/2026

Heads up, Colorado employers — a new law took effect last week that could eventually affect how you protect your team from extreme heat and cold.

House Bill 26-1272 expands Colorado's worker protections (previously just for ag workers) to cover employees across all industries. It's a phased rollout, data collection starts in 2027, and the state's model safety plan isn't due until 2028, so there's no rush to overhaul anything today.

But smart business owners are already thinking ahead: water access, shade or warm-up breaks, and simple check-ins with employees working in tough conditions go a long way — for their safety and your bottom line.

Questions about how this could affect your business down the road? That's exactly the kind of thing we help our clients navigate.

08/11/2026

Colorado has an AI law on the books right now that nobody is enforcing and that expires in five months.

Let me explain that sentence, because I've talked to more than one owner this summer who thinks they missed a deadline.

The timeline:
SB 24-205 — the AI Act everyone spent two years arguing about — was supposed to take effect February 2026. A special session pushed it to June 30. In April, xAI sued the state in federal court, the DOJ intervened, and the Attorney General agreed to stop enforcing it. A federal judge signed off on that in late April.

Then in May, the legislature passed SB 26-189, repealing the whole thing and replacing it with a narrower, disclosure-based framework — effective January 1, 2027.

What nobody did was cancel the June 30 date.

So the original law technically went live last month. It isn't being enforced. And it gets erased on New Year's Day.

If you're a small employer in Colorado, here's what I'd actually do:
Nothing, on the old law. Don't build a compliance program for a statute with five months to live. If someone's selling you an SB 24-205 readiness package right now, they're selling you something with an expiration date in December.

Something, on the new one. The replacement leans on disclosure and three-year recordkeeping. That means knowing where automated tools already touch your hiring, pay, and termination decisions. The resume screener in your applicant tracking system. The scheduling software. The background check vendor's scoring model.

Most owners I ask can't answer that question. Not from carelessness — they bought software, and nobody mentioned that software and "AI system" had become the same word.

That inventory is the real work. It's worth doing in January regardless of what the statute ends up saying.

And in Colorado, it may well say something different again.

What's running in your hiring stack that you'd have to disclose?

08/06/2026

Colorado FAMLI: A Quick Compliance Reminder

FAMLI is a great benefit for your team — up to 12 weeks of paid leave (16+ for pregnancy complications or more with NICU care), with job protection after 180 days.

But here’s the compliance piece employers often miss: you must deliver the FAMLI program notice to an employee within five days of learning they’ve experienced or will experience a qualifying event — not just when they formally request leave. If an employee mentions they’re expecting, caring for a sick family member, or dealing with a health condition, the clock starts right then.

Also, make sure you’re using the updated 2026 notice, which now includes neonatal care leave. Questions?

Your StaffScapes HR team is here to help you stay compliant.

08/04/2026

Your health plan mails 11 billion sheets of paper a year.

Not your company specifically. But collectively, ERISA-covered group health plans print and mail up to 11 billion sheets annually — summary plan descriptions, claims denials, COBRA notices. Paper, envelope, stamp, repeat.

The DOL proposed changing that in July.

The rule would create a new safe harbor letting plan administrators post required disclosures to a secure website and notify participants by email or text. It closely mirrors what the DOL did for retirement plans back in 2020, a framework that's worked well enough that the vast majority of retirement participants now get disclosures electronically.

Here's what I'd tell a client asking about it today:
Nothing changes yet. This is a proposed rule, published July 23. Comments are open through September 21. A final rule comes after that. Paper doesn't disappear. Anyone who wants paper can request it and opt out of electronic delivery completely. That's built in.
Your current process is still fine. The 2002 safe harbor stays on the books. This is an additional option, not a replacement.

So why mention it at all?

Because this is what regulatory change actually looks like for a small business owner. Not a deadline. Not an emergency. A proposal in the Federal Register, a 60-day comment window, and a final rule sometime later that quietly changes an administrative burden you were never tracking in the first place.

Most owners I work with don't have time to read the Federal Register. Fair enough — you're running a business.

That's the job. Somebody watches the rulemaking so you can watch the P&L.

07/28/2026

The IRS bumped the standard business mileage rate to 76 cents per mile, up from 72.5. Effective July 1. Announced July 13.

If you run a trades business, you just got a raise on paper — and a payroll headache in practice.

Read those last two lines again. The rate changed before anyone told us it changed.
For most desk-bound businesses, that's a rounding error. For an electrical contractor running four trucks on service calls, or an HVAC company covering the Front Range in summer, it's real money — and a real compliance question.

Three things worth doing this week:
Check your reimbursement rate. If you're still paying 72.5 cents for July miles, you're under-reimbursing your crew.
Split your 2026 records at June 30. Two rates, two periods. Your bookkeeper will thank you in April.
Look at the gap. Mileage driven July 1–13 was reimbursed at the old rate by most everyone. Decide whether you're truing that up.

None of this is complicated. It's just one more thing on a list that never gets shorter — right behind the FAMLI filing, the workers' comp audit, and the guy who wants his check re-issued.
That's the part small trades businesses underestimate. Not any single rule. The accumulation.
Thirty years of watching Colorado employers navigate this stuff, and the pattern holds: the ones who thrive aren't the ones who memorize the regulations. They're the ones who built a system that catches the changes for them.

How's your July mileage looking?