Christy Hopkins

About the Author

Christy Hopkins

Christy Hopkins, PHR, is a Human Resources consultant and writer at FitSmallBusiness.com. Her areas of expertise include full spectrum talent management (including recruiting & performance management), organizational change, and implementing HR systems. While being a part of FitSmallBusiness, Christy still maintains her HR consulting and recruiting firm that boasts over 30 small business clients spanning the U.S. from Vermont to Seattle.

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Great Work Perks to Offer: 31 Ideas for Your Small Business

By Christy Hopkins on June 10, 2017 | Benefits, HR | Comments (2)

Offering great work perks at your business is becoming more important as the talent pool changes and gets pickier about where they work. As a small business owner, understanding the current employee perks you offer, and the ones that maybe you could add on, can be crucial to retaining and gaining talent as you compete…

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How to Be a Good Manager: The Ultimate Guide 2017

By Christy Hopkins on June 8, 2017 | How To, HR, Managing | Comments (14)

Learning how to be a good manager is a combination of effort, understanding your role as a manager, your team’s role as your employees, and a bit of practice. Whether you were just promoted to your first managerial role or if you are simply looking for ways to become a better manager, this article is…

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How to Set Up a Profit Sharing Plan

By Christy Hopkins on June 6, 2017 | Benefits, How To, HR | Comments (3)

A profit sharing plan can be an innovative compensation strategy for business owners to motivate and reward their employees. There are 2 kinds of profit sharing plans: those that defer profits to a retirement plan and those that make profits a part of the base compensation plan. We also will talk about gainsharing here, another…

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Salary Comparison: How to Know If Your Small Business is Paying Fairly

By Christy Hopkins on June 5, 2017 | How To, HR, Managing, Payroll | Comments (0)

Performing a salary comparison should be an annual activity for every business owner, or HR manager. Doing annual salary comparisons ensures that you are paying your employees fairly and in line with the going local market rate for their position. Not only is this the best practice from an HR standpoint, but it will also…

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Social Media Policy Template & How To Guide

By Christy Hopkins on May 27, 2017 | How To, HR, Managing | Comments (0)

Having a social media policy is important for small business owners, especially those with young employee bases or those that rely on social media for promotion of their business. Though you may be wondering if a social media policy is necessary, having boundaries on using social media on company time, and clarifying what is and…

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Self-Insurance: Definition & How It Works

By Christy Hopkins on May 20, 2017 | Benefits, How To, HR | Comments (1)

Self-insurance (also known as self-funding) allows small business owners to create and manage their own insurance plans, without being subjected to the restrictions and costs of working with larger traditional insurance carriers. However, self-insurance does come with a high level of risk and liability. We want to preface this article by stating that self-insurance is…

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Best Talent Management System 2017 – Small Business

By Christy Hopkins on May 16, 2017 | Buyers Guide, HR, HR Software, Managing | Comments (0)

Talent management system software helps you manage the entire employee lifecycle— from recruiting to onboarding to performance management. For this guide, we looked at the most popular options and rising stars and decided to review BambooHR, BirdDogHR, and Namely. These companies covered the range for small businesses in terms of price and ability to grow…

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How to Prevent and Deal with Discrimination in the Workplace

By Christy Hopkins on May 15, 2017 | Business Law, Hiring, How To, HR, Managing | Comments (0)

Discrimination in the workplace is still an important issue to understand and be informed about, even in 2017. Specifically, it’s important to know the laws, recognize what kinds of discrimination are out there, become aware in general of how to prevent discrimination, and learn what to do if it happens. It’s noteworthy that, in general,…

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Performance Improvement Plan Template & Instructions

By Christy Hopkins on May 10, 2017 | HR, Managing | Comments (0)

A performance improvement plan is an HR-term for a development plan that usually is given to underperforming employees as a form of probation. Akin to a written warning, a performance improvement plan, or PIP, is being used by more companies who realize that showing a path to success and setting goals for underperforming employees is…

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Fringe Benefits: What They Are & How They Work

By Christy Hopkins on May 8, 2017 | Benefits, HR | Comments (0)

Fringe benefits is the umbrella term for any benefits, from health insurance to paying for weekly team lunches, that an employer provides to an employee, contractor, board member, or business partner. Many fringe benefits are considered tax-free by the IRS and can be a great value-add for your employees. In this article, we will explain:…

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Hiring W2 vs 1099 Employees – Which is Better? 2017

By Christy Hopkins on May 3, 2017 | Business Taxes, Hiring, HR | Comments (4)

As a small business owner looking to hire, you’ve probably wondered whether your position is better filled by a traditional W2 employee or an independent contractor (a 1099). In this article, we’ll discuss the pros and cons of a W2 vs 1099 employee, the laws behind employee classification, and the steps to hiring both kinds…

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Exempt Employees vs Non Exempt Employees – The Ultimate Guide to Overtime Laws for 2017

By Christy Hopkins on May 2, 2017 | Business Law, HR, Managing | Comments (0)

Employee classification is when you determine whether you have an exempt employee or a non-exempt employee. It is usually done in the hiring process for a role and is even placed in the job posting and job description. However, misclassification happens all the time, which results in overtime penalties, and we are here to provide…

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Christy Hopkins

About the Author

Christy Hopkins

Social Media Policy Template & How To Guide

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