Dive Brief:

• The federal government is cracking down on an increasingly common labor practice of misclassifying employees as “independent contractors,” to avoid paying them benefits or payroll taxes according to an article at Time.com.
• According to Time, the practice has been in the spotlight recently because of companies like Uber, but it exists across the economy, in industries including home health care, janitorial work, construction, sales, publishing, food service, garment work and hospitality. 
• In the last fiscal year, the Department of Labor returned $79 million in back wages to 109,000 workers, after investigations showed that they were being treated as contractors even though they deserved the wages and benefits of employees, Time reports.

Dive Insight:

While the Time piece is focused on providing workers with some do's and dont's about determining their classification, it might also be a good idea for HR leaders to read it. Time talked to several experts on the issue, giving workers a menu for how to "convince" the company who is paying them that they are employees, not independent contractors (that is, if that is actually the case).

Reading over the article HR leaders should get a very strong idea of whether or not they are going to find themselves on the wrong end of a DOL investigation. HR needs to get this right, especially in light of last week's new guidelines from the DOL on this very issue.