The New Year is an appropriate time to conduct an employer checklist of your policies and procedures to help you achieve success. Labor and employment attorneys from Polsinelli Shughart, one of the top 100 law firms in the U.S., have chronicled a list of the top five items you should review in 2013.

1. Health Care Mandates

With the Supreme Court’s recent decision to uphold the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), followed by the reelection of President Obama, employers must come to the realization that the health care reform measures are here to stay (at least for now). As a result, 2013 will be a year for compliance with several new mandates under PPACA, as well as a year of planning ahead for the “pay or play” mandates that will take effect in 2014 for certain employers that employ 50 or more full-time equivalent employees. Although we expect a flurry of guidance in 2013, employers should have already taken steps, or get prepared, to comply with many new requirements, including:

• $2,500 limit on employee contributions to health flexible spending accounts (limit applies on an individual basis; effective for plan years beginning in 2013);

• Form W-2 reporting of the value of each employee’s health coverage (employers that issue fewer than 250 W-2s in a prior year are exempt; effective for the 2012 tax year);

• Notifying employees of the availability of health insurance exchanges (guidance not yet released; intended to be effective March 2013);

• Analyze employee population to determine number of full-time equivalent employees for purposes of compliance with shared responsibility payments beginning in 2014; and

• 0.9 percent Medicare payroll tax increase on high-income individuals (withholding required for employees earning over $200,000; effective for the 2013 tax year).

2. I-9’s and Immigration

Immigration worksite enforcement should continue to surge in 2013 under the current administration. This is no surprise as prioritizing criminal investigations of employers remains the stated policy of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), along with an increased emphasis on compliance.

Over the last several years, I-9 investigations have grown 1,000 percent, and last year more than 3,000 companies received ICE audit notices. In 2009, employers paid $1 million in civil fines for I-9 errors, and this amount has skyrocketed to more than $13 million in 2012. ICE has resumed issuing press releases with the names of the companies it has fined and the amounts paid.

The number of immigration related criminal prosecutions continues to rise. In 2012 nearly 300 owners, managers and human resources personnel were charged with committing immigration crimes such as harboring, conspiracy and knowingly hiring illegal aliens. As ICE often uses I-9 worksite investigations to build criminal cases, we expect this trend to continue in 2013.

3. Policies and Procedures Review

Employers should review employment policies and practices periodically with outside employment counsel in order to conform to ever-changing local, state and federal laws. Compliance with applicable laws is a mandatory business practice. Keeping abreast of labor and employment laws, as well as pertinent government agency and court decisions, conducting periodic, if not annual, reviews of employment policies and practices ,and consistently applying those policies and practices can limit an employer’s exposure to claims of unfair or discriminatory treatment by current and former employees.

4. Classifying Employees and Exempt or Non-Exempt

Review exempt versus non-exempt job classifications and wage and hour policies and procedures to ensure compliance, protect against the risk of class action litigation and avoid an adverse audit finding in a year in which we expect increased Department of Labor audit activity.

5. NLRB

In 2012, the National Labor Relations Board issued decisions expansively interpreting the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Among other decisions, administrative law judges and the board’s general counsel determined that the traditional use of at-will language in employee handbooks, and the description of how at-will status can be changed, is often unlawful. Similarly, an administrative law judge determined that broadly phrased instructions to employees to keep internal investigations confidential are not lawful in all circumstances.

Given the present composition of the board, we anticipate that there will be additional decisions and directives in 2013 that will affect the manner in which unionized and non-unionized employers routinely interact with their employees. Employers need to review their employment policies regarding at-will status and the confidentiality of internal investigations and contact labor and employment counsel to ascertain whether their present policies comply with new board decisions.