For over 50 years, government contractors have struggled to implement and comply with the Service Contract Labor Standards (SCLS), formerly known as the Service Contract Act (SCA). Baker Tilly’s prevailing wage digital solution can help contractors confidently comply with SCLS.
Prevailing wage digital solution: benefits and approach
When Congress passed the SCA in 1965, they did not foresee the workforce of the 21st century. Back then, employees worked on the same contract, at the same site every day. Although the way we work and provide benefits has changed, the SCLS regulations have not. So, Baker Tilly created a solution that simplifies – and may improve – employer compliance, one in which:
- Employees work on multiple contracts in a pay period, whether SCLS-covered or not
- Employees work on contracts with differing wage determination requirements
- Employees work remotely
- Employees can pick and choose from different benefits, complicating the calculation of the hourly value of benefits provided
- Employers maintain standard holiday and vacation policies but must demonstrate compliance with the SCLS minimum requirements
Baker Tilly combined robotic process automation (RPA) technical capabilities with extensive knowledge and expertise of SCLS regulation to design and deploy our proprietary solution. This solution offers the following benefits:
- Cost-effective, timely method of maintaining compliance
- Streamlined data requests
- Flexibility: clients may use the solution for any combination of wage, health and welfare, holiday and vacation compliance calculations
- Clients determine how often the calculations are performed and have the flexibility to perform calculations at different intervals (for example, health and welfare calculations performed monthly while vacation calculations are performed annually)
- Confidence the calculations are accurate
- Automated employee statements, explaining the specific payout calculation steps
- Improved business decisions through data analytics and key performance indicators
Client impact
Beyond the peace of mind that comes from timely and accurate SCLS compliance, leveraging our prevailing wage digital solution allows clients to:
- Reduce the cost of compliance with SCLS: clients no longer need to dedicate internal resources to the effort or pay consultants on an hourly basis
- Utilize KPIs for strategic decision-making surrounding benefits to be provided and fringe rates when bidding SCLS projects
- Issue employee statements, which underscore management’s commitment to compliance and reduces the risk of a Department of Labor investigation