Building a successful business means constantly reevaluating what does and doesn’t work. Weighing the effectiveness of your business structure, staffing, and marketing efforts, to name a few, helps you determine when changes are necessary to maintain profitability. Sometimes, these evaluations show the need for significant changes, including downsizing. 

The hospitality industry, from restaurants and hotels to arts and entertainment venues and the many vendors and businesses that supply or work with these companies, has been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Too many businesses have closed for good, unable to remain solvent through the crisis. Some, however, are weathering the storm or even learning how to thrive in this time of crisis. Examining how hospitality businesses are surviving the pandemic can provide insight and inspiration to help your business do the same.

COVID-19’s impact on West Virginia (WV) employers continues to shadow businesses, government, and individual citizens. The federal response to the pandemic-induced economic shutdown, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), attempted to provide relief to families suffering due to business, childcare provider, and school closures. But the quickly passed legislation and intermittent, new guidance from the US Department of Labor has West Virginia employers scrambling to keep up. To help employers see the bigger picture, employers need to know the basic information about employer paid leave summarized below.

Entrepreneurs who are looking to buy or sell a business should educate themselves on the options for merging a current business with another company. We often hear the term mergers and acquisitions, or M&A, which encompasses a wide range of transactions to join businesses or allow one company to absorb another. The distinctions at all levels of M&A are important to know, particularly for anyone with business ambitions or interests. Within the more specific category of mergers, understanding the different types of mergers is critical to determining the details of a transaction.

In a year of firsts, August 2020 has brought another one to West Virginia (WV) employers: WV COVID-19 isolation notices. Across the state, employers seek to comply with a variety of new laws providing protections regarding pandemic-related worker leave and pay while maintaining business operations. To add to the pile, some employers have begun receiving notices from their local health departments, informing of an employee who must quarantine or isolate due to exposure to or diagnosis of the novel coronavirus. West Virginia employers need to understand what an isolation notice means for them and how to proceed through this uncharted terrain.