Employee classification is already murky territory for many business owners, and recent changes have further tightened requirements. Yet, with huge penalties attached to mistakes, the laws are critical to understand.

There’s a lot of controversy about team-building exercises in the corporate world. Do they really boost morale? Does rappelling down a cliff actually build trust that translates into a more productive accounting office? Is retreating worth the time and expense?

Dilemma of the Month: My business is quite seasonal. We have work year round, but in the off-season we don’t need the same number of employees. It’s just not profitable to keep everyone on the payroll 12 months out of the year. Can I drop hours? Can I lay people off and rehire? Are there things that make one option better than the other?

At age 14, Jake Van Ry is already an all-star in the Foothills food truck scene.

Stephanie Stiavetti had an IT job that she liked in Sacramento, managing a company’s servers, mobile devices and computers. Yet her real passion was cooking. She had attended culinary school, designed recipes, dabbled in freelance food writing and had even written a cookbook.

Kelly Azevedo, founder of She’s Got Systems, a company that provides coaching and strategy for online businesses, offers their insight into the digital marketplace.

I’m a corporate recruiter. For candidates that progress to an HR phone screen, we ask their expected salary and share the range we have for the role. Is it appropriate to use someone’s low salary expectations as a reason for not moving forward? I’m concerned that a candidate who makes so much less won’t be a good fit. Is that the case?

Alexander Suelto has always been inspired by street art. As a teenager coming of age in Stockton in the ‘90s, he admired the local graffiti artists whose art brought the city to life. Back then, street art was widely stigmatized.

Moving offices is a dangerously stressful time for a business: Employee retention rates, cultural harmony and productivity will suffer. Your relocation might just be the straw that breaks your bottom line.