Asure Report: Compliance Confidence Collapses at America's Small Businesses
Asure Software (Nasdaq: ASUR), a provider of payroll and HR solutions, has released its 2026 HR Benchmark Report at its annual Asure50 Awards event — and the headline finding is a sharp one: small-business owners have lost confidence that they are complying with employment law. Among companies having a down year, certainty on some compliance questions fell more than twenty points in a single year.
Each year the survey asks small-business leaders whether they follow forty HR best practices, then compares companies that grew with those that shrank. Seven of those questions ask something different — not whether leaders do a thing, but whether they're confident they're doing it right. This year, those seven told the loudest story in the report.
"Small business owners aren't getting sloppier — the ground is moving under them. When even the companies that are growing are less sure they're compliant than they were last year, the problem isn't that owners stopped caring."
— Pat Goepel, Chairman and CEO, AsureWhat the Report Found
Certainty about wage-and-hour law, the Affordable Care Act, COBRA, and final-paycheck rules fell for every company surveyed — dropping steepest among businesses having a down year, in some cases by more than twenty points versus near-universal confidence a year ago. Even the winners slipped: companies adding revenue and headcount were less certain on every one of the seven compliance questions than growing companies were a year earlier.
Behind the drop, three forces are converging on the same back office. The rulebook keeps getting longer, and owners increasingly cite complexity — not cost — as their biggest regulatory difficulty. The people who'd absorb that work are harder to find, so in most small companies the owner keeps up with the rules alone. And because rules increasingly differ by state and locality, a company with employees in three states follows three sets of them.
"The problem is that there's more to keep track of every year, and fewer people to keep track of it. Certainty, the report concludes, is a byproduct — not a temperament."
— Pat Goepel, Chairman and CEO, AsureGrowth Comes Down to Doing the Work
On the report's central question — what separates companies that grew from those that shrank — the gap widened. Growing companies now out-execute declining ones by roughly twenty points at every stage of the employee lifecycle, from recruiting through offboarding. The single largest difference costs nothing at all: coaching employees on a career path, which two-thirds of growing companies do and fewer than four in ten declining companies do.
The pattern held for compliance too. The businesses sure they were compliant had trained managers on employment law, written down a complaint process, and kept their paperwork organized. As Asure frames it, compliance keeps you in business, while development is what separates growing from stalling — and the company points to its managed-services offering, AsureWorks, as its answer for owners who would rather take the work off their desk entirely.
Confidence eroded across the board. Certainty on wage-and-hour, ACA, COBRA, and final-paycheck rules fell for every company — dropping more than twenty points among businesses having a down year.
Even growing companies slipped. Firms adding revenue and headcount were less certain on all seven compliance questions than growing companies were a year earlier.
Complexity, not cost, is the burden. A longer rulebook, thin staffing, and rules that vary by state and locality are converging on the same small back office.
Certainty follows action. Owners who felt compliant had trained managers, written complaint procedures, and organized documentation — proof that confidence is a byproduct of practice.
Growth is separated by development. Growing companies out-execute declining ones by about twenty points across the employee lifecycle — led by low-cost practices like career-path coaching.