Best Practices Archives

Turning the Tide on Small Business Healthcare Costs 0

In a recent Affinity Benefits podcast, Richard Bright, CEO of ASA, sat down with Chris Cordon, Benefits Advisor at Affinity Benefits, to unpack one of the most pressing challenges facing small and mid-sized businesses today: the rising cost and growing complexity of healthcare coverage. What followed was a candid, practical conversation about why the system

The Law Is Catching Up to Retainage—and Subs Should Take Notice 0

By Claire Wilson, Siteline The math has never been pretty. A general contractor negotiates 5% retainage with the owner, then turns around and holds 10% from its subcontractors. You absorb twice the financial burden for the same project risk—at margins that typically run 3 to 10%. For most subcontractors, the retainage being withheld is most

What AI Deep Research Mode Does for Marketers and Business Owners 0

By Mary Klett, ASA Communications Team Most people use AI for basic writing tasks, but deep research mode unlocks a much more advanced capability. Instead of relying only on what the model already knows, deep research sends AI out to actively investigate—reviewing websites, reports, documents, URLs, and large volumes of source material—then synthesizing that information

What the ACA Subsidy Expiration Means for Health Insurance Rates 0
- Best Practices, HEALTH, Insurance, WORKFORCE
- March 31, 2026
This is a new regular feature of ASA. We hope you like it. You probably didn’t notice when it happened. December 31st came and went, and somewhere between the champagne and the bowl games, one of the largest health insurance subsidies in American history quietly expired. If you buy health insurance through the marketplace —
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Rethinking MEP: Prefab, Pipelines, and a Better Deal for Women in the Trades 0
- Best Practices, Improving Productivity, Outlook & Trends, WORKFORCE
- March 31, 2026
By Thomas Santos, Maxim Consulting Group Let’s face it: walk onto almost any construction site, and you won’t see many women-especially not in hands-on MEP jobs. But things don’t have to stay this way. If MEP companies put real effort into building a strong talent pipeline and lean into prefab, they can actually become some
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Efficiency That Frees Us: Digital Transformation, AI, and the Future of Construction Leadership 0
- Best Practices, Improving Productivity, Outlook & Trends, TECHNOLOGY
- February 24, 2026
By Nick Williams, ASA Colorado The construction industry has never had a technology problem. We have had a trust problem. For decades, we have adopted tools cautiously, sometimes reluctantly, not because the tools did not work, but because our environments were not designed to change easily. Construction is complex, contractual, and human. We build physical
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