While many employers are breathing a sigh of relief now that a major provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) ? the Employer Shared Responsibility mandate (a.k.a. "Play or Pay") ? has been delayed one year until January 1, 2015, organizations should not sit back on their haunches.Much work remains to prepare for some of the most challenging compliance provisions of the ACA.

"Employers have unexpectedly received an additional year to prepare for these ACA requirements and need to take advantage of this opportunity. Employers should use this extra time to achieve their desired outcome. How an organization elects to offer health care coverage to its employees affects their employment value proposition and influences their ability to attract and retain top talent in a competitive marketplace," said Eric Schuster, director of product management at Ceridian.

Under "Play or Pay," employers with 50 or more full-time employees (or full-time equivalents, FTEs) must offer health coverage that is both "affordable" and of "minimum value," or they may pay a penalty. Consequently, the mandate's postponement is welcomed by many organizations. It gives them more time to acquire the means (i.e. technology) to determine which employees qualify for health care benefits under the new law.

The challenging part of complying with "Play or Pay" is accurately identifying who qualifies as a benefit-eligible full-time employee, particularly for those employees who work variable hours. The fines for failing to offer benefits to qualified employees are thousands of dollars per employees, and for an organization with 10,000 employees, failure to comply could cost up to $20 million in fines. Consequently, technology that efficiently and accurately tracks and records employees' hours will be critical. Without the right technology for making these calculations, employers will find themselves falling out of compliance with the ACA. Read more.