SBAM creates virus toolkit

The Small Business Association of Michigan has created a new guide to help small businesses transition to remote work, the group said in a news release.

“The pandemic has created many unprecedented circumstances for small businesses and that includes the transition to a predominately remote workforce for many companies,” SBAM President Brian Calley said in a news release. “Sorting out these arrangements can sometimes be complicated, so we created this resource to help businesses set up policies and arrangements that will help both the business and the employee thrive during these times.”

The Small Business Owner’s Guide to Remote Work offers tips on remote work policies, employee communication, cybersecurity, and more.

The guide can be downloaded at sbam.org/the-small-business-owners-guide-to-remote-work.

Going PRO info session Thursday

The Michigan Works! Northeast Consortium will hold a virtual info session from 1 to 3 p.m. Thursday on how employers can apply for Going PRO Talent Fund workforce training grants.

The session is available by videoconference at https://bit.ly/3dn8nRB.

The state has made $28.6 million available to help employers, the consortium said in a news release.

In 2019, 24 Northeast Michigan employers were awarded a total of $368,000 to help train more than 300 employees.

MidMichigan gets healthy financial outlook

MidMichigan Health’s financial outlook has been affirmed as stable by Fitch Ratings, the Midland-based health care organization that owns the Alpena hospital said in a news release.

The AA- rating from Fitch was an upgrade from MidMichigan’s previous ratings with S&P (A+) and Moody’s (A1). In addition, Fitch assigned a ‘AA-‘ Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to MidMichigan.

“During a unique time such as the one MidMichigan and fellow health care systems across the globe have been experiencing, this is an exceptional rating to receive,” Diane Postler-Slattery, president and CEO of MidMichigan Health, said in a statement. “With COVID-19, we expected to see a loss and carefully made plans to ensure our employees would not be furloughed, needed supplies were in place and, above all, our patients would be taken care of. We were steadfast to see our plans through and are humbled to have affirmation from Fitch that the results of those plans were indeed the right ones.”

State oversees Huron National change

The Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services will assume supervisory duties for Huron National Bank as it converts from a national bank to a state-chartered bank and changes its name to Huron State Bank, the state agency said in a news release.

After the transition, Huron State Bank will be the 75th bank supervised by DIFS.

Founded on May 12, 1980, Huron National Bank has focused on providing traditional services to locals in the Presque Isle County area for the past 40 years.

With the change, the bank will benefit from much lower costs on annual assessments but still will be federally insured to $250,000 by the FDIC.

The last conversion from a national charter to a state charter in Michigan occurred in late 2017, the state says.