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The compliance stack nobody owns
Six obligations that exist whether or not anyone at your company is watching them, and what each one actually requires.
Free playbook for production companies
HR for productions without an HR department — the obligations you already have, and the plan to meet them. The moment you employ someone, the need for quality HR exists at your company. The question is who is providing the services. This free playbook covers the obligations you already handle, gives you a self-audit you can run, and offers an honest assessment of when in-house services stop being effective.
Revolution Entertainment Services
Russell Davis, Chief People Officer
Most production companies decided long ago not to carry a full-time HR department. That's a reasonable call, but it doesn't change how to work with and engage your staff members. In most productions HR is handled in pieces; a production accountant or producer does the onboarding paperwork, fields benefits questions, handles compliance risks, personnel issues, and HR concerns. Most of the time the pieces nearly add up. This playbook is for the people designated to handle HR concerns at your company — and it's useful whether you use RevolutionHR services or not.
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Six obligations that exist whether or not anyone at your company is watching them, and what each one actually requires.
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Why project-based staffing is exactly the case the rules were written to catch: ALE status, the look-back method, and the 95% rule in plain language.
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CalSavers, NY Secure Choice, California pay data reporting, EEO-1, and the anti-harassment training clock.
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A working checklist you can run this week, adapted from the audit we run with our own clients, tuned by production type.
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Leadership, communication, and crew wellbeing. The part of HR that compliance checklists can't reach, and productions feel most.
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An honest decision framework for when to keep handling HR in-house and when it stops being the wise choice.
Plus: a one-page action list you can take straight into your next production meeting.
The playbook comes from Russell Davis, Chief People Officer at Revolution Entertainment Services, and the RevolutionHR team — who provide HR management, compliance, reporting, and leadership development for production companies without full-time HR staff, in every state.
“You don't always need a big department to take care of your people. You need clarity on what's required, a system for keeping up, and someone in your corner when the work gets complicated. This guide gives you the first two. I'd be honored to be the third.”
HR Advisor
Every chapter of the playbook ends with a real question you can ask our free AI-powered HR Advisor — compliance answers in seconds, 24/7, across ACA, wage & hour, anti-harassment, benefits, and state requirements for California and New York. General guidance, not legal advice — and when a question deserves a human, it points you to one.
Try the HR Advisor free →Free, no sales call required. We'll email it straight over.
If any page of this playbook made you think “I don't know who owns that at our company,” the most valuable thirty minutes available to you is a conversation with Russell. It's free, and you'll leave with a clearer picture either way.
More than payroll and technology. Because you deserve more.