Employers want workers to be accountable for their own health: Survey
Originally posted May 19, 2014 by Stephanie Goldberg on www.businessinsurance.com.
DALLAS — Employers are implementing healthy lifestyle programs and activities for workers and developing workplace cultures in which employees are responsible for their own health, Julie Stone, leader of business process benefits, health and group benefits at Towers Watson & Co., said of the new health care landscape.
“The commitment to workforce health is clear, and that translates in many different ways in organizations — from building a culture … in your worksite, onsite health care, to just how you design your plans and what you incent people to do or not do,” Ms. Stone said Monday during a session on navigating health care reform at WorldatWork's 2014 Total Rewards Conference in Dallas.
Towers Watson and the National Business Group on Health asked employers what their top priorities were via the 2014 “Employer Survey on Purchasing Value in Health Care,” released in March. Ms. Stone, who is based in Parsippany, New Jersey, said developing a workplace culture where employees feel personally accountable for their health was at the top of employers' list.
Healthy workers tend to be more productive, present and fully functioning, which has a direct link to the employer's bottom line, Ms. Stone said.
“The healthier your workforce, the lower your cost,” she said. “It's another way of reducing your spend before the excise tax without having to take away from a benefit design perspective.”
She said it's important for employers to build a strategy around the health care reform law's 40% excise tax on high-cost health coverage that takes effect in 2018.
“About 60% of the organizations that we've surveyed and work with are likely to hit the excise tax if there aren't changes made to the costs of benefits,” Ms. Stone said, adding that 71% of employers surveyed expect to change their health plans in preparation for the excise tax.
Understanding FMLA Basics
Originally posted May 21, 2014 on https://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com.
Is your organization subject to the requirements of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)? Do all of your employees qualify? What would it take for both your organization and your employees to qualify? And what does all of this mean in terms of employer obligations?
Let’s start with the basics: What employers are subject to the FMLA regulations?
Here are the basics of what employers are covered:
- For private companies, the employer must have at least 50 employees to be subject to the FMLA, and these employees must have worked at least 20 or more workweeks in the current or prior calendar year.
- Additionally, there must be at least 50 employees within a 75-mile radius for that location to be covered.
- Public (government) agencies and schools are subject to the FMLA regardless of the number of employees.
What this means in practice is that any private employer with fewer than 50 employees does not have to provide FMLA leave. And even employers with more than 50 employees do not have to provide FMLA leave to employees who work in locations where there are fewer than 50 employees within a 75-mile radius, even if all other employees are covered. Bear in mind, an employer with fewer employees than this threshold could still choose to allow unpaid leaves that are in alignment with the FMLA standards, but they would not be required to do so by law.
Now let’s look at employees: Which employees qualify to take FMLA leave?
What must an employee do to qualify under the FMLA?
- First, the employee must have been employed by the employer (the same employer who is subject to the FMLA leave based on the criteria above) for at least 1 year. This requirement does not have to be the preceding year calendar year and need not be consecutive. For example, if an employee worked for the employer in the past, that time could count toward this requirement as long as it was fewer than 7 years ago (or if the absence of more than 7 years was due to military obligations).
- The employee must have worked at least 1,250 hours for the employer in the preceding 12 months. Vacation or PTO time does not count toward this requirement.
- The employee must work at a location that has 50 or more employees within a 75-mile radius, as we noted above.
- Finally, the employee must have a qualifying condition. This includes:
- The employee’s own serious health condition.
- The need to care for an immediate family member with a serious health condition. “Immediate family member” refers to a spouse, child, or parent.
- Placement or birth of a child. (The right to leave in this instance extends for up to one year after the birth or placement of the child.)
- Any qualifying exigency related to an immediate family member being in the military on “covered active duty.”
And if both the employer and the employee qualify, what does that mean the employee is entitled to?
If the employer is subject to the FMLA leave and the employee qualifies for it, then the employee has the right to up to 12 workweeks of unpaid leave in a 12-month period, which can be taken in one or more blocks of time. For some conditions, when medically necessary, the leave could also be taken intermittently or on a reduced schedule. The FMLA also entitles the employee to:
- Job reinstatement upon return from leave, in the same or equivalent role.
- Continuation of group health benefits during the leave period. The employee is still obligated to pay his or her insurance premium contributions during that time.
- Up to 26 total weeks of leave (instead of 12) in the case of caring for a covered service- member with a serious injury or illness.
Beyond employee entitlements, covered employers also have an obligation to:
- Post an FMLA notice explaining employee rights under the FMLA program.
- Give all new employees information about the FMLA, either in the employee handbook or separately upon hire.
- Tell an employee when he or she may have an FMLA-qualifying leave, as soon as the employer reasonably should know that an absence or leave request may qualify.
- Give employees an official eligibility notice for FMLA leaves.
- Explain the employee’s rights and responsibilities under the FMLA.
- For all FMLA leaves, note the FMLA designation and how much of the total leave allotment will be deducted from the employee’s leave bank.
These basic components of the FMLA can help employers to understand their obligations under the FMLA. Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg; proper FMLA administration will require a more in-depth understanding of how to ensure employees are qualified, how to curb FMLA abuse, and how to ensure employees are treated fairly and consistently under the program.
Work-life balance study offers model for success
Originally posted May 16, 2014 by Dan Cook on www.benefitspro.com.
Work-life balance is out of balance in the United States, and it extracts a toll both on the job and at home. An oft-referenced 2010 survey starkly revealed how out of whack work-life balance is. Since, there’s been no evidence that it’s improved, despite the amount of discussion the subject generates.
But a recent controlled study that examined the effect of giving employees more say in their work schedule indicates that such an approach to addressing the issue could provide quantitative and qualitative benefits to employers.
The study involved 700 employees of a Fortune 500 IT corporation. Designed and conducted by two University of Minnesota researchers, the study offered half the participants considerable control over their work schedules. The other half put shoulder to the wheel in the “normal” fashion, the researchers said — meaning they let the boss set their schedule and simply followed through.
The upshot, according to the study: “Workplaces can change to increase flexibility, provide more support from supervisors, and reduce work-family conflict.”
The study revealed “significant improvements” in how the schedule-controllers reported feeling about life on the job and at home during the six-month study period.
“Not only did they have a decrease in work-family conflict, but they also experienced an improvement in perceived time adequacy (a feeling that they had enough time to be with their families) and in their sense of schedule control,” the study said.
Those who benefited the most from the additional schedule control were working parents and employees who said their bosses didn’t support work-life balance prior to the study. On average, the schedule controllers worked about an hour less a week than their counterparts, and they continued to be as productive as they had been prior to the study.
“There was no evidence that this intervention increased work hours or perceived job demands,” the researchers said.
In a news release, the researchers, Dr. Phyllis Moen and Dr. Erin Kelly, claimed that their work offered corporations a path toward enhancing employees’ lives without risking lost productivity. Too, they said, it would be important to establish a formal work-life balance program as opposed to the types of informal, case-by-case work-life balance experiments many companies have dabbled in.
“Work-family conflict can wreak havoc with employees’ family lives and also affect their health,” said Rosalind King, of the Population Dynamics Branch at the National Institutes of Health. “The researchers have shown that by restructuring work practice to focus on results achieved and providing supervisors with an instructional program to improve their sensitivity to employees’ after-work demands, they can reduce that stress and improve employees’ family time.”
15 ways to make employees happy
Originally posted May 2, 2014 by Dan Cook on www.benefitspro.com.
You can offer employees a lavish buffet lunch onsite every day, bring in a masseuse on Fridays and hold the company picnic at Disney World. But at the end of the day, if you have the wrong people in the wrong jobs, you will still not have a happy workforce.
That is the message from social-recognition software provider Globoforce in a white paper titled “The Science of Happiness.” Most of the material cited in the paper comes from sources other than Globoforce. However, the company teases out tips for creating a culture of happiness based on its research of others’ research. And therein one can find tasty tidbits of advice that may begin to transform your workplace into a happy one.
“HR leaders encounter a lot of advice about how to manage culture — to increase engagement, decrease turnover, and drive recruitment. But when it comes to creating a culture employees love and don’t want to leave, employee happiness is the metric that really matters,” Globoforce says in a preamble to its data and advice. “Happy employees are what make a culture great.”
The paper says happy employees:
• stay twice as long in their jobs as their least happy colleagues;
• believe they are achieving their potential twice as much;
• spend 65 percent more time feeling energized;
• are 58 percent more likely to go out of the way to help their colleagues;
• identify 98 percent more strongly with the values of their organization;
• are 186 percent more likely to recommend their organization to a friend.
“Unlike culture itself, we have hard numbers on the science of employee happiness and how to directly increase it. It all leads to one conclusion: concentrating your efforts on making employees happy is the most direct and powerful way to impact your organizational culture,” Globoforce says.
Now, to the tips for putting a smile on your workers’ face.
5 ways to build alignment
1. Pay closer attention to job-person fit.
2. Fire people who don’t fit your culture.
3. Help employees find greater meaning in your values.
4. Show workers how your company fits into a bigger picture.
5. Cultivate more trust and flexibility into your policies.
5 ways to build positivity
1. Broadcast personal and team successes.
2. Offer fast, positive feedback.
3. Open up multidirectional communication lines.
4. Offer resources and emotional support.
5. Encourage employees to express gratitude.
5 ways to build progress
1. Set clear, measurable and achievable organizational goals.
2. Show employees how they fit into the bigger picture.
3. Offer training for mastery of new and existing skills.
4. Respect individualism.
5. Reward excellence and effort.
10 secrets to success
Originally posted April 17, 2014 by Michael Goldberg on www.lifehealthpro.com.
A piece in Investor’s Business Daily caught my attention. Anything titled 10 Secrets to Success will do that. Of course, there’s no such thing as a secret and there’s nothing new under the sun. But sometimes, sometimes something you read or heard or pondered over reminds you to think differently. It wakes you up. Reboots you. Gives you a jumpstart. Offers perspective.
Below are the 10 Secrets from Investor’s Business Daily that inspired me to offer my two cents.
1. How you think is everything.
There’s a great audio of Earl Nightingale called The Strangest Secret which was first recorded in 1956. He first played the recording for his sales team at his insurance agency. The response to the message had such an impact on his staff that requests for copies to share with friends and families grew. Columbia Records filled the requests and within a short period of time sales soared to over a million copies, earning a Gold Record — the first and only spoken word record to ever reach Gold! Today, more than 50 years later, The Strangest Secret remains one of the most powerful and influential messages ever recorded. It continues to transform the lives of everyone who hears and heeds it. The message is simple: We become what we think about. If you spend enough time thinking about something important, there’s a good chance your thinking will drive your actions.
2. Decide upon your true dreams and goals.
Your goals (or goal — less is more) should reflect what you spend most of your time thinking about. If you think about making more money (how much?) then come up with a goal that you must accomplish to get you closer. If you’re looking to become more established in a marketplace, perform better in a sport, compete in a triathlon, or master a specific skill, craft it in the form of a goal. Write the goal on an index card and look at it every day. Every single day. Again, we become what we think about.
3. Take action.
What do you need to do all day every day to continue thinking about your goal? Do you need to join an association? Hire a coach? Read a book? Get certified in an industry, profession, or area of expertise? Take a class? Meet and ultimately build relationships with people that are doing what you want to do? Thinking the way you want to think? Being who you want to be? Where do you need to go to meet these people? What do you need to say? And with whom? Goals are nothing without action. Don’t let excuses get in the way. Don’t convince yourself that you can’t. Think of all the reasons that you can. Don’t be afraid to get started. Just do it.
4. Never stop learning.
Go back to school or read books. Get training and acquire skills. I’m always in the middle of a good book. Sometimes it’s about boxing (my passion) but usually it’s about business, or the business of business. As a speaker, coach, and author, my focus is helping sales agents grow their business through networking (my other passion!). That said, I’m always looking for better ways of doing that so when I’m not speaking and writing, I’m reading. I keep a stack of books on a shelf in front of my desk so when I’m in my office, I can’t help but to see them. As I write this and gaze at the books, the topics are pretty consistent — sales, relationships, public relations, finance, building a great business, referrals, and creativity. I try to tackle a new book every couple of weeks. And my index card that contains my goal is my bookmark.
5. Be persistent and work hard.
Never give up! Get up early and set aside that time to work on your goal. Set a schedule for yourself over the next 30 days. If you wake up early and get to work over a cup of coffee in your dining room at 5AM and work until 6:30AM Monday through Friday, that’s an additional work day that you’ve carved out for yourself by the end of the week. And that’s not counting weekends!
6. Learn to analyze details.
The devil is in the details. Figure out what you need to learn. Ask great questions. Talk to all the right people. Give yourself deadlines. What gets measured gets done! Have a system of checks and balances so you know if you’re on the right track. How do you know you’re going in the right direction if you don’t have a GPS? What’s the GPS that you need to create to insure you’re on the right path? Knowing you’re moving in the right direction will inspire you to keep going.
7. Focus your time and money.
Stay focused! If a boxer loses focus, he gets caught with the hook. Professional athletes make investments in both time and money to do everything possible to become the best. If you know that it makes sense to invest in a book, program, course, certification, diet plan, coach, practice management system, pair of running shoes, whatever — do it!
8. Don’t be afraid to innovate; be different.
Staying in the middle of the road will get you hit by oncoming traffic. Those that are successful often have found a creative way to get their message across or goal accomplished. Think of comedians that have a unique style, or a baseball player with a different stance, or the financial advisor with the unique marketplace. How about the Facebooks, Googles, and Apples that have changed the world forever?
9. Deal and communicate with people effectively.
Everyone is different. How can you best relate to the specific needs of your prospects, clients, and referral sources? Learn to understand and motivate others. Help other people develop and achieve their goals. Listen! Ask questions and listen some more. We all know people that go on and on about themselves and never ask about you. (Are you one of them?)
10. Be honest and dependable; take responsibility.
It’s important to know that others can count on you. Otherwise numbers 1-9 won’t matter!