Subway’s new program helps workers get degrees

What voluntary benefits does your organization offer? Subway is now offering a program that gives workers access to career readiness and high school diploma programs. Read the following blog post to learn more about this new benefit.


Subway is making it easier for employees to get high school and college degrees.

The sandwich franchise is launching a new education benefit for employees in 331 restaurants in central Florida. The program, which began piloting last month, gives workers access to a career readiness and high school diploma program.

“I think something like this really does bring value and improves the lives of [our] employees,” says Michael Robling, an operations specialist at Subway for North America.

Subway’s program includes a career readiness boot camp and high school degree program offered through Penn Foster. Robling says the company has partnerships with several universities to help employees get college degrees at a discount. The company also offers scholarships for employees through the Frederick A. DeLuca Foundation, a private foundation created by one of Subway's co-founders.

“This is definitely just a start,” Robling says.

This move comes after Mexican-inspired restaurant chain Chipotle began offering free college degrees to its 80,000 employees from 75 business and technology degree programs. Employees at Chipotle can earn their associates or bachelor degrees online from the University of Arizona, Bellevue University, Brandman University, Southern New Hampshire University and Wilmington University.

More than half of employers offer a tuition assistance benefit to employees, according to data from the Society for Human Resource Management. Indeed, companies including Disney, Walmart and Discover, Chick-fil-A, Hulu, Lowe’s, McDonald’s and Taco Bell all also announced education benefits last year.

Robling says he thinks more employers will begin to invest in benefits that help workers achieve higher education goals. Employees at Subway are appreciative of the opportunity and it may help the company retain workers long-term, he adds.

“If the franchise owner is looking out for me, I’m going to be happier at work,” he says. “That’s one of the big positives of this program.”

SOURCE: Hroncich, C. (11 November 2019) "Subway’s new program helps workers get degrees" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/news/education-assistance-for-college-and-high-school-diplomas


What would a workplace emergency-savings benefit look like?

Data from a recent survey indicates that a significant portion of American workers could face a financial emergency if they were hit with sudden bills, lost wages or other unforeseen expenses. Read this blog post to learn more about emergency-savings benefits.


An alarming number of workers don't have enough money saved away to carry them through even a short-lived financial emergency, and experts are urging employers to take steps to address that shortfall with changes to their benefits programs.

Survey data indicate that while savings rates vary based on a number of factors, substantial portions of American workers across income levels could face a financial emergency if they were hit with sudden medical bills, lost wages or other unforeseen expenses, such as a major home or car repair.

"Regardless of income we still see a significant percentage of people that do not have a rainy day fund that could cover three months of expenses," Craig Copeland, senior research associate at the Employee Benefit Research Institute, said on a recent online presentation the group hosted.

The AARP has been studying the issue, and recently reported that 53% of all American households have no emergency savings. Moreover, the retirement group reported a direct link between emergency funds and overall financial confidence. According to its recent report, Americans with rainy day funds are 2.5 times more likely to feel confident about their long-term financial prospects than those who do not.

"If people are living on such thin margins that an unexpected bill requires their complete attention and all existing resources to address it, it is extremely difficult to keep the longer-term in mind or to make progress toward longer-term goals," said Genevieve Melford, who helps lead a financial security program at the Aspen Institute.

As employers increasingly come to view emergency savings as a crucial element of their employees' financial well-being, more have been exploring a separate benefit to help encourage workers to put away money for some unforeseen contingency.

Catherine Harvey, senior policy advisor at the AARP's Public Policy Institute, has been taking a hard look at how workplace emergency savings benefits could be structured, what features would make them most attractive, and how, as a practical matter, employees could be moved to actually participate.

"There's a lot of evidence from behavioral science about what makes employer-based interventions effective, and not surprisingly one aspect of an effective program to maximize participation in an employee benefit is to make participation really easy," she said.

"That's true in 401(k)s, that's true in health programming, it's true in marketing -- any time that you get something in the mail or are automatically signed up for Spotify beyond your 50-day free trial you're subject to a default [that works] to make enrollment really easy," Harvey said.

Some employers have offered a feature that allows workers to split their paychecks through direct deposit into separate accounts, one being set aside for emergency savings. But the early analysis of those programs, which tend to rely on the employee proactively opting to set up and contribute to the emergency account via direct deposit -- rather than through auto-enrollment -- has found the results underwhelming.

"That's where we think automatic enrollment, that frictionless enrollment, really distinguishes this from everything else that's on the market right now," Harvey said.

"If split direct deposit were as powerful as it could be, more employers would be doing that and people would be saving for emergencies," she said. "We know that that's just not the case."

But emergency savings programs, executed properly, could become a key component of employers' expanding financial wellness benefits packages, a hot topic in the benefits world, but one where employers are still grappling with the best way to drive engagement.

"We know that information for employees on a website is not going to cut it," Harvey said. "Education alone just doesn't work, and so employers over the years have gotten really savvy and have taken up the behavioral finance tools and concepts to make participation the default."

The AARP also surveyed workers of a variety of income and age ranges about the types of features that would entice them to contribute to an emergency savings plan.

"Not surprisingly," Harvey said, survey respondents cited "the power of the employer match, which speaks to the incentive behind savings as being a very important feature -- one that basically blows all of the other features out of the water."

That held true across the board, as even workers who reported strong savings rates independent of an employer plan said they would welcome matching funds.

"If there's a match on the table, people don't want to leave dollars on the table," Harvey said.

In addition to a matching feature, workers AARP surveyed indicated strong preferences for programs that would protect their privacy, extend them complete control over access to their funds, and generally limit complicating red tape that would make the programs less functional.

"The idea here behind an employer-based emergency savings program is let the employee define the emergency," Harvey said. "Putting up rules and barriers, eligibility criteria, is just going to frustrate people and they won't use the money when it's needed at that moment."

SOURCE: Corbin, K. (11 October 2019) "What would a workplace emergency-savings benefit look like?" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/news/what-would-a-workplace-emergency-savings-benefit-look-like


Finding the Hidden Benefits within your Offered Health Insurance Plan

Benefits packages offered by employers are just one of the many elements an employee considers when joining, remaining at or leaving a company. Striking the right balance of what employees want and what your business has to offer will allow for a return on investment. In this installment of CenterStage, Kelley Bell, a Group Health Benefits Consultant at Saxon Financial, explains how to unlock and bring forth benefits often overlooked by employers and employees.

The Reason for Employee Benefits

Employers of all sizes within the United States aim to offer attractive health insurance benefits that will both attract prospective employees and retain those talented individuals who are currently employed. Aside from looking to earn money to put food on the table, pay bills and set aside for later, people seek employment for assistance in alleviating the burden of having to pay for insurance plans singlehandedly. Thus, they plan where they will work and for how long they will work based on what your company has to offer.

When looking at benefits plans, most people assume the usual: a comprehensive health plan that assists in providing medical insurance and reduces pharmacy costs. However, a benefits package you receive from an employer today is no longer your parents’ benefits package. Just as trends in fashion and pop culture come and go, so should the benefits within an employer’s plan.

It is unique offerings that attract potential employees and retain current ones. Additionally, it is in the hands of employers to offer methods to achieve and shift culture in a positive way by offering necessary methods to do so. Employee benefits packages today are shaped to fit the needs of the employees.

As the nation’s health has declined, an uptick in the popularity in offering benefits such as discounted or free gym memberships has become a major plus. How are employees to be aware of the perks of employment with your business? They need to be properly educated about their plans. Kelley explained, “Employers must take time to educate employees as they are their most valuable asset.”

Benefits That Get Overlooked

Every employer, no matter how big or small, has something to offer. With over 25 years of experience in the financial industry, Kelley has seen and heard it all from employers with whom she partners with in selecting benefits for their employees. “I’ve heard people say they have a horrible plan but in reality, it is not a horrible plan, they don’t understand it or how to use it.” When investing in an ‘add-on’ benefit, there is typically a large sum injected into a new initiative, but the results are often short-lived, a short spark of novelty. The benefits that carry stamina are usually those that hold tremendous value in both a sense of time and money. Kelley continued, “Some of the embedded benefits in their existing plans will help save them money, become a wise consumer and ultimately choose to live a healthier lifestyle.”

What are some examples of benefits that fly under the radar of employers and their employees?

  • Telemedicine medical services. Telemedicine is a fantastic way to recover and receive treatment for an illness or injury from the comfort and convenience of their car, work or home rather than in a doctor’s office.
  • Wellness initiatives are another fantastic offering which is simply implementing a wellness committee dedicated to the well-being of your employees.
  • Saxon offers a free portal with wellness information available to clients. Becoming a member includes receiving newsletters, email blasts, wellness information and challenges your business can utilize.
  • Consumers of healthcare have historically been conscious purchasers. Within your plan, check for the ability to leverage multiple doctors and pharmacies to find the most cost-effective option for each employee. Medical offices inside pharmacy’s, or retail outlets, as well as Urgent cares, have seen increased rates of attention simply for their competitive prices as opposed to a traditional hospital.
  • Employers looking for additional ways to offer savings for employees on their prescription medications can turn to mobile apps such as GoodRx which offers money-saving coupons for medications.
  • Online wellness tools allow you to view claims, ID cards, locate doctors, browse medications and estimate costs. Many of the plans have teams to help people who are pregnant, want to stop smoking, lose weight or have specific health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease, etc.”

How Saxon Helps

Kelley understands every business is unique and is dedicated to proactively serving the needs of each client. At Saxon, Kelley and our team of advisors begin by engaging experts that truly listen, building successful strategies that stay focused on your vision and goals.

Saxon exists to care, cultivate and empower through relationships, expertise and exceptional standards of service. Saxon’s WIN team is always available at your convenience to unlock the benefits you did not know you had in order to excel your organizational efforts upward.

To begin the conversation about putting your overlooked benefits into action, contact Kelley Bell today at (513) 774-5493 or (937) 672-1547 or via email at kbell@gosaxon.com.


How to build a multigenerational benefits strategy

Employers and HR teams are now managing workforces that stretch across three to five different generations. Continue reading this blog post to learn more about why having a multigenerational benefits strategy is important.


Employers and HR teams are managing employees for a workforce that stretches across three to five generations. This workforce is complex, and its workers have varying needs from generation to generation. That’s why a multigenerational benefits strategy is in order.

Baby boomers preparing for retirement may have an ongoing relationship with doctors and a number of medical appointments in a given year. On the other hand, millennials and members of Generation Z— the latest generation to enter the workforce — may shy away from primary care doctors and focus more on options to pay off student loans and start saving for retirement.

Given these dynamics, it’s important that two separate departments, finance and HR, need to develop a benefits strategy that keeps costs as low as possible while being useful to employees. Finance leaders understand they need to retain employees — turnover is expensive — but they’re still interested in cost containment strategies.

Employers should approach their multigenerational benefits strategy on finding a balance between cost containment and employee engagement.

Cost containment

For the first time in six years, the number of employers offering only high-deductible health plans is set to drop 9%. But the idea of employee consumerism is here to stay as employers see modest rises in health insurance premiums.

To effectively contain costs, employers should first weigh the pros and cons of their funding model. While most companies start out with fully-insured models, employers should seriously evaluate a move toward self-funding. Sure, self-funding requires a larger appetite for risk, but it provides insight into claims and utilization data that you can leverage to make informed decisions about cost containment.

One way to move toward a self-funded model is with level-funding, which allows employers the benefit of claims data while paying a consistent premium each month. In a level-funded plan, employers work with a third-party administrator to determine their expected claims for the year. This number, plus administrative fees and stop-loss coverage, divided by 12, becomes the monthly premium.

A tiered contribution model might also help to contain costs without negatively affecting employees. In a typical benefit plan, employers cover a specific percentage and employees contribute the rest — say 90% and 10%, respectively. In a tiered contribution plan, employees with salaries under a certain dollar amount pay less than those high earners. That means your employee making $48,000 pays $50, while your employee making $112,000 pays more. It’s a way to distribute the contribution across the workforce that enables everyone to more easily shoulder the burden of rising healthcare costs.

Employee engagement

To create a roadmap that not only helps you gain control of your multigenerational benefits strategy but keeps employees of all ages happy, it’s necessary to consider employee engagement. While new options like student loan repayment could be useful to part of your workforce, it’s best to start much simpler with something that affects everyone: time away from work.

A more aggressive paid time off policy, telecommuting policies and paid family leave are becoming increasingly popular. Many companies are offering PTO just for employees to pursue charitable work — a benefit that resonates with younger workers and can improve company culture. And a generous telecommuting policy recognizes that employees have different needs and shows that employers understand their modern, diverse workforce. Beyond basic time away from work, an extended leave policy outside what the law guarantees is another tool that can keep employees engaged.

Making it easier for employees to get care is another trending benefit, which can keep employees happy and contribute to cost containment. Concierge telemedicine has been called the modern version of a doctor’s house call. This relatively inexpensive benefit provides your employees access to care 24/7 by phone or video chat, which is convenient regardless of the user’s generation.

Employees and other covered individuals can connect to a doctor to discuss symptoms and get advice, whether they are prescribed a medication or they need to seek further care. This is another benefit that’s useful for young workers who may not have a primary care doctor or older workers with families.

Finally, your tech-savvy workforce expects to access their plan information wherever they need it. Ensure your carrier offers a mobile app to house insurance cards, coverage and provider information.

When it comes to a multigenerational benefits strategy, creating harmony between finance and HR might seem like a daunting task. But considering some relatively small benefit changes could be what allows you to offer a benefits package that pleases both departments — and all of your employees.

SOURCE: Blemlek, G. (26 February 2019) "How to build a multigenerational benefits strategy" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/opinion/how-to-build-a-multigenerational-benefits-strategy?brief=00000152-146e-d1cc-a5fa-7cff8fee0000


Employee benefit trends to watch in 2019

Are you looking ahead to 2019? As the year comes to an end, employment rates are continuing to rise and the economy is still showing signs of growth. Continue reading for employee benefits trends to watch in 2019.


As we close out 2018, the economy is still showing signs of tremendous growth and employment rates continue to rise.

For employers looking ahead to next year, the health of the economy will play a part in how they begin thinking about which benefits to implement. Not only can employees be more selective about the companies they apply to work for, but companies will have to differentiate themselves with their benefits catalog to attract the best candidates.

Along with a shifting political climate, the impacts of the Affordable Care Act will still need navigating in 2019 as health care costs remain a prominent issue.

Shifting health care costs

Health care costs are on track to eclipse $15,000 per employee per year in 2019. In an effort to reduce these costs, employers are shifting their attention to finding alternative health care options for employees.

Expansion of telemedicine and virtual care are at the top of the list for employers looking to reduce their health care costs.

Additionally, after the passing of the Affordable Care Act, many employers shifted their attention to offering consumer-direct health plans (CDHPs) as the sole option at their organization.

These plans combined high-deductibles with health savings accounts. By asking employees to pay for their doctor's visits with a savings account, they’re likely to seek out cheaper coverage, thus saving the company money overall.

The popularity of CDHPs was driven in large part by a proposed 40 percent tax on high-value health care plans. Employers quickly moved to CDHPs to save money, but the proposed tax has yet to take effect and employers are less eager to shift to CDHP options so quickly.

Custom communications

Personalized communications to employees about their benefits are becoming more prevalent.

Every employees’ benefits journey is different and their communications should be too.

As employees show interest or a need for a certain type of benefit, benefits platforms are gearing up to be able to communicate directly with employees to help.

For employees who prefer to communicate via text message or calendar reminders, platforms will begin to integrate more closely with employees’ lives to deliver the guidance they need.

Employers should focus on partnering with providers who are delivering customized messaging to employees to maximize engagement and adoption rates. 2019 will likely see employers not only offering more customized and personalized benefits, but also more robust communications that speak directly to employees’ needs.

Benefits over salary

Hiring efforts have been made difficult by a strong job market and economy. Employers in almost every industry are struggling to attract talent because of stiff competition.

Basic benefits like paid vacation and a 401(k) aren’t enough to break through the noise anymore. People are able to be more selective about which jobs they apply for based on the benefits being offered.

In 2019, employers will need to focus on making their entire benefits package more enticing—including offering help with things like student loans, tuition reimbursement, and college savings plans.

Rise of voluntary benefits

Voluntary benefits, while supplemental to core benefits like health insurance, are a way to address the unique needs of employees and allow employees to personalize their rewards.

Voluntary benefits are appealing to employees because they offer a nice flexibility to their compensation package. As employers are discovering that benefits are not a one-size-fits-all package, voluntary benefits provide a cadre of solutions that can be built for the employee base.

Attractive benefits can make the difference between whether a prospective employee accepts a job offer or not. In 2019, employees will demand more from their benefits packages and the addition of voluntary benefits will be used as a factor in recruitment.

As 2018 comes to a close, employers should focus on talking to employees about their benefits and where they’d like to see improvement. Start conversations with your IT team about security measures you can work towards in 2019 and try to begin the conversation with your benefits providers about how to communicate more directly with your employees to stay competitive in the current job market.

SOURCE: Whitlow, C. (29 November 2018) "Employee benefit trends to watch in 2019" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitspro.com/2018/11/29/employee-benefit-trends-to-watch-in-2019/


Give employees time back in an always-on working world

Occasionally, work extends beyond the traditional workday, no matter how efficient your employees are. With time being the most precious benefit of all, a growing number of employers are offering benefits designed to save employees time. Read on to learn more.


When it comes to employee benefits, what do people really want?

As HR and benefits professionals, we shouldn’t make broad assumptions or generalizations about what benefits our employees need or want. Each employee in any given organization is an individual with different circumstances to be met at every stage in their lives — from those entering the workforce to those preparing to retire, and everyone in between. This is why employers must differentiate their benefits packages to meet the needs of a diverse and multigenerational workforce. And as consumers demand more choice in how they spend their benefits dollars, employers are getting more creative and curating a more expansive set of options for everyone.

No matter how efficient an employee is, work inevitably extends beyond the traditional workday from time to time. Similarly, as the lines between home and work blur with flexible work arrangements and email available 24/7 on smartphones, employees still need to take care of personal tasks, like scheduling family dentist appointments, setting up child care, disputing medical bills or calling the veterinarian … all during the workday.

Regardless of generation, industry, position or title, people are yearning to find the right balance between work and life demand. Time is the most precious benefit of them all. As a result, there are a growing number of employers offering benefits designed to save employees time.

Previously offered predominantly by large, tech companies in Silicon Valley, we’re seeing time-saving benefits spread to employers and industries of all kinds and encompass a variety of conveniences, from on-site dry cleaning pickup, to employer-funded shuttles to get employees to and from work, gym memberships, grocery delivery and services like dog walking and personal errands. This benefits category can also include more significant, personalized benefits like concierge health services, assistance in evaluating elderly care options, telehealth for humans and pets, and emergency childcare services.

Once seen as just perks, these services run deeper. Employers care about their people, and these time-saving benefits — anything people leave work early for, or deal with during the work day — has created a new benefits category that increases employees’ productivity and capacity for work by eliminating distractions and freeing up mental space. While these types of benefits may seem like “nice to have” instead of essentials, they can add up and make a substantial difference in employees’ lives.

Life is complicated. Things go wrong that impact productivity, contribute to presenteeism and the well-being of our workforce; these employee benefits offered through employers are returning valuable time back into someone’s day, helping them focus on work and better balance work and life expectations.

Employees need HR’s help. By not offering a wide variety of benefits personalized to the workforce, employers are missing out on an opportunity to provide great value to employees and make a tremendously positive change in their lives. But many HR professionals falsely assume employees will ask for voluntary benefits directly and proactively make suggestions about what would help them. You may say, “My employees aren’t coming to me asking for things like elder care services, so they don’t need them.” My response is, of course, they’re not asking: they may not want you to know about challenges they’re facing in their personal lives.

Employee’s personal situations are just that - deeply personal. They may be suffering in silence. Americans are now facing the highest housing, education and medical costs in our history, meaning nearly everyone is stressed out about family, work and finances; it’s causing problems in the workplace. If their minds are somewhere else and not focused on work, their productivity could be suffering.

Open Enrollment is rapidly approaching. Don’t wait for your employees to ask you for benefits. Take advantage of OE to ask your employees what they’re looking for, as this is the time they’ll already be assessing what types of benefits they need in the coming year anyway. Use this time to survey the workforce to see what people do or don’t like about their benefits. Be sure to specifically ask “What can we offer you?”

It’s a question, and a gesture, that may matter more to employees than you know.

SOURCE: Oldham, J. (14 September 2018) "Give employees time back in an always-on working world" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/opinion/give-employees-time-back-in-an-always-on-working-world?feed=00000152-18a4-d58e-ad5a-99fc032b0000


Predictive Analytics Will Be The Silent Game-Changer In Employee Benefits

Employers can now use their own data to help fine-tune their employer-sponsored benefits packages. Continue reading to learn how this technology could be used to help fine-tune employee benefits offerings.


Last year’s World Series between the Houston Astros and the Los Angeles Dodgers came down to a seven-game battle based not only on talent, athleticism and coaching but also on data. Just as Sports Illustrated suggested back in 2014 via predictive data, the Astros were the victors.

The publication of Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game spurred not only Major League Baseball teams to deploy predictive analytics, but also businesses to take a harder look at what their data means. It's no longer part of the hype cycle: Statista forecasts (paywall) that the predictive analytics market worldwide will reach $6.2 billion in 2018 and $10.95 billion in 2022.

I believe we are also at a transformational point in improving corporate employee benefits and our employees’ lives by embracing predictive analytics. HR is swimming in rich data. Instead of guesstimating needs across multiple generations of employees, employers can turn to their own data to fine-tune what they are offering as benefits solutions. Companies spend 25-40% of an employee’s salary on benefits. It simply makes strategic and financial sense to get it right.

Bring Employee Benefits Out Of The Dark Ages

Hiring and retaining great talent is at the very soul of almost every company’s strategy. Not surprisingly, more companies have turned to predictive analytics to give them a leg up in recruitment. However, HR benefits have lagged behind. As John Greenwood reported to Corporate Adviser, “More than half of reward and employee benefits professionals see predictive analytics as a game-changer, but 90 percent are still using spreadsheets to manage data, research from the Reward & Employee Benefits Association shows.”

One reason for benefits lagging behind recruitment in adopting predictive analytics is that the way companies choose new benefits varies greatly from business to business. Given that the majority of HR departments keep data in disparate spreadsheets, even if some HR departments conduct employee surveys or historical cost analyses, they often do not integrate the data about their workforce. If a new benefit offering is chosen based on a needs analysis, only some know the “why” behind a request from the workforce. Knowing how many employees are logging into a benefits platform is helpful; market standard benefit utilization reports provide this level of information. Yet they do not give insight into the underlying reason for an employee to utilize a benefit. The user of deeper analytics is required to look deeper into employees' behavior.

We have found firsthand that many HR departments do not have a full understanding of how their employees are utilizing their benefits across the entire offering suite. A one-size-fits-all or a one-off strategy no longer is effective. Companies must understand not only their employees’ needs but also the underlying data related to these needs to provide a valuable benefits offering.

Put Your Existing Data To Use

For the past five years, I have watched our clients glean valuable insights into what the real underlying issues are for their employees and what must be done to address these pressing needs. I also have been watching companies realize that what they thought were the core problems at hand sometimes were not.

For example, one of our national high-tech clients, with over 50,000 benefit-eligible employees, believed that a high number of their employees had children struggling with autism. This belief was initially based on input from some of their employees. After approximately 16 months, the client reviewed the masked utilization data from their benefit platform. The data illustrated that the overwhelming majority of employee families (tenfold) in fact faced challenges associated with youth anxiety, a concern that had never been expressed to HR previously. Once they reviewed what employees were doing within our platform, their results mirrored the National Institute of Mental Health’s report that approximately 31.9% of U.S. children ages 13-18 struggle with anxiety disorders.

Their own data helped them understand much more specifically where their employees’ stress lay, and their HR department was able to focus communications around it.

Getting Started

Mining and viewing use data across all benefits is ideal. This enables an employer to determine if the benefit suite is serving employees effectively. We have found that as quickly as year over year, users' behaviors shift. If a company solely chooses a benefit based on what they saw as most heavily utilized the previous year, they are not being strategic.

For that reason, HR should utilize past and current data to better predict future patterns of need for a truly strategic approach to benefit choice. With this insight, they can make better choices and serve their workforce more effectively.

Given the limitations across many employee benefit vendors today, to start initially:

1. Embrace KPIs. Agree upon them internally, and measure benefit vendors on them.

2. Work with your current vendors to determine what data they provide to support your internal analysis. Ensure you have access to all the data you need, and if not, consider a vendor change.

3. Hold possible new vendors to similar data standards, and create a transparent relationship from the start.

4. Collect current and historical data. Existing vendors can provide this history, so make sure to collect at least 2-3 years of information.

These analytics need to go deeper than basic demographics to show patterns of activity. In order to understand the benefit needs of your workforce, you'll want to analyze trends across multiple data sets: medical, pharmacy, worker's compensation, biometric screenings, utilization patterns, FMLA requests and demographic trends. From there, you can start to pinpoint what your employees need -- and the “whys” behind the needs -- in order to make a measurable impact.

While predictive analytics is still in the nascent phase in the benefits and vendor worlds, the easiest and most proactive thing any employer can do is to focus on other insights vendors can provide related to the workforce and benefit use beyond simple utilization. In doing so, you will be able to support your employees both in their work lives and their personal lives by providing them with the benefits they need to be at their best.

SOURCE: Goldberg, A. (2 October 2018) "Predictive Analytics Will Be The Silent Game-Changer In Employee Benefits" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/10/02/predictive-analytics-will-be-the-silent-game-changer-in-employee-benefits/#26648166e182


How data science can help employers build better benefit plans

New approaches to data science are now allowing companies to have many different definitions of data and have them all coded. Read on to learn how data science can help you build a better benefits plan.


Is your data management system overdue for an overhaul? Benefit plan sponsors don’t need to feel stuck with old systems requiring hours of manual data entry, according to Marc Rind, chief data scientist for ADP.

“I’ve been in data for a long time,” he says. “For generations, the traditional data management approach has been people having to standardize data.”

But people in different companies — even different departments of the same company – could have different definitions and means of data. An organization’s governance team would have to come up with one definition for everyone to adhere to.

With new approaches to data science, Rind says, “you’re able to have many different definitions of your data and have them all coded. It’s not about governing the definition of data but more about enhancing and publishing that data.”

With data science, employers and those in HR can see trends much more easily using automated mapping and search capabilities. This will allow them to see trends over time, like what people are choosing for their benefit plans and how benefits impact employee productivity and engagement.

“It builds context around the data,” Rind says. “For employers, they have to not only understand which benefit offerings they have to offer to employees but the effect on retention. They can also see what similar employers are offering and if they are getting higher retention rates.”

Employees can use the data to see what benefits others with similar backgrounds have chosen to get, helping them decide what their perfect healthcare plan looks like. However, they cannot yet see how satisfied people similar to them were with these benefits. Rind says that this feedback loop is important, and will become more prominent for the next generation of data science systems.

SOURCE: Spiezio, C. (16 June 2016) "How data science can help employers build better benefit plans" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/news/how-data-science-can-help-employers-build-better-benefit-plans


3 Key Takeaways of Designing Employee Benefits Programs

Original Post from BenefitsPro.com

By: Nate Randall

Throughout my career, I’ve had the good fortune to work for a variety of industry leading organizations from stratospheric startup Tesla Motors to Fortune 100s Safeway and Washington Mutual.

I planted myself knee deep in managing, analyzing, and creating everything related to employee benefits and have learned more than a few finer points along the way.

The common thread across these three companies was a genuine desire and drive to apply innovative, forward-thinking approaches to change and improve the way employee benefits are delivered.

I’ve reflected on my experiences to give you three takeaways that helped these companies make the biggest impact possible with their benefits and employee experience programs.

Innovation isn’t easy

Much has been written about long work hours. Stories abound of people sleeping in their cars or under their desks and subsisting on Top Ramen and frozen vegetables. That might exist for you at some point along the path, but that’s not the type of innovative environment that I’m talking about here. I am talking about an atmosphere that applies a conscious drive for change which can lead to meaningful acceptance of new ideas.

Whether you’re rethinking the value of the way health insurance is delivered to families or trying to disrupt a 100-year-old automotive industry, mindfully striving for innovation isn’t a cakewalk.

That’s because humans are programmed not to like change, and for many, working through innovation doesn’t come naturally. It takes a laser-focused and cognizant decision to examine the way things are traditionally or typically done. To do that, you’ll need to gather data, build a team, prove a case, influence, iterate, fail, and to achieve success, you’ll need to do all of these things quickly with minimal errors and missteps.

In my experience, it all comes down to the team that you surround yourself with. When hiring or building your team, I always advise to think creatively about your problems and look for passion in those you recruit. More important than having “done it before” is an intense drive to solve problems and an underlying interest in the core subject.

Early in my career at Tesla, an HR manager said to me, “there are three reasons people come to Tesla. Either they are passionate about cars, passionate about the environment, or passionate about their chosen profession. And Tesla is the best place in the world to be for all three of those things.” Notice there is nothing about money, benefits, or perks. That brings me to the second lesson I’ve learned..

Top talent doesn’t care about perks (until you take them away)

Rarely do candidates and their families make the decision to change their lives — in some cases moving across the country or world — because of the benefits and perks you offer.

Attracting top talent is about storytelling. It’s about having a mission and purpose that a person (and his or her family) can identify with through hard work. I have literally witnessed thousands of people join a common mission early on with little more than unlimited cereal and coffee being offered as the perk. And this was in the geographic backyard of arguably the most intense company perk culture on the planet in Silicon Valley. At the end of the day, people want to feel like they are contributing to something bigger than themselves.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to imply employees don’t care about the benefits offered to them. They must be satisfied knowing that the basics — health, disability, life insurance, and retirement — are covered. But in my experience, top talent doesn’t make the decision to join a company because of free lunches and massages on Wednesdays.

Keeping that in mind, it is extremely important to construct benefits and perks with care and thought. Once implemented, any experienced HR manager will tell you his or her sad tale of trying to take something away that people are accustomed to.

It’s also imperative to align benefits with perks. Trust me, employees notice if either appears alien to the company culture and mission. I learned this lesson at Safeway during a program that linked the amount of premium a person paid for health insurance to their biometric measures like blood pressure and cholesterol. Employees scratched their heads wondering why the company cafeteria featured cheap burgers and sodas in comparison to the healthy (but pricey) salad bar if poor eating habits could potentially equate to higher health insurance premiums. To promote the healthy lunch options, we had to align its costs with the culture we were trying to foster.

Silicon Valley has become legendary for perks and what many of my colleagues across the country consider frivolous and extravagant benefits. While I agree that many of the Valley’s largest and most iconic brands along with many wannabe cool kids are foolishly wasting time, resources, and money on programs that really do not serve any identifiable goal, I will argue that offering smartly aligned, personalized benefits and perks are the wave of the future. And that brings me to my third and final take-away...

Let the people choose

We have a lot of choice in our lives. We choose the items, price points, and brands to put into our carts when shopping at Safeway. Every Tesla purchase is made to order, built to the specific requirements of the buyer. Google organizes information to make it individualized and useful. Amazon provides a personalized online shopping experience. Uber and Airbnb tap into excess individual capacity in existing systems to create value. We all have different needs, priorities, family situations, and interests, so is it so difficult to offer benefits that can be personalized, too?

The traditional way of offering limited choice employee benefits and perks for everyone (i.e., group benefits) is outdated and bloated with waste. Upwards of 30 percent of compensation costs are funneled to these traditional benefits and American companies spend over a trillion and a half dollars on these inefficient benefits per year.

And that doesn’t even include any so-called perks. In my own research, most employers are paying anywhere from $7,000 to $25,000 per year for a single traditional benefits package. That’s a huge chunk of change and much of those benefits will never be used by the individual if it doesn’t apply to their situation or they find no personal value in it.

Instead of these antiquated and engorged traditional benefits, smart people are creating systems and methods whereby employees can build personalized benefits packages that meet individual needs and circumstances. Giving people the choice and ability to craft what they need can and will make a real difference in people’s daily lives.

Adoption by forward-leaning employers along with regulatory cooperation will finally result in a system for employee benefits and perks that is modern, flexible, and valued. A system that looks like the rest of our world: personalized.


2014 Annual Benefit Plan Amounts

Originally posted on www.shrm.org The Internal Revenue Service announced on Oct. 31, 2013, cost-of-living adjustments for tax year 2014, also charted here and here, that apply to dollar limits for 401(k) and other defined contribution retirement plans and for defined benefit pension plans. Some plan limits will remain unchanged because the increase in the Consumer Price Index did not meet the statutory thresholds for their adjustment, while other limits will rise in 2014.

The announcement highlighted the following:

  • 401(k), 403(b) and profit-sharing plan elective deferrals in 2014 will remain at $17,500; the catch-up contribution limit will stay at $5,500.
  • The annual defined contribution limit from all sources will rise to $52,000 from $51,000.
  • The amount of employee compensation that can be considered in calculating contributions to defined contribution plans will increase to$260,000 from $255,000.
  • The limit used in the definition of a highly compensated employee for the purpose of 401(k) nondiscrimination testing remains unchanged at$115,000.

 

Defined Contribution Plan Limits For 401(k), 403(b) and most 457 plans, the COLA increases for dollar limits on benefits and contributions are as follows:

2014

2013

Maximum elective deferral by employee

$17,500

$17,500

Catch-up contribution (age 50 and older during 2012)

$5,500

$5,500

Defined contribution maximum deferral (employer and employee combined)

$52,000

$51,000

Employee annual compensation limit for calculating contributions

$260,000

$255,000

Annual compensation of “key employees” in a top-heavy plan

$170,000

$165,000

Annual compensation of “highly compensated employee” in a top-heavy plan (“HCE threshold”)

$115,000

$115,000

 

“A $1,000 increase to the overall defined contribution limit will allow participants to potentially get a little more ‘bang’ out of their plan—at least if their employer wants to give them more money,” noted retirement-planning firm Van Iwaarden Associates in an online commentary on the 2014 changes. Defined Benefit Plans

  • The maximum annual benefit that may be funded through a defined benefit plan will increase to $210,000 from $205,000.
  • For a participant who separated from service before Jan. 1, 2014,the limit for defined benefit plans is computed by multiplying the participant’s compensation limit, as adjusted through 2013, by 1.0155.

“The primary consequence of this change is that individuals who have very large DB benefits (say, shareholders in a professional firm cash balance plan) could see a deduction increase if their benefits were previously constrained by the [Internal Revenue Code Section 415] dollar limit,” the Van Iwaarden posting explained. Other Workplace Retirement Plan Limits

  • For SIMPLE (savings incentive match plan for employees of small employers) retirement accounts, the maximum contribution limit will remain $12,000; the catch-up contribution limit will also stay the same, at$2,500.
  • For simplified employee pensions (SEPs), the minimum compensation amount will remain $550, while the maximum compensation limit will jump to $260,000 from $255,000.
  • In an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), the maximum account balance in the plan subject to a five-year distribution period will rise to$1,050,000 from $1,035,000, while the dollar amount used to determine the lengthening of the five-year distribution period will increase to$210,000 from $205,000.

 

Non-401(k) Workplace Retirement Plan Limits

2014

2013

SIMPLE employee deferrals

$12,000

$12,000

SIMPLE catch-up deferrals

$2,500

$2,500

SEP minimum compensation

$550

$550

SEP annual compensation limit

$260,000

$255,000

Social Security wage base

$117,000

$113,700

 

Individual Retirement Accounts

  • The limit on annual contributions to an individual retirement account (IRA) will stay at $5,500. The additional catch-up contribution limit for those ages 50 and over will remain $1,000.
  • The deduction for taxpayers making contributions to a traditional IRA has been phased out for singles and heads of household who are covered by a workplace retirement plan and have modified adjusted gross incomes (AGIs) from $60,000 to $70,000, up from $59,000 to $69,000 in 2013.
  • For married couples filing jointly, in which the spouse who makes the IRA contribution is covered by a workplace retirement plan, the AGI phase-out range will be $96,000 to $116,000, up from $95,000 to $115,000.
  • For an IRA contributor who is not covered by a workplace retirement plan and is married to someone who is covered, the deduction has been phased out for couples with an AGI from $181,000 to $191,000, up from $178,000 to $188,000.
  • For a married individual filing a separate return who is covered by a workplace retirement plan, the phase-out range is not subject to an annual cost-of-living adjustment and will remain $0 to $10,000.
  • For a Roth IRA, the AGI phase-out range for taxpayers making contributions will be $181,000 to $191,000 for married couples filing jointly, up from $178,000 to $188,000 in 2013. For singles and heads of household, the income phase-out range will be $114,000 to $129,000, up from $112,000 to $127,000. For a married individual filing a separate return who is covered by a retirement plan at work, the phase-out range will remain $0 to $10,000.
  • The AGI limit for the saver’s credit (also known as the retirement savings contributions credit) for low- and moderate-income workers will rise to $60,000 for married couples filing jointly, up from $59,500 in 2013;$45,050 for heads of household, up from $44,250; and $30,000 for singles and married couples filing separately, up from $29,500.

 

Contribution Misperceptions Hinder Savings Employees often have a skewed perception of retirement plan contribution limits. According to Mercer Workplace Survey results, the average participant believes that the tax-deferral limit is only $8,532, just under half the actual 2013 limit of $17,500. Looking at intended savings rates, most appear close to the perceived limit but are still far off from the actual. For those nearing retirement (age 50-plus), the perception gap is even bigger. The survey represents a national cross section of active 401(k) participants; online interviews were completed with 1,506 respondents between May 28 and June 5, 2013.

By Age: Actual Contribution vs. Perceived Contribution Limit (Average $)

Respondents were asked, “As far as you know, what is the maximum dollar amount you can defer from income taxes this year by contributing it to a 401(k)?,” and “Not counting any contributions your employer may make to your 401(k) plan over the next 12 months, how much money, if any, do you expect to put into your 401(k) plan?”

(click on chart to view enlargement)

Source: Mercer Workplace Survey, 2013.

“This data not only points to a troubling disconnect between perception and reality but also points to a false sense of security among 401(k) participants,” according to Mercer’s analysts. “It also begs the question whether participants are leaving some tax efficiency—knowingly or unknowingly—on the table.”

Thirty-four percent said they would increase their 401(k) contribution to the tax-deferred maximum “if they could live the last 12 months over again,” the survey found, which highlights the value of effectively communicating maximum contribution limits to employees and conveying how even small annual contribution increases can substantially boost the size of their retirement nest egg.


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