4 keys to picking the right benefits admin system
Original Post by HRMorning.com
By: Jared Bilski
With HR departments at small companies stretched so thin (many times one staffer handles all of HR), it’s no surprise many small companies are using benefits administration systems for their needs. But with new software vendors popping up every day, how do HR pros find the right system?
At the Dig|Benefits Conference in Austin, TX, Joshua N. Jeffries, a partner with Arkin Youngentob Associates, LLC, outlined the four most important steps small employers should take when selecting an “efficient, cost-effective” benefits administration system:
Selection checklist
Step 1: Define your needs. What are you looking for in a benefits administration system? This step needs to go beyond HR and incorporate all departments within the company. Jeffries reminded HR pros that Benefits has one of the top Profit/Loss (P/L) line items for most businesses. Any soft-dollar spending in this area needs to be justified in your compensation plans.
Step 2: Evaluate your vendor. With the sheer number of vendors out there, this step can seem a bit daunting. But the process is much less intimidating when HR pros break it down into small questions.
Examples: What type of back-end customer support do I need? Is it broker-friendly — in other words, will most brokers be able to use the system easily and effectively? Does the system account for all ACA and other federal and state regs? Does the system offer a mobile component? Does the data make it home? If the system is giving employees easy access to their benefits, it should offer a mobile component for spouses and dependents. After all, most families use smartphones for virtually everything.
Step 3: Understand the implementation process. Obviously, you’ll want the system to be as accurate as possible, so you’ll want to do your homework and find out any vendors with less-than-stellar track records in this area. You’ll also want to find out if the system updates automatically or if that’s a separate undertaking.
Step 4: Change your culture. For many employees, any type of change is difficult. If your benefits administration system alters the way people are used to doing things, which it most likely will, you have to account for that — and find ways to make sure the new system can positively impact your company’s culture. Here, Jeffries lauded the use of employee committees as a means to educate staffers on how everything works and all that workers can get from a new system.
Based on “Platform Power — Solving Ben Admin For Small Businesses,” by Joshua N. Jeffries, as presented at the Dig|Benefits Conference in Austin, TX.
9 Tips for Closing the Gender Pay Gap
Original Post from SHRM.org
By: Jonathan A. Segal
Everyone knows there is a gender gap in how employees are paid, though estimates vary as to how large it is. But compensation inequity of any size does more than expose an organization to litigation; it can cause disengagement and lower productivity, which can translate into lower profits.
It can also push talented employees out the door in search of greener pastures (and higher paychecks). In fact, often the smartest and most marketable employees are the first to leave. Bottom line: The gender gap is everyone’s problem.
So let’s begin with the assumption that your organization is smart and wants to eliminate this business inhibitor and legal wrong. What do you do?
1. Lawyer Up on Data Collection
Sometimes HR professionals will collect data to demonstrate that a problem exists. I understand why, but this can be dangerous.
The information likely will be discoverable, and your good-faith efforts could be used against you. If you need data to break through denial at your company, you may want to work with your employment lawyer to collect it under attorney-client privilege. Then have it delivered in the form of legal advice.
Even then, the underlying data may not be privileged if, for example, it is gathered from existing nonprivileged documents and information. However, data compilation and analysis done by—or at the direction of—counsel might still be protected from disclosure by the attorney-client privilege and/or the work product doctrine.
The bottom line is that the scope of the attorney-client privilege is deceptively complex, so give careful and thoughtful consideration to how you work with your employer’s lawyer to maximize the likelihood that the privilege will apply.
One thing is clear: Simply copying your employer’s attorney on an e-mail does not make the information within the e-mail privileged; it simply makes the attorney a witness to it.
2. Analyze Positions Qualitatively
Once you’ve documented pay gaps, don’t automatically assume they are all attributable to gender.
There may be totally legitimate business reasons for wage differences. For example, someone who took four years off to have and raise a child might earn less than someone who did not spend time away from work and who has received regular raises over that time span.
So, while quantitative data provides a starting point, a qualitative assessment of the relevant factors at play—one that ideally is also done under attorney-client privilege—is needed to determine if changes are in order.
3. Allow Negotiation …
Ellen Pao, former CEO of Reddit, tried to ban salary negotiations at her company based on the theory that allowing such bargaining inherently benefited men. Let me count the reasons I disagree with this tactic. Actually, I’ll stop at three:
First, it reinforces the stereotype that women aren’t capable negotiators.
Second, it takes away a woman’s (or a man’s) power to play a role in determining her (or his) own pay.
Third, whether and how someone negotiates may be relevant to whether you hire them. It is better than a behavioral question—it is a behavioral simulation.
4. … But Reconsider Asking About Salary History
When we ask about prior salary, we may be unwittingly perpetuating the gender gap created by prior employers. If someone was paid too little at her previous employer, the low part of your range may result in a material increase in compensation but still be less than the candidate deserves.
Consider eliminating the salary history question from your applications. After all, what does prior compensation really have to do with what someone should earn for a new opportunity? Ask only if it is truly relevant to the job—and document why you believe it is.
5. Create Pay Ranges But Recognize Exceptions
Establish pay ranges for positions to maximize consistency, and develop criteria for how you will place a new hire or promotion in the range.
But also realize that there will be times when exceptions are necessary. Develop a procedure to determine when and why you should depart from the norm, and conduct periodic audits to make sure that exceptions are not made only for men.
6. Consider Access Issues
Pay is often linked to performance. At certain levels, I think that works (at least to some degree). But I firmly believe that you cannot perform as well as your peers if you don’t have access to the same opportunities that they do. In my view, this is where many employers miss the mark, big time.
I hate unnecessary bureaucracy as much as anyone, but if there is no structure as to how work is distributed, the plum assignments too often may go to someone “just like” the manager. While slights like this are not intentional, they are often very real. Are the highly desired assignments typically meted out among the guys while playing golf or drinking at the neighborhood watering hole? If so, the boys’ club may be rearing its ugly head in a way that perpetuates the access gap and, with that, the gender gap.
Access to key assignments, customers, clients and information is essential to successful performance and the resulting link to higher pay. Of course, managers must have some discretion, but there should also be guardrails in place so that access issues don’t translate into unequal opportunity.
7. Appraise Performance Appraisals
Gender bias is often evident in performance appraisals, which are linked to pay. Two examples:
- A man is refreshingly assertive, while a woman engaging in the same behavior is labeled with the scarlet “B.”
- Or, a new twist on the double standard: A woman and a man are both involved in equally unacceptable behavior, but he is described as having engaged in “abrasive conduct,” while she is simply labeled “abrasive.” It’s a subtle but important difference—between a behavior that can be changed and a fixed character trait.
Train your leaders on these and other potential biases.
8. Be Aware of Persistent Biases and Their Effects
Yes, some of what an employee is paid is a result of his or her ability to negotiate. So workers have a major role to play, too: An employee should not complain with impunity about making less than others if he or she did not ask for more or apologizes for having done so.
Unfortunately, ambition is not always viewed as laudably in a woman as it is in a man. Sheryl Sandberg makes that point in Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (Knopf, 2013) multiple times. Here is the sad but persistent reality: A woman may have to decide between conforming to the societally accepted stereotype of being nice (and making less money) or being liked less because she asks for what she has earned.
9. Train Your Leaders
Of course, a woman who leans in should not have to choose between being well-liked or well-paid, so educate your leaders about the unconscious biases that can come into play in cases where women negotiate no differently from men. Once people are made aware of their own prejudice, they are less likely to unconsciously engage in it.
Inevitably, some folks on the leadership team will deny that the bias exists at all because they have not personally experienced it. Let me conclude by saying this: I have never experienced labor pains. But I would be foolish to deny their existence based just on my life experience. You can take the analogy from there.
Jonathan A. Segal is a partner at Duane Morris in Philadelphia and New York City. Follow him on Twitter @Jonathan_HR_Law.
- See more at: https://shrm.org/publications/hrmagazine/editorialcontent/2016/0616/pages/0616-gender-pay-gap.aspx#sthash.U3Uaj98m.dpuf
DOL Overtime Rule Will Impact Hospitality Industry
Originally Posted by SHRM.org
By: Allen Smith
The hospitality industry will be hit hard by the Department of Labor’s updates to the overtime rule implementing the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), experts say. With high overhead costs and a low-profit margin, hotels and restaurants typically don’t have enough money in reserve to give employees big raises to preserve their exempt status or to pay many hours of overtime if employees are eligible.
As a result, hospitality employers will need to explore alternative compensation models, schedules and staffing options to try to mitigate costs, according to Ryan Glasgow, an attorney with Hunton & Williams in Richmond, Va.
Some choices will be simple, he noted. For employees with relatively high salaries who work long hours, the logical choice is to increase their salaries, as the minimum increase in salary likely will be less than the employer would have to pay in substantial overtime hours. As for employees with low salaries who don’t work much overtime, it makes sense to convert them to nonexempt and pay overtime for the few overtime hours they might work.
“For all other employees, the decision will be much more difficult and will require a lot of strategic planning and analysis,” Glasgow said. “For example, in certain circumstances, it may be feasible for the employer to combine two exempt positions into one position so that the cost of increasing the salary for the remaining one employee is offset by the cost-savings from the elimination of the other employee’s position.”
He added that it may be better for the employer to convert a position to nonexempt and hire more employees to perform the work so that none of the employees work overtime. “Similarly, employers should evaluate each impacted position to determine whether there are unnecessary and/or inefficient tasks that can be eliminated or given to another employee so that the position requires fewer hours of work, thus lowering the impact of paying overtime,” he noted.
Domino Effect
Be aware of the potential domino effect when an employee’s salary is increased above the new salary level. The employee and the employee’s supervisor may suddenly be making similar salaries. Supervisors may ask for an increase as well, leading to salary increases up the organizational chart, Glasgow said.
Bonus and commission plans will have to be re-evaluated since there may be overtime pay consequences if employees who have been converted to nonexempt are paid bonuses or commissions, noted Robert Boonin, an attorney with Dykema in Detroit and Ann Arbor, Mich., and immediate past chair of the Wage and Hour Defense Institute, a network of wage and hour lawyers.
Rule’s Potential Winners
Salaried workers earning less than $913 a week or $47,476 annually and who regularly work more than 40 hours per week stand to gain from the overtime rule, said Wendy Stryker, an attorney with Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz in New York City. These workers will have their salaries raised above the new threshold, be paid overtime or have their hours reduced to a 40-hour workweek, she said. These employees include entry and midlevel professionals, such as chefs, sommeliers, and hotel or restaurant managers and assistant managers, she added.
The hospitality industry has a lot of employees earning in this range, according to Stryker. She noted that the average U.S. wage for chefs, head cooks and pastry chefs is $45,920. For bakers, the average U.S. wage is lower, at $26,270, Stryker noted.
While workers may benefit from the overtime rule, Michael Layman, vice president, regulatory affairs for the International Franchise Association in Washington, D.C., said the overtime rule will hit the hospitality industry particularly hard. Its employers “disproportionately face unpredictable season- or weather-dependent schedules and variable labor demands, which makes tracking hours and managing overtime costs a significant challenge,” he said.
“Given the need for onsite guest services, employers in the hospitality industry may have less flexibility than other employers to automate or offshore operations,” said Nancy Vary, director of the compliance consulting center at Xerox HR Services in New York City.
However, Carolyn Richmond, an attorney with Fox Rothschild in New York City, said, “I think we will see the live reservationist all but disappear as reliance on [online booking apps] OpenTable, Resy and the others grows.” She added, “Owners are looking at more and more automation—programs that monitor and control labor costs and even how to replace certain employees.”
Other Significantly Affected Industries
Hospitality isn’t the only industry to feel the brunt of the new overtime rule.
“The construction and retail industries will be impacted significantly because, like the hospitality industry, they have unusually high concentrations of low-salaried managers,” Glasgow said. He also expected large research and educational hospitals to be uniquely impacted because they have many low-salaried professionals.
“Any industry that has traditionally offered low pay to its skilled workers is likely to be hard-hit by the new overtime rules,” Stryker said. “In New York City, this is likely to be the creative industries such as advertising and film/television production, where hours are traditionally long, and the work product cannot necessarily be created on a 40-hour-per-week schedule.”
The point of the rule isn’t to benefit employers, though. “The new overtime rules were created to benefit employees,” Stryker said. “As the president noted when he directed the Department of Labor to update the relevant regulations, the FLSA’s overtime protections “are a linchpin of the middle class, and the failure to keep the salary level requirement for the white-collar exemption up to date has left millions of low-paid salaried workers without this basic protection.”
That said, Richmond noted that “While the Department of Labor hopes and expects these changes will lead to increased wages through overtime, I don’t expect that to be the case in [the hospitality] industry. Payroll has already risen dramatically with minimum wage increases and resulting wage compression, and owners will spend more time looking at controlling overtime.”
Allen Smith, J.D., is the manager of workplace law content for SHRM. Follow him @SHRMlegaleditor.
- See more at: https://shrm.org/legalissues/federalresources/pages/hospitality-industry-weighs-options-in-wake-of-overtime-rule.aspx#sthash.D3BGAwvR.dpuf
The Supreme Court gives employee's more room to sue you
The Supreme Court’s latest ruling isn’t going to make a lot of employers happy.
The High Court just made it easier for employees to sue, claiming they were constructively discharged.
Constructive discharge occurs when an employer makes a person’s working conditions so intolerable — via some underhanded actions, like harassment or discrimination — that the person felt compelled to resign.
Federal law says private sector employees must file a charge of harassment, discrimination or constructive discharge with the EEOC within 180 days from the day the illegal act took place if they want to press charges in federal court. The deadline is extended to 300 calendar days if a state or local agency enforces a law that prohibits employment discrimination or harassment on the same basis.
Federal employees have just 45 days to contact an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) counselor to be able to file a charge.
The real issue
The question that was posed to the Supreme Court: In constructive discharge cases, what constitutes the last act of discrimination or harassment — i.e., when does the statute of limitations clock start running?
The High Court’s answer: The date the employee resigns (even if it’s not the person’s last day of work).
What happened?
The issue came up in a case in which former postal worker Marvin Green sued the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), claiming constructive discharge.
In late 2009, Green complained to USPS management that he’d been denied a promotion because he was African-American. From there, his relationship with the USPS entered a downward spiral that eventually led to his supervisors accusing him of deliberately delaying the mail (a federal offense).
Then, on Dec. 16, 2009, both parties signed an agreement in which the USPS agreed not to pursue criminal charges in exchange for Green either retiring or accepting a position in a remote location for far less pay. Green elected to retire and submitted his resignation on Feb. 9, 2010 (effective March 31).
On March 22, Green contacted an EEO counselor and alleged that he was constructively discharged. He then filed suit in federal district court, which dismissed his charges on the basis that it was untimely because he failed to contact an EEO counselor within 45 days of Dec. 16, the date he signed the agreement.
Green appealed, and the case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in Green’s favor when it came to the start of the 45-day limitations period.
It said the period begins on the date an employee resigns.
The reasoning
The court said in cases in which an employee claims to have been fired for discriminatory reasons, the matter alleged to be discriminatory includes the discharge itself. Therefore, the 45-day limitations period begins when the employee is discharged.
The justices applied that same line of thinking to constructive discharge cases — saying that the matter alleged to be discriminatory includes the employee’s resignation.
Two reasons it did this:
- It said a resignation is part of the elements of a constructive discharge claim. So without a resignation, the claim can’t even exist, and
- It said requiring that a complaint be filed before resignation occurs would ignore that an employee may not be in a position to leave his job immediately.
Far-reaching effect
While this case dealt with a federal employee’s obligation to report to an EEO counselor within 45 days, it indicated that lower courts could apply the same reasoning to the 180/300-day periods imposed upon private sector employees.
One could even surmise that the ruling could also apply to state anti-discrimination and anti-harassment laws as well.
Cite: Green v. Brennan (Postmaster General)
Originally Posted by HRMorning.com
Why Do Some Workers Get Away with Bad Behavior?
Original post benefitspro.com
Researchers from Baylor University are seeking to explain why some workers get away with sleazy behavior on the job.
After three studies that included over 1,000 employees, they are convinced they have found an answer: You can get away with breaking the rules or acting less-than-honorably as long as you’re productive. A valuable worker can afford to cross the line occasionally, while those whose performance lags cannot.
It’s an intuitive answer, but one that is no doubt often overlooked by disgruntled employees who wonder why they are being disciplined by their superiors or ostracized by coworkers while others have not.
The study’s lead author, Dr. Matthew J. Quade, a Baylor professor of business, wrote that productive workers who ignore rules or act unethically present a dilemma to employers because of their “contrasting worth.”
“The employees’ unethical behaviors can be harmful, but their high job performance is also quite important to the organization’s success,” he explained in the study, which was published in Personnel Psychology. “In this vein, high job performance may offset unethical behavior enough to where the employee is less likely to be ostracized.”
But that calculus is often flawed, argued Quade. If a worker is regularly engaging in unethical behavior, the employer will likely pay a big price for it down the road. As any observer of the subprime mortgage crisis might say, the short term gains of crooked business are often more than offset by major losses later on.
Unsurprisingly, the study authors concluded that employers should establish that they have no tolerance for unethical behavior from employees, no matter how good they are at their jobs.
Furthermore, they argue, employers should make clear that workers can come to organization leaders with complaints about unethical behavior from colleagues. This point is aimed not only at stopping poor behavior, but to prevent divisions among coworkers.
Another recent study found that employees are more likely to be stressed and unhappy at work when they perceive a lack of “organizational justice,” meaning that rules are not applied consistently or fairly.
Here are the top 10 most costly U.S. workplace injuries
Original post lifehealthpro.com
Workplace injuries and accidents are the near the top of every employer’s list of concerns.Here is the countdown of the top 10 causes and direct costs of the most disabling U.S. workplace injuries. The definitions and examples can be found at the BLS website.
- Repetitive motions involving micro-tasks
Some of these tasks may include a word processor who looks from the computer monitor to a document and back several times a day or the cashier at the local grocery store who is scanning and bagging groceries for several hours at a time.
- Struck against object or equipment
This category of workplace injury applies to workers who are hurt by forcible contact or impact, for example, an office worker who bumps into a filing cabinet or an assembly line worker who stubs a toe on stacked parts.
- Caught in or compressed by equipment or objects
These workplace injuries result from workers being caught in equipment or machinery that’s still running as well as in rolling, shifting or sliding objects.
Picture the scene in a movie in which wine barrels topple over, catching the bad guy beneath them, only in this case, it’s the employee whose job it may be to stack the barrels. Perhaps it’s the experienced worker who removes a machine guard to dislodge material that’s stuck and gets a finger caught when the machine starts moving again.
- Slip or trip without fall
Occasionally, workers do slip or trip without hitting the ground. Think of the employee entering the workplace who slips on icy stairs but is able to grab the handrail to prevent hitting the ground. But the action of grabbing the handrail may cause the employee to injure his shoulder or wrench her knee.
- Roadway incidents involving motorized land vehicle
The worker may be the driver, a passenger or a pedestrian, but the cause of the injury is an automobile, truck or motorcycle.
- Other exertions or bodily reactions
These motions include bending, crawling, reaching, twisting, climbing or stepping, according to the BLS. Consider, for example, a roofing contractor’s employees who are continually climbing up and down ladders.
- Struck by object or equipment
This category covers a range of possible injuries, from being struck by an object dropped by a fellow worker to being caught in a swinging door or gate. Picture the construction worker on a scaffold dropping a hammer on the worker below.
- Falls to lower level
The roofer could fall to the ground from the roof or ladder, or an office worker standing on a stepstool, reaching for a heavy file box, could fall to the floor.
- Falls on same level
The second most costly workplace injury, surprisingly, is a fall on the same level. Picture the employee who is walking through the office and falls over an uneven floor surface or someone leaning too far back in an office chair and toppling over.
- Overexertion involving an outside source
The BLS explains that overexertion occurs when the physical effort of a worker who lifts, pulls, pushes, holds, carries, wields or throws an object results in an injury.
The object being handled is often heavier than the weight that a worker should be handling or the object is handled improperly. For example, lifting from a shelf that’s too high, or in a space that’s cramped. Within the broad category of sprains, strains, and tears caused by overexertion, most incidents resulted specifically from overexertion in lifting.
Risk managers should work with their carriers and workplace safety specialists to minimize injuries, lost work days and workers’ compensation costs.With a little effort, employers can understand more about the causes of accidents and injuries in their organizations, identify the appropriate actions to reduce the number of injuries and minimize employee disabilities from workplace accidents.
Don't let enrollment season ruin the holidays
For HR managers it's not just the holidays, it's also open enrollment time and that adds another level of hectic to the end of the year. Piles of employment guides, PowerPoint presentations and employee questions can seem a bit much.
To help you survive the madness, Laurie Hamill, Ph.D., shared some tips with Employee Benefit News. Hamill is the Chief People Officer with corporate wellness technology company Limeade.
Make it a team effort. HR cannot (repeat, CANNOT) run open enrollment in a vacuum. So lean on consultants and communication pros to craft your messaging. Turn to senior leaders for top-down messaging on why changes are happening. Bring in your benefit vendors to explain the impact of changes and walk employees through the enrollment process. Like many things, open enrollment takes a village, so use yours.
Get your systems and your technology in lockstep. Few things can set off a fire drill like systems crashing and just plain misbehaving – especially with online enrollment. So get ahead of the game by partnering with IT to determine how people will enroll, how data will be handled and how it needs to flow between departments (like HR and payroll). It’s also important to have non-HR employees test the process and provide feedback on what’s not clear. Map out contingency plans and decide who will be on point if things go awry. Your worst-case scenario might be paper enrollment, so have forms ready and prepare your vendors for this “In Case of Emergency” solution.
Be transparent. Don’t be afraid to get real with employees about what’s changing, why and what they need to do. No spin. No sugar. No jargon (please). If you’re making significant plan changes this year, use personas to help people understand how this will affect them. And provide decision guides that walk them through all the variables (particularly deductibles, copayments, HSA contributions, covered services and provider network details) so they can make the best choice for themselves and their families. When you’re upfront about what’s happening and you provide helpful, detailed communications, you build employees’ trust, head off confusion and save yourself the time and energy spent responding to a barrage of questions.
Talk to your employees. And more importantly – listen. We all put a ton of blood, sweat and tears into benefit planning and open enrollment communications – so much so, that it can become a bit of a one-way street. Keep in mind that this is a time when employees are sitting up straight and paying attention. So ask for their feedback. How do they feel about what’s changing? The benefits overall? Why? What could be done differently? Whether you’re talking with employees at a town hall, engaging with them over social media or asking for their honest responses to a survey, really listen to what they have to say, thoughtfully respond and act on their feedback as much as you can.
Get a leg up on next year. We’re aware of the head-on-the-desk disbelief. But setting aside a bit of brain space for next year’s enrollment is less daunting than it sounds: all we’re suggesting is that you take employee feedback and lessons learned from this enrollment period and start compiling them for next year. That might be possible benefit changes, new benefits to add or ways to communicate differently. You know what they say about the early bird ... and in this case, the sooner you nail down what 12 months from now looks like, the more proactive (and effective) you’ll be when it comes to next year’s systems and communications.
Automate and eliminate. While we’re on the topic of next year’s open enrollment (bear with us for one more minute), think about your enrollment process and deliverables. Are you rewriting communications from scratch every year when they really just need some updating and tweaking? Are you continuing to hold information sessions that few people attend? As you go through enrollment this year, look for ways to scale back on time and resources, as well as processes you can put into place so things run themselves. You’ll thank yourself next year.
Make it fun! Why not make open enrollment an opportunity for employees to earn points and prizes? Launch an Open Enrollment Challenge and reward people for taking various actions, like attending an open enrollment info session, updating beneficiary details and enrolling by a certain date. Or plan an Open Enrollment Walk, where people can head out for a stroll with HR and colleagues, giving them an opportunity to ask benefit questions along the way. (P.S. Make time afterward too).
Don’t forget about you. At Limeade, we wouldn’t be in the business we’re in if we didn’t believe in the importance of self-care. So how about a little less head-on-the-desk and a little more head-in-the-clouds? Although it might feel like you don’t have time to take a break, right now you need it more than ever. So along with those enrollment meetings, town halls, social media replies and survey reviews, block time for you on the calendar. Go for a run, head out for a relaxing healthy lunch, read a great book, meditate, daydream (yes, head in the clouds), take a yoga class – whatever makes you happy and keeps you sane.
Maximizing the dollars being spent on benefits technology
Originally posted by Andy Stonehouse on https://ebn.benefitnews.com
Employers in the United States and across the world are quickly increasing the amount of money they’re investing in HR technology, including systems such as cloud-based HR portals and talent management solutions.
That, in turn, is leading many employers to reexamine the ways they handle their entire HR workflow, and allowing many benefits managers a greatly expanded range of tools for personnel management.
It’s a positive sign, especially as many companies have cut back their benefits and HR staff, and illustrates some ongoing trends for growth in HR technology, according to Mike DiClaudio, global leader of Towers Watson’s HR service delivery practice.
“Despite cost cutting in some areas of HR, we are seeing a substantial spike in technology spending,” DiClaudio says. “Companies are realizing the value that consumer-grade technology brings to HR and are willing to make smart investments that can grow and evolve with the business.”
Towers Watson’s new HR Service Delivery and Technology survey indicates that at least a third of respondents planned on spending more money on HR technology than they did last year.
Use of mobile technology and HR portals is also an increasingly standard part of the day-to-day benefits workflow, with some 46% reporting they’re using mobile tools for HR transactions and 60% indicating they’ve got a portal already in place.
“It also appears that companies are splitting their investments between core HR systems such as talent management and payroll, and next-generation technology including HR data and analytics, [plus] integrated talent- management systems.”
But the technology spend is just part of a larger revolution underway in overall HR and benefits management, DiClaudio says. More than half of the employers surveyed indicated that they’ve reengineered key HR processes over the last year and a half, and roughly three in 10 respondents say they have refocused the role of their HR business partners.
Another significant trend is the move toward manager and employee self-service initiatives, with almost three quarters of North American-based organizations already using manager self-service tools, a 10% jump from last year.
Employee engagement surveys have also become an increasingly common practice among employers hoping to get the best out of their HR technology dollars, with almost two thirds of U.S. employers conducting regular employee engagement surveys and using the data to better direct their personnel and benefits investments.
Retention Starts Day One
Originally posted May 12, 2014 by Stephen Bruce (PhD, PHR) on https://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com.
Retention’s going to be key for many organizations as the economy improves—your best people are going to be testing the water and your toughest competitors are going to be looking for them.
There’s Nothing I Can Do
Many managers have the attitude “I wish management would do something about retention.” That’s the first thing to correct—it’s every manager’s and supervisor’s job to work on retention. They should realize that it’s for their own good. Turnover (of good people) is their department’s most debilitating disease.
First of all, it eats away at the manager’s personal productivity—job requisitions, postings, interviews, reference checks, and training suck up a lot of valuable time.
Second, turnover is a morale killer. Everyone else has to pitch in and get the job done while the position is vacant. And then there’s the inevitable, “Why are all our good people leaving? What do they know that I don’t know? Should I start putting together my résumé?”
Retention Starts Day One … and Continues Every Day
Managers and supervisors who have great retention rates share several behaviors: They think of their employees as customers; they recruit every day; and they remember that their actions are always on display.
Employees Are Customers
How far would you go to retain a good customer? Make sure you put that level of interest in retaining your employees.
- What do they care about?
- Do they understand their contribution and do you show that you value that contribution?
- What can you do today to make sure you retain them as a customer?
Recruit Every Day
As the saying goes, better recruit your best people every day … your competitors are. Try to avoid that oft-referenced situation where managers and supervisors spend 80 percent of their time on the poorest-performing 20% of their employees.
You Are on Display
Your actions speak louder than any policy or handbook declaration. “Our employees are our most valuable asset” sounds good on paper. Do you live up to that premise in your day to day dealings with employees?
You Have a Road Map
During the interviewing process, you found out about the new employee’s aspirations and expectations. And you probably made a few promises about the future as well. Together, those lists will help you build a retention road map for that employee.
Onboarding
Too many managers think that onboarding is something HR does with new employees the first day to get them signed up for benefits.
Onboarding is the first step in retention—get it right.
To be effective, onboarding is an involved process that lasts weeks or months. There are business methods and approaches to be learned, contacts to be made with key players in different departments, and various assimilation activities that help the new person be comfortable and contributing.
Remember that new employees are often reluctant to ask for help, so keep careful tabs on their work. Consider assigning a “buddy.”
A recent survey conducted by BambooHR shows the following often overlooked factors in an effective onboarding process:
- Receiving organized, relevant, and well-timed content
- On-the-job training
- Assignment of an employee “buddy” or mentor
- Having the onboarding process extend beyond the first week
When it comes to which aspects truly matter to employees starting a job, free food and perks are not what they crave. They want an onboarding process that helps them reduce the learning curve in becoming an effective, contributing team member.
Employer-Sponsored Health Care Facts of Life
Originally posted May 23, 2014 by Donna Fuscaldo on https://smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com.
High deductible health insurance plans are a fact of life, particularly for the employees of small businesses. But it doesn’t have to hurt morale or loyalty among workers. There are ways small business owners can help defray some of the costs if high deductible insurance plans are all they can offer.
“With the Affordable Care Act there is clearly a movement toward higher deductible plans,” says Barry Sloane, CEO of Newtek, a health insurance agency for small businesses. “Unfortunately higher deductibles are a fact of life whether you live in New York or Nebraska.”
In an effort to keep costs down and incentivize employees to curb some of the unnecessary visits to the doctor or specialists, employers of all sizes are making high deductible plans an option, and in some cases the only one.
That’s particularly true with small business owners who can barely afford to offer health insurance, let alone plans with low deductibles and limited cost sharing. As a result, experts say the era of high deductible health insurance plans and more of the burden being passed on to the employee is here and will likely stay. That change in the way health care is offered to employees can breed resentment and anger among workers, which in turn can have a negative impact on the overall business.
But there are things small business owners can do to reduce the burden. One way, according to Kevin Luss, owner of Luss Group, is to offer employees a medical bridge policy to neutralize the deductible and other out-of-pocket costs employees face.
At Luss Group, brokers work with employers to create a health plan that limits the cost sharing for the least frequent things like hospitalization, surgeries and outpatient procedures and with the savings, a medical bridge policy is taken out to insure employees from high deductibles associated with those expensive but less frequent medical needs. There are numerous ways to design the plan, but one option could be if one of the employees is admitted to the hospital he or she gets a lump sum of $3,000 in addition to a daily amount for the length of the admission. In that case, an employee who has a $5,000 deductible would only pay part of that out of pocket because the medical bridge policy covers the rest.
“The employer saves money by offering high deductible plans and uses part of the savings for the bridge plan,” says Luss. “These plans aren’t very expensive and in the long rung the employer saves money.” The rules and what is offered varies state by state.
For many small businesses footing the bill for a medical bridge policy isn’t an option, but they can offer it as a supplemental choice for employees. According to Nancy Thompson, senior vice president and director of sales at CBIZ Benefits and Insurance, employers who are providing high deductible plans can also offer the option of hospital indemnity and critical illness insurance, which will defray some of the costs associated with the high deductible plan. While it will cost employees more money, albeit not a lot, in exchange they’ll get one-on-one counseling with a benefits consultant, so they are making the right choices when it comes to their healthcare.
“Employees are going to experience gaps in coverage that they haven’t in the past,” says Thompson. “The right supplemental product is paramount when you go to a high deductible plan.”
Hand in hand with offering high deductible plans is providing the ability for employees to use pretax dollars for medical costs, which is where health savings accounts come into play. With a health savings account, funds contributed aren’t taxed and the money accumulated can be rolled over to the next year. Some employers who contribute to health savings accounts can increase their contribution to offset any bad feelings from offering a high deductible plan, says Sloane.
Another option, according to Richard Mann, Chief Product Officer at PlanSource, is offering a defined contribution toward benefits. Basically it’s a predetermined amount the employer agrees to contribute to each employee’s benefits spending.
“This helps employers control spending because the amount is fixed, but allows employees to use the amount in whatever way they think is best,” says Mann.
At the end of the day, knowledge may be the best way a small business owner can help their employees with their health-care costs. The whole idea behind these high deductible health plans is to get people to think before they get that test done or have blood drawn.
According to Sloane, arming employees with all the information about the plan, ensuring they know which doctors are in network and out of network, and all the benefits associated with the plan (including preventive care), can go a long way in keeping out of pocket costs down. It’s also a good idea to give employees access to the actual costs of health-care services, adds Mann. Knowing, for example, that the cost of a MRI can vary by as much as $1,000 will make employees more savvy consumers of health care, he says.
“It’s very valuable for the business to make an investment in the HR department and educate their staff as to how to keep claims down,” notes Sloane. “People need to pay more attention to health care. It’s not as simple as it used to be.”