Technology, interaction, variety: What Millenials look for in a benefits package
Millenials are thinking differently about their company's benefit packages. Understanding what this growing generation in the workforce is looking for could help with your company's recruiting efforts.
A Millenial is someone born after 1980 and the first generation to come of age in the millennium. Pew Research reports this group will number 75 million this year. That's greater than Generation X and Baby Boomers.
But not all Millenials in the workforce are signing up for a benefits package. The Society for Human Resources Management found that just under half of all Millenials consider their overall benefits package to be very important.
Those that find the benefit package important are likely to offer up these answers when asked about employee benefits, according to benefitspro.com.
"I want choice and variety."
Millennials are accustomed to having access to what they want when they want, especially when it comes to information. They want choices and are often offended by a one-size-fits-all approach. Overall, they look for a well-rounded array of benefits, which may mean that a mix of employer-paid products with supplemental and voluntary products will play an increasingly important role for many employers.
"I want customization and control."
Personalization is highly important to millennials. When they’re offered benefits, they expect those benefits to be tailored to their needs. And, they want control over how they spend their money. While giving them plenty of options puts them in the driver’s seat, too many options may paralyze them. Try to strike a healthy balance by considering a choice of plan designs within a product category, or perhaps core/buy-up options.
"I want true simplicity."
Employee benefits shouldn’t be complicated, and communication is the key. Millennials are looking for simple, clear, easy-to-follow steps, which includes systems that are easy to use. It will be to your advantage to recommend working with a carrier who embraces simplicity and offers varying enrollment strategies. This gives you flexibility in recommending the one that’s likely to be most effective.
"I want interaction and collaboration."
Social is the name of the game for the millennial generation. Peer networks play a huge role in decision-making. Employers would be wise to offer ways their employees can interact and network to get information. Blogs are an important way millennials build trust, gather information and connect. Promote them with your clients. They work.
"I want technology, not paper."
Clearly, the biggest difference between millennials and other generations is their use of technology … and their expectation that technology also be important to others with which they interact. They want to use tools that make benefits easier, such as apps and online portals. And they want alternatives to paper. They trust technology.
4 ways to maximize the benefit of your workday breaks
Take a look at your workday. When do you take a break? How long is your break? What do you do on your break? Do you take more than one break? Do you feel recharged after your break?
Those questions were the focus of a study done by 2 Baylor University researchers. Emily Hunter, Ph.D. and Cindy Wu, Ph.D. are associate professors of management in Baylor's Hankamer School of business. The pair surveyed 95 employees between the ages of 22 and 67 over a 5-day workweek. Each person was asked to document each break they took.
The research defined a break as “any period of time, formal or informal, during the workday in which work-relevant tasks are not required or expected, including but not limited to a break for lunch, coffee, personal email or socializing with coworkers, not including bathroom breaks.”
When compiling the total of 959 break surveys, Hunter and Wu were able to provide a greater understanding of workday breaks. Their findings offer suggestions on when, where and how to plan the most beneficial daily escapes when on the clock.
Key findings of the study include:
1) Best time to take a workday break: Mid-morning.
A typical work day may have you counting down to lunch, but the study found an earlier break is more successful in replenishing energy, concentration and motivation.
“We found that when more hours had elapsed since the beginning of the work shift, fewer resources and more symptoms of poor health were reported after a break,” the study says. “Therefore, breaks later in the day seem to be less effective.”
2) What to do on your break: Something you enjoy and not necessarily non-work related.
The study found no evidence that non-work-related activities are more beneficial. Instead, do things choose to do and like to do which could include work-related tasks.
“Finding something on your break that you prefer to do – something that’s not given to you or assigned to you – are the kinds of activities that are going to make your breaks much more restful, provide better recovery and help you come back to work stronger,” Hunter said.
3)"Better Breaks" = Better health, increased job satisfaction
Employee surveys showed those that took mid-morning breaks and did things they preferred led to less somatic symptoms like headaches, eyestrain and lower back pain after the break.
The study also found the employees also experienced increased job satisfaction and a decrease in emotional exhaustion.
4) But how long should the break be?
The study wasn't able to pinpoint an exact length of time for a better workday break, but it did find that more short breaks with associated with higher resources - energy, concentration, and motivation.
“Unlike your cellphone, which popular wisdom tells us should be depleted to zero percent before you charge it fully to 100 percent, people instead need to charge more frequently throughout the day,” Hunter said.
Hunter and Wu believe the results of the study benefit both managers and employees.
10 things to check when planning 2016 health benefit packages
The clock is ticking down to 2016 which means time is running out to dot the 'i' and cross the 't' for your health benefit packages. Employee Benefit Adviser has these tips.
1) Employer shared-responsibility (ESR) strategy: Ensure the intended goal of avoiding or paying ESR assessments for 2016 coverage is supported by coverage offers, administrative and recordkeeping processes, and benefit documents.
2) ESR reporting: Arrange data sources, systems and administrative processes to collect all information about enrollees with minimum essential coverage (MEC), full-time employees, and coverage offers needed for reporting on 2016 coverage. Create a process for correcting any erroneous IRS filings and personal statements.
3) Preventative care: Ensure “non-grandfathered” group health plans comply with the final ACA rules and recent guidance on cost-free preventive services.
4) Other ACA reporting and disclosure requirements: Review delivery operations for summaries of benefits and coverage (SBCs) and watch for revised SBC templates. Prepare for round two of online submission and payment of ACA’s reinsurance fee.
5) Mid-year changes to cafeteria plan elections: Decide whether to permit mid-year changes to cafeteria plan elections for either or both of the status-change events in IRS Notice 2014-55.
6) ACA’s out-of-pocket maximum: Verify that self-only and other (e.g., family) coverage tiers in “non-grandfathered” plans meet ACA’s 2016 out-of-pocket (OOP) limits for in-network care. Confirm that family coverage also satisfies ACA’s self-only OOP limit for each enrollee.
7) Same-sex marriages and domestic partnerships: Assess how the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling that legalizes same-sex marriage nationwide affects your benefit programs and employment policies. Also, consider the decision’s indirect implications for domestic partner coverage.
8) Mental health parity: Check that plan designs and operations provide parity between medical/surgical and mental health/substance use disorder (MH/SUD) coverage. Federal audits of health plans now evaluate compliance with the final Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) rules that took effect in 2015. In addition, state legislative activity and litigation around parity issues continue.
9) Wellness: Review employee wellness programs against the proposed Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) rules requiring voluntary participation and restricting incentives for completing health risk assessments and/or biomedical screenings. Be prepared to make changes after EEOC finalizes these rules for nondiscriminatory wellness plans under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
10) Fixed-indemnity and supplemental health insurance: Review fixed-indemnity and supplemental health insurance policies to ensure they qualify as excepted benefits under the ACA and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
IRS unveils health care page for large employers
Original post by Jeff Stimpson, eba.benefitnews.com
The new ACA Information Center for Applicable Large Employers page on IRS.gov features information and resources for employers of all sizes on how the health care law may affect them if they fit the definition of an applicable large employer.
The page includes such sections as trends and resources for ALEs; how to determine if you are an ALE; and outreach materials including FAQs and links to forms, among other materials.
In 2016, ALEs must file an annual information return and provide a statement to each full-time employee reporting whether the company offered health insurance, and if so, what insurance it offered.
RELATED: How to Avoid ACA Filing Penalties
Companies that will file 250 or more information returns for 2015 must e-file the returns through the ACA Information Reports system. Draft Publication 5165, “Guide for Electronically Filing Affordable Care Act Information Returns,” contains information on the communication procedures, transmission formats, business rules and validation procedures for returns that companies must transmit in 2016.
Although most employers will not be affected, companies should determine if they are an ALE, which comprises an average of at least 50 full-time employees (including full-time equivalents) during 2014. A company with fewer than 50 full-time employees may be an ALE if it shares a common ownership with other employers.
A way to take your wellness program beyond paper
Target is taking its wellness program a step further and giving its more than 300,000 employees access to a FitBit tracker. And to sweeten the deal, all employees participating in the FitBit Wellness Program will have a chance to earn money for the charity of their choice.
Employees can sign up to get the FitBit Zip ($59.95) for free or pay the difference for a more advanced FitBit.
Amy McDonough, vice president and general manager of Fitbit's wellness unit, told eWEEK that the deal with Target is one of the largest company-wide wellness arrangements it has made so far.
"The Target announcement was exciting because they are a strategic retail partner for Fitbit products and also a large employer," McDonough said. "It's a great example of how these larger organizations are really putting wellness at the forefront."
Employees who take advantage of the FitBit offer will be grouped into teams for a monthlong challenge. The winning team will get $1 million to funnel into a charity of their choice, Chief Human Resources Officer Jodee Kozlak told CBS News.
Kozlak added that employees will also receive extra discounts on fruits and vegetables, and healthy grab and go snacks will be featured near cash registers.
RELATED: One compelling reason to participate in a wellness plan
Grab the sanitizer, you'll want it after you read this
The digital age is giving germs a new breeding ground. But a little extra cleaning can narrow the playing field according to this article from forbes.com.
When it comes to germs, the gold standard for grossness is the bacteria brewing in our bathrooms.
A variety of studies and reports over the years have put the average bacteria per square inch on a toilet seat somewhere between 50 and almost 300 for household potties and over 1,000 for the public varieties. Yet our own handheld electronics harbor even more bacteria than that.
Smartphones Your smartphone is home to your photos, music, contacts, productivity apps and odds are at least one game featuring a bird, zombie, fruit or farm. Oh, and there’s something else on your smartphone, too — loads of fecal coliforms. Joining the coliforms are Streptococcus, Staphylococcus aureus and a host of other -ococci.
A 2013 project at the University of Surrey perfectly illustrates the situation.
Bacteriology students made imprints of their phones in Petri dishes, and after three days, they saw examples of many of the aforementioned bacteria — plus one particularly hairy case of Bacillius mycoides. It’s really not surprising that the device that goes everywhere from public transportation to public restrooms to not-so-public germ repositories (aka our own homes) is a hot bed for bacteria.
Even back in 2012, when iPhones only offered us 4.5 inches of germ-covered surface,University of Arizona microbiologist Chuck Gerba found cellphones carried 10 times more bacteria than most toilet seats. In 2013, Mashable put that number much higher, claiming that our phones may boast a whopping 25,107 bacteria per square inch. But your smartphone is just one of the worst offenders, not the only one, as this black-light-enhanced demonstration from British business services group Initial reveals.
Here are four more gadgets to rival any restroom when it comes to germs:
Tablets/e-readers — Just think of them as smartphones with fewer features and more surface area when it comes to the germ load tablets and e-readers pack. One iPad tested by British consumer magazine Which? found 600 units of Staphylococcus aureus alone.
Game controllers — With almost 5 times more bacteria than your toilet seat, your game controller has probably still seen scarier stuff (like that boss faceoff with Sephiroth). Still, E. coli is among the potential offenders.
Keyboards — Your keyboard could be home to anywhere from three times more bacteria than your toilet seat to almost three times that of a public toilet seat. Some studies found 3,000 bacteria per square inch on computer keyboards and 1,600 on the average computer mouse.
Remote controls — While likely cleaner than a public toilet seat, remotes still boast a bit more bacteria than some home-throne estimates with 70 present per square inch.
So how do we handle all of this bacterial buildup?
Step one: Remember the bathroom is no place for a phone (that you don’t want covered in fecal coliforms).
Step two: Wash your hands before handling your devices, or at least use a hand sanitizer.
Step three: Use gadget-friendly wipes to keep your favorite handhelds tidy.
But if you only do one thing, let it be step two. After all, you know what else has more bacteria per square inch than a toilet seat? You do. A lot more.
Protect trade secrets, avoid the burn
Original story posted by Roy Maurer on Society for Human Resources Management website.
An appellate court recently struck down a company’s trade secrets misappropriation claims because the company failed to protect its intellectual property (IP) as confidential or proprietary.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled in Head Over Heels Gymnastics Inc. v. Ware that defendant Harriet Ware did not steal her former employer’s trade secrets because the information at issue was never identified as such.
Ware was hired as an at-will employee in 2006 to work with gymnasts at Head Over Heels gymnastics academy in Norwell, Mass. When she accepted the position, Ware acknowledged that she had received and understood the employee handbook, which failed to include a noncompetition covenant or any mention of trade secrets.
Head Over Heels maintained a list of the people who trained at the school, including their names, addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses. The information was available to all employees and was never identified as confidential or proprietary.
When Ware was terminated in 2012, she opened an academy of her own, taking approximately 30 Head Over Heels gymnasts with her.
The company sued, alleging that Ware misappropriated its trade secrets, violated her duty of loyalty by contacting its customers and unfairly competed with it.
The court held that because Ware was an at-will employee, she owed Head Over Heels no particular duty of loyalty and was free to “plan to go into competition with ... her employer and take active steps to do so even while still employed.” Further, absent a noncompetition agreement, Ware’s ability to compete with Head Over Heels was not constrained. Lastly, the court determined that Ware did not misappropriate her employer’s trade secrets because the school’s customer list was not legally considered a trade secret.
The court said that in determining whether information is proprietary to a business, “we look to the conduct of the parties and the nature of the information.” A determination about confidentiality is based on several factors, “including the extent to which the information is known outside of the business, the extent of measures taken by the employer to guard the secrecy of the information and the ease or difficulty with which the information could be properly acquired.”
Head Over Heels argued that everyone at the company understood that its customer list was intended solely for the purpose of the business and was neither publicly known nor available.
Nevertheless, the court ruled that, “as a matter of law, the [customer lists] are not trade secrets or confidential proprietary information. It is undisputed that the [customer lists] were available to all staff and employees and were distributed to Head Over Heels’ gymnasts and their families. The broad dissemination and availability of the [customer lists] indicates that Head Over Heels was not trying to guard the secrecy of the information. Importantly, much of the information found in the [customer lists] was readily available in the public domain and could have been easily obtained.”
The court therefore deemed Head Over Heels’ trade secret claims “unrealistic.”
Employer Takeaways
What can employers do to protect against confidential information being used by a former employee? “For starters, if you have confidential information, let everyone with access to it know that it is confidential, either through a designation in the company handbook, when they are given access to the information for the first time or any other obvious way,” said Shepard Davidson, a partner at Burns & Levinson LLP based in Boston.
Limiting access to the information and keeping it secure are additional ways to preserve confidentiality, he said. Training and reminding departing employees about their confidentiality obligations during exit interviews are also good ideas.
“The good news is that a company’s efforts in this regard are measured by a standard of reasonableness, not perfection. So if you have information that you believe is important, confidential or propriety, take some time to set up reasonable systems to protect that information,” Davidson said.
Follow Roy Maurer on Twitter at @SHRMRoy
The Viability of Banning Salary Negotiations
Originally posted by Joanne Sammer on Society for Human Resource Management's website
When Internet company Reddit decided in April 2015 to ban all salary negotiations for both new hires and existing employees, the move garnered a wave of media reporting—and social media discussion.
Although Reddit is not the only company to adopt this policy, the difference is that Reddit tied its salary negotiation ban to an effort to close the pay gap between male and female employees. The fact that Reddit’s then-CEO Ellen Pao had just lost a high-profile gender discrimination lawsuit against a Silicon Valley venture capital firm gave the announcement particular significance. Three months later, Pao resigned as interim CEO under pressure, with some lauding her as a fighter against sexism while others charged her with mismanagement during her controversial eight-month tenure.
Regardless of Pao’s troubles, her decision to ban salary negotiations fired up the conversation about pay disparities. Now, it is fair to ask some key questions about the viability of this no-negotiation approach to compensation.
Reddit, which has about 70 employees, operates in the Internet/technology space in Silicon Valley. Although the company had operated with an informal no-negotiation policy, it was Pao who tied it to the gender pay gap. “She provided more structure to the way it works and formalized the policy,” according to Heather Wilson, a company spokeswoman.
Under the formal policy, Reddit offers new hires and employees set salaries based on competitive market rates for the positions they hold. “The employee is given a choice within that salary to select either more pay or more equity,” Wilson noted. “But the number is the same, just the make-up of pay-to-equity can be determined by the employee.”
Although Reddit is open to changing the policy in the future if circumstances change, “so far it seems to be working quite well,” Wilson said. “Reddit is known as a good place to work and has a strong internal culture, and the pay policy is a part of setting that culture and is in line with the company's core values.”
No Negotiating = Better Relationships?
A key question about any effort to ban salary negotiations inevitably raises questions about the impact on recruitment. Does banning negotiations place an employer at a disadvantage in the hiring process?
For Reddit, the reaction has been positive. “Since news of the policy has spread, Reddit has seen an uptick in candidates seeking to work at the company citing the policy,” according to Wilson.
Gender aside, there are plenty of people who are uncomfortable negotiating and could be attracted to an organization where negotiating salary is not expected. Perhaps that is why other organizations have also had success in hiring after banning negotiations.
Fathom Healthcare, a Valley View, Ohio-based firm that provides marketing services for hospitals and health systems, has banned salary negotiations but not as a way to close pay gaps. The company simply sees negotiating as a negative in the employment relationship.
Negotiating salary “starts the [employment] relationship on a note of distrust and dishonesty,” said Bill Balderaz, president of Fathom Healthcare. “If the company leads with a lower number than it is willing to pay, it is saying, ‘I think you are worth x, but I'm going to offer y and see if you'll take it.’ ”
On the other side of the table, Balderaz sees candidates who name one salary level but settle for another as “leading with a lie.”
To avoid this, Balderaz suggested that employers make only one best and final offer, based on a fair level of compensation. Fathom Healthcare, which has about 40 employees, has had its no-negotiation policy in place since its inception in 2006 and has made 60 or more hires at different levels and with different skill sets since then, with no trouble attracting candidates, according to Balderaz.
Balderaz noted that the company’s decision to make exceptions to the no-negotiation policy for a few candidates over the years has demonstrated the value of the ban. “We made a handful of exceptions in the early days and regretted it each time,” he said. “Salary negotiations inherently set a tone of distrust and [establish an] us-vs.-them attitude.”
Transparency Is Key
In announcing Reddit’s policy, Pao specifically highlighted the idea that the no-negotiation policy would help close the gender pay gap. Her rationale is that women are uncomfortable negotiating pay, frequently don’t negotiate at all and are often perceived negatively when they do negotiate.
Yet some critics of salary negotiation bans argue that these employers are fighting the wrong battle, and they’ve pointed out that the pay gap battle is not limited to gender. Significant pay gaps also exist for black and Hispanic workers, for instance, regardless of gender.
“You have women and people of color who are historically underpaid relative to their white male counterparts,” said Fatimah Gilliam, founder and CEO of The Azara Group, a leadership consulting firm in New York City. “I understand the intent to want to equalize things but I do not believe that the answer is to ban negotiation altogether.”
Moreover, banning salary negotiations does not necessarily guarantee fairness. There is nothing stopping an organization or certain managers from continuing to make higher, nonnegotiated pay offers to some applicants and not to others.
That is why some argue that increasing the transparency surrounding market-based pay levels is the more pressing need. “What enables people to get more money is having a better sense of what companies are paying,” said Gilliam. “If companies simply ban salary negotiations, they instantly have even more leverage. Saying that you cannot negotiate your compensation just limits the amount of leverage you have as a candidate to advocate for yourself.”
While certainly not widespread, some employers are starting to open the compensation books. Social media company Buffer publishes its open equity formula online, including an explanation of each element used to set pay and equity levels and a spreadsheet listing the compensation level and value for all 37 employees, as well as salary and equity formulas and calculations. This transparency effort began last year with the disclosure of the salaries of all employees.