by jeffp | Jun 22, 2016 | Employee Benefits
According to PwC’s Health Research Institute, medical costs in the U.S. will increase 6.5 percent in 2016. Benefit plan changes, such as narrower provider rangers and higher deductibles, will reduce the increase to 4.5 percent, though many consumers and the companies that employ them will continue to struggle to afford healthcare services. What can you do to continue to provide the health insurance coverage your workers need without devastating your budget? The answer is to do what you can to control healthcare costs. Consider the following strategies to help you do so without drastically reducing the benefits you’re able to offer.
Use a level-funded plan. While traditional fully insured plans involve predetermined and fixed payments per employee per month (with the insurer assuming the risk after co-pays and deductibles), and a self-funded plan lays all of the claims on the employer, a level-funded plan is a hybrid of the two. It’s filed as a self-funded plan but the employer is billed a predetermined and fixed premium per employee per month. However, after a certain period, the employer may qualify for a premium refund (if claims are lower than expected) or premium increase (if claims are higher than expected).
Get serious about wellness. Whether you already have an employee wellness program in place or want to establish one, it’s important to tailor it to individual employees if you want to get the most benefit. Offer a program that encourages each worker’s health goals and supports them with comprehensive resources. Some companies have found that they can increase their employees’ wellness engagement even further with incentives and rewards.
Offer a taxed-advantage program in addition to health insurance. These programs are funded with pre-tax dollars, making your employees’ wages or salary go further. They include flexible spending accounts or FSAs, health savings accounts for HSAs, health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) and premium offset plans (POPs) and can lighten your company’s rising medical expenses as well as that of your employees.
FSAs are particularly popular, as they allow your workers to save money tax-free to use for the payment of medical expenses. Voluntary and automatic paycheck deductions make FSA deposits convenient for employees. As an employer, you can also make contributions towards your workers’ FSA accounts.
HRAs are also very useful. Funded by the employer, an HRA reimburses employees for their health insurance premiums and qualifying medical expenses. Employer contributions are 100 percent tax deductible when paid out and are also tax-free to the employee. HRAs are a flexible way to supplement the health insurance benefits your company offers and help your team pay for medical expenses that aren’t covered by the insurance plan.
If you’d like to learn more about these strategies for reducing healthcare costs for your business and employees, we’re here to help. Give us a call to review your current benefits plan and explore your options.
by jeffp | May 25, 2016 | Employee Benefits
In 2015, the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), through its enforcement of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), recovered $696.3 million for direct payment to plans, participants and beneficiaries. They closed 2,441 civil investigations, 275 criminal investigations and 201,000 inquiries through the informal complaint resolution process. The later resulted in $402.9 million restored to U.S. workers. To say the Department of Labor (DOL) and EBSA were busy would be an understatement.
If you’d like to avoid landing on their hit list in 2016, take these steps to avoid a DOL audit of your employer-sponsored 401(k) plan.
- Always be responsive. DOL audits are often triggered by employee complaints. Promptly respond to all retirement plan questions you receive. Should you need to part ways with an employee, do so as professionally as possible. Terminated employees who feel that they’ve been treated unfairly are among the most likely to register a complaint with the DOL.
- Improve your benefit communication. Retirement plans can be confusing, and accompanying documentation that is incomplete or difficult to understand can frustrate employees and lead to DOL complaints. In addition to annual benefit education meetings, consider addressing 401(k) plan questions at other employee meetings and/or your company newsletter.
- Fix any problems before as soon as you find them. This includes tracking down lost participants, dealing with uncashed distribution checks, and properly accounting for ERISA spending account expenses. Miscalculation of contribution amounts and profit sharing as well as failing to enroll or vest employees on time can also trigger an audit.
- Conduct your own audit. Whether you do so yourself or hire a consultant to do it for you, an internal audit can be helpful in identifying potential issues with your 401(k) plan.
- Correctly file your 5500. While employee complaints are the most common cause of DOL 401(k) plan audits, errors on your annual Form 5500 are a close second. By some accounts, the most common errors include failing to answer multi-part questions, forgetting to attach the required schedules, and ignoring EFAST 2 Electronic Filing Guidance. Failing to file on time will also catch the attention of the DOL.
Are you concerned about your employer sponsored 401(k) plan? If so, we can help. Contact us today to learn more about retirement plan compliance, Form 5500 filing, DOL audits and the importance of benefit communication.
by jeffp | May 11, 2016 | Employee Benefits
Each year the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) collects data on the race, ethnicity, sex and job category of private sector employees. The data is then provided to the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) at the Department of Labor.Employers with 100 or more employees—or those with fewer than 100 if the company is owned or affiliated with another company for a total of 100 or more employees—submit the data to the EEOC using Standard Form 100, also known as EEO-1. Federal contractors with 50 or more employees are also required to report employment data to the EEOC.
This year, the EEOC proposed changes to the data it collects. Officially published in the Federal Register on February 1, 2016, the changes include adding data on employees’ pay ranges and hours worked. The new data will assist the EEOC in its efforts to identify pay discrimination and assist employers with providing equal pay in their workplaces. Members of the public haduntil April 1, 2016, to submit comments on the proposed changes. Should the EEOC elect to move forward with their proposal, the additional data will be required beginning in September 2017.
“More than 50 years after pay discrimination became illegal it remains a persistent problem for too many Americans,” EEOC Chair Jenny R. Yang said in a January press release. “Collecting pay data is a significant step forward in addressing discriminatory pay practices. This information will assist employers in evaluating their pay practices to prevent pay discrimination and strengthen enforcement of our federal anti-discrimination laws.”
Many employers have expressed concerns about the EEOC’s proposed changes. Some believe that the additional data reporting requirements will create an unnecessary and significant administrative burden for employers. Others don’t feel that the changes will be useful, as they say the EEOC has failed to address how they will account for a variety factors that impact individual pay such as performance, education and seniority.
While U.S. laws require equal pay for equal work, many women earn less than men when doing the same job. The gender pay gap has narrowed since the 1980s, when women only made 60 cents to every male dollar earned, but it’s still there. The latest figures, from 2015, show women making 80 cents to the dollar.
The pay gap is higher in some industries. A recent survey by Glassdoor found that female dentists, physicians, psychologists, pharmacists, medical technicians and opticians are often paid 14 to 28 percent less than their male colleagues. Female social workers, communications associates, social media representatives and research associates earn—on average—marginally more than males in the same role.
by jeffp | Apr 5, 2016 | Employee Benefits
Life expectancy is increasing, Social Security benefits are shrinking, and a recent study shows that 54 percent of Americans have too little saved to ensure an adequate income stream after they collect their last paycheck. Given these facts, you’d expect more of your workers’ New Year’s resolutions to focus on retirement—but that’s not the case.
According to the New Year’s Resolutions Survey from Allianz Life Insurance Company, 44 percent of respondents plan to put their focus on health and wellness this year. Only 29 percent were pledging to improve their financial security in 2016, followed by 13 percent who were going to make changes to their career or employment and 9 percent who were determined to enhance their education.
If you’re not currently offering benefits to help your employees meet this highly popular goal, you may want to do so as soon as possible. According to the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) Strategic Benefits Survey, 69 percent of companies offer some type of wellness program, resource or service to their workers. Among them, 40 percent increased their investment in employee wellness initiatives in 2015.
Their employees responded favorably; 52 percent reported that employee participation in wellness initiatives had increased over the prior year, in part due to the incentives or rewards they offered including:
- Reduced healthcare premiums (45 percent)
- Gift cards (37 percent)
- Company gift items (25 percent)
- Recognition (20 percent)
- Time off from work (7 percent)
- Bonus or cash (7 percent)
- Contributions to HSA/HRA (3 percent)
Assisting your employees with their health-related resolutions (such as to exercise more, lose weight or lower their blood pressure) can help you attract better job candidates and retain your best workers. Twenty-four percent of employee participants in the SHRM survey said workplace wellness programs were a “very important” contributor to job satisfaction.
But that’s not all; wellness initiatives are also good for your bottom line. Seventy-seven percent of employers said the initiatives had been “somewhat” or “very effective” in decreasing their company’s cost of healthcare. Eighty-two percent said the initiatives were “very effective” or “somewhat” effective in improving the physical health of their company’s workers—an important factor in productivity.
If you need a few suggestions to integrate into your own workplace wellness initiative, consider the following—some of which won’t cost you a dime:
- Walking meetings
- Onsite fitness classes
- Onsite preventative screenings
- Onsite fitness and weight loss tracking
- Departmental and interdepartmental weight loss competitions
- Walking or “Steps per Day” challenges
- Reimbursement for gym membership
- Stress management assistance
- Goal-setting assistance
- Support groups
- Healthy vending machine alternatives
- Mandatory vacation
- Group participation in community running and cycling events
If you’re ready to get started with a workplace wellness program, we can help. Contact us for further suggestions, currently available benefits and more.
by jeffp | Mar 22, 2016 | Employee Benefits
The number of women working in American businesses is continually increasing. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the U.S. workforce was only 38 percent female in 1970. The most recent numbers show women now make up 47 percent. Whatever your company’s industry, they likely account for a sizable portion of your staff as well. And while keeping all of your employees engaged in their jobs is necessary to reduce costly turnover, retaining your female workers may require slightly different tactics.
To start, more money isn’t usually the answer. Glassdoor’s currentU.S. Employment Confidence Survey results reveal that 82 percent of female employees would prefer additional benefits or perks over a pay increase (compared to 76 percent of the male workers).When asked to rank the benefits they’d prefer to see increased, healthcare insurance, vacation/paid time off, performance bonuses, paid sick days, retirement plans and flexible schedules topped the list.
Somewhat surprisingly, childcare assistance and paid parental leave ranked much lower than the rest of the options, with only 13 percent of the surveyed employees preferring additional benefits of that type.
Of course, the Glassdoor survey isn’t the final word in what your female workforce wants. Your best bet to ensure you’re offering the benefits they find most desirable it to ask. You can then use this information to fine tune your benefits package, creating the best possible combination of offerings within your budget to both attract and retain the experienced professionals—both male and female—your business needs.
Here are a few considerations generally noted as important to women workers:
- Flexible Schedules – Today’s professionals—both male and female—value schedule flexibility. From alternative work schedules (such as four 10-hour shifts a week) and telecommuting to flextime (which allows workers to set their own hours), providing schedule flexibility is the simplest way to help your workers achieve work-life balance.Depending on your industry, if you want to remain competitive in retaining and attracting top talent, you cannot afford not to explore ways to give your workers more flexibility in their schedules. Doing so will also help you decrease absenteeism, increase productivity, reduce employee stress and build trust.
- Family-Friendly Perks – For the last 30 years, Working Mother has ranked the nation’s top 100 companies for women with families. In 2015, women made up 46 percent of the workforce at the 100 companies selected, filling 43 percent of the management jobs and accounting for 26 percent of the companies’ executives. How do these organizations attract and retain so many top-notch female workers? In part, they offer family-friendly benefits such as:
- Full paid maternity leave (100 percent)
- Paid adoption leave (93 percent)
- Paid paternity leave (90 percent)
- Childcare resource and referral service (96 percent)
- Telecommuting (100 percent)
- Flextime (100 percent)
- Elder care referral service (99 percent)
- Travel planning services (84 percent)
- Dry cleaning services (64 percent)
- On-site flu vaccinations (96 percent)
- On-site fitness center (88 percent)
- On-site massage therapy (65 percent)
Are you finding it difficult to attract qualified job candidates and retain your best employees? Your benefits package could be the problem. Contact us today for a plan review and upgrade or enhancement suggestions.
