Benefit management

5 strategies for raising workplace diversity

Teach for America – a nonprofit organization that facilitates teaching opportunities in low-income communities for recent college grads – has grown from a small organization since its launch in 1990 with just a few staff members to one that now employs 1,700 people in 43 regions across the United States.

Andrea Davis
By Andrea Davis
Editor-in-Chief
Employee Benefit News

As employers move to paid time off banks more research is needed

With the movement from traditional paid leave plans to paid time off banks, many employers may wonder if the switch is effective in managing employee absences. Nearly one in five employees in the United States receive leave in the form of a PTO bank, but the contours of such policies are often little understood — especially outside of the human resources community, according to a new study out by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and CLASP, a nonprofit that works to improve the economic security of low-income families.

Lisa V. Gillespie
By Lisa V. Gillespie
Writer

Amid financial downturn, Leviton kicks 401(k) plan into high gear

At the height of the financial market meltdown in 2008, Leviton — a global manufacturer of electrical wiring equipment — became concerned about employees going into panic mode and either stopping contributions to the company’s 401(k) plan or, even worse, withdrawing money that was already in the plan. It was during that time the company, which has 10,000 employees worldwide, started thinking about auto-enrollment.

Andrea Davis
By Andrea Davis
Editor-in-Chief
Employee Benefit News

Employers give more flexibility, but less money

Employers are giving employees more flexibility to work from home and work various hours as long as employees get work done, but they’re not willing to pay more for various work-life benefits. This is according to a new study released Monday from the Society for Human Resource Management and the Families and Work Institute.

Lisa V. Gillespie
By Lisa V. Gillespie
Writer

How to habla, parlez and hui shuo benefits

There were 48.4 million Hispanic people in the U.S. as of 2009, making it the largest ethnicity in the nation. On top of it, Hispanics make up 14.8% of the civilian labor force. Projections suggest that "language minority students" (those who speak a language other than English at home and who have varying levels of proficiency in English) will comprise over 40% of elementary and secondary students by 2030.

Lisa V. Gillespie
By Lisa V. Gillespie
Writer

Mobile tech presents big opportunity for HR

The perception that a connected, mobile workforce can never get away from work is eroding and employers and employees are becoming more comfortable with the advantages mobile technology offers, according to Doug Ring, chief technology officer with Peoplefluent, an HR software and technology company.

Andrea Davis
By Andrea Davis
Editor-in-Chief
Employee Benefit News

Treasury, IRS propose new lifetime-income options for qualified plans

Employers continue to move from traditional defined benefit pension plans providing monthly payments to 401(k) plans and other defined contribution plans providing lump-sum cash distributions. As a result, increasing numbers of retirees, now including baby boomers leaving the workplace, are faced with managing a cash distribution for 20 or 30 years and possibly running out of funds. Uncertain markets have made plan participants wary of their ability to maintain their nest eggs. …

Targeting soft skills yields hard returns for employers

Lyndsey Allen used to work across the street from Zappos' main office in Henderson, Nev. She'd sit in her cube, watching Zappos staffers stage impromptu parades around the parking lot in themed garb. She was perfectly content at her current job, but wanted something different. For six months, she prowled the Zappos job site and when a recruiter position opened, she pounced. A year-and-a-half later, she conducts phone interviews at a desk in the middle of the Zappos office, where those spontaneous parades now play an important part in her daily work.

Lisa V. Gillespie
By Lisa V. Gillespie
Writer

Communication in the cloud

The American Medical Association estimates that every year, $73 billion is lost in unnecessary health care expenditures due to poor "health literacy," the inability of consumers and employees to obtain and understand health care education.

By Kathleen Koster
Freelance Writer

Financial services catching up with small business retirement needs

Small businesses aren’t known for offering rich retirement plans; workers in firms with fewer than 100 employees are much less likely to have a retirement plan available to them than workers in large firms, according to the Small Business Administration. The financial services industry is making inroads to service small business retirement needs, however, most recently with the Merrill Edge Small Business 401(k) through Bank of America. This retirement solution offers small business owners, who generally have 401(k) plan assets under $250,000, a simplified, easy-to-manage retirement plan with lower costs than many traditional 401(k) plans, enabling small businesses to provide an important benefit to their employees.

Lisa V. Gillespie
By Lisa V. Gillespie
Writer

Juggling act

For large, self-insured employers, vendor management involves identifying and negotiating better arrangements with third-party vendors who administer benefits. A report from The Advisory Board Company shows that while vendor management is often overlooked by plan sponsors, the process can yield savings of between 5% and 10%.

Andrea Davis
By Andrea Davis
Editor-in-Chief
Employee Benefit News

New determination letter guidelines: The good, the bad and the yet to be resolved

Each January, the IRS updates several revenue procedures that prescribe the process for requesting determination letters for qualified retirement plans. For the most part, these have changed very little from one year to the next, except for increases in user fees charged. This year, the IRS made significant changes, which purportedly are intended to improve its efficiency. To understand why the new guidance involves both good news and bad news for plan sponsors necessitates a…

Seeking the gold standard

Today, employee benefit plans – and those responsible for administering and overseeing them – are facing greater scrutiny and more regulations than ever before. With the growth in the number of defined contribution plans, the Department of Labor is paying closer attention to how plan administrators and trustees discharge their legal obligations to prudently monitor plan investments, comply with the plan documents and exercise oversight over third-party vendors.

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