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Benefits

Benefits

Regular People Return as Most Credible Trusted Sources, Study Finds

by on Feb 3, 2012, 1:27 PM  |  No comments yet
trustyourheartsample

Regular employees and “people like me” are once again among our top three most trusted, credible sources, according to the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer.

They’re back in the limelight after fading away last year, somehow losing ground to CEOs. But this year, things look much as they did in 2004, when regular folk vaulted to the top of the heap of credible spokespeople.

In health communication, the Regular Joe or Jane has continuously held a starring role. While we defer to medical professionals for information about health treatment, Susannah Fox of the Pew Internet & American Life Project has written that we look to people in our shoes — people like me — for emotional support and empathy, encouragement and care. This is particularly true for those who are living with a chronic condition, are acting as caregiver, or have experienced a medical crisis. It’s also true for those who have gained weight, had a pregnancy, or quit smoking. Read more…

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Benefits, Compensation

Why Do We Survey and Report Salary Ranges?

by on Jan 30, 2012, 11:45 AM  |  2 Comments
© Mike Kiev - Fotolia.com

A debate with a would-be client last week reminded me of a particular pet peeve, so I thought I’d trot it out here for discussion. (The would-be client is probably moving on to find herself a less combative consultant, but that’s a story for another post…)

Many salary surveys routinely collect and report salary range minimums, midpoints, and maximums. My question is: How is this information useful?

Even if you know how representative those ranges are of the overall set of pay practices (some surveys tell you the number/percent of companies reporting ranges, many don’t), you have no way of knowing: Read more…

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Benefits

Health Savings Accounts: Is It Time to Make a Change For Your Workforce?

by on Jan 27, 2012, 10:45 AM  |  No comments yet
healthcare-dollars

Last week’s mail started the avalanche of end of year statements and one of the first to arrive was my HSA statement.

I am lucky to be in pretty good health so I don’t mind having a high-deductible health plan. As a result, I also get to watch my HSA (health savings account) continue to build up year after year so this is one statement I usually look forward to opening.

But this past statement didn’t show much growth beyond the actual contributions and to make matters worse, there was a $2 monthly service fee that had been eating into the little bit of interest that had been posted. Since my employer funds a significant portion of my annual HSA contribution, I didn’t have a choice as to who the HSA plan custodian was when the account was opened. When we had switched to the HSA and high-deductible health plan a few years ago, a local credit union had wooed us with an easy-to-manage employer-funded HSA and even waived the account fee for the first 12 months. Read more…

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Benefits, HR Basics

How You Can Help Employees Cope With Their Medical Bills

by on Jan 23, 2012, 12:27 PM  |  No comments yet
Medical Costs

Flying home last week from the wintry Northwest, I heard lots of sneezing and sniffles from my fellow travelers.

Although we’ve been lucky to have such a mild winter so far, cold January weather usually brings with it the onslaught of cold and flu season. In a typical year, 5 to 20 percent  of the population in the U.S. will get the flu, according to www.flufacts.com , and some of your employees may end up with flu complications that may require a trip to the doctor or even hospitalization.

With the increased popularity of Consumer Driven Health Plans (CDHPs) that have a high deductible, many employees face out-of-pocket costs due to these flu complications or other medical expenses. Some employers have chosen to offset the high deductible found in a CDHP by funding a Health Reimbursement Account (HRA) or a Health Savings Account (HSA) with an employer contribution. Other employers offer their workforce the ability to set aside tax-free dollars in an HSA or Flexible Spending Account (FSA) through payroll deduction. Read more…

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Benefits, Compensation

Is Your Profit Sharing Plan Really a BINO (a Bonus in Name Only)?

by on Jan 20, 2012, 1:59 PM  |  No comments yet
i_love_profit_sharing

Jack Stack – the founder/CEO of SRC Holdings, author of The Great Game of Business, and considered by many to be the father of open-book management – has this to say about discretionary profit sharing plans (from the Inc. article The Problem with Profit Sharing). Note that bold emphasis mine:

By profit sharing, I mean the practice of taking a percentage of a company’s profits, putting it into a pool, and disbursing it to the company’s employees, usually sometime after the close of the year. Understand, I’m not saying that this is a bad thing to do, just that the benefits of doing it are limited. For openers, the recipients seldom know exactly how they helped generate the profits, beyond just doing their jobs. No doubt, they enjoy getting the money. They may even be grateful for it. But they aren’t likely to think or act differently because of it or to be greatly motivated by it. Read more…

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Benefits

Is Health Care Reform Comic Worthy?

by on Jan 18, 2012, 11:55 AM  |  No comments yet
healthcarereform

We love innovative ways to educate. Particularly around hairy concepts like health care reform. Check out these two we’ve recently discovered.

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Benefits, Compensation

Pay Boundaries: Do They Empower Employees — or Just Frustrate Them?

by on Jan 13, 2012, 11:45 AM  |  No comments yet
123RF Stock Photo

One of the challenges in compensation design and management is building programs that reward workers fairly, competitively and in ways that engage them in the success of the enterprise — without creating a sense of entitlement. Especially when it seems as though entitlement is hard-wired into our culture.

That’s why I read Whitney Johnson’s Harvard Business Review blog post Battling Entitlement, The Innovation Killer with such interest.

She speaks of all the ways we inadvertently reinforce that sense of entitlement — with our children, with our employees, even with our executives. And she points out that accountability, and the act of holding people accountable, is the direct opposite of entitlement. Then she shared a claim that really stood out for me, about innovation and about the downside of protecting people from limits and consequences Read more…

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Benefits, Global HR

Medical Tourism: Why It’s a Smart and Growing Option For Your Employees

by on Jan 12, 2012, 10:45 AM  |  No comments yet
123RF Stock Photo

What are your thoughts on medical tourism?

Would you travel abroad for a medical/surgical procedure? Would you do it if you could save 50 percent or more? Would you do it if the quality of care was the same if not better than the U.S?

A report by the consulting firm Deloitte estimates 878,000 U.S. travelers in 2010 went overseas for medical treatment of some kind, and they predicted this would rise to 1.6 million by 2012. Read more…

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Benefits, Rewards & Recognition

Key Question: Is Your Bonus Plan About Creating or Distributing Value?

by on Jan 12, 2012, 9:40 AM  |  No comments yet
123RF Stock Photo

I had a great conversation with a client yesterday who is working to shift her organization’s employee bonus plan from a purely discretionary one to one which will more directly engage employees in making the organization better.

This is an enormous change, as those of you who’ve done it or even contemplated it know. It goes right to the heart of the employee’s relationship with the employer — and to the core purpose of the pay program.

We talked about ways to have a conversation about this shift with top executives. I like to do it by positioning plan approaches as either value distribution or value creation in purpose. Read more…

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Benefits, HR News & Trends

New Study Shows Why Workers (and Employers) Really Need Lab Tests

by on Jan 11, 2012, 12:28 PM  |  1 comment
Lab tests

Quest Diagnostics is the leading provider of diagnostic testing, information and services. Recently, Quest conducted a study to answer the question many employers and employees ask: Why do we need lab tests?

“As a physician,” explained Harvey Kaufman, M.D., one of three study authors and senior corporate medical director at Quest, “I come across employees who say, ‘I’m great, I’m healthy, haven’t seen a doctor in 10 years.’ I say great, but you don’t really know what’s going on in your body. The only way to find out is to get tested.” Read more…

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