Employee Benefits Blog

If you think private healthcare exchanges are the cutting-edge solution to rising healthcare costs, think again. In reality, they are essentially a clone of the cafeteria-style benefit plans that date back to the 1970s. The main difference is the technology used to select and implement employee benefits.

Simply put, here's how a private exchange works: employers or exchange sponsors offer a package of coverage choices, define a contribution amount that acts as the employee's budget, and the employee selects how to allocate their budget dollars.

This basic process may seem like the answer to today's healthcare woes for both employees and employers. However, there are some important realities employers need to know about when it comes to providing healthcare through a private exchange. 

The face of the American workforce is changing. Thanks to comparatively higher fertility rates and increased immigration, Hispanics have nearly doubled their representation in the labor force over the past fifteen years. By 2050, Hispanics are predicted to make up as much as 30 percent of the American workforce. That means it's more critical than ever before that employers pay attention to the needs of their Hispanic employees when crafting their employee benefits packages. 

Better alignment between your benefits and your Hispanic workforce doesn't just benefit them; 63% of Latino employees give serious consideration to their benefits package when rating their job satisfaction. And as goes job satisfaction, so goes recruitment, retention, and employee engagement. By providing all your employees with a satisfactory benefits package, you can help ensure that your business runs at peak efficiency.

So does your industry employ a large percentage of Hispanic workers? Here are several ideas for improving your approach to benefits with this key demographic. 

Americans are concerned about the future of their health care system—and for good reason. It's projected that we will spend 4.5 trillion dollars on health care in 2019 and five trillion by 2022.

According to a recent study from the Society for Human Resource Management, 79 percent of employers that provide health insurance are "very concerned" about rising health care costs. HR professionals know health care concerns go well beyond the effects on the organization's bottom line. Health care benefits play a critical role in recruitment, retention, employee morale, and productivity.

Wellness programs have been around for decades, and their benefits are well-documented. Research shows they are responsible for a 28 percent reduction in sick days, a 26 percent reduction in health costs, and a 30 percent decrease in workers' compensation and disability management claims. If designed well (e.g. based on population health analytics, etc.), companies can potentially save $5.93 for every dollar invested.

Wellness initiatives and contests have been taken to a new level in recent years, with the emergence of wearable fitness trackers. On the surface, it seems that these trackers would eliminate any tendency to exaggerate activity performance, compared to using manual logs. However, where there's a will, there's a way. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) recently reported on wellness cheaters. What does cheating on workplace wellness contests say about the cheater?

We get many questions about how to increase employee engagement. While we believe that giving your workforce best-in-class HR benefits is one of the best ways to satisfy many workers, another way is to find ways to motivate workers who succeed better on a team.

As a manager, spend time looking for ways to help the team function as a whole. Use part of your time for planning positive activities, such as team-building and brainstorming sessions. You should also work to identify what makes groups of people function well together. In this post, we will examine three common issues with team performance that can reduce employee engagement: problems with communication, problems with goal setting, and personality conflicts.

Companies are always looking to improve the quality of life of their employees by using a variety of incentives. To this end, employers are increasingly open to making a number of quality of life allowances, from dogs in the workplace to catering healthier lunchtime meals.

This isn't solely done for the purpose of improving morale and well-being. Employers have noted a strong correlation between employee health and their productivity at work. But can employers start encouraging healthy employee habits outside of their 9-5 purview?

One area of focus for company wellness has been the sleep habits of their employees and how subtle tweaks can have a profound impact on employee productivity.

Internet-based virtual doctor visits and telemedicine health services are increasingly gaining acceptance among consumers. Just witness yesterday's $125MM acquisition of Scottsdale, AZ-based HealthiestYou by Teladoc as proof. In fact, it's estimated that there will soon be more than one million patients worldwide seeking online doctors instead of using traditional hospital visits.

This hard to ignore growth could place further pressure on doctors to update their health IT infrastructure and allow them to compete in the online medical space. Online doctors could help alleviate the cost of healthcare and improve the affordability of providing healthcare-related employee benefits. Many patients are opting for more informal online video meetings with their doctors in order to fit a doctor’s “visit” into their busy schedules.

Yes, this is the land of opportunity. However, a recent report from research firm Glassdoor found that employee benefits for Americans lag far behind their European counterparts. Researchers compared paid paternity and maternity leave, general paternal leave, paid holidays, paid sick leave, and unemployment benefits across 14 countries. While countries like Sweden, Finland, France, and the UK took the prize in numerous categories, the U.S. failed to shine in any of the areas analyzed.

Why should we care how U.S. employee benefits compare to other countries? It's doubtful your employees will move to another country just to get more paid time off. However, this trend is significant for U.S. companies looking to retain their talent. Here's why.

Suffering a net loss of over two million jobs in the past decade, the construction industry is still reeling from the aftereffects of the recession. Despite being in the midst of a steady and prolonged recovery (the number of construction jobs is expected to grow 19 percent through the year 2018, compared with 11 percent growth projected for all industries combined), a new generation of workers has sadly not yet embraced the industry as an option that affords exciting and viable career paths.

With turnover in the construction industry already about twice the national average, and increasing as the economy returns to full employment, construction owners need to retain their most valuable assets and one of their most important competitive advantages in the marketplace – their people.

Unlike other sectors reliant on technology-driven productivity, construction depends heavily on its skilled workforce for growth and profitability. With 68 percent of construction companies employing less than five people, keeping highly skilled employees is key to the success of these small businesses.

Video is a powerful medium. Moving pictures and sound capture our attention better than any other communication vehicle. When deployed in an office environment, video is a terrific choice for keeping employees engaged in otherwise dry topics, such as codes of conduct training or employee benefits.

Well executed, video can set the right mood and tone for any message - and it can make a business come across as far more professional and polished.

Many companies are already using video, most especially during their on-boarding process - new hire employees typically see their first corporate video within a few days of being hired. Companies at the forefront of this trend know that video effectively and consistently conveys messages, reduces costs, and sets the right tone for their brand.

Here are several other reasons to make the use of video more prevalent in your organization.