If your company offers retiree health benefits, listen up.
Congress' House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing last week in an attempt to preserve retiree health benefits.
H.R. 1322 would disallow profitable employers from canceling or reducing previously promised retiree health benefits.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Tip of the Day: Eco-Friendly HR
Companies across the - Sign up for direct deposit and eliminate the printed pay stub and payroll reports.
- Enroll in an online training course and eliminate lengthy training guides. Online classes also provide flexibility to engage classes at the convenience of the employee.
- HR executives can provide employees the capability to view and update information electronically such as personal data, licenses and certifications, benefits changes and PTO, eliminating the paper trail.
- Employers can use a Web-based platform to alert employees of updated corporate policies, vacation schedules, new hires, birthdays and more.
- Upload all company specific documents, including your company handbook, W4 form, 1-9, and any internal documents for effortless employee accessibility.
News You Can Use: More tips for talking about the financial chaos with workers
Here are some more tips on what to cover when talking about the financial crisis with employees courtesy of Lynn Unsworth and CAI, a Greensboro, N.C.-based employer services group.1) Don’t give employees financial advice.
2) Educate employees on their options.
3) Bring in investment advisors to meet with employees.
4) Help employees avoid looking at their 401(k) performance every day.
5) Release a benefits statement to all your employees.
6) Reassure employees that their money is safeguarded.
Listen to our conversation with Unsworth to hear her elaborate on each of these suggestions.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
News You Can Use: Open Enrollment Trends
We know that one of two things are probably on your mind at all times (three, if you live in DC like we do) .... open enrollment, the economy and the election.
But since you're likely too busy to see the forest for the trees, we're continually blogging during your busiest times, bringing you short news bites to be easily digested on coffee breaks.
Today, check out what Watson Wyatt predicts will be the hottest trends in Open Enrollment for 2009:
- Increased emphasis on improving personal health.
- Value-based prescription drug benefits and a shift to co-insurance.
- Greater access to onsite clinics, retail clinics and health coaches.
- Health savings accounts linked to high-deductible health plans.
- Full coverage or low copayments for preventive screenings and tests.
- Greater use of new media to communicate benefit information.
- Spousal surcharges.
Tip of the Day
To win at "Survivor: Renewal Season," the ladies from EBN's "Both Sides of the Desk" column offer their advice to help benefit managers outwit, outlast and outplay.
Scone: What about my money?
No matter your opinion on who’s to blame for the current financial crisis, the pending bailout legislation and which of the two presidential candidates can best lead us out of this economic turmoil, there is one issue I believe we all can agree on: We need to protect our retirement savings.
Your employees may have started asking you about the safety of their 401(k) assets, and if they haven’t, they likely soon will. I know that was my first consideration after the rollercoaster that has been the last week. No matter who got what in the bailout deal for Wall St., I wanted to know: What about my money?
I don’t even have a great deal of retirement savings accumulated in my 401(k), and I’m more than 30 years away from retirement. But knowing how important those assets will be to my financial future, my interest in the current stock market crisis was protecting my nest egg.
Your employees are no different, and they need to hear from you – right now – on how to take the appropriate steps to secure their retirement in terms of the new financial reality we’re faced with.
Now, I know the last thing employers want to do is tell someone how to manage their money -- for legal reasons, of course, as well as the fact that benefit managers may have the exact same questions as the people looking to them for guidance.
So, I encourage you to seek the counsel of your company’s 401(k) provider. Tell them it is paramount that they distribute new communications that address plan participants’ concerns, and make financial advisors available – ideally in person – to listen and answer questions.
If you can’t do that, at the very least view and distribute to employees this article and video from ABC News, anchored by the network’s personal finance expert Mellody Hobson. In addition to being contagiously upbeat and calming, Hobson lays out in plain English five key tips 401(k) participants “must know” about their accounts and how to manage them through this crisis. She also wrote a related piece on how people should handle their investments in general. They are both outstanding.
This is a delicate moment in our nation’s financial history. We all know that nationally, about 80% of eligible workers contribute to a 401(k), and those that do generally don’t contribute enough. Less than a majority of small businesses, although they employ a majority of the nation’s workforce, offer a retirement plan at all. And now, workers that do contribute are facing significant losses. Although these are difficult, and somewhat scary, economic times we find ourselves in, we cannot slide further behind in terms of retirement readiness. I urge you to do your part.
While history likely won’t note whether or not executives at the currently troubled firms received enormous golden parachutes, it will judge whether ordinary Americans were allowed to crash to the ground, armed without even the basic parachute of sound advice and guidance.
Your employees may have started asking you about the safety of their 401(k) assets, and if they haven’t, they likely soon will. I know that was my first consideration after the rollercoaster that has been the last week. No matter who got what in the bailout deal for Wall St., I wanted to know: What about my money?
I don’t even have a great deal of retirement savings accumulated in my 401(k), and I’m more than 30 years away from retirement. But knowing how important those assets will be to my financial future, my interest in the current stock market crisis was protecting my nest egg.
Your employees are no different, and they need to hear from you – right now – on how to take the appropriate steps to secure their retirement in terms of the new financial reality we’re faced with.
Now, I know the last thing employers want to do is tell someone how to manage their money -- for legal reasons, of course, as well as the fact that benefit managers may have the exact same questions as the people looking to them for guidance.
So, I encourage you to seek the counsel of your company’s 401(k) provider. Tell them it is paramount that they distribute new communications that address plan participants’ concerns, and make financial advisors available – ideally in person – to listen and answer questions.
If you can’t do that, at the very least view and distribute to employees this article and video from ABC News, anchored by the network’s personal finance expert Mellody Hobson. In addition to being contagiously upbeat and calming, Hobson lays out in plain English five key tips 401(k) participants “must know” about their accounts and how to manage them through this crisis. She also wrote a related piece on how people should handle their investments in general. They are both outstanding.
This is a delicate moment in our nation’s financial history. We all know that nationally, about 80% of eligible workers contribute to a 401(k), and those that do generally don’t contribute enough. Less than a majority of small businesses, although they employ a majority of the nation’s workforce, offer a retirement plan at all. And now, workers that do contribute are facing significant losses. Although these are difficult, and somewhat scary, economic times we find ourselves in, we cannot slide further behind in terms of retirement readiness. I urge you to do your part.
While history likely won’t note whether or not executives at the currently troubled firms received enormous golden parachutes, it will judge whether ordinary Americans were allowed to crash to the ground, armed without even the basic parachute of sound advice and guidance.
News You Can Use: Information on the financial crisis
Unless you're living under a rock, you know that Washington and the economy are top on everyone's minds. Employers like yourselves are likely wondering what to tell your employees about the health and safety of their jobs, let alone their 401(k)s and 403(b)s.Editor-in-Chief Kelley Butler promises to issue a must-read Scone posting on that subject later today. But before you read about what to do, you need to get up-to-date.
So check out these must-see updates from this morning's newscasts.
- The Senate votes on a bailout plan tonight. See this morning's Today Show coverage live from Washington.
- The New York Times talks about the bailout. (Updated regularly).
- What small businesses are doing with the credit crunch, via The Washington Post.
- Even if it's bad news, you still want to know what the markets are doing. Check it out here, via the NYT stock info page.
- Want the best and most up-to-date banking news? Our sister publication, American Banker gets the scoop before all other major news outlets.
- Senator Dodd talks bailouts, via CNN.com.
- Interactive map showing how the US economic crisis is affecting the global economy, via MSNBC.
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