Category: Benefits and Compensation

This topic provides guidance on how to handle compensation issues in a way that attracts and retains the best talent and advances the strategic goals of your business. You get news and tips on what’s going on nationally and in the states, and updates on changes in regulations, possible governmental action, and emerging compensation trends.

HR Departments in Flux—What Are Best Practice Companies Doing?

For years, BLR® has surveyed HR and compensation/benefits professionals to find trends in policy and practice. We appreciate your participation in our series of brief, targeted surveys. Today’s survey topic: Your HR Department. (We’ll publish the results in a future issue.) Please participate in this brief survey and together we’ll get answers to these questions […]

Key Comp Issues: Alignment, Compression, and Risk

[Go here for questions 1 and 2] 3. What is the Alignment of Incumbents Within Their Pay Grades? Perform the following analyses, suggests Carroll: All positions in the organization compared to the midpoint (market) Positions within each pay grade compared to the midpoint (market) Analysis of incumbents within each pay grade compared to the midpoint […]

Compensation: Alignment, Compression, and Risk

Yesterday’s Advisor featured PayScale’s Stacey Carroll’s tips for compensation analytics. Today, more of her analysis tips, plus an introduction to the trusted compensation guide, , Employee Compensation in [Your State]. [Go here for questions 1 and 2] 3. What is the Alignment of Incumbents Within Their Pay Grades? Perform the following analyses, suggests Carroll: All […]

Judge Supports Employee Request for Benefit Details

By Jane Meacham Employers and plan administrators may want to err on the side of providing more information, not less. That is one of the messages behind a recent decision by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Western Division. In Arp v. Whirlpool Corp.,  Case No. 3:12 CV 770 (July 10, […]

C-Suite Won’t Buy In? You’re Talking About Comp the Wrong Way

Special from Atlanta–SHRM Annual Conference and Exhibition If your C-Suite suits won’t pay attention when you talk about your compensation program, says Payscale, Inc.’s Stacey Carroll, M.B.A., CCP, SPHR, you’re talking about compensation the wrong way. Carroll talks of one CEO who was frustrated about compensation. He had his 12 top people that he wanted […]

Groups Plead to Preserve Plans’ ERISA Discretionary Authority

Four groups — the ERISA Industry Committee, the American Benefits Council, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable — filed an amicus brief July 26 to urge 2nd Circuit judges to support the principle of deference to plan administrators’ decisions over benefit plans. When plans reserve discretionary authority in plan documents, courts must […]

Flawed COBRA/Leave Policy Still Leaves Employer With Unpaid Stop-loss Claims

An employer whose COBRA/leave policy did not align with a stop-loss policy’s terms continues to be on the hook for a COBRA qualified beneficiary’s medical claims that were rejected by the stop-loss insurer. The employer unsuccessfully appealed a lower court ruling that the claims were ineligible under the policy terms because they did not include […]

C-Suite Doesn’t Care? You’re Talking About Comp the Wrong Way

Carroll talks of one CEO who was frustrated about compensation. He had his 12 top people that he wanted to compensate well, but he couldn’t seem to afford to do it. He thought that setting up a formal comp program would interfere with his ability to do what he wanted, but Carroll said to him, […]

Employers, There’s a Right Way to Distribute MLR Rebates

Today was the final day for insurers to issue rebates for 2011 premiums (as required by health reform), so employers should know by now whether they got one. The next step employers face is passing the proper amount of the rebate on to employees. When rebates go to employers, the incentives favor applying the rebates to […]

Exec Comp—What to Expect for the Rest of 2012

Fichthorn , vice president in the Philadelphia office of Hay Group, was joined in his presentation at a recent BLR/HRhero webinar by Martin Somelofske, a senior principal in Hay Group’s Metro New York office. Fichthorn suggests that the following trends will characterize executive compensation in the upcoming year: Continued government interest and involvement, specifically through […]