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.

Big Bang Theory of Pay for Performance

The Forces of ‘Sameness’ Many factors have created the strong pull towards sameness in compensation: Talent shortages in 1996-1999, 2004-2007 Greater availability of data More effective tools to manage data comparisons Regulations and government scrutiny (Why do you pay the way you do? The easy answer is we do it like everyone else, Kochanski says.) […]

Free Compensation Report: Market Pricing Versus Job Evaluation: Why Not Both?

The Compensation Daily Advisor® announced today the release of a free report for compensation professionals, Market Pricing Versus Job Evaluation: Why Not Both?, which provides a strategy to help employers integrate job evaluation and market pricing tools. The exclusive special report examines the two tools in tandem – rather than as competing strategies. Market pricing […]

CLASS Dismissed: Health Reform Law’s LTC Program Tabled

I’ve read how, due to the cost of administering long-term care (LTC) insurance, some private-sector vendors are either revisiting that benefit  or jacking up premiums — partly because not enough people are signing up to sufficiently spread the risk, and costs, around. Well, the federal health reform law included a lofty goal of establishing a […]

401(k)s Under Assault — What Are Best Employers Doing?

For years, BLR® has surveyed HR and benefits professionals to find trends in benefits. We appreciate your participation in our monthly series of brief, targeted benefits surveys. Today’s survey topic: 401(k) Plans. (We’ll publish the results in a future issue.) Please participate in this brief survey and we’ll determine just how employers are handling their […]

Premium Subsidy Extension Passes Congress

A bill that would extend premium subsidies for health coverage under the Health Care Tax Credit (HCTC) program has been passed by both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, meaning it’s on the way to President Obama’s desk. The HCTC was enacted as part of the Trade Act of 2002. As originally enacted, it […]

Pulled in 2 Directions: The Cost of Uniform Coverage Summaries

Health reform’s uniform summary of benefits and coverage (SBC) will cost insurers and third party administrators (TPAs) about $160 million over the next three years to develop, update, and provide the SBC and glossary to applicants and enrollees, its agency drafters estimate. That includes $25 million in 2011 , $73 million in 2012 and $58 million in […]

What Do These Protesters Augur for Jobs and Benefits?

Last week I caught wind that some protesters were causing a street closure at the corner of 16th and I Streets, N.W., in Washington, D.C., a block from the White House and, as luck would have it, a block — in the other direction — from the editorial offices of Thompson Publishing Group. I grabbed […]

Dealing with ‘I-Deals’—Managers’ Special Arrangements with Individual Employees

I-deals are idiosyncratic “deals” that managers make with individual employees. They’re hard to stop, but it’s worth trying, says Greene, who is CEO of Reward $ystems Inc., in Glenview IL. Greene’s remarks came at the recent 2011 World at Work Conference in San Diego. Idiosyncratic “Deals” With Individuals/Groups Competitive talent markets increase the pressure to […]

Are your retirement plan’s fees excessive? Failed participant suits may inform plan sponsors

Federal courts on numerous occasions in the last two years have dismissed plan participant allegations that their employers charged excessive retirement plan fees. The rulings taken together say: If a plan is not enriching itself at participants’ expense — or operating with a conflict of interest in relation to its investment company — then it’s […]

Big Bang Promotions, Execution, and Carve-Outs

In yesterday’s Advisor, consultantsMyrna Hellerman CCP and Jim Kochanski  discussed how Big Bang companies broke out of sameness; today, their take on carve-outs and promotions, plus an introduction to a unique 10-minutes-at-a-time training system for your managers and supervisors. Hellerman and Kochanski, who are Sr. Vice Presidents at Sibson Consulting, offered their tips at WorldatWork’s […]