LizStevens, Author at Best Money Moves

How to Retain Hourly Employees

by LizStevens | May 28, 2019 | Blog

How to retain hourly employees. Research by Shiftboard uncovered what matters most to these workers to help you improve job satisfaction and reduce hourly worker turnover.

Half of hourly employees would take a pay cut for more control over their schedule or better health benefits, according to recent research by Shiftboard.

“There are nearly 82 million hourly workers in the U.S., and they make up more than half of the American workforce,” said Steve O’Brian, Vice President of Marketing at Shiftboard. “Nearly every sector of the U.S. economy is struggling to find and retain workers. Employers can leverage this report to better understand how to attract, motivate and retain hourly workers.”

Hourly Workers Want Work-Life Balance

Close to 80 percent of hourly workers agreed that work-life balance was necessary for job satisfaction. Almost 90 percent said it’s extremely important to have control over the days and times they are expected to work. Hourly workers aren’t looking to conform to a standard 40-hour work week, instead, they prefer to have the option to:

Work longer days to have more days off between scheduled shifts (89%)
Work a set number of hours without overtime being a requirement (78%)
Work more hours for more pay, as long as it’s not required (88%)

Exploring scheduling options that give hourly employees more control is a strategy that could potentially reduce turnover.

Pay Cuts for Better Health Benefits

More than half of hourly workers would be willing to take a reasonable pay cut for better health benefits. High out-of-pocket costs for healthcare have led to financial toxicity, which happens when Americans skip medications that could improve their quality of life because they can’t afford them. More than 40 percent of Americans don’t see a physician when they are sick or injured because of high healthcare costs.

Working with health benefits brokers to reduce out-of-pocket healthcare costs for hourly employees could be advantageous for employers aiming to boost retention for hourly employees.

Hourly Workers Want to Find Meaning in Work

Nearly 90 percent of hourly workers believe making a significant contribution to the success of their company is important to job satisfaction. More than 80 percent believe it’s important to receive joy from work and agree that feeling challenged at work is important for job satisfaction. An overwhelming majority of hourly workers believe having career growth opportunities is important for job satisfaction.

How to Retain Hourly Workers

“We’re finding that wages are only part of the equation. Employers need to look beyond obvious factors to effectively increase satisfaction and retention for today’s hourly employees,” said O’Brian.

Finding solutions that allow hourly workers more flexibility, developing more comprehensive health benefits, and communicating their value to the success of the company are three ways employers can improve retention for hourly employees.

More On Retention and Job Satisfaction

How Do You Improve Employee Retention?

What Do Employees Worry About?

Open Offices Are Trendy, But Are They Effective?

What You Need to Know About Employee Burnout

Are Employees Who Work From Home Happier?

How Do You Handle Management Issues?

2 Simple Strategies to Improve Office Culture

5 Must-Have Benefits for Millennial Employees

by LizStevens | May 22, 2019 | Blog

Two million students will graduate with a bachelor’s degree this year and enter the workforce. MAVY Poll surveyed recent graduates on behalf of the American Institute of CPAs to determine which employee benefits would most help them achieve their financial goals as they begin their job search.

“The job market, and therefore the employee benefits market, is constantly evolving. These days, finding the perfect job is about a lot more than money,” says Gregory J. Anton, Chairman of AICPA’s National CPA Financial Literacy Commission.

Top 5 Must-Have Employee Benefits for Millennials

5. 401(k) Retirement Fund Match was in the top three desired employee benefits for more than 35 percent of millennials. Recently, it’s become clear most Americans have not saved enough for retirement, if they’ve saved any at all, which might be motivating millennials to prioritize retirement funding.

“By beginning to save towards retirement as early as possible, new graduates will benefit from decades of compounding growth. Time is an asset, and those just starting their career are in a prime position to take advantage of it,” says Anton.

4. Working Remotely was in the top three benefits for nearly 40 percent of millennials. Flexible work schedules have become the new norm and millennial employees expect to have some sort of control over when and where they work.

3. Student Loan Forgiveness was an important employee benefit for over 40 percent of millennials. AICPA found nearly two-thirds of young adult job seekers have student loan debt, with an average debt of $33,332.

2. Paid Time Off was a benefits priority for 45 percent of millennials. General Mills recently overhauled their paid leave policy by tripling the length of paid maternity and paternity leave, introducing paid caregiver leave, and boosting bereavement and short-term disability benefits. Sharon DeTaeye, senior manager of human resources specialist operations at General Mills, says, “It’s an ongoing process, but we’re encouraged by the results we have seen so far.”

1. Health Insurance was the benefit millennials felt would most help them achieve their financial goals. Research by the West Health Institute/NORC at the University of Chicago found more than 40 percent of Americans didn’t see a physician when they were sick or injured because of high healthcare costs. Comprehensive healthcare plans that reduce out of pocket costs for employees will be highly attractive to millennial employees.

Millennials Split $100 Towards Employee Benefits

Millennials with student loan debt were asked to split $100 between paying a portion of their student loan debt versus a specific benefit and in all cases they preferred their employer put more money towards paying their student loan debt. Job seekers allocated $60-$80 towards student loan debt and the remaining $20-$40 towards a specific benefit like health insurance, paid time off, tuition reimbursement, life insurance, 401(k) retirement fund match and daycare.

More on Millennials and Employee Benefits

What are the Latest Trends in Benefits Strategies?

4 Big Employee Benefits Trends for Family Planning

What Benefits Do Employees Want in 2019?

Stress, Money and Millennials: Where’s the Pain Point?

Why Are Millennials so Distracted at Work?

Your Millennial Employees Aren’t Buying Homes Now. Here’s Why:

Millennial Employees’ Lifestyles Depend On Side Hustle

How to Reduce Stress in the Workplace: 3 Tips to Start

by LizStevens | May 15, 2019 | Blog

How to reduce stress in the workplace: 3 tips to start. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and here are three ways employers can reduce stress, boost morale and attract talent for better employee morale and a more productive workplace.

Forty-eight percent of employees have cried at work when stressed out, according to a recent report by Gin g er. More than 80 percent of employees say they are stressed on a regular basis and 45 percent of workers under 40 are extremely stressed on a daily basis.

Stress has a significant impact on morale and productivity in the workplace. Employees report that they are fatigued, anxious, lacking focus and engagement, irritated with coworkers, producing lower quality work, missing work and missing deadlines.

Less than 30 percent of the workforce seeks professional help for stress. Others cope with stress through self-help books, or worse, a third of employees don’t do anything. More than 90 percent of workers believe their employer should care about their emotional health and 85 percent look at behavioral health benefits when evaluating a new job.

Reducing stress and supporting mental health in the workplace is a win-win. There are three areas where organizations have an opportunity to tackle stress, boost morale and attract talent.

Boost Benefits to Reduce Stress

The good news is that 50 percent of employees are more likely to do something proactive about their emotional and mental health than they were 5 years ago. The bad news is that even if an organization offers behavioral health benefits, employees might not be able to use them. The most common barriers to care are high copays for mental health services and a lack of providers who are in-network.

Employers are getting creative to break through some of these barriers. Ocean Spray, which makes cranberry drinks and sauces, recently announced that it will waive behavioral health copays for its roughly 2,000 employees beginning this summer.

Other organizations are striving to give employees access to more providers who are in-network by adding onsite behavioral health clinics or telemedicine providers that offer on-demand teletherapy or telepsychiatry.

Reduce Stress with Office Environment

There are many elements of office design that can either increase or decrease stress. A recent study found that natural light or views of the outdoors were the most sought after office design perks, outranking onsite cafeterias, fitness centers and onsite childcare. Another study looks at how different colors can affect employee productivity and communicate messages about your brand.

Employers can also create a workplace culture that’s less stressful by encouraging employees to take five minutes a day to be less stressed. Whether it’s spent meditating, taking a walk, journaling, taking deep breaths, grabbing a coffee, or googling ‘ways to reduce stress’, it’s five minutes where employees can tune into themselves and get back to work with renewed focus and productivity. It’s only five minutes and it demonstrates to employees that you genuinely care about their emotional wellbeing, even if they don’t participate.

Flexibility to Reduce Stress

Half of workers report missing at least one day of work per year due to stress, anxiety, or some other emotional or mental health challenge. Organizations that offer more flexibility around scheduling can give employees an opportunity to slow down when they’re stressed out.

Flexible work arrangements provide employees with a certain flexibility in determining when and where they work. The two most common flexible work policies are work from home policies and unlimited paid leave policies. When an employer develops a new flex work policy it’s best to find the mid-point between organizational demands and workforce needs.

More on Stress and Mental Health in the Workplace:

Stress, Money and Millennials: Where’s the Pain Point?

How High is Work-Related Stress and What’s Causing It?

How to Support Mental Health at Work

Zombie Employees: Who Are They and What Do You Need to Know?

What’s the Best Move When Your Employees Are Stressed About Healthcare Costs?

Revealing Research on Financial Stress and Productivity

3 Employment Settlements for ADA Violations Explained

by LizStevens | May 8, 2019 | Blog

3 employment settlements for ADA violations explained. Learn about recent disability discrimination lawsuits, their outcomes, and how organizations can better accommodate employees with disabilities.

Three large employers were recently hit with significant legal settlements due to discriminatory hiring practices.

The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits employers from discriminating based on disability and requires that employees with disabilities be provided a reasonable accommodation, provided it does not put undue hardship on the employer.

It’s critical for employers, human resources and management to understand the legal ramifications of discrimination in the workplace.

Three employment settlements from this year give a closer look at how the ADA protects workers with disabilities and how organizations can better accommodate them.

Employment Settlements for Discriminatory Hiring Practices

Safeway, Inc. agreed to pay $75,000 to Joel Silbert to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Silbert is deaf and when he requested an interpreter for his interview the in-store hiring recruiter did not get back to him and instead filled vacant positions with hearing individuals. Safeway was found to be in violation of the ADA for failing to provide reasonable accommodations.

“I was excited when I was selected for an interview at Safeway,” said Silbert. “But when I requested an interpreter during my interview and placed multiple calls to the store over the following week, I was placed on hold or told no one was available. I felt so disregarded. I’m glad Safeway is taking steps to make their workplace more inclusive. This will make a difference for so many deaf applicants.”

Party City agreed to pay $155,000 for failing to hire a qualified employee with a disability in a lawsuit brought by the EEOC. The applicant, who was on the autism spectrum and suffered from severe anxiety, brought a job coach with her to a job interview and when the hiring manager learned of this they tried to cut the interview short and spoke to them in a patronizing tone.

Kevin Berry, director of the EEOC’s New York District Office, said, “Allowing this applicant to work with a job coach in her early weeks of employment would not have caused an undue burden on Party City. The ADA requires employers to make this type of reasonable accommodation so as to enable qualified people with disabilities to join the workforce, which is a win-win for everyone.”

Employment Settlement for Application Assessment

Blue Cross/Blue Shield (BCBS) of Texas agreed to pay $75,000 to Sheryl Meador to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit brought by the EEOC. A portion of their application process included an assessment with an audio portion that did not include captions or other visual accommodations for the hearing-impaired. Meador, who is deaf, contacted BCBS to request a reasonable accommodation, but they failed to communicate with her after her multiple attempts to follow up on the matter. In addition to the payout, BCBS will conduct annual training on the ADA and will inform applicants and employees with disabilities of their rights, including the right to reasonable accommodations.

EEOC Senior Trial Attorney Joel Clark said, “The non-monetary relief contained in the consent decree should help eliminate obstacles for other hearing-impaired applicants. We trust that the new policies and practices for hearing-impaired applicants will effect positive change for this health care services company. The EEOC wants to ensure that what Ms. Meador experienced does not happen again.”

More on Workplace Discrimination:

What Can You Do to Stop Age Discrimination in the Workplace?

Women in Tech: Financial Wellness and Workplace Equality

Women and Financial Stress in the Workplace: Why It’s So Important

What’s Wrong with Wellness Program Incentives?

4 Big Employee Benefits Trends for Family Planning

by LizStevens | Apr 30, 2019 | Blog

4 big employee benefits trends for family planning. What you need to know about family-friendly employee benefits like fertility services, paid maternity leave and childcare assistance.

More employers are offering family-friendly benefits like paid maternity leave and fertility services to attract employees in today’s competitive labor market, according to a report from the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.

“Employers are recognizing that all employees have lives and commitments outside of the workplace and are expanding their benefits to be more inclusive. These types of benefits help employees address work-life conflicts, while keeping them productive and engaged at work,” explained Julie Stitch, CEBS, associate vice president of content at the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans. “I expect we’ll see family-friendly benefits continue to grow as part of the larger trend of expanding work-life balance policies.’”

Family Planning Employee Benefits for Fertility

Fertility benefits aren’t just for big corporations anymore. Ten percent of employers with 50 or fewer employees offer some sort of fertility benefit (up from 4 percent in 2016). More than 30 percent of employers with 500 or more employees offer fertility benefits (up from 24 percent in 2016). Employers most commonly offer:

In-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments (23 percent)
Fertility medications (18 percent)
Genetic testing to determine infertility issues (15 percent)
Non-IVF fertility treatments (13 percent)
Visits with fertility counselors (9 percent)
Egg harvesting or freezing services (7 percent)

Paid Leave Benefits Are Expanding

Paid leave offerings are expanding as employers strive to meet the demands of employees’ personal lives. Maternity leave is offered by more than 40 percent of employers of all sizes, from employers who manage fewer than 50 employees to companies with more than 10,000 employees. More than 30 percent of employers now offer paternity leave (up from 24 percent in 2016) and more than 20 percent offer paid adoption leave.

It’s important to note employers are providing additional types of leave for different situations, for example:

Paid family/caregiving leave (17 percent)
Paid leave to attend a child’s activities (8 percent)
Unpaid family leave (34 percent offer this beyond FMLA requirements)
Unpaid adoption leave (26 percent)
Unpaid leave to attend a child’s activities (25 percent)

Flexible Scheduling Benefits for Parents

Flexible scheduling is a must, especially for parents. More than half of employers offer flexible work hours or compressed work weeks. Nearly ten percent of employers offer ‘job sharing’, where two or more employees share one full-time job. Employers also offer childcare benefits that resolve some of the need for flexibility and help parents cover the steep cost of childcare:

Resource and referral services for childcare (27 percent)
Emergency/sick childcare (7 percent)
On-site or near-site childcare (5 percent)
Childcare subsidies (3 percent)

Employee Benefits for Financial/Family Planning

Financial planning is a necessity for family planning. More than 70 percent of employers offer dependent care flexible spending accounts. Fifteen percent of employers now offer 529 savings plans that help save for children’s higher education. Over 10 percent offer scholarships or paid tuition for employees’ children.