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.

How the New Workforce Is Changing Incentive Compensation

Millennials employees are no longer a novel concept. As Scott T. Rollin notes in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, they’ve begun to move into middle management and other key employee roles. Coupled with employers’ worries about hiring and retaining qualified workers, the result is a mounting concern about how to compensate key Millennials.

401K

401(k) Hardship Withdrawal Rules Explained

To ease employees’ concerns about access to their elective deferrals in the event of a financial emergency, an employer may provide for hardship withdrawals in its plan. This can provide some peace of mind during difficult times.

5 Ways to Ease Open Enrollment Stress for Employees

We’re right in the middle of open enrollment season, which can be a confusing and stressful time for your employees as they make their selections for the coming year. Arm them with the right knowledge and tools for a successful open enrollment period and they’ll thank you for it— after all, healthy employees are happy […]

Saving

DOL Extends Transition Period for Fiduciary Rule Exemptions

On November 27, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced an 18-month extension—from January 1, 2018 to July 1, 2019—of the special Transition Period for the Fiduciary Rule’s Best Interest Contract Exemption and the Principal Transactions Exemption, and of the applicability of certain amendments to Prohibited Transaction Exemption 84-24 (PTEs). This extension follows public comment […]

Mandatory Vacation Might Juice Your Employee Productivity

The past several years have seen employers of all kinds dabbling in nontraditional types of paid leave. One of the more notable offerings has been unlimited vacation time, but research has found that such leave is actually counterproductive—peer pressure prevents most employees from actually taking advantage of it.

trends

Popular New Benefits Reflect Changing Workforce

In the ongoing battle for benefits supremacy, employers are increasingly offering perks that probably never would have even crossed their minds just a decade ago. As with so many changes in the workplace these days, the shift has been prompted by Millennials, who are drawn by more than the bottom-line salary.