Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
What is COBRA? COBRA stands for the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, which was implemented as an amendment to ERISA (the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974). In most circumstances, COBRA entitles workers and other covered individuals to the option of continuing to receive their employer-sponsored group health insurance coverage for a limited time […]
Performance management is not only important for identifying your high potential employees, but it also has a great impact on your compensation programs and documentation practices. What’s happening with performance management in the real world? What are your competitors up to? Help us find out!
Despite two transit parity bills introduced so far this year on Capitol Hill, Congress so far has made no indication it will extend the mostly non-controversial proposal to equalize the tax breaks for qualified parking and mass transportation and vanpool commuting expenses. Both bills were introduced in the House and seek to amend the tax […]
Decades into reviewing the pluses and minuses of 401(k) defined contribution retirement plans, most employer plan sponsors have chosen to offer plan loans, which on the one hand give participants early partial access to their retirement funds but also threaten to erode those savings. A new paper suggests that plans’ loan policy can shape participant borrowing, […]
In yesterday’s Advisor, we presented results from our 2015 Perks and Insurance Survey. Today, more findings from the study, including what’s being offered for insurance among employers and how costs are being contained.
Benefits—they can be great assets to your recruiting program and boost your overall compensation package, but employers have to be ever mindful of costs. Read the results of our Perks and Insurance Survey to see how your practices compare with what other companies are doing.
An 83-year-old cashier who was replaced in her full-time job—by a machine—is not being a quiet member of the Silent Generation as she battles her employer for unemployment benefits and tries to find an appropriate new job after working for 67 years.
I’ve been accused of too often writing about sports in this blog. I guess that’s because sports have been such a big part of my life as a participant, coach, and spectator—but also because I subscribe to the idea that sports imitate life. In sports, as in life, there is success and there is failure. […]
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided that an insurance certificate was an official plan document that overrode the plan’s summary plan description. It shows that plans are vulnerable when they attempt to set out plan terms in the SPD only without corresponding language in the official plan document. For stronger plan design, the […]
The 2015 ERISA Advisory Council plans to build on a 2013 effort by devising new draft model notices and disclosures for lump-sum pension distribution offerings to participants and retirees. Instances of pension risk transfer — often referred to as “derisking,” from the plan sponsor’s point of view — are on the rise among single-employer defined […]