Satisfaction scores fall, Workers planning to quit increase: 4 reasons

December 14, 2011 by Christian Schappel

Employees are growing unhappier by the minute.

Nearly one in three (32%) of workers is considering leaving his/her job, according to a recent Mercer Study of 2,400 U.S. workers. That’s a sharp increase from the 23% that said they’d leave their jobs in 2005. 

Who’s the most likely to leave?

• Younger employees — 40% of those age 25 to 34 intend to quit, as well as 44% of employees 24 and younger.
• Men — 34% of men intend to leave their employers v. 30% of women.
• Managers — 37% of managers intend to look for work elsewhere v. 30% of non-managers.

Click Here to read more and find out why are so many employees willing to leave their present jobs? 

New legislation aims to stop impending health insurance tax

November 28, 2011 by Christian Schappel

After flying under the radar since the passage of healthcare reform, one of the law’s mandates recently sparked a huge controversy and a new piece of legislation. 

The reform law’s health insurance tax (HIT) is slated to take effect in 2014. It is a requirement that health insurance companies pay a tax on premiums written in the fully-insured market.

A new bill introduced in the Senate, The Jobs and Premium Protection Act, would repeal the HIT tax.

Opponents of the HIT have said it’s actually a tax on businesses, claiming insurance companies will simply pass the tax along to those purchasing fully-insured health plans — primarily small businesses.

A release on the website of Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), who helped introduce the bill, says 87% of small businesses purchase insurance in the fully-insured market, as do the self-employed and uninsured — and those are the three groups who will be hit hardest by the tax.

Click Here to read the full article.

Employees happy with benefits value, recommit to saving

November 4, 2011 by Christian Schappel

Nobody’s happy when the out-of-pocket costs they pay for their benefits increase (likely a common occurrence this year). But employees don’t seem to be unhappy with what they’re getting in return.

The number of employees who say the coverage they receive in exchange for the out-of-pocket costs they pay (including premiums) is “definitely worth it” or “probably worth it” is on the rise according to a recent Mercer study, which drew on survey data from multiple studies dating back to the spring of 2001.

In 2011, 86% of employees said what they pay out-of-pocket for their health benefits is “probably” or “definitely” worth it for the coverage they get. That’s compared to 83% in 2010, 73% in 2008, 69% in 2007, 78% in 2006 and 72% in 2005.

For some other interesting findings from the study and the complete article Click Here!

Critical question to ask wellness participants

September 26, 2011 by Christian Schappel

There’s one question many companies aren’t asking that could pinpoint who would benefit most from your wellness program.

The question: How stressed are you?

The Mayo Clinic asked 13,198 employees who participate in one of the clinic’s wellness centers to rate their stress levels on a scale of 0 (as bad as it can be) to 10 (as good as it can be), as well as answer questions about their quality of life, fatigue, exercise, diet, smoking and health problems.

More than 2,100 employees rated their stress level 3 or below. And when those highly-stressed employees were compared to the rest of the group they were found to have poorer health and more fatigue. 

The highly-stressed group was more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol and obesity.

Those in the high stress group also had less confidence than their peers in their ability to improve their health.

Improve their state of mind

As the research shows, stress levels are something employer wellness programs will want to monitor.

Some suggestions from the studies’ lead researcher Matthew Clark, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist at the Mayo Clinic: Find out which employees are in this at-risk group and offer them yoga, tai chi, meditation courses, stress management classes or sessions with a wellness coach who can help them improve their health.

Click Here for the original article and more links.

Employee loyalty weakens, benefits blames

August 2, 2011 by Christian Schappel

Employees may have hit their breaking point when it comes to the amount of benefits cuts they’re willing to accept without looking for other employment.

In 2008, 62% of small business employees said they felt a strong sense of loyalty to their employer.

Since then, they’ve endured a major recession, wage freezes and benefits cuts. As a result, in the fourth quarter of 2010, fewer than 50% said they felt a strong sense of loyalty to their employer.

And 34% said, flat out, they’d rather be working for another organization.

The reason so many employees are considering jumping ship: Nearly half of those surveyed blamed company benefits.

That data comes from MetLife’s 9th Annual Study of Employee Benefit Trends. The study consisted of two sets of research:

• An employer survey comprised of 1,508 interviews with benefits decision-makers at companies with staff sizes of at least two employees, and
• An employee survey comprised 1,412 interviews with full-time employees age 21 and over, at companies with a minimum of two employees.

Cost-shifting the culprit

It should come as no surprise that one of biggest reasons employees are unhappy with their benefits is that employers continue to shift more the health insurance cost burden on to employees.

In fact, more than a third of employers (36%) said cost shifting is one of their most important strategies — and close to two out of three companies (61%) recognize that shifting costs to employees is now an accepted practice, and is necessary if they are to continue to provide the benefits.

Voluntary benefits

A close look at the data did reveal one way employers may be able to strengthen employee loyalty: Provide voluntary benefits.

The study found about half of employees surveyed wanted their employers to make less prevalent benefits — like dental and disability coverage — available to them, even if it meant employees had to pay for them.

For more info and a complete breakdown for the 68 page study Click Here!

Tip Tuesday: Raises key to overall strategy to retain A-players

August 5, 2011 by Tim Gould

If there’s one change the recession’s caused in overall business practices, it’s gotta be this: The old “I’ve been here another year, so I’ll automatically get a raise” concept is gone.

According to a study from HR consultant MercerHR,  the average increase in base pay is expected to be 3.0% in 2012, up slightly from 2.9% in 2011 and 2.7% in 2010.

But for top-performing employees – just 8% of the workforce – salary increases will remain high as organizations struggle to balance relatively stable compensation planning budgets with retention of critical talent.

According to Mercer’s 2011/2012 US Compensation Planning Survey, 97% of organizations are planning to award base pay increases in 2012.

As organizations continue to struggle with balancing reward programs and limited budgets with the need to retain critical talent, they are segmenting their workforce and concentrating rewards on key and top employees, Mercer says.

As a result, the gap between high-performing employees and those in the lower performing categories is widening significantly. Mercer’s survey shows the highest-performing employees received average base pay increases of 4.4% in 2011 compared to 2.8% for average performers (54% of the workforce) and 0.4% for the weakest performers (2% of the workforce).

Controversial health reform study details released

The Obama administration did not like the picture McKinsey & Co.’s latest health reform study painted of life after the new law. But McKinsey is not backing down from its findings.

The controversial study found that 30% of all employers will “definitely” or “probably” stop offering their workers health insurance once the bulk of the healthcare reform law’s mandates take effect in 2014.

That figure jumps to 50% among employers with a “high awareness” of the reform law’s requirements, the study found.

Those findings did not sit well with the White House and other Democrats who pressured McKinsey to release its methodology.

Recently, McKinsey obliged by releasing the details of the survey on its site, along with a statement, saying: “We stand by the integrity and methodology of the survey.”

Click Here to read the full article.

Tip Tuesday! 4 things to say that’ll boost HRA participation

As you know, completing a health risk assessment (HRA) is one of the best first steps employees can take to start improving their health – not to mention lower your health insurance costs. But there are some common problems.

Employees are often reluctant to complete HRAs for three reasons:

• They’re unsure how completing an HRA will benefit them
• They don’t know how the info will be used, and
• They’re unsure what their employers’ motives are behind issuing the HRAs.

Employees are commonly concerned their answers will result in them paying higher insurance premiums.

Click Here to read the complete article.

Study Predicts How Much Health Costs Will Rise In 2012 | HR Morning

How much are you anticipating your healthcare costs to increase next year? 

PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) Health Research Institute estimates that healthcare costs will increase 8.5% in 2012 — and that’s on top of the 8% increase PwC says employers will endure this year.

Those figures come from the organization’s annual survey of medical cost trends. Participants included 1,700 companies from 32 industries, in addition to hospital executives and health plan actuaries.

Link: Read the whole article from HR Morning