How 6 words turned an age bias lawsuit into a 6-figure retaliation payout

by Christian Schappel

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A western PA-based employer probably regrets that one of its managers uttered just six words to a shift supervisor. 

The manager approached Rudolph Karlo, who’d been brought in through a subcontractor, and said Karlo would be considered for a full-time position if he “made the whole thing go away.”

The “thing” the manager was referring to was an age discrimination lawsuit Karlo filed against the employer, Pittsburgh Glass Works.

Laid off after change in ownership

Prior to the manager’s comment, Karlo was an engineering specialist and production line supervisor for the company until March of 2009.

It was at that time, which was shortly after a reshuffling of company ownership, Karlo and about 100 other workers were terminated as part of a company-wide workforce reduction, according to a report by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Karlo and six other men in their 50s reacted by filing an age discrimination lawsuit. The suit claimed Pittsburgh Glass Works was populating production facilities with younger workers at the expense of older workers.

Then, in the fall of 2009, Karlo was rehired through a subcontractor to work at one of the company’s plants in East Deer, PA, as a shift maintenance supervisor.

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Do Obama’s new ‘Cadillac Tax’ changes go far enough?

by Jared Bilski

Consistent criticism about the ACA’s “Cadillac Tax” and its corresponding calculation method has led the Obama administration to do something that was unthinkable just months ago: Propose major changes to the controversial health reform provision.

Part of the administration’s budget proposal for FY 2017 includes a tweak to the current threshold for the Cadillac tax.

Prevents ‘unintended burdens’

The crux of the changes would address the inherent unfairness of having a single excise tax threshold that applies to plans when there is such a great contrast in healthcare costs throughout different geographic locations.

On the New England Journal of Medicine website, Jason Furman, chairman of the administration’s Council of Economic Advisers, and Matt Fiedler, the council’s chief economist, detailed how, under the proposed changes, the tax would be adjusted based on the cost of the average gold plan available on the state exchanges by saying:

The most significant provision specifies that in any state where the average premium for “gold” coverage on the state’s individual health insurance marketplace would exceed the Cadillac-tax threshold under current law, the threshold would instead be set at the level of that average gold premium. This policy prevents the tax from creating unintended burdens for firms located in areas where health care is particularly expensive, while ensuring that the policy remains targeted at overly generous plans over the long term if health costs rise faster than the tax thresholds (which will rise with the overall Consumer Price Index).

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Tip Tuesday! What’s the real ROI on your benefits programs? How to find out

by Guest Author

Given the ever-increasing costs of employee benefits programs — and the need to maintain them in order to attract the best talent — it only makes sense to know exactly what you’re getting for your benefits buck. Guest poster Brenden Mielke explains how analytics can help.  
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As big data continues to drive business decisions, professionals in every vertical are scrambling to make sense of the numbers to determine how time and resources should be spent more efficiently.

According to PwC’s 2012 Annual Global CEO Survey, more than 80% of US CEOs said they needed critical talent-related insights to make business decisions. When surveyed this year, however, only 46% said their companies used data analytics to indicate how effectively skills are being deployed.

While advances are being made in the technology needed to interpret big data, the realm of benefits and reward analytics remains primarily unexplored – until now. It’s a massive opportunity to not only maximize efficiency in corporate benefits spending, but to use the insights as a basis of creating a more engaging employee facing benefits platform.

A more rewarding benefits package traditionally translates into increased employee engagement and satisfaction, which in turn drives up business productivity and client satisfaction.

The problem – despite the goldmine of talent information most employers sit on – lies in that businesses either lack the foresight to see the long-term potential benefits, or they don’t have the proper technology needed to break down data for decision making. This is surprising, considering the investments made in benefits packages make up a significant percentage of talent-related spending.

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Study: Additional time off resulted in worker performance gains in 3 areas

by Christian Schappel

Sure, you know there are personal benefits to getting rest and relaxation — like less stress and fatigue. Now here’s some compelling proof there are also measurable business benefits to getting your employees to take some R&R time. 

It comes by way of Stay Metrics and the trucking industry. The business management consultancy that serves the industry collected data on 682 drivers employed by one of its clients.

Stay Metrics looked at the time-off requests that were met for those drivers and analyzed down time’s effects on three driver performance metrics:

• bonus rate
• miles drive, and
• total bonus pay.

What did the analysis find? Measurables in all three areas improved when employees time-off requests were honored, reported FleetOwner.

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A list of the Top 20 employee perks you’re probably not offering

by Tim Gould

We’re all aware that generous benefits packages are an effective enticement for potential hires. But are you willing to go as far as these companies to sweeten employee perks?  

Glassdoor, the online jobs board and employee research firm, recently unveiled a list  — compiled from current employees — of the Top 20 benefits offered by companies across the U.S.

Try these babies on for size (and perhaps add one or two to your benefits wish list):

1. Netflix offers one paid year of maternity and paternity leave to new parents. They also allow parents to return part-time or full-time and take time off as needed throughout the year.
2. REI encourages its employees to get outside by offering two paid days off, called “Yay Days,” a year to enjoy their favorite outside activity.
3. Salesforce employees receive six days of paid volunteer time off a year, as well as $1,000 a year to donate to a charity of their choice.
4. Spotify provides six months of paid parental leave, plus one month of flexible work options for parents returning to the office. The company also covers costs for egg freezing and fertility assistance.
5. World Wildlife Fund employees take Friday off every other week, also known as “Panda Fridays” at the nonprofit.
6. Airbnb, the Best Place to Work in 2016, gives its employees an annual stipend of $2,000 to travel and stay in an Airbnb listing anywhere in the world.

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Obama enlists EEOC in the fight against pay discrimination

by Jared Bilski

President Obama has made it clear that equal pay is one of his top priorities, and his latest action should go a long way to advancing that goal. It’s also likely to add a significant amount of administrative work for HR and benefits pros.

  

On the seventh anniversary of the Lilly Ledbetter Act, the Obama administration announced that it is taking some monumental steps to identify potential pay discrimination.

The first: Enlisting the help of the EEOC to procure more detailed payroll data from employers.

The EEOC — in partnership with the DOL — issued a proposal to start collecting pay data from employers with 100 or more employees to help uncover and root out pay discrimination.


And the feds plan to garner that info through a revised version of its Employer Information Report or EEO-1 Report. As most HR pros are well aware, the EEO-1 is a compliance survey — a survey that, with limited exception, is required for all private employers (including federal contractors) with 100 or more employees — where employers report employment data categorized by race/ethnicity, gender and job category.

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Tip Tuesday! Steps to Successful Employee Communication [Video Blog]

Posted by Tom Ceconi

According to management expert and dean of Harvard Business School, Nitin Nohria, communication is the real work of leadership. And that doesn’t apply only to Fortune 500 companies. No matter the size of the organization, effective managers must be strong communicators to inspire and lead their teams. Unfortunately, with day-to-day business demands, communication skills are getting short shrift at too many companies. Today we’re going to give you a communication tune-up—a set of strategies and suggestions that will help keep your communications efforts on point.