Flexible work time makes employees less stressed and more productive

by Guest Author

Does flexible work time make actually employees more productive and is it feasible for your company? Guest author Pierce Ivory explores just how effective flexible work time can be for employers of all stripes.

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Employees are an essential part of every business. They will determine whether or not a company sinks or swims. If you have hard-working, productive, employees, then you’ll see a lot of success. Your business will work like an efficient machine, with all the cogs working in harmony. On the other hand, unproductive employees can be damaging to your business. They can slow your business down and mean you struggle to make any money.

It’s vitally important that a business knows how to manage their employees properly. This means ensuring they stay productive while caring for their health too. If your staff are stressed or in poor health, then it’s bad for them and your business. No one can work to their full potential when stressed; they become unproductive.

So, what can you do to make employees more productive and stress-free? Well, there are many ideas and theories out there surrounding this topic. However, I’m going to focus on something that’s become a recent phenomenon. The concept of flexible work time has been floating around the business world for years. Allowing your employees to be flexible when they work, as opposed to having a strict working schedule. There have been studies that suggest flexible working makes employees stress free and more productive. But, how? How can flexible work time do this? Well, I did some research and found out how these things are connected.

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Tip Tuesday! When it comes to employee engagement, ‘one-size-fits-all’ isn’t working

by Tim Gould

There’s bad news for organizations working hard to improve employee engagement: Overall, it’s still declining.  

With so much time and energy being focused on this issue, what is still going wrong? In order to get some answers, Quantum Workplace — a company that offers an employee feedback platform — conducted an in-depth survey to see the macro and micro trends in  employee engagement.

Their infographic below delves into how different types of employees’ engagement are driven by different factors.

The takeaway? It’s time to stop approaching engagement with “one-size-fits-all” strategies.

Some highlights include:

• In 2013, 68% of employees were engaged. That fell to 65.3% in 2015.
• Having leaders who are committed to making the organization a great place to work is the number one factor driving engagement.
• For employees between the ages of 26 and 35, having a job that allows them to use their strengths became more important. That factor jumped up 5 ranking spots as an influencer of engagement.
• While 72% of men and 67.9% of women are engaged, just 40.9% of employees of another gender identity are.

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EEOC issues final wellness rule: What’s allowed, what isn’t

by Christian Schappel

Finally, employers have the info they’ve been seeking on how to design their wellness programs so they don’t violate the ADA — or other federal laws. 

The EEOC has been promising for a while now to clear the air when it comes to what kinds of wellness incentives are legal — and when non-participation penalties become so steep as to render a wellness program “involuntary” and, thus, illegal under the ADA.

Now, more than a year after the EEOC issued a proposed rule on the subject, the final rule has dropped. (Spoiler alert: It closely mirrors the proposal.)

The problem

Here’s the problem the final rule was meant to address: When the ADA was passed in 1990, it said it was permissible for employers to conduct medial inquiries and examinations of employees as part of “voluntary” “health programs” (a.k.a., wellness programs). The problem was those two terms were never clearly defined.

Then along came HIPAA and the ACA, which said employers could offer incentives to encourage employees to participate in wellness programs — so that’s what employers did.

Fast forward to 2014. With healthcare costs skyrocketing, some employers got pretty aggressive in their wellness plans, tying bigger incentives (i.e., penalties) to non-participation.

Then the EEOC got the itch to start going after employer wellness programs it felt punished employees too harshly for not participating in wellness initiatives.

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DOL issues final OT rule: It’s more good news than bad

by Christian Schappel

Is the DOL’s new overtime rule going to be a burden for businesses? Yes. There’s no denying that. But compared to the original proposal, there are some things to be happy about. 

To be clear, we’re not saying employers should be excited for the rule. Rather, if you were expecting the final rule to be as daunting to comply with — or worse — than the proposed rule, there are some things to be happy about.

Specially, the good news is:

• The salary threshold was lowered. The proposed rule said the annual salary an employee had to be paid to be considered exempt under the FLSA would be $970 per week or $50,440 per year. That number has now been dropped to $913 per week or $47,476 per year.
• The threshold won’t increase every year. In its proposal, the DOL suggested tying the threshold to an automatic escalator, which likely would’ve resulted in the threshold climbing annually. Instead, the final rule says the threshold will increase every three years.
• Nondiscretionary bonuses count toward the threshold. Other than for highly compensated individuals, nondiscretionary bonuses haven’t counted toward an individual’s salary and, therefore, couldn’t help employers push workers over the exemption threshold. But the final rule emends the salary basis test to allow employers to use nondiscretionary bonuses and incentive payments (including commissions) to satisfy up to 10% of the new $47,476 salary level.

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Is your health plan out of compliance? 4 areas to check ASAP

by Jared Bilski

The sheer complexity of changing federal regs as well as the impact of recent landmark court rulings on benefits plans make assessing health-plan compliance a critical task that HR pros need to put at the top of their to-do list.

In fact, ERISA attorney Daniel N. Kuperstein is warning employers everywhere that most health plans aren’t fully compliant with the host of regs they’re subject to.

Almighty plan document

A proper assessment of your health plan starts with the plan document, Kuperstein says. Simply put: If your plan doc doesn’t gibe with how your benefits are actually provided to employees, you’re out of compliance.

Well-meaning employers will often get themselves into trouble by offering benefits and perks that aren’t detailed in the company’s plan document.

On top of an up-to-date plan document, employers have to make sure none of the language in their summary plan descriptions, benefits-related policies and benefits communications contradicts what’s written in the official plan document.

Some specific documents employers will want to review include: Employee notices, COBRA offerings and documents, FMLA info and health plan non-discrimination testing.

For a sample health plan compliance assessment checklist, visit. In addition, here are some major changes in the benefits world to keep in mind when it comes to compliance:

1. The ever-changing ACA regs

In this year alone, the feds clarified and changed several key aspects related to health reform reporting (e.g., COBRA coverage). Not being up to speed on even minor changes to the reporting rules can lead to costly mistakes (a $250 per return penalty up to a $3 million max).

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Tip Tuesday! 3 topics your 401(k) investment committee probably needs to revisit

by Tim Gould

Is your 401(k) investment committee doing everything it should? With the feds starting to take a more active role overseeing companies’ retirement plans, that’s a question that needs to be examined on a regular basis.  

As employers are well aware, the DOL has said a few execs acting as a plan sponsor isn’t enough to constitute an “independent review” of the plan and satisfy a plan sponsor’s fiduciary responsibilities.

Committees should be made up of a broad sample of the company. Example: A few senior execs (CFO or vice president), some department heads and HR or benefits reps.

The big 3

Here’s what a committee should be tackling on a regular basis, according to Mercer senior defined contribution consultant Bill McClain.

1. Government regs. In recent years, the feds have taken a strong interest in employers’ retirement plans. So committees must be able to understand exactly how these complex regs apply to their situations.

Because this often requires expert understanding, many committees go to a plan advisor for a simple breakdown of confusing reg issues.

Another best practice that helps with this topic: Looking at actual lawsuits and what the companies being sued could’ve done differently.

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6 add-ons any onboarding program would benefit from

by Christian Schappel

Finding talent — like really great talent — is hard. Great employees don’t come around every day. So when they do, are you 100% sure your onboarding program is making a great first impression with them? If not, you’re in trouble. 

Roughly one-third (31%) of the U.S. workforce has quit a job after less than six months, according to recent research.

One of the main culprits? Poor onboarding. Some employees were just never able to settle in — and it’s not always their fault.

Onboardia, an onboarding solutions provider, suggests some organizations are setting themselves up to fail by implementing a sub-par onboarding program — or having no such program at all (32% of surveyed employers said they have no formal onboarding program).

Some other interesting data compiled by Onboardia:

• 91% of managers said they believe their organization does not handle onboarding well
• 81% of HR administrators said the same, and
• 75% of employers admitted that too.

Solutions

So how can employers fix things? Onboardia created an inforgraphic (see below) with some helpful suggestions.

It offered up six says employers can improve how they bring new talent on board to spark comfort, loyalty and job satisfaction:

1. Make the process paperless (80%) of HR pros say the majority of new hire paperwork is completed in person (Note: By making it paperless employers can not only make filling it out easier, but also send it to employees prior to their first day — and get it out of the way early).

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