As Americans, the freedoms we enjoy every day are largely thanks to those that serve and protect our country. Unfortunately, when many veterans come back from serving, the transition to civilian life is not an easy one.

According to the Department of Labor, the veteran unemployment rate in 2015 was 5.8 percent. The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs goes on to state that veterans make up 11 percent of the adult homeless population in this country.

Group Management Services President Mike Kahoe recently made an appearance on The Steve Harvey Show’s Veteran’s Day Special. The show featured Ashley, a 30-year-old Navy veteran who was honorably discharged a year prior. She had a degree in psychology and a passion for helping others in her position with the hopes of a career in Human Resources. She was struggling to find work until Mike stepped in and offered her a position with Group Management Services. 

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The recent election marked the end of a long, grueling, and divisive campaign season, and employers are now faced with the task of uniting their workforce back towards their common goal. Regardless of your personnel, everyone’s political beliefs are not always going to be the same.

In a 2016 study by the Pew Research Center, “More than half of Democrats (55%) say the Republican Party makes them “afraid,” while 49% of Republicans say the same about the Democratic Party.”

As Group Management Services President, Mike Kahoe stated in a recent Wall Street Journal article on the subject of his largely conservative group, “They’re not doing obnoxious high-fives” in regards to the Trump victory. 

As a Professional Employer Organization with a focus on Human Resources, it was evident that employees on both sides kept things respectful throughout the election process. This is not always the case at other businesses, so some employers take actions to avoid any issues. 

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Did you know that 75 percent of all healthcare costs are attributed to preventable conditions? Imagine the burden this places on employers and their healthcare costs. Here is what the numbers are saying:

• 45 percent of Americans suffer from at least one chronic disease.
• More than two-thirds of all deaths are caused by these five chronic diseases: heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and diabetes.
• Treatment for chronic disease constitutes roughly 96 cents per dollar for Medicare and 83 cents per dollar for Medicaid.
• More than one in four Americans have multiple chronic conditions (MCC), and this number is continuing to grow.

Chronic disease, by definition, is a disease that typically lasts three months or longer. In most cases, chronic conditions can be controlled but not cured. In fact, it affects 1.7 million lives each year, being the leading cause of death and disability in the United States. Many people assume this is only affecting the elderly, but in the past 10 years, working aged adults being diagnosed with chronic diseases increased by 25 percent. This epidemic is having a strong effect on the cost of healthcare. A study performed at Milken Institute examined the relationship between chronic disease and absenteeism among full time workers. The study focused on seven different diseases and found that the indirect costs of chronic diseases (such as missed days away from work) are higher than the direct cost to treat them.

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Considering all of the recent healthcare regulations, now is a better time than ever to consider a self-funded health plan. Self-funding your health insurance is a long-term strategy to save money, gain total control over your plan, and may offer immediate savings.  

It is a common misconception that self-funded health plans are only advantageous for large employers. In a traditional self-funded arrangement, small employers weren’t able to absorb the risk on becoming self-insured due to potential losses. By self-insuring your plan coupled with a stop loss policy (also known as a catastrophic policy), you mitigate your financial risk while allowing your plan to reap all of the benefits. Stop loss policies allow employers to evaluate potential savings and maximum exposure by becoming self-funded. Prior to stop loss insurance, the potential savings were estimated and max exposure was an unknown.

Group Management Services offers stop loss insurance that allows small employers to be rated on their own medical applications while experiencing savings due to our economies of scale. This means we’re able to offer lower stop loss premiums due to our volume, but your premiums aren’t affected by other plans should they not do as well as yours.

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You’ve probably heard the old adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

I remember in my youth that my grandfather swore by this philosophy. He was very particular when it came to what he owned and how to maintain it, as he lived through the depression and he was cheap! Fast forward a few years to where my grandfather trusted me to mow his lawn. Now by trust I mean he sat in his lawn chair, watched, and critiqued each and every pass I made. Like I said, he was particular.

That Christmas my family got my grandfather a new lawnmower and the first thing he said was, “That manual one still works fine. Matthew was able to mow all summer without any issues.” Now there were issues: the mower was ancient, rusted, and dull. All signs pointed to the fact that a change was necessary BUT would gramps be open to it?

The next summer I was not asked once to come mow his lawn. My grandfather religiously mowed it every week because, as he stated, “This thing is a gem! It’s like I’m not even putting forth effort and my lawn looks the best I’ve ever seen it!”

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Business jargon is everywhere, but that doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily helping your employees. Jargon is a way to condense interesting ideas into short sound bites so that business people could easily convey messages without lengthy explanations. Unfortunately, using jargon doesn’t always work out that way and can end up negatively affecting your employees.

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You need to identify problems before you can fix them. Inefficiencies, non-compliance, and other issues with HR policies can hurt your business, especially when you’re not sure why they exist. Fortunately, you don’t need a private-eye to get to the bottom of this mystery. What your company could use is a good human resource audit.

Professional Employer Organizations can perform HR audits and provide recommendations on where you can improve. Here are three reasons why it might be time for your business to undergo an HR audit.

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It can be hard to seek help when you don’t know who you should ask. Business owners can spend countless hours trying to manage their business’ HR functions. Fortunately, PEOs can help save them time and money while offering professional management services that can strengthen their business. The important part is to find the right PEO partner for your business. Here are some questions that owners should ask when looking for HR help.

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The health and fitness industry is growing in the corporate world; yet preventable diseases are still the leading cause of skyrocketing healthcare costs for employers and their workforce.

Here at Group Management Services, we do our best to design a program that is suited for everyone and every population. Our main priority is to help your employees achieve their personal health goals without interfering with your business. There are many benefits for the employer as well, such as a decrease in medical costs, reduced absenteeism, increased productivity, and business incentives through the ACA for offering a Wellness Program. Here is what GMS promises you:

• A customized program that is designed to suit your work environment and employee needs. 
• A team of wellness experts comprised from various health backgrounds to offer personal, hands-on guidance that will create individual motivation and accountability 
• Privacy for your employees under HIPPA and other federal regulations while working on personal health goals.

It’s not just about making or saving money; it’s a way to better the lives of the team you work with every day.

The truth of the matter is, there are strict government regulations to abide by when it comes to a workplace wellness program. As a result, many companies are turning to professional employer organizations to aid in the proper execution of an effective wellness program at their office.

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Don’t look now, but Fall is upon us and we are closer to the start of 2017 than we are the start of 2016.

We have a Presidential election coming up in a few weeks, meaning that there will be a change in the leadership of this country, one way or another. Either way, expectations are running rampant about changes to healthcare plans in 2017 and the compliancy tied to those programs.

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