Benefits Archives - Page 18 of 25

According to a Wells Fargo study, 37% of people expect to work until they die. That’s an alarming number, but one that you can use to your advantage.

Most people would rather spend their later years comfortably enjoying their retirement, so by offering a quality 401k plan, you give your business a step up in attracting and retaining quality employees.

Avoid Financial Confusion: Educate Your Group

Before we give you the key elements to a great 401k plan, it’s worth taking a moment to remind you that financial choices can be intimidating and confusing for many employees. One way you can help is by making an effort to ensure employees are educated about their choices. These resources will help make sure everyone is on the same page.

What is a 401(k) Plan? [Infographic]

Guide to your 401(k): Everything you need to know about 401(k)s.

A handy guide from CNN Money that shares:
- Top things to know about 401(k)s
- The virtues of a 401(k)
- How to invest in a 401(k)
- Early withdrawals and loans
- Rollovers
- Taking distributions in retirement
7 Things Employees are Looking for in a Good 401(k) Plan

1. Generous Employer Match

According to findings from a 2013 survey by trade publication PlanSponsor.com, the common match amount increased to be $1 per $1 on the first 6% of employee deferrals, with 19% of employers reporting this formula, which is up from 10% in 2011.

Previously a match of $0.50 per $1 on the first 6% was the most popular.Increasing the amount employers are willing to contribute may help encourage those employees to save at more robust rates, and shows employees you care about investing in their future.

2. “Day One” Eligibility

The PlanSponsor.com survey also showed that 76% of plans now allow workers to begin making pre-tax contributions immediately upon hire, which is up from 71% in 2011. In addition, 53% of plans have corresponding immediate eligibility for employer-matching contributions, while 50% of plans that offer a non-matching employer contribution allow immediate eligibility. Providing new hires with immediate eligibility helps ensure they don’t lose ground in terms of saving.

3. Immediate Vesting Schedule

The best plans offer immediate vesting of employer contributions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics only 22% of employers offer immediate full vesting. Nearly half of those use a graded vesting schedule in which the employees’ right to company contributions increases gradually (say, 20% per year) until they are fully vested.

4. Low, Transparent Plan Fees

Administrative fees cover record keeping, accounting, legal services, marketing and investor education services. Typically employees will see these fees in a hard dollar amount on their statement.

Investment fees cover expenses associated with managing the plan’s funds. Investment Managers usually report their performances net of these fees. Both types of fees are taken from your employees’ 401k assets.

Finding plans with lower fees and educating your employees on what the fees are being applied to can help set your company’s 401k package apart from your competition.

5. Investment Options-But Not Too Many

Select only a handful of solid investment options. This can include individual mutual funds, asset allocation funds, and target-date funds, many of which automatically become more conservative as the employees approach retirement.

“Study after study shows the more investment choices a company gives their employees, the less likely they are to participate because they feel overwhelmed,” says Veronica Lee, Senior Vice President of Client Services with 401k Advisors in Aliso Viejo, Calif., an independent consulting firm.

6. Automatic Enrollment & Raises

91% of plans offer automatic enrollment to new employees, unless they opt out, which helped boost participation rates in 401(k) plans nationwide. Especially among younger workers who may not feel an urgency to contribute.

Automatic escalation provisions, in which the amount of pretax money that employees contribute toward their 401(k) plan automatically increases annually, also shows that a company is looking out for their employees.

7. Give Employees Access to Expert Financial Resources

Many employees have limited investment knowledge, so employers have significantly increased the availability of outside investment advisory services. Three out of four plan sponsors now offer access to such services, the most popular being one-on-one financial counseling (59%), online guidance (55%), managed accounts (52%) and online advice (46%) according to a survey from PlanSponsor.com.

What else do you look for when considering the 401k plan you’d like to offer your employees? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
As a small business owner, you probably rely on the services of other organizations to accomplish a range of tasks, services and other duties. Your health insurance broker or policy provider is one you expect has your best interest in mind. The reality is, they may not, especially when it comes to premium and individual claim costs.

With all your other responsibilities, you don’t have time to keep tabs on everything your health insurer does, however, there are some key questions you need to ask in order to effectively evaluate just how much they are working for you:

What does the plan cover?

Many health insurance providers add in coverage for care you and your employees may never need. By providing an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink plan, insurers are able to increase the overall cost of the policy, meaning you and your employees are paying for benefits that don’t match their needs. Alternatively, using a third-party administrator (TPA) can help you secure group coverage that fits the needs of your employees, which can help you keep your healthcare-related costs down.

How do you negotiate costs?

Healthcare is expensive. While some insurance companies claim to negotiate lower costs on your employees’ claims, they are not revealing the entire truth. The discounts are taken from the astronomically expensive costs doled out by the hospital or physician’s office. With a TPA and other services, there are many other ways to negotiate costs. Multiple negotiation strategies keeps claims in line with more realistic pricing.

How do you audit medical bills?

Health insurance companies have little transparency when the final bill for medical care comes in for a claim. Generally, they do not ask for details related to costs or challenge prices. Instead, they pay their portion and turn the balance over to your employee. TPAs have the resources and knowledge to help your employee check each bill to ensure there is no double billing for equipment or health care services. They will challenge prices for services that are beyond “reasonable and customary,” substantially reducing patient bills and keeping your costs related to medical claims down.

What type of customer service do you offer?

With most insurance companies, you and your employees are a number in a huge system. You are at the mercy of the representative who takes your call when you have a question about your policy or have an issue with a claim. Navigating through red tape and other administrative obstacles can be frustrating and can lead to paying for unnecessary expenses. With a self-insured health plan managed by a TPA, each person’s needs can still be handled with personalized customer service to ensure issues are resolved and costs are minimized.

Asking these questions of your health insurance carrier or broker can expose issues you may not have known existed. With a self-insured plan managed by a third-party administrator like GMS, you have more control over the type of insurance you need. Ultimately, this can cut your healthcare costs and enable you to provide better, more customized coverage for your employees and their dependents.

With today’s challenging economy, employees are often finding themselves searching for a better paying job. A recent survey states that 47 percent of top-performers are looking for jobs. That statistic could be earth shattering for any business. “Whenever there’s a shift in talent, it’s the ones you want to keep that leave first.”

Little do they know, they may be making more than they think. Employees typically only see their take home pay and not the cost of the additional benefits you as the employer are offering.

As an employer, it is imperative to make sure your staff feels valued. A great way to accomplish this is to show employees everything they are being offered besides what they put in the bank. By presenting your employees with these facts, it will encourage them to stick around. Turnover rates can not only bring morale down, it is also a huge cost to you. With costs like unemployment taxes, job ad placements, background checks, training, and administrative costs during the process, it could cost you thousands of dollars each time an employee quits.

What you can do

If only there was a way to show to employees their base pay plus all that your business offers. That’s where GMS comes in. We have the resources to create a Benefit Summary for each employee. These summaries will show your employees that their services are valued and they are getting more than just their take home pay.

“Our employees were unaware of how much we invest in them until they saw the Benefit Summaries. Many expressed that they felt valued as an employee and were happy to see the summary”

– Jennifer H., Current GMS client

What is included on a Benefit Summary?Benefit Summaries can include benefits including but not limited to:

Health Insurance	Short-Term Disability	Retirement / 401k	Company Cars
Dental Insurance	Bonuses	Vacation Time or Paid Time Off	Tuition Reimbursement
Vision Insurance	Cell Phone Reimbursement	Holiday Pay
Life Insurance	Long-Term Disability	Flex Time

If you offer any of the above benefits, we can obtain the information to create these summaries. Benefit Summaries provides your employees with a snapshot of the above incentives. Below is an example of what a Benefit Summary looks like.

Example Benefits Summary

The Next Step

By having GMS has your Professional Employer Organization, we have access to the data used to assemble these summaries. Our Account Managers will collect the data, generate the reports, and present them to you. If you’re ready to make a move, contact your Account Manager today and we can get started.

If you are not currently using GMS, this is a great reason to consider. These summaries will help retain your employees and as a result, save you money.

“Keeping the plates spinning,” is an idiom many small businesses use to describe the way they manage their human resource responsibilities. Some outsource HR functions to various companies while some tasks are handled by an in-house team member who has many other job duties

There’s no need to juggle between outsourcing tasks to multiple companies and attempting to have them work together on your behalf. Professional employee organizations, or PEOs, can help minimize the stress, time and costly resources you spend administering your HR functions by managing:

Human resources, including employee recruiting and training, performance management, HR audits and more. GMS provides an online system solution to coordinate communication and centralize information.

Payroll, by assuming all responsibility and liability for your business taxes. With GMS, you and your employees have constant access to the online payroll service in our secure and easy-to-use web-based system.

Competitive benefits at a reduced rate. Attract and retain talented employees with health insurance, 401(k) plans, and other benefits at the rate large companies receive. With more than 20,000 workers, GMS can achieve great economy of scale when purchasing benefits coverage.

Risk and liability to prevent and effectively handle problems when they do arise. The risk management experts at GMS can manage Workers’ Compensation programs, unemployment claims, and OSHA safety regulations.

When you outsource your administrative duties to a PEO like GMS, your small-to medium-sized businesses can experience the benefits of a big business HR department. You can offer the very best benefits to your employees while saving your company time and money.

Think you could benefit from a PEO provider? So do we. Let’s talk.
Next to salary, employee benefits are a key asset to attract and retain talented workers. While most companies offer standard health, 401(k) and other supplemental benefits, there are some non-traditional benefits that can set you apart from the competition and help you sign the best and brightest to your staff.

Paid parking: If your company is in an urban location or one where parking is limited, secure monthly passes to a local lot to alleviate the stress and inconvenience of having to find parking each day. Designated parking can help employees get to work earlier, increasing their available production time.

Wellness programs: Work with a local fitness club to offer discounted memberships, or offer an incentive to employees who participate in smoking cessation, weight loss, exercise classes or other health programs. Having healthy employees can minimize the occurrence of sickness, injury or other claims to your health plan.

Extra vacation time: Offer free vacation days for employment anniversary dates or birthdays.

Education/Career Advancement Opportunities: Offer some type of reimbursement to encourage your employees to pursue programs or training which can help them advance their education or enrich their professional skill set.

Telecommuting or flex time: With many employees juggling work and family, having flexibility to work from home or work outside of traditional hours can help boost employee loyalty and increase productivity.

Benefits outside of the traditional employee bundle are becoming more important to employees as they weigh their career options. In fact, CNN offers a tool called Perkfinder that enables job seekers to compare the benefits of multiple companies to find which is the best for their next place of employment.

If you like the idea of providing non-traditional benefits, but don’t know where to get started, give us a call at 330-659-0100. GMS can help you secure standard benefits at competitive rates and advise you on other options that will attract the best candidates for your open positions.
Maneuvering through federal rules and tax regulations has never been an easy task, especially when you are simultaneously trying to grow your business. The Affordable Care Act makes those waters murkier to navigate with the various stages of implementation and rules for different sized companies.

As a small or medium sized business owner, there are some significant dates to keep in mind in 2014 as the Affordable Care Act begins to take effect.

January 2014
- The Health Insurance Marketplace coverage begins January 1, 2014
- The tax credit for small business will only be available if you buy coverage through the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) Exchange
- The tax credit can be as much as 50% of your contribution toward health insurance premiums
- Individuals who are eligible for employer-provided health coverage will not have to wait more than 90 days to begin coverage
- The Transitional Reinsurance Program begins and runs through 2016. This program reimburses insurers in the individual insurance marketplaces for high claims costs. The program is funded through fees which will be paid by employers (for self-insured plans) and insurers (for insured plans)
- The maximum reward to employers using a health-contingent wellness program will increase from 20% to 30% of the cost of health coverage. Programs designed to prevent or reduce tobacco use could increase to as much as 50 %.
- Those with pre-existing conditions cannot be denied health coverage
- Medicaid coverage is expanding in many states
- Small businesses with fewer than 25 full-time employees making an average of about $50,000 a year or less may quality for employer health care tax credits
- Individuals without health care will be charged a fee based on household income or on a per person basis
March 2014
- Open enrollment for health insurance marketplace ends
October 2014
- Open enrollment begins again
If you are not yet sure how the changes brought on the Affordable Care Act will impact your business, or if you’re considering making major changes to your employees’ health plans (including eliminating it altogether) to combat rising group premiums, contact us today. We provide solutions that enable you to provide quality health insurance to your employees while limiting increases to your healthcare costs.
If pressed, most employers would say that having a “rich benefits package” is a great way to attract and retain top quality employees. The more perks the better, right?

Those same employers would also probably say that they can’t afford the richest of plans, but try to offer the best that they can afford. Well, if you believe those two statements, you’re going to love reading this.

According to an article at benefitspro.com, they’re right. Of 1,000 respondents to a survey, almost three-fourths of those said that “they carefully compared benefits packages when weighing offers from prospective employers. And the health care components of the benefits package is the one they examine most closely.” Most of those said that they were more likely to take a package heavy on health benefits than one that emphasized non-health benefits.

Here was the most interesting part: Two-thirds of that group believed that keeping employees healthy was one of the top priorities of a company benefit program. About two-thirds of the respondents felt that their employer was more interested in the cost of the plan than in it being a functional plan in keeping them healthy.

Do You Have a Wellness Program?

If you subscribe to the belief that a benefits package should help keep employees healthy, how good is your wellness program? Don’t have one? Is it because you don’t believe that a wellness program doesn’t work or is it because you think you can’t afford one?

Wellness programs come in many shapes, sizes and components. They can include on-site health screenings, company-sponsored vaccinations, fitness benefits, etc. That’s good news on two levels. The first is that each of those is less expensive than health insurance. The second is that in a survey of employees over 45 years old, 75% of them valued a comprehensive health benefits package more than other perks.

What Else Can I Do For My Employees?

Take a look at some of our older posts for additional ideas that can keep employees happy.

4 Affordable, Practical Benefits That Will Attract the Best Employees

Benefits of Direct Deposit

What’s In a Good 401(k) Plan?

Non-Traditional Benefits Your Staff Will Love

Keeping Top Talent

What’s Next?

If you’ve implemented a wellness program, let us know how it went in the comments below.

If you haven’t implemented one yet, or you’re just not sure how to put together a successful wellness program, give us a call at 888-823-2084. We’d be glad to help!
The EEOC has made it into the news again, but you may not have heard about it.

A few months after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued a ruling on how pregnancy in the workplace can be viewed as a worker’s comp issue, they have now weighed in on wellness programs.

Under the Affordable Care Act, there has been a strong push on advocating wellness for employees, and rightfully so. Wellness programs improve the health and productivity of your employees while increasing efficiencies and increasing profitability.

However, according to an article on jdsupra.com, the EEOC has not yet issued guidelines on how employers can and must structure wellness programs to be in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Despite the lack of guidelines, the EEOC is pursuing two litigation cases against two separate companies for what they say are violations of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act).

As a small business owner, keeping tabs on all the government regulations that apply to your business and industry is a daunting task. Even larger companies with compliancy departments get into trouble sometimes!

Fortunately, professional employer organizations can help ensure you’re compliant with not only wellness programs, but also with payroll, risk management, HR, and employee benefits. To learn more about how a PEO can keep you compliant in today’s increasingly regulated business environment, contact us at 888-823-2084 today.
In the business world, everyone is always looking to maximize profitability. It’s not because business owners are greedy trying to grab every last dime. It’s because they are working their tail off to either make the business succeed or make it grow.

In their efforts to do so, business owners look to control what they can, especially when it comes to costs. As a salesperson, I have often been the person who they tried to control costs through by either beating me up on price, extracting extra services or using what my company does to help make them more profitable. However, it often seems to come back to controlling costs.

When a business owner thinks of controllable costs, they often think of material prices, employee hours or something else on the production end. What seldom comes into play is controlling workers comp, healthcare and unemployment costs. But, how can you control those costs? Those things are completely out of a business owner’s control. Right?

Wrong! Large corporations, with large HR budgets, have long been able to control costs in those area by self-insuring or doing better documenting of employee issues that lead to terminations. Small business owners general don’t have that same luxury, unless they work with a PEO.

How PEOs Make Your Business Stronger

According to a recent white paper put out by the National Association of PEOs, companies that use a PEO have 10-14% lower turnover of employees than comparable companies. With employee replacement costs equaling 150% of that employee’s wages according to the Society of Human Resource Managers (SHRM), that is a cost that is a potentially large cost that can be cut or altogether avoided. These numbers are even higher for companies in the white collar world.

Companies that use a PEO that has a self-insured Worker’s Comp and/or Healthcare program automatically have mechanisms put in place through those programs that monitor and manage costs tied to those programs. By having specialists working exclusively in those areas, every conceivable way to manage those costs is reviewed for its viability and cost effectiveness.

Additionally, companies that use a PEO are 50% less likely to fail compared to other similar companies in their industries. According to that same white paper “Data broken down by specific industries point to ‘Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services’, ‘Construction’ and ‘Finance and Insurance’ as being three industry categories that disproportionately benefit from PEO services in both lower employee turnover rates and lower business failure rates.”

To see how a PEO like GMS can benefit your business, give us a call at 330-659-0100 or fill out our online form today.
For many employers, hearing that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has issued a ruling sounds a lot like fingernails on the chalkboard. They know it’s there, but they don’t often want to hear it.

A couple of weeks ago in a 3-2 decision, the EEOC issued new enforcement guidance under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) that also covers possible workplace accommodations.

According to Bloomberg, a revision to the 1983 EEOC Compliance chapter on the PDA “requires employers to offer light duty to pregnant employees if they make light duty available to non-pregnant employees similar in their ability or inability to work.” The PDA was a 1978 amendment to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The implementation of this was partly due to pending issues before the Supreme Court.

What this guidance essentially does is put pregnancies in the same category as a Worker’s Comp claim. If, as an employer, you offer light duty to employees that were hurt on the job, you now have to offer that same accommodation to a pregnant employee. In other words, if an employer offers light duty only to an employee injured on the job and not to a pregnant employee, that employer is in violation of the PDA.

As most small-business owners spend their days wearing many hats trying to grow their business, they don’t often have the time to spend reviewing every government agency regulation change that comes down the pike. All too often, they find out about it after the fact.

That’s where a PEO like GMS, comes in. If you’re interested in learning how GMS can help keep you compliant with ever-changing government regulations while at the same time lowering your risk management and benefit costs, give us a call at 330-659-0100 today.