by Carolyn Kick | Jun 23, 2021 | Future of Work, Human Resources
We are now more than a year since major news organizations first began sounding the alarm for the emerging COVID-19 pandemic and looking back on articles from that time can be quite jarring. In mid-March of 2020, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf gave a speech asking for “two weeks to flatten the curve”. That optimism was echoed in American workplaces, with expectations of employees needing to work from home for perhaps a few short months. Over a year later, and companies are only now announcing plans to bring employees back into their physical workplaces. As we watched the pandemic stretch from weeks into months, and from months to years, it became evident that the changes brought about in the business world were here to stay.
A long year of uncertainty and upheaval has left many organizations without a sense of clarity regarding what their employees want and need.
Options Galore
Perhaps the most consequential topic of conversation and debate within the workplace going forward will revolve around how to manage the changing expectations and demands of employees. The general trend is toward a growing number of options for handling schedules, workplace flexibility, and benefits. If the changes brought about by the pandemic were short lived, one might expect a relatively quick and graceful return to normal routines and procedures. We all would have happily returned to our physical workplaces and continued with business as usual.
That obviously is not what happened. It took many of us months to become acclimated to remote work, and enough time has gone by now that these changes are quickly becoming a durable part of the modern world. After more than a full year, many of us have become quite accustomed to working from home, and some have even made drastic changes to their lifestyles and are now dependent upon the flexibility of these new work arrangements. Because of this, it is impractical, perhaps untenable, for us to expect the workplace to return to pre-pandemic norms.
Many organizations are already realizing this, marking an incredible transformation in the perception of remote and hybrid workforces. In the early stages of the pandemic, very few organizations would have taken seriously the notion that these changes would become permanent. Only a small percentage of companies were utilizing remote work at scale, but the experiment of the last year has proven its feasibility, and now there really is no going back.
This subject is complex and multi-faceted, but the primary concern on most people’s minds is scheduling. Of course, not every organization is going to make remote work the norm going forward, but it will likely remain an option in the vast majority of them even after physical workplaces reopen. Many of the world’s largest companies have already announced plans to embrace remote work as at least part of their plans going forward, such as Microsoft, Spotify, Dropbox, and Uber, among others. It is not uncommon to hear of companies that have decided to end their leases and get rid of their physical offices altogether. This trend has spawned office vacancy crises in major cities throughout the US and, considering that more than half of employees currently working remotely would like to continue to do so, this is not expected to be a short-lived phenomenon. If organizations want to remain competitive in the labor market and retain their talented employees, they need to embrace the hybrid workforce transformation.
Remote work is not for everyone, however, and it is important to keep in mind that many are eager to return to their physical workplaces. Pandemic related safety measures are relaxing in many parts of the country, but where they remain in place organizations are exploring creative strategies to keep occupancy to recommended maximums. Staggered schedules and compressed workweeks have emerged as popular approaches because they allow employees to return to the workplace if they wish by rotating who is coming in at various times. Flextime, a strategy that allows employees to work at the times that work best for them, is another option to keep an eye on as it is likely to be in high demand as physical offices and workplaces reopen.
Despite their hesitation, organizations are realizing that strategies like flextime and remote work come with tangible benefits, such as increased employee productivity, retention, and engagement.
Organizational Challenges Incoming
It is no secret that at the top of the list of any business’s concerns is ensuring that the policies they follow protect and benefit their bottom line, and this topic is no different. It simply is not feasible to expect every company to accommodate 100% of their employees working remotely going forward, but expectations have changed, and the smart move will be to try to meet those expectations where possible.
Many of the changes we have seen in easily adapted work like IT and Human Resources are generally here to stay, as are video conferencing tools like Zoom and Skype. We should also expect to see new tools emerge to better meet the needs of the new hybrid workforce. Solving the major pain points of remote work, like communication and organization, will be a new frontier in software development going forward. Because of these changes, companies are likely to start aggressively seeking out management and staff that have experience working with distributed teams.
As the pendulum swings in the direction of remote work, we should all be wary of a potential pitfall: overcompensation. The desire to be at the leading edge of this transition is understandable, but we currently only have a year of data to verify the feasibility of hybrid workforces, and the practicality of it is likely to vary widely from organization to organization. Many will be drawn to the promise of lower expenses and reduced complexity, but the results are sure to be mixed.
Organizations should be leery of changing too much too quickly despite the pressures that they are likely to face. The first order of business should be to get those who want to work in a physical workplace and those who want to continue to work remotely set up to do so as quickly and efficiently as possible. It is important to let the dust settle and a sense of normalcy to return before any further drastic changes are made. Given where much of the country remains regarding COVID-19 precautions, simply reopening workplaces to any degree is going to be a significant enough challenge already.
Many employees will prefer to continue working from home, but that does not mean that it should become the new standard just yet. The importance of the social component of life and work is not to be underestimated, as we have seen over the last year, so it comes as no surprise that many of us yearn to see their coworkers and customers in person again.
As companies make decisions about how to handle the emergence of remote work, the key will be for them to focus on providing options to their employees, not requirements. Regardless of what they decide, it is important that their decisions are calculated and deliberate. Most organizations spent the last year simply trying to ride the wave and not drown amid the chaos – leaving aside, of course, the companies that were already working remotely before the pandemic.
Now that the experiment has been run and the results are coming in, everyone is starting to look toward the future. This should be considered a great opportunity to evaluate the success and failures of what was tried and make decisions based on those results through the lens of what is best for that particular organization going forward. We are no longer improvising on the fly. Companies are going to start learning from what has happened and it is the companies that are deliberate about their decisions regarding remote work and carefully develop their plans that will be most competitive.
The first step in making such a plan should be to collect and analyze as much data as possible from your employees about their interests and expectations regarding remote work. This could take the form of interviews, group discussions, company-wide surveys, one-on-one conversations, or some combination of these options. Regardless of the method, management needs to get a scope on what their employees want before they will be able to assess what is feasible to offer them.
Tough compromises are almost inevitable because, in most situations, neither the employer nor the employee is going to come away with everything that they want. Consider more complex situations, like the companies that will not be able to offer the same remote work options to all their employees because of differences in the type of work that they do. Ford recently offered 86,000 of their employees the option to continue working from home permanently, but this is not possible for its 100,000 plus factory workers. The cost of workforce infighting can be substantial, so to prevent conflict, organizations may consider offering other benefits to the employees who work in roles that cannot be adapted to remote work. Whatever they do, it is imperative that they reaffirm the importance of those workers.
Taking all of this into consideration is going to be overwhelming for a lot of organizations, especially small businesses. Management should remind themselves that they are not going to be able to please everyone. All that can be reasonably expected is that they make good-faith efforts to meet the needs of as many of their employees as possible.
The knock-on effects from the pandemic, such as the emergence of remote work, have forced organizations and employees to completely re-evaluate their priorities and needs. Tough decisions are going to be made and, in many cases, both employers and employees are going to have to look elsewhere to have those needs met. Disruptions like this are undoubtedly stressful, but if the situation is managed strategically, at the end of the day we might all be better off.
by Carolyn Kick | Jun 8, 2021 | Employee Benefits, Uncategorized
Employee benefit brokers know that their market is an intensely competitive one, and a shift to a more employee-centric model for benefits administration technology and services is quickly gaining steam. With it comes added pressure to keep pace or risk losing business, wallet share, and chances to gain new clients.
Across the board, employers and brokerages are reducing the quantity of partners they rely on to deliver the administration, benefits, and technology required to meet the demands of this emerging benefits business model. Comprehensive options reign, but there are also three main qualities that are crucial to remaining competitive:
- A wide variety of benefit options that support and care for the employee as a whole – along with knowledgeable support services around those benefits
- A modern and intuitive user experience (for both the employee and the benefits administrator)
- Effective and efficient employee-specific communication about the benefit options, helping to drive employee understanding, engagement, appreciate, and ROI
The New Benefits Model 101
The primary shift that is taking place in HR systems is one of perspective, away from the needs of medical claims payors and HR processes, and toward the needs of the employee. Additionally, less focus is being placed on the traditional core benefits, like medical, dental, and vision benefits.
Momentum has been building in this direction for a while now, but with COVID-19 the movement has accelerated to the point that it can no longer be ignored. The pandemic has forced employers to focus in on providing benefits that are easier to access and support the employee in a more holistic manner.
Emphasis has generally shifted toward providing benefits that center around the needs of the employee and benefit platforms that improve the lives of the employees more generally. Beyond obvious improvements like making the employee portal more user friendly, the very substance of the benefits that are being provided is changing. Larger organizations are trying out wider portfolios of benefits and tools for their employees, including anything from mental health, physical fitness, or even financial wellbeing. This switch in perspective has initiated a reimagining of the entire structure of benefit options, blurring traditional lines between benefit categories and shaking up old conceptions about employer responsibilities regarding employee benefits.
What’s In Vogue? Voluntary Benefits
The demand for integrated healthcare benefits is growing rapidly, pushing voluntary benefits into the spotlight. Previously seen as the sidekick to primary benefit options, the day has finally arrived for voluntary products. They are now at the cutting edge of an arms race as competition heats up for employers and brokers to transform their offerings to resonate with younger workers and deal with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to an analysis of the employee well-being landscape by The Starr Conspiracy, investment in employee well-being shot up more than 500% in the year 2020 from 2019.
The new benefit smorgasbord has expanded to include:
- Financial planning and counseling
- Student loan repayment
- Lifestyle flexibility
- Lifestyle benefits
- Community focus
- Flexibility in workplace and hours
- Increased representation in the company’s mission and values
- Support for non-traditional and multi-generational families
Decisions, decisions
So, what is a benefits broker supposed to do amid all this calamity and upheaval? How can you know heads or tails when looking at prospective partners? We mentioned before that the market is trending sharply in the direction of utilizing fewer, and more comprehensive, partners to deliver the administration, benefits, and technology for this incoming benefits model. Let’s revisit those three crucial characteristics of a benefits partner:
- A wide variety of benefit options that support and care for the employee as a whole – along with knowledgeable support services around those benefits
- A modern and intuitive user experience (for both the employee and the benefits administrator)
- Effective and efficient employee-specific communication about the benefit options, helping to drive employee understanding, engagement, appreciate, and ROI
You might ask, is there really any employee benefits administration/employee engagement software that is integrated and automated enough to reach this new bar? If so, what key elements would you need to look for to identify it? As it turns out there are many, but what makes or breaks any solution is its ability to communicate effectively with the employee and meet their needs. The right information needs to be provided to the right employees at the right time, otherwise no program or initiative will succeed.
Here are some tips to help you sift through the assortment of options:
- Take the time to find a solution vendor that will support employers to really connect with their employees. Keep in mind that approximately half of all employees rate themselves as either unsatisfied or partially satisfied with their current benefit options.
- Yet again, communication is key. Try to find a platform vendor that provides integrated engagement software to create personal and impactful communications and an intuitive enrollment experience.
- Finding a partner that has a wide variety of benefit options is ideal, but you should also ensure that they have the technology in place to manage all of an employer’s benefit plans, regardless of complexity.
- On the benefits administration side, you want to find a partner that has the technology available to allow HR teams to access benefit information in a centralized location and at the touch of a button. Look for something that can manage electronic document storage, life events, eligibility, compliance, and demographic changes all in one place.
- The user experience for the employees and administrators goes far beyond having a pleasant interface. Make sure your partner can manage the large and often quite complex configurations and benefit business rules that employers require.
- Ensure early on that your technology partner comes with a dedicated and highly experienced customer service team that will work with your clients throughout the setup, implementation, and maintenance of their benefit options.
- Lastly, go with a partner that offers an experience that employees can access around the clock without forcing them to download yet another mobile app.
Finding benefits administration technology vendors that cover all three bases can be quite difficult. Many are strong in one or two of those critical areas, but brokers who aim to position themselves as trusted advisors will be required to find partners that cover all three and with expertise. This is a tall order, but if you take your time and follow the advice provided in this article, you will be well on your way.
by Carolyn Kick | May 13, 2021 | COVID-19 Resources, Employee Benefits
As we enter the halfway point in the year following the year of the pandemic, by now most of us are familiar with the term “return to work.” Many businesses have brought their employees back to the workplace, while some have adopted a more hybrid model of maintaining some people on-site and allowing others to remain remote work employees.
Even though we have begun to return to a pre-COVID way of life, the way of 2021 is not the same as that of 2019. According to writer, Amy Quarton, “Trying to make the workplace what it used to be before the pandemic is not only impractical and untenable for many reasons, it is just as (if not more) disruptive than the initial work-from-home transition.”
Post-Pandemic Employee Benefits Trends
The way employees view benefits has changed. Some benefits that were high priority a year and a half ago are no longer as important as they once were, while benefits that may have seemed unnecessary or less important have made their way to the top of the priority list for many employees.
Reporter, Kristen Beckman states, “This shift in the work environment is an ideal time for employers to begin thinking about how they want to work with employees to help them recover financially and emotionally from the disruptions and stress of the pandemic.”
With this new perspective on benefits in mind, here are a few that will have an impact on how employee benefits evolve moving forward.
Employee Financial Health Benefits
For most employees, the financial impact brought by the pandemic was heavy. While some were fortunate enough to have retirement or emergency savings to fall back on, they likely had to use a good portion of those funds to maintain their lives. According to Beckman, “The resulting financial instability can cause a strain on employees that can impact productivity especially at a time when they are transitioning back to work.”
Here’s what we are seeing as a result:
- Increasing numbers of providers are offering education and coaching, budgeting and savings tools, and financial advising and planning.
- Various emergency savings programs are now offered by payroll vendors, retirement plan providers, and others, but no matter the vendor, the key feature is easy employee access to those funds.
- Typically administered through a third party, student loan repayment assistance benefits are enabling employers to make regular contributions directly to workers’ student loan servicer.
More Benefits Options
For several employees, there was a realization of just how flexible the workplace could be when businesses were forced to begin working remotely. Flexibility in the workplace and having more options provides the employee to have more control of their daily life and the work/life balance.
Here’s what we are seeing as a result:
- Flexible work hours ”will likely be made widely available and be in high demand as physical workplaces reopen,” writes Quarton, and many new scheduling tools have been launched to help employers maintain social distancing.
- The most helpful option for addressing mental health is to offer better insurance coverage for mental health care. Other options include adding more visits via EAPs and providing apps for meditation, mindfulness, and stress relief.
- Help with caretaking includes reimbursements for or assistance finding daycare, elder care, after-school care, remote tutoring, remote safety monitoring, and more.
- Vendors have brought telehealth capabilities not just to computers but to phones, and virtual appointments are remaining an option, post-pandemic.
Tech at the Center
Many have become far more comfortable interacting virtually whether it be through zoom meetings, virtual schooling, and even online court appearances. And while occasional technical difficulties can be problematic, reliance on tech is becoming more and more acceptable and even preferred for many tasks.
Here’s what we are seeing as a result:
- Going virtual can be made interesting and informative with the use of interactive tools such as webinars, virtual booths, and live chats. David Karlin writes that being able to access virtual open enrollment at home “allows family members, like spouses, to be easily included in the decision-making process.”
- “The range of digital health apps, platforms, services, and new products spawned or accelerated by the pandemic can hardly be mapped,” according to writer Dan Cook. Hundreds of employee benefits apps and tools are readily available, with new ones launching weekly for benefits and health monitoring and management, provider and pharmacy searches, 401(k) funds monitoring, wellness tracking, and more.
While some trends will come and others go, one thing we know for sure is that as we continue to define what normal looks like, employers and the benefits they offer to their employees will certainly have a pivotal role.
by Carolyn Kick | Apr 30, 2021 | Compliance
In a recent announcement from the IRS and the Treasury Department, the American Rescue Plan (ARP) is issuing tax credits to help small businesses, including providing paid leave for employees receiving COVID-19 vaccinations.
Eligible employers (businesses and tax-exempt organizations with fewer than 500 employees and certain governmental employers) can receive a tax credit for providing paid time off for any employees receiving and/or recovering from the COVID-19 vaccine.
“This new information is a shot in the arm for struggling small employers who are working hard to keep their businesses going while also watching out for the health of their employees,” said IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig. “Our work on this issue is part of a larger effort by the IRS to assist the nation recover from the pandemic.”
Small, midsize, and specific government employers are now able to claim refundable tax under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARP). These refundable tax credits reimburse employers for the expenses of providing paid sick and family leave to their employees due to COVID-19. This includes any paid leave taken by employees to receive and/or recover from COVID-19 vaccinations. The ARP tax credits are available for leave from April 1, 2021 – September 30, 2021 and are available to any eligible employer that provides sick and family leave.
The ARP tax credits are against the employer’s share of the Medicare tax and they are refundable. This means that eligible employers are entitled to payment of the full amount of the credits as long as it exceeds their share of the Medicare tax.
Eligible employers can keep the federal employment taxes that they otherwise would have deposited in anticipation of claiming the credits on the Form 94. This includes federal income tax withheld from employees, the employees’ share of social security and Medicare taxes, and the eligible employer’s share of social security and Medicare taxes with respect to all employees up to the amount of credit for which they are eligible. For eligible employers that do not have enough federal employment taxes set aside for deposit to cover amounts provided as paid sick and family leave wages, the eligible employer may request an advance of the credits by filing Form 7200, Advance Payment of Employer Credits Due to COVID-19.
by Carolyn Kick | Apr 30, 2021 | Compliance
Small, midsize, and specific government employers are now able to claim refundable tax under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARP). These refundable tax credits reimburse employers for the expenses of providing paid sick and family leave to their employees due to COVID-19. This includes any paid leave taken by employees to receive and/or recover from COVID-19 vaccinations. The ARP tax credits are available for leave from April 1, 2021 – September 30, 2021 and are available to any eligible employer that provides sick and family leave. Below is the information you need to know about eligibility and how employers can claim the credit.
Eligible Employers
Any business with fewer than 500 employees, including tax-exempt organizations, is considered an eligible employer. This also included government employers, with the exception of the federal government and any agency of the federal government not described in section 501(c)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Employers deemed eligible are entitled to tax credits for wages paid to employees for leave taken due to COVID-19. This includes leave taken to receive and/or recover from COVID–19 vaccinations. The ARP tax credits are available for wages paid for leave from April 1, 2021 – September 30, 2021.
Tax Credits Amounts
The ARP tax credits are against the employer’s share of the Medicare tax and they are refundable. This means that eligible employers are entitled to payment of the full amount of the credits as long as it exceeds their share of the Medicare tax.
The credit amount for sick leave is equal to the sick leave wages paid for COVID-19 related reasons for up to two weeks (80 hours), limited to $511 per day and $5,110 in the aggregate, at 100 percent of the employee’s regular rate of pay. The credit amount for paid family leave wages is equal to the family leave wages paid for up to twelve weeks, limited to $200 per day and $12,000 in the aggregate, at 2/3rds of the employee’s regular rate of pay.
Claiming the Credit
To claim credits, eligible employers must report their total paid sick and family leave wages for each quarter on their federal employment tax return, usually Form 941, Employer’s Quarterly Federal Tax Return. Form 941 is used by most employers to report income tax and social security and Medicare taxes withheld from employee wages, as well as the employer’s own share of social security and Medicare taxes.
Eligible employers can keep the federal employment taxes that they otherwise would have deposited in anticipation of claiming the credits on the Form 94. This includes federal income tax withheld from employees, the employees’ share of social security and Medicare taxes, and the eligible employer’s share of social security and Medicare taxes with respect to all employees up to the amount of credit for which they are eligible.
For eligible employers that do not have enough federal employment taxes set aside for deposit to cover amounts provided as paid sick and family leave wages, the eligible employer may request an advance of the credits by filing Form 7200, Advance Payment of Employer Credits Due to COVID-19. The eligible employer will account for the amounts received as an advance when it files its Form 941, Employer’s Quarterly Federal Tax Return, for the relevant quarter.
