Returning Value Blog

Employee incentive plans can be among the most meaningful benefits that an employer can offer. This is because participants receive awards tied directly to their professional accomplishments or their organization’s success.

More and more employers are contributing dollars toward the cost of health club memberships for employees. Some are even building their own on-site fitness centers. If your organization is considering either approach, you might wonder: Are health club memberships or on-site fitness centers subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA)?

Many employers believe they’ve taken adequate steps to prevent employment discrimination. And yet, it happens. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) received 76,418 charges of workplace discrimination in fiscal year 2018 and, as a result, obtained $505 million for victims employed in the private sector, as well as by local, state and federal government agencies.

In good times, organizations often need to change to seize opportunities and keep up with demand. In bad times, they must change because, well, something has clearly gone awry. Whatever its cause may be, change can put great strain on an employer’s ability to accomplish its mission.

Every employer needs to keep records on pay, hours, workplace injuries and the like. And, of course, the fun doesn’t end there — you’ve also got to maintain other documentation, such as job descriptions, annual objectives, and performance reviews.

The Department of Labor (DOL) announced in very late January the 2019 annual adjustments to the civil monetary penalties for a wide range of benefits-related violations. Legislation enacted in 2015 requires annual adjustments to certain penalty amounts by January 15 of each year. Because of the government shutdown, however, the 2019 penalties weren’t published by this deadline and, thus, have a later-than-usual effective date.

It’s probably safe to say that most employers have created some form of an employee handbook. But just because your organization has one, that doesn’t mean it’s functional.

In the simplest of worlds, an employee effectively performs a set of tasks on an agreed-upon schedule and you pay him or her a fair wage. End of story. But, in the real world, employers need to craft a compensation philosophy: a formal statement outlining their belief system and approach to all the different ways they compensate employees. Here are four compensation philosophy questions to ponder:

Many, if not most, employers today use some form of an “at-will” employment contract when hiring. The arrangement is theoretically simple: The employer can terminate the employee at any time, for any cause — with or without notice. But is that what at-will employment really means? Not necessarily.

Motivation. It’s a relatively simple word, but encouraging it among your employees can be a challenge. Maybe that’s because, fundamentally, enthusiasm must come from within. It’s not something you can implant in someone externally. For this reason, employers sometimes need to get back to the basics of employee motivation to identify the right ways to inspire their workforces.