Organizations have been extra creative lately with new benefit offerings and retention strategies. Is it working? Are employees utilizing those new perks and sticking around? Yes and no. SHRM explored the issue nationally, and our team has some local insight from the 2021 and 2022 North Central Alabama Wage & Benefit Survey. Aon reported in April that enrollment in voluntary benefits increased 41% from the previous year. Most of the increases were tied to medical benefits, as to be expected, but some may be surprising: The fastest-growing voluntary benefits employees enrolled in amid the COVID-19 pandemic include supplemental health insurance
I met Katie Britt- Katie Boyd as we all knew her then- for the first time on a trip to visit The University of Alabama during my senior year of high school. Katie was serving in leadership roles with a couple of groups I was considering being a part of once I started at The University in the Fall, and she made me feel welcome. The two groups I was considering joining were groups that seemed to be worlds apart when it came to their purpose and approach on campus. One was intellectually based, the other social. Katie made me
In the last few weeks, I have come across multiple cases of employers hiring individuals as independent contractors in violation of the IRS guidelines. Some have done so because they aren’t aware of or don’t understand the IRS guidelines and/or state regulations and some have done so knowingly. Either way, none are aware of the potential risk of misclassifying workers as independent contractors and just how costly such a mistake can be to their organization. The IRS has a 20-Factor Test to help organizations determine if a worker meets the requirements to be an independent contractor. You can read more
Career Development is becoming even more relevant in the workforce arena these days. Career Development as Performance Management is a great tool to attract and retain employees. Revisit this blog post from 2021 for ideas on how to use Career Development as a Performance Management (& retention!) tool. I will be presenting at BSHRM on May 11 on this topic. We would love to see you there! Check out where else we will be in the coming weeks here.
With the great resignation still continuing and baby boomers, who many feel delayed retiring, now retired or retiring in large numbers due to the pandemic, succession planning has never been more important. But as we’ve seen through many of our clients (and ourselves!), the need to get something done and getting it done are two different things. When it comes to succession planning, I think the key challenge is not knowing where to start and the steps to take once started. Overall, you need to: 1. Know your current talent state. This involves several sub-steps of determining: a. What’s your