Category: Benefits and Compensation
This topic provides guidance on how to handle compensation issues in a way that attracts and retains the best talent and advances the strategic goals of your business. You get news and tips on what’s going on nationally and in the states, and updates on changes in regulations, possible governmental action, and emerging compensation trends.
Did you end last year’s open enrollment with a list of things you wanted to improve? One prominent item on HR’s list of open enrollment enhancements is often the use of video communication. If it’s on your list, read on. In fact, if video isn’t on your list (or even your radar), read on anyway. You may find reasons to add it before we’re through.
Some light was shed on the rules related to cafeteria plan forfeitures when the plan sponsor ceases operations and terminates the plan, in Information Letter 2016-0077, issued earlier this year by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
According to WorldatWork’s annual Salary Budget Survey, employers in the United States report that the average 2017 total salary increase budget is 3.0%, the same as it has been for the past 3 years. Respondents are planning for a slight increase for 2017 salary increase budgets but only up to 3.1%.
There has been a great deal of debate in recent years about eliminating the performance appraisal, as well as confusion about what steps various companies have already taken.
A few months ago, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) clarified in Information Letter 2016-0082 how Medicare enrollment and health savings account (HSA) eligibility sometimes collide when an employee retires shortly after turning the age of 65. More recently, the IRS provided guidance on another overlap between Medicare and HSAs—a rehire after Medicare enrollment.
Like other professionals, compensation professionals can throw around a bunch of terms and acronyms that may or may not make a lot of sense to those not in the field. And, when we’re asked what they mean, we’re sometimes stymied when providing easy to understand definitions that are clear and concise.
The U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals—which covers Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota—recently affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of a nurse’s lawsuit against her employer and its insurer, in which she claimed that the denial of insurance coverage for her son’s gender reassignment treatment amounted to sex discrimination.
A new study from Jobvite, a leading provider of recruiting software, seeks to answer that question, while examining American job seekers’ experiences.
One key difference between health savings accounts (HSAs) and health flexible spending accounts (FSAs) is that in some circumstances HSAs can reimburse Medicare and other insurance premiums; health FSAs cannot. Recent guidance from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in Information Letter 2017-0004 confirmed this fact.
Does your compensation program have a solid foundation? It does if you took the time and made the effort to develop a compensation philosophy.