by admin | May 8, 2018 | Hot Topics, Human Resources
The world is connected nowadays through our screens. Whether it be email, texting, websites, Facetime, or social media; we all use technology to connect us to others. According to Hubspot, an online marketing and sales software provider, consumers are on social networks more than ever before. They wrote:
“In our survey of 1,091 global internet users, we’ve found people have dramatically increased content consumption on the three most popular social networks in the last two years: Facebook (+57% increase), Twitter (25% increase), and LinkedIn (21% increase). These networks have notably doubled down on content in the past few years to capture and retain the attention of their users — and it appears the playbook is working.” The Future of Content Marketing: How People Are Changing the Way They Read, Interact, and Engage With Content
So, how do you harness this tech to strengthen your connectivity to your audience? Here’s the top 5 tips for using social media that every agency can benefit from using.
- Consistent Content Posting
Your followers want to know when they can expect new info to be posted on your website and social media. If you post once a week for 3 weeks and then not post again for another month, your audience will quit paying attention. Consistency is the key! Make a point to post at the same general time on the same days and you will see more interaction from your followers.
- Images & Videos
62% of users thoroughly consume the social media post if it includes video as compared to only 25% consumption of traditional long content posts. That’s a HUGE difference! Grab your audience’s attention when they are scrolling through their social media by posting pictures and videos. They are telling us that they will stop and watch or read more than skimming because of the images they see.
- Keep Up with Social Media Trends
Pay attention to what you are most engaged with on social media. Do you like to watch Facebook Live videos? Do you stop and scroll through pictures from companies when they post what they are doing in the community? Do you prefer to chat with a customer service representative online versus an email? If you are seeing your preferences change, there is a good chance your audience’s preferences are changing. Post pictures of your teams serving their community. Use videos to educate your clients on relevant issues in your field. Social media is constantly evolving so stay up on trends and use them on your pages!
- Facebook is Still King
Consumers are using Facebook for more than just connecting to their high school friends—they are using it to read content from their favorite businesses and groups. This means you MUST keep your Facebook page updated and have new content posted regularly. According to a new Hubspot survey, 48% of consumers use their Facebook feed to catch up on news, business, and lifestyle stories. This ties back to Tip #1 and reiterates that consistent posting is the sweet spot for engaging customers.
- Engage Your Audience
How are you talking to the people who use your business? Are you responding to inquiries on Facebook? When you post pictures on LinkedIn are you responding to the people who are looking and commenting on them? When you engage with your followers, they are more likely to have a stronger relationship with you. Entrepreneur Magazine says, “They are more likely to have a better evaluation of the brands, stay loyal to the brands and recommend the brands to others.”
By following these tips, your social media pages can grow into healthy sites and you can be more effective as you engage with your audience. Start using them today!
by admin | Apr 18, 2018 | Employee Benefits, Human Resources
Did you know that you can save time and money on your prescription drugs by simply signing up for a discount card online? With savings as much as 80% off, these discount cards keep your health care costs down even when the prices of prescriptions are sharply rising. At no cost to the patient, discount drug programs negotiate the price of medicines with pharmacies and then pass the savings on to the consumer. These programs give subscribers a personalized discount card to be used at any pharmacy. While the discount card cannot be used in conjunction with health insurance, the consumer may see that the cost of their medicine is actually LESS with the card than it is with their insurance.
Another benefit to the consumer is that these programs will publish at which pharmacy you can find your medicine. This is especially helpful to the person who has specialty drug prescriptions. For example, Rebekah is prescribed a specialty drug for pain and neuropathy due to Multiple Sclerosis. This drug is not commonly stocked in pharmacies and so many times, she has had to wait for them to order it. By using the discount drug program, Rebekah is able to see which pharmacies have her medicine in stock and the estimated price.
So where do you start? Here are a few discount drug programs to investigate costs and providers for your prescriptions:
- staterxplans.us
- Provides free drug cards to reduce the out-of-pocket cost of prescription drugs.
- Click on your state and the site will redirect you to your corresponding prescription assistance program.
- goodrx.com
- Compares prices and discounts at thousands of pharmacies.
- Receive coupons via phone, email, or text to print or present for discounts.
- refillwise.com
- Free drug card to present at pharmacy for cost savings on prescriptions.
- Earn rewards each time you use their card—similar to credit card rewards. Each fill is 500 points and when you reach 5,000 points, you earn a gift card to various retailers.
Being a savvy consumer can save you money! Shop around to find the best cost for your prescription drugs and save time by locating the pharmacy that has your meds in stock. Discount drug programs are a great resource so do your research and find one that fits your needs.
by admin | Apr 11, 2018 | Employee Benefits, Human Resources
When evaluating employee benefits, essentials such as health and dental plans, vacation time and 401(k) contributions quickly come to mind. Another benefit employers should consider involves subsidizing learning as well as ambitions. Grants and reimbursements toward advanced degrees and continuing education can be a smart investment for both employers and employees.
Educational benefits are strongly linked to worker satisfaction. A survey by the Society for Human Resource Management revealed that nearly 80 percent of responding workers who rated their education benefits highly also rated their employers highly. While only 30 percent of those rating their higher education benefits as fair or poor conversely rated their employer highly.
These benefits are popular with businesses as well. In a survey by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, nearly five of six responding employers offer some form of educational benefit. Their top reasons are to retain current employees, maintain or raise employee satisfaction, keep skill levels current, attract new talent and boost innovation and productivity. Tax credits offer additional advantages. Qualifying programs offer employers tax credits up to $5,250 per employee, per year.
At the same time, companies should offer these benefits with care as they do pose potential pitfalls. Higher education assistance can be costly, even when not covering full costs. Workers taking advantage can become overwhelmed with the demands of after-hour studies, affecting job performance. Also, employers would be wise to ensure their employees don’t promptly leave and take their new skills elsewhere.
When well-planned, educational benefits will likely prove a good investment. Seventy-five percent of respondents to SHRM’s survey consider their educational-assistance programs successful. To boost your employee morale, skill levels and job-satisfaction scores, consider the benefit that may deliver them all, and more.
Find out more:
IFEBP: Why Educational Assistance Programs Work
EBRI: Fundamentals of Employee Benefit Programs
By Bill Olson, VP, Marketing & Communications at United Benefit Advisors
Originally posted on UBABenefits.com
by admin | Apr 3, 2018 | Hot Topics, Human Resources, IRS, Workplace
Managing pay can be tricky. Handled incorrectly, pay can create problems for an employer — everything from the inability to attract the right candidates and losing great employees to the competition to presenteeism (employees who are physically in the workplace but not engaged in their work), employee relations issues, compliance audits, and lawsuits. These outcomes impact productivity. They infect the company culture. And they tarnish the employer brand.
In your role as a trusted advisor to clients who may be struggling with their total compensation programs, you need to be ready to help them determine how to make the right decisions. This requires you to be aware of new trends while also helping clients manage risk by complying with wage and hour rules.
Pay Versus Employee Motivation and Retention
Many employee engagement reports note that pay doesn’t impact motivation as much as other work factors, such as:
- The quality of the company and its management.
- Belief in the organization’s products.
- Alignment with the company’s mission, values, and goals.
- Ability to make a meaningful contribution.
- Ability to develop new professional skills.
IBM’s Smarter Workforce Institute’s 2017 study looked at employees’ decisions to leave their jobs and found that the three generations comprising most of today’s workforce would be open to considering new job opportunities for better compensation and benefits: Millennials at 77 percent, Generation X at 78 percent, and Baby Boomers at 70 percent. Those are big numbers, and they shouldn’t be ignored when designing pay plans.
Further, while pay may not be a motivator, it can be a powerful dissatisfier when employees believe that they aren’t being paid correctly for the value they are bringing to the organization, or at the market value of their jobs. Worse yet is the perceived — or real — belief that their pay is lower than what their co-workers are earning. In some markets, this problem is genuine, as companies in hot labor markets struggle with paying new people more than current employees, causing pay compression. Employees do talk and pay information is readily available.
Considering every variable that goes into compensation planning can be complicated. Your clients can start by: setting a compensation strategy to fit their company’s needs and budget; developing compensation programs to fit that strategy, the talent marketplace, and employee demographics; and then administering the compensation program fairly and in compliance with federal, state, and local laws.
Equal Pay Mandates
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) Strategic Enforcement Plan prioritizes enforcing the Equal Pay Act (EPA) to close the pay gap between men and women, and the Trump administration has been silent about changing this direction. This topic is trending, as legislators in more than 40 jurisdictions introduced bills related to equal pay in 2017. California, New York, Massachusetts, and Maryland are setting the pace with laws addressing this issue. These states have set rules that more broadly define the equal pay standard requiring different factors, such as skill, effort, working conditions, and responsibility, in justifying gender pay disparities. These states are also broadening the geographic restrictions for employee pay differentials.
We expect that more states will enact equal pay rules in 2018. Companies should review gender pay differences in their workforce, document the bona fide business reasons for the differences, and correct wage disparities as needed. Permitted differences could include seniority, documented merit performance differences, pay based on quantity or quality of production or sales quotas, or geographic differentials.
Salary History Ban
The issue of pay has traditionally been an inevitable topic of discussion in any job interview. However, in a growing number of places throughout the country, an employer can no longer ask an applicant about his or her salary history. At least 21 states and Washington, D.C., along with several municipalities, have proposed legislation that would prohibit salary history questions. California (effective January 2018), Delaware (effective December 2017), Massachusetts (effective July 2018), and Oregon (effective January 2019) have enacted laws impacting private employers. More bans are expected at both the state and local level.
While the provisions of each law vary, they make it illegal for employers to ask applicants about their current compensation or how they were paid at past jobs. The rationale for these laws stems from the equal pay issue and the premise that pay for the job should be based on the value of the job to the organization, not the pay an applicant might be willing to accept. These laws are designed to reverse the pattern of wage inequality that resulted from past gender bias or discrimination.
For employers, this means:
- Establishing compensation ranges for open positions and asking applicants if the salary range for the position would meet their compensation expectations.
- Updating employment applications to remove the salary history information.
- Training hiring managers and interviewers to avoid asking questions about salary history.
Pay Transparency
Outside of certain industries, the public sector, and unionized environments where pay grades and step increases are common knowledge, historically many employers have had a practice of discouraging employees from openly discussing their compensation. That practice is fast becoming history, due to another notable trend in state legislatures: enacting laws that allow employees to discuss their wages and other forms of compensation with others. Although the provisions of the laws vary, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Washington, D.C., Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Vermont now have laws in place allowing pay transparency.
In addition to these state laws, Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) allows employees to engage in pay discussions as “concerted and protected activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” During the Obama administration, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) broadly interpreted the NLRA’s Section 7 to side with employees’ rights to discuss wages and other terms and conditions of employment. Unless the Trump administration’s NLRB changes direction on this issue, which is not expected, the clear message for employers is to remove any prohibitions of employees discussing pay or working conditions with others.
Be Vigilant
Employee compensation has always been a hot topic, and this year the temperature will continue to rise. Keep abreast of legislative and regulatory changes that impact pay practices to help your clients stay in compliance with the pay laws that are spreading throughout the country.
Now is a good time to suggest that your clients consider conducting pay audits, updating compensation plans, making compensation adjustments where needed, training managers regarding pay strategy and practice, and communicating the company’s compensation strategy and incentive plans to employees.
By Laura Kerekes, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
Originally posted on thinkHR.com
by admin | Mar 28, 2018 | Benefit Management, Benefit Plan Tips, Tricks and Traps, Human Resources
As the costs of health care soar, many consumers are looking for ways to control their medical spending. Also, with the rise of enrollment in high deductible health plans, consumers are paying for more health care out-of-pocket. From medical savings accounts to discount plans for prescriptions, patients are growing increasingly conscious of prices for their healthcare needs. Price shopping procedures and providers allows you to compare prices so that you are getting the best value for your care.
Why do you need to look beyond your nearby and familiar providers and locations for healthcare? Here’s a hypothetical example: Chris is a 45-year old male in good physical health. During his last check-up he mentions to his doctor that he’s had some recent shortness of breath and has been more tired as of late. His doctor orders an EKG to rule out any problems. If Chris went to his local hospital for this procedure, it would cost $1150. He instead looks online and shops around to find other providers in his area and finds he can get the same procedure for $450 at a nearby imaging center. His potential savings is $700 simply by researching locations.
So where do you start when shopping around for your health care? A good place to begin is by researching your health plan online. Insurance companies will post cost estimates based on facility, physician, and type of procedure. Keep in mind that these are just estimates and may vary based on what coverage you are enrolled in. Another way to shop is by checking out websites that have compiled thousands of claims information for various procedures and locations to give an estimate of costs. However, deciphering whether a site is reporting estimates based on the “medical sticker price” of charges or rates for private insurance plans or Medicare is difficult. There are huge differences in prices at different providers for the exact same procedure. This is because contracts between insurance agencies and providers vary based on negotiated amounts. This makes it hard to get consistent pricing information.
Check out these sites that do a great job comparing apples to apples for providers:
- Healthcare Blue Book
- What Kelly Blue Book is to cars, Healthcare Blue Book is to medical pricing
- New Choice Health
- Reports on pricing of medical procedures, providers, quality of facilities, and customer feedback for healthcare in all 50 states
- The Leapfrog Group
- Publishes data on hospitals so patients can compare facilities and costs for treatments and procedures
After compiling all the information on prices and procedures, you can still call and negotiate costs with the location of your care. Fair Health Consumer has tips on how to negotiate with providers and plan for your healthcare needs.
Knowledge is POWER and when you spend time researching and comparing healthcare costs, you are empowering yourself! Exercising due diligence to plan for you and your family’s medical needs will save you money and give you confidence in your decisions for care.
by admin | Mar 23, 2018 | Employee Benefits, Human Resources
Fear of missing out—is more than just a hashtag. Many Millennials admit that #FOMO drives a lot of their decisions on what they wear, what they do, even what they eat and drink. We live in a world of social influence.
But one area where #FOMO really does you a disservice? No one is afraid of missing out on the benefits of life insurance. And why should you? There are so many other things competing for your dollars. That said, do you know what you’re missing out on by not having it? Are you making one or more of these mistakes?
You think life insurance is much more expensive than it actually is. Three in four Millennials overestimate the cost of life insurance—sometimes by a factor of 2, 3, or even more! (2017 Insurance Barometer Study by Life Happens and LIMRA) Imagine being able to afford life insurance for the cost of that daily latte, and for less money than your avocado toast habit!
You think you can’t qualify for life insurance. Nothing could be further from the truth, and yet four in 10 Millennials think this is true, according to the same study! Younger candidates have an easier time getting life insurance because they are generally healthier.
You’ll turn to GoFundMe if something goes wrong. In an era where social networking does all things, it’s natural to think that your loved ones can crowdfund their way to solvency after something happens. But life insurance benefits aren’t taxed like GoFundMe proceeds are, and life insurance has a defined, immediate payout that GoFundMe does not. Plus, your loved ones don’t need the stress or the stigma of having to ask others for help.
You’d rather spend that money on other things. In fact, one study recently suggested that many Millennials are more concerned about planning their next night out with a significant other than planning for their financial future. But sensible steps now will make for a better future with that significant other long past tomorrow night’s date.
You don’t care because you don’t have people depending on you for money. Take a look at your student loans. Were any of them private loans? Who is liable for them—in full, often immediately—if something happens to you? There are other debts you may need to consider as well—anything where you have a co-signer.
You keep saying you’ll get around to buying insurance, but don’t. Millennials are getting married, having families! Young families have enough to worry about with daycare costs and increased medical costs, right? Well, imagine what your young family would do about those bills if something happened to you. Could your spouse pay the rent or mortgage without your income?
You tune out when “adulting” gets too hard. One recent college grad recently confessed to me that he hadn’t elected into any of his employee benefits at the dream job he got in his field because “my dad takes care of that.” He was shocked to learn what he was missing out on!
Yes, adulting *is* hard, but a sound financial plan that includes retirement and insurance coverage (health, life, and disability insurance are all part of that plan) goes a long way to making sure that you don’t look back on your younger years and think, “Oh, why didn’t I start this sooner?” Plus, you don’t have to do it alone—that’s what insurance agents are for. They will sit down with you at no cost, or obligation, to discuss what you need and how to get coverage to fit your budget. But then, signing up—that IS on you. Don’t miss out.
By Helen Mosher
Originally published by www.LifeHappens.org
