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.

Fiduciaries Have Ongoing Duty to Monitor, High Court Vacates Tibble

The U.S. Supreme Court on May 18 unanimously vacated a federal appellate court ruling that found that employee retirement plan participants’ claims about fees applied to their plan were time-barred, sending a clear message that plan fiduciaries have an ongoing duty to monitor investments, their expenses and other related claims within that duty’s statute of […]

Why Provide Disability Insurance for Employees?

Why Provide Disability Insurance for Employees? Of all the benefits employers routinely provide for employees, disability insurance remains one of the least-discussed options. This is startling, considering the fact that there are millions of Americans who are currently disabled and unable to earn income from employment.

Executive Exemption: Who Qualifies?

Executive Exemption: Who Qualifies? President Obama made the news recently with a proposal to change the rules on who must be paid overtime. What rule is under consideration here, and what are the implications for employers?

Ask the Right Questions—Find the Right Answers

Many leaders believe they must have all the answers—that it’s their responsibility to have the answer to every question and the solution to every problem. In my estimation, it’s more important to ask the right questions than it is to always have the answer.

Is Your 401(k) Plan Out of Date?

Like an old house that was cutting-edge when it was built but hopelessly archaic today, your 401(k) may have fallen behind the times. Is this true of yours? And, if so, what can you do about it?

Strategies for Smart Salary Surveys

Yesterday, we got some important guidance on job descriptions as they relate to your compensation program, courtesy of John Rubino of Rubino Consulting Services. Today, Rubino’s thoughts on salary surveys: the good, the bad, and the potentially illegal.

HATFA Will Cause Largest Pensions to Cut 2015 Plan Contributions

The renewed decline of funded status for defined benefit retirement plans this year has not led the largest U.S. DB plan sponsors to contribute from their coffers to compensate, a phenomenon that one investment advisory firm attributes to temporary interest rate stabilization. Until this year, corporate contributions to DB plans typically correlated with the plans’ […]

DOL: Plans Must Cover All Contraceptives, Not Some

Plans and insurers must cover all 18 contraception methods approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, according to a new set of questions and answers on the Affordable Care Act’s preventive care coverage requirements. “Reasonable medical management” still may be used to steer members to specific products within those methods of contraception. A plan […]