Human Capital Services

Are Your Benefits a Liability?

Grow and survival of organizations depends on the quality and quantity of talent they can effectively recruit and retain. Part of attracting, recruiting, and retaining top talent, requires the selection and administration of competitive benefits packages. By giving employees benefits they actually value, they will be happier, more productive, and have a deeper commitment to the organization. Benefits normally fall under two broad categories of optional benefits and mandatory benefits.

Optional Benefits

Although not required by law, many of them are fairly common in companies of all size. Many items such as PTO are generally expected by employees. Common items include:

• Paid Time-off: Which can be used for vacations or in leu of medical leave. Depending on which state your organization is in, the rules on how PTO is accrued and what must be paid out can vary significantly.
• Retirement Options: Such as 401K accounts to help employees save for retirement. These accounts have annual maximum contribution, employer matches need to be accounted for.

Mandatory Benefits

These are employee benefits that all employers are legally requires to provide for their employees. While the laws can vary from state to state, certain benefits are required under federal law. To provide generally recognized mandatory benefits, all employers must:

• Provide Time Off to Perform Civic Responsibilities: This is time employers must allow their employees to performing civic responsibilities such as to serve on jury duty, to appear in a court proceeding, to vote, and perform military service.
• Contribute to Unemployment Insurance:If a worker loses their job through no fault of their own (downsizing, restructuring), they can apply for unemployment insurance, which provides a source of income (typically half their salary) for up to twenty-six weeks.
• Provide Workers' Compensation: Which provides protection to employees that miss work as a result of job-related illness or injury.
• Contribute to Disability Insurance: To support to employees that are injured or ill and are not able to perform the functions of their job.
• Comply with Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA): Companies with fifty or more workers must also provide employees up to twelve weeks of job-protected, unpaid leave for significant family or medical reasons, including paternity leave, adoption, foster care, and to care for a family member that has a serious health condition.

Errors Can Result in Costly Legal Challenges

Due to the complexity of proper benefits administration, it’s very easy to make mistakes. This also means it’s easy to get it wrong. Since benefits plans fall under tight Government scrutiny, the IRS or Department of Labor will quickly catch a mistake in an audit and assess penalties.

How We Can Help Prevent Your Organization from Making a Costly Mistake

It’s important to note that benefits administration, compliance, employee handbooks and on-boarding/off-boarding plans require routine maintenance to make sure they match the operating reality. Coverage and deductibles need to be updated, new business practices or legislation need to be factored in as they emerge. Our services include:

• Employee on-boarding/off-boarding
• Employee Handbook Development
• OSHA Compliance
• Benefits Administration