The purpose of this assignment is to evaluate the employee benefits options available in our current job market and provide a solution for Crangle Fixtures. This trend of shifting benefit costs to the employees is not new, I saw it happened in 1990 but it is not a popular decision and has been increasing in the market due to the health care reform. I found several articles discussing this trend and for example the ADP Research Study published the following in 2010: “The 2010 MetLife Study of Employee Benefits Trends showed that employee loyalty had declined year over year, and was, at the time of the study, at a three-year low. Our survey findings suggest there may be a link. Many of the HR/benefit decision makers we surveyed indicate that shifting health care costs to employees has had a negative impact on morale and job satisfaction. This is not surprising given that benefits cost-sharing hits employees where it hurts the most - in the paycheck.”("Talent Management Challenge," n.d., p. 1) To begin this assignment I need to determine what kind of benefits are acceptable and moreover competitive for the fixtures’ industry. The Bureau of Labor Statistics published this information in 2014: “The median annual wage for all workers in manufacturing was $37,690 in May 2013, higher than the $35,080 median annual wage for all workers. In some occupations, workers have higher wages in manufacturing than they do in other industries. For example, in May 2013, general maintenance
Employer-sponsored benefits reflect the culture and business of the organization, and plans should be crafted and selected accordingly. Think about your current (or former) organization's benefit plan. Did it help to improve the quality of your work as well as your personal life? Why or why not? Was it a generous benefits program or were there specific benefits you felt should have been included?
An employee can help reduce the cost of health cost by doing several things. There has been an outcry from organizations due to the rising number of competitors with high expenses catering for health benefits during employment periods and on retiring. The employee can be of great help by being participative in the programs set by their employers to benefit more from other advantages far from health costs (Kerzner, 2013). Some of the choices an employee may consider to help control health costs are by boosting consumerism, use technology to manage benefits, and indulge in fitness and health programs.
What’s next? Some experts say that if the consumer-directed approach doesn’t succeed, em wash their hands of health care altogether. A recent study by the Employee Benefit Researc showed that the proportion of U.S. residents covered by employment-based health benefits d percent in 2000 to 60 percent in 2004. Decades from now, observers may conclude that a counter- revolution in employer coverage began in these early years of the 21st century. —Terence F. Shea
In 1954, Congress passed legislation allowing employers to provide health insurance benefits to employees on a tax-free basis (Sih and Singh 99). This legal provision marked the beginning of the rapidly expanding health care costs still apparent today due to the major incentives provided by the government to obtain employer-based health coverage. The overwhelming popularity of employer-based health insurance has led to a serious market inefficiency resulting from the system of third-party payment. As individuals rely on their insurance companies to pay for their medical expenses, this provides
Employers are continuing to face rising health benefit costs and are constantly looking for alternatives to control these escalating costs. Health benefit premiums continue to increase at a double digit pace for employers and employees (Poor, Ross & Tollen, 2004). This escalation is putting environmental pressures on all impacted stakeholders. Companies and insurance providers are squeezing this industry to get a handle on cost while still providing an appropriate level of care. This cycle puts the patient front and center as the ultimate stakeholder who incurs changes in health benefits. This mandate of cost control, efficient operations and market share has facilitated a constant analysis of the dynamic health
Purpose: In Weeks 3 and 5, you submitted information to help you in completing the final project. Feedback was provided to assist you in maximizing points earned on this final paper. To properly complete this final project, you must include the feedback provided to apply to this final paper. The purpose of this assignment is to apply your critical thinking skills in completing the employee process from job analysis to compensation based on performance. You are now going to
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, was a major overhaul to the healthcare system, affecting both employers and employees. The ACA, along with rising healthcare costs, means employers have had to make changes in their healthcare plans and as a result, employees are seeing the affects, good or bad. As Fitzgerald (2014) points out, as the ACA gets closer to full implementation, more organizations will begin backing away from providing health care coverage. Part of the problem that organizations are facing in the future is the so-called Cadillac tax. As explained by healthaffairs.org (2013), the Cadillac tax is an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans and will mostly be paid for by the organizations. The tax, beginning in 2018, is a 40% excise tax on the cost of coverage for health plans that exceed a certain annual limit (healthaffairs.org, 2013). Because of this high tax, many companies are scaling back on coverage and finding ways to shift the cost to employees (Angle, 2014). The analysis presented will describe what ACA is, the problem GMFC faces, possible options, and finally, a solution for GMFC in this case.
The current system of healthcare in the US evolved from a circumstantial set of laws passed during World War II. Because wages were limited by law, employers resorted to fringe benefits as a means for attracting top talent. Healthcare plans existed prior to the conflict, but due to the war, these plans became an ingrained national phenomenon (Blumberg and Davidson). Tying health insurance to employment proved problematic because the unemployed, or self-employed, often lacked coverage. Around the beginning of the 1970s, increases in healthcare costs began to diverge from the Consumer Price Index (CPI). This trend has only increased since then and has
Recently, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) celebrated six years since the law’s passage. During that time, there have been many debates and slow changes to the United States healthcare system. One area that has been debated is in regards to employer-based health insurance along with the advantages and disadvantages in providing this type of coverage. Since there is more information about the expansion of health insurance options and how the exchange sponsored insurance plans are functioning, the discussion on if employer-based health insurance is beneficial or detrimental will be examined.
Verizon Wireless may be losing at least one competitive advantage as a result of lack of knowledge about how employee benefits packages in the wireless industry compare. Studies have shown that valuable employees and top talent candidates are highly influenced by employee benefits packages considered to be good (Paterson, 2013). The leadership team’s determination and call for organizational growth, translates to both retaining current employees and enticing new candidates to join, an area in which a top employee benefits package is a major contributor. With this consideration, and factoring in the problem of a lack of updated information, it was determined that there was a critical need for a current benefits package comparison. The
A dollar used for health benefits is worth more to an employee than a dollar in wages earned because the dollar in health benefits is not taxed and the dollar in wages earned is taxed. Thus, there it is a huge discount off the price of health insurance, and this happened very quietly and basically unnoticed by most. However, when health care was protected from these taxes, it immediately became of great value to employees, and companies benefited as they were able to keep it tax-free even after the war had ended
Emanuel and Fuchs provide evidence that employers do contribute to health insurance premiums through the workers’ compensation and hourly earnings that are adjusted according to inflation, but they do not bear the ultimate cost of health insurance and health benefits. For example, in the article, a figure titled, “Changes in Per Capita Health Expenditures and Average Hourly Earnings (Adjusted for Inflation),
This week our class discussion focused on the role that government plays in mandated benefits. For my discussion I took a look at health insurance and what some may call the free lunch mentality under the 340 b drug discount program. The question was posed should government be more involved or less involved in how benefits effect employee/ employer relationships and is that involvement actually costing employees more. The article I chose is entitled “Government Mandates Don’t Lower Healthcare Costs” (Forbes 2013). The main focus discusses the impact that government has had on the rise in pharmaceutical costs through the 340b program implemented by President George W. Bush and congress back in 1992 (Forbes 2013).
Most health care analyst believes that health benefits provided by employers are provided as part of the overall compensation paid to workers. Because of the rising cost of the health care benefits, employers’ shares of
America has a bleak outlook towards the costs associated with employee turnover, productivity decline, and increased employee healthcare costs due to chronic health care conditions. The cost of healthcare is increasing, and employers typically bear the brunt of these costs. Employers also face financial loss in regards to productivity decline and retention. In a Rand report, commissioned by the U.S. Government and compiled, by Matke and others, showed that the cumulative losses of all three domains associated with chronic