EverythingPeople This Week!

If the majority were to get their way, the answer would be yes.  Some states, such as California, have a form of paid family leave, but funding on a country-wide legislative mandate is still up in the air.  A number of issues arise from the length of family leave to the vehicle to provide payments to the breadth of family leave – all daunting issues.

While the “Great Resignation” implies a mass exodus of workers across demographics, a “Great Disconnect” signifies that only particular groups of workers – those who feel their employers are not meeting their needs – are considering leaving their job.  According to Mercer’s 2021 Inside Employee Minds survey, attraction and retention challenges are likely to continue in certain segments of the workforce where there is a disconnect between what...

ASE recently published the results to its Pay Administration Survey. Survey results are broken into five categories and are based on three employer sizes and two industry types. Over 110 Michigan employers participated in the 2021 edition. Most respondents (83%) have an employment size of 500 employees or less, with nearly 60% being a part of the manufacturing sector and over 40% working in the combined services sector. A little more than half of the respondents are Automotive Suppliers...

In June the Illinois legislature passed amendments to the Illinois Equal Pay Act reporting requirements, which unfortunately makes it more confusing for employers.  This law is ever evolving and will likely evolve again.

As the pandemic continues to unfold, the ability of employers to have a positive impact on employee health and resiliency cannot be understated according to a recent Mercer Survey, Health on Demand.

A new survey by Corestream revealed that employee demand for voluntary benefits, particularly mental health and financial wellness offerings, to ease burdens brought on by the pandemic is increasing. More employers are offering a larger variety of voluntary benefits categories to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse workforce.

Typically, HR coordinates open enrollment communications for most organizations, but the communications department should play a vital role. If your employees don’t understand their options, it doesn’t matter how competitive the benefit packages are.  With remote workers and plenty of distractions in your employees’ daily lives, most employees are confused.  According to a recent Voya survey, 66% of workers want a better explanation of their benefits. ...

Access to timely information has always been a necessity.  This fact has been made more relevant given the ongoing pandemic and resulting labor dynamics.  ASE strives to bring its members timely benchmarking information, and we are pleased to release two key surveys this week to the membership.

A new report from Arizent, The Future of Work: Employers, Employees, and the Long Road to Compromise, reveals that employers and employees don’t agree on what the new normal looks like.  To move forward, each side will have to compromise.

Henry Ford came up with the number one management idea of the 20th Century: pay the employees what they are worth.  On January 5, 1914, Henry Ford doubled his workers wages to $5 a day, which brings us back to the early days of ASE’s history as the labor exchange providing workers to Ford Motor Company.  By increasing the wages, it paid not only for the way the work was being done, but also valued the time the worker spent in a monotonous setting.  It also gave the...

Recently Delta Airlines announced that it will charge employees on the company health plan a $200 per month additional charge if they fail to get vaccinated against COVID-19. 

Delta argues that the costs of hospital stays for COVID total, on average, about $40,000-$50,000 per incident thus driving up healthcare costs for all employees.

 

Many employers have taken action to address the financial well-being of their employees, and one of the most popular benefits companies have either expanded or begun to offer is student loan repayment assistance in addition to tuition reimbursement programs.

On Friday, the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics released data from its Employment Cost Index.  The data confirms what many employers are experiencing; wages are increasing.  On a national basis, costs for wages and salaries among private industry increased 3.5%.  This is the largest increase in more than 14 years. 

Many assume that today’s labor shortage is due to the additional unemployment benefits being provided by the federal government through September.  But is this really the case?

On April 27, 2021, President Biden signed an Executive Order (EO 14026), “Increasing the Minimum Wage for Federal Contractors.” The EO would set the hourly minimum wage paid to workers performing work on or in connection with covered federal contracts to $15.00 per hour, beginning January 30, 2022.  In order to do so, implementing regulations would have to be promulgated.