Yearly Archives: 2022

• 10 Unforgettable Quotes on Employee Engagement and Experience

  December 26, 2022

  Tags: Talent Management

  Employ­ee engage­ment and expe­ri­ence is at the core of what most Human Resources pro­fes­sion­als do on a dai­ly basis. From hir­ing to suc­ces­sion plan­ning, HR is first and fore­most focused on recruit­ing and retain­ing top tal­ent. Keep­ing those tal­ent­ed peo­ple engaged in their work is key to achiev­ing pos­i­tive busi­ness outcomes.

  Read More »

• Achieving Healthy HR: Thoughtful Compensation

  December 18, 2022

  Tags: Benefits Packages, compensation, HR

  • The pan­dem­ic and job mar­ket have made it dif­fi­cult for employ­ers to attract and retain tal­ent, neg­a­tive­ly impact­ing oper­a­tions and prof­itabil­i­ty.
  • Mineral’s Healthy HR frame­work shows you what com­pa­nies with high pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, morale, and engage­ment have in com­mon.
  • The Healthy HR frame­work is built on per­form­ing well on all four of the fol­low­ing pil­lars: thought­ful com­pen­sa­tion and ben­e­fits, good work-life bal­ance, the poten­tial for career growth, and appro­pri­ate work­load.
  • On aver­age, 70% of orga­ni­za­tions are research­ing com­peti­tors and look­ing to improve their com­pen­sa­tion pack­ages to attract and keep talent.

  Read More »

• Tis the Season for Holiday Wellness

  December 14, 2022

  Tags: Healthy Habits, Holidays, well-being

  The hol­i­days are often the busiest time of the year for a lot of peo­ple which can make it hard to stay men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly healthy.  With a lit­tle inten­tion­al­i­ty and under­stand­ing, you can ful­ly enjoy the hol­i­days while keep­ing your health in mind.

  6 Tips to Make Your Hol­i­days Brighter:

  Get Enough Sleep

  Sleep is often the first thing to go dur­ing a busy hol­i­day sea­son.  Poor sleep, espe­cial­ly over a peri­od of a few weeks, leads to poor func­tion­ing: it impacts your immune sys­tem, abil­i­ty to con­cen­trate and your mood – all things that make you even more stressed out.  It’s a vicious circle.

  Pri­or­i­tize “Me Time”

  Tak­ing some much need­ed “me time” isn’t self­ish; tak­ing care of your­self is one of the best men­tal well­ness gifts you can receive.  Do some yoga, take a walk, relax in the bath­tub, or sim­ply take some time to catch up on some read­ing.  Your men­tal health will thank you for it.

  Prac­tice Self-Con­trol When It Comes to Food

  Cook­ies, muffins, cakes and count­less oth­er temp­ta­tions are preva­lent dur­ing the sea­son! The hol­i­days are a time when a lot of peo­ple pull out their stretchy pants from the back of their clos­ets so they can eat sweets and deli­cious foods to their hearts’ con­tent. It’s okay to enjoy hol­i­day treats but it’s impor­tant to be mind­ful of your choic­es and then bal­ance your treats with healthy foods.

  Plan Ahead to Avoid Last Minute Stress

  Stay­ing on top of your errands and to-do list by think­ing ahead.  Get­ting your hol­i­day shop­ping done ear­ly helps you avoid the stress of last-minute shop­ping when you might not be able to find the things on your list.

  Get Some Exercise

  Exer­cise is an excel­lent way to destress.  But don’t wor­ry if you miss some time at the gym – the hol­i­days are always busy and mak­ing your reg­u­lar 7 a.m. spin class after a hol­i­day par­ty prob­a­bly isn’t going to hap­pen, and that’s okay.  Focus on sim­ply mov­ing your body.  Take the stairs or park your car fur­ther away from your des­ti­na­tion to get some more steps in!

  Don’t Com­pare Your­self to Others

  Pin­ter­est floods your feed with extrav­a­gant par­ty dec­o­ra­tions.  Not to men­tion see­ing beau­ti­ful­ly dec­o­rat­ed homes in TV com­mer­cials or social media posts of lav­ish gifts can make you feel over­whelmed. You might even start to think your hol­i­day cel­e­bra­tions aren’t up to par.  Just remem­ber: your hol­i­day tra­di­tions are your own and they don’t have to be like any­one else’s.

  While the hol­i­days can feel exhaust­ing, it’s also a time to be enjoyed and savored.  Make time for the activ­i­ties you enjoy this sea­son, such as Christ­mas bak­ing, hol­i­day movies, ice skat­ing, and favorite fam­i­ly tra­di­tions.  But most impor­tant­ly, be present.  That’s the best tip of them all.

   

• 5 Lessons to Learn about Learning and Development

  December 7, 2022

  Tags: Learning and Development

  Learn­ing and devel­op­ment is a nec­es­sary part of life, and it is required for mobil­i­ty and suc­ces­sion plan­ning at work. Yet, many HR depart­ments fail to imple­ment a com­plete L&D strat­e­gy or they do not even know where to begin.

  Read More »

• What Employees Want: Praise and Recognition

  November 30, 2022

  Tags: Employee Experience, Praise, Recognition

  “What gets rec­og­nized gets rein­forced, and what gets rein­forced gets repeated.”

  -Unknown

  In today’s ultra-com­pet­i­tive work envi­ron­ment, the com­pa­nies with the win­ning edge are the ones that have the best-trained and well-skilled staff. How­ev­er, even the best employ­ees can­not per­form well (or may even jump ship) when they are not moti­vat­ed enough. Praise and recog­ni­tion pro­vide the kind of pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence that can increase employ­ees’ morale, moti­va­tion and engage­ment, and renew their com­mit­ment to their orga­ni­za­tion.  This is why employ­ee praise and recog­ni­tion in the work­place has to be an innate part of any company’s culture.

  Read More »

• What You Need to Know About Diabetes

  November 21, 2022

  Tags: Diabetes, Gestational Diabetes, Type 1, Type 2

  Dia­betes is increas­ing at an alarm­ing rate in the Unit­ed States. Accord­ing to the CDC’s (Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol) Nation­al Dia­betes Sta­tis­tics Report for 2020 cas­es of dia­betes have risen to an esti­mat­ed 37 mil­lion (or 1 in 10 peo­ple in the U.S.).  Novem­ber is Nation­al Dia­betes Month and is a great time to bring atten­tion to this dis­ease and its impact on mil­lions of Americans.

  Read More »

• Emotional Compensation: An Employee Engagement and Retention Tool

  November 9, 2022

  Tags: Emotional Compensation, Retention

  First came the pan­dem­ic, which was fol­lowed by The Great Res­ig­na­tion and the labor short­age, and now qui­et quit­ting. Employ­ers are chal­lenged to attract and retain employ­ees among all these upheavals, keep them engaged, and main­tain a psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly safe work environment.

  Read More »

• What Is Human Resources in the Modern Workplace?

  November 7, 2022

  Tags: employee engagement, Employee Experience, HR

  Human Resources man­age­ment is always evolv­ing. Over the years, it has become a more promi­nent part of every busi­ness because it is prin­ci­pal­ly respon­si­ble for recruit­ing and retain­ing the tal­ent that allows the orga­ni­za­tion to achieve goals and flourish.

  No longer mere­ly an admin­is­tra­tive depart­ment, Human Resources pro­fes­sion­als align tal­ent man­age­ment and hir­ing deci­sions with busi­ness objec­tives. They are wel­come in the C‑suite, and their reach con­tin­ues to expand beyond over­see­ing hir­ing, ben­e­fits, and com­pa­ny regulations.

  Read More »

• Workplace Wellbeing: 5 Recommendations from the U.S. Surgeon General

  November 1, 2022

  Tags: well-being, Workplace Wellness

  The U.S. Sur­geon Gen­er­al, Dr. Vivek Murthy, recent­ly released the Frame­work for Work­place Men­tal Health & Well­ness to set a new stan­dard for expec­ta­tions of employ­ers. In this new nor­mal, Human Resources lead­ers must take some respon­si­bil­i­ty for the well­be­ing of those who work in their organization.

  Read More »

• Effective Leadership Begins with You!

  October 24, 2022

  Tags: Business Leaders, Leadership

  There may not be an “I” in team, but there is an “I” in disengaged.

  What does this have to do with lead­er­ship? Well, regard­less of what, why and where you lead, you — as the leader — are direct­ly respon­si­ble for the engage­ment of those who fol­low you.  It’s up to you to decide whether you are lead­ing pos­i­tive­ly or neg­a­tive­ly — and whether you choose to focus on engage­ment or mere­ly output.

  Read More »

• How to Make the Most Out of Open Enrollment

  October 19, 2022

  Tags: benefits, healthcare, Open Enrollment

  Choos­ing the right ben­e­fits dur­ing open-enroll­ment sea­son is so impor­tant and can help save mon­ey. It can also give indi­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies broad­er sup­port with their health. Ben­e­fits like med­ical cov­er­age are par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant with high infla­tion hav­ing such a big impact on people’s budgets.

  A sur­vey by Unit­ed­Health­care found that near­ly 40% of employ­ees devote less than one hour to the open enroll­ment process.  It is cru­cial to care­ful­ly ana­lyze your ben­e­fits dur­ing open enroll­ment as any deci­sions you make will like­ly be locked for the year until the next open enroll­ment peri­od. Don’t rush into open enroll­ment with­out care­ful­ly con­sid­er­ing your options!

  Read More »

• Why Data Privacy is Necessary in Today’s World

  October 11, 2022

  Tags: Data Privacy

  An unfathomable excess of online data is generated every day as the global economy churns; individuals take to social media; and modern life strives to keep pace with advancing technology.

  Secur­ing that data is rapid­ly becom­ing a neces­si­ty as com­pa­nies rec­og­nize it as an asset and real­ize the poten­tial val­ue in col­lect­ing, using, and shar­ing it.  

  Read More »

• Leveling Up Your Open Enrollment Game: Tips for Success

  October 3, 2022

  Tags: healthcare, Open Enrollment

  For most employ­ers, employ­ee ben­e­fits rep­re­sent a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of their over­all bud­get and a crit­i­cal part of their employ­ee recruit­ment and reten­tion strat­e­gy. Ben­e­fits vary from employ­er to employ­er but can range from med­ical or den­tal insur­ance to flex­i­ble spend­ing accounts, life and dis­abil­i­ty insur­ance, and more. The annu­al process of renew­ing those ben­e­fits involves a great deal of work, most of which is unseen by employees.

  Read More »

• Retirement Savings Tips: Stop Worrying and Start Saving

  September 26, 2022

  Tags: employee benefits, financial wellness, retirement

  Accord­ing to most retire­ment sav­ings sta­tis­tics, sav­ing for retire­ment is some­thing a lot of peo­ple put on the back­burn­er.  Until it is too late, that is.

  For some peo­ple, the rea­son is that they are sim­ply liv­ing pay­check to pay­check, so there isn’t much left to put aside. Oth­ers have some left­over mon­ey after cov­er­ing the month­ly expens­es but aren’t sure how much they need to put in their retire­ment fund.  Retire­ment is expen­sive and you need to know how much mon­ey you will need each year.

  Read More »

• What Employees Want: Financial Wellness

  September 19, 2022

  Tags: Financial Health, financial wellness

  “Finan­cial Well­ness” is get­ting a lot of buzz these days — and for good rea­son!  After all, today’s work­force is over­whelmed by mount­ing stu­dent debt and oth­er ris­ing expenses.

  Finan­cial well­ness refers to a person’s over­all finan­cial health and is one of many fac­tors that makes up employ­ee well­be­ing.  We often think of well­be­ing as relat­ed to phys­i­cal and men­tal health, but finan­cial stress impacts a person’s health as well.  When employ­ees are stressed about their finan­cial sit­u­a­tion it effects their pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, atten­dance and engage­ment in the workplace.

  Read More »

• 4 Ways to Recession-Proof HR

  September 14, 2022

  Tags: employee engagement, Recession

  By all accounts, the Unit­ed States is like­ly head­ing into a reces­sion. Already, the coun­try expe­ri­enced two con­sec­u­tive quar­ters of declin­ing gross domes­tic prod­uct (GDP), which is a red flag.

  Oth­er signs include infla­tion, the cool­ing down of ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist’s invest­ment, a declin­ing stock mar­ket, and vary­ing inter­est rates. How­ev­er, a strong job mar­ket per­sists, which throws off the usu­al domi­no effect, accord­ing to CNBC. Still, how peo­ple feel about their finan­cial prospects mat­ters, too. Read More »

• Gen Z: Is Quiet Quitting a Problem or a Wake-Up Call?

  September 7, 2022

  Tags: Employee Experience, Gen Z, Quiet Quitting

  

  Many young employ­ees from Gen Z are tak­ing to Tik­Tok to express their frus­tra­tion about the work­place and pro­fess their prac­tice of qui­et quit­ting. Essen­tial­ly, they are remain­ing at their jobs and still receiv­ing pay­checks and ben­e­fits, but they are stick­ing strict­ly to their the job descrip­tions and main­tain­ing pre­cise schedules.

  On social media, some are brag­ging about doing the bare min­i­mum because of their dis­ap­point­ment in their employ­er or sim­ply as a lifestyle choice. Some old­er work­ers are sug­gest­ing this is a result of lazi­ness or lack of ambi­tion. Many in Gen Z argue that they are sim­ply doing what is expect­ed of them con­trac­tu­al­ly, and noth­ing more, to main­tain work-life bal­ance. Read More »

• ER vs. Urgent Care

  August 31, 2022

  Tags: ER, Medical Care, Urgent Care

  All too often, ill­ness or injury appears out of the blue: You wake up in the mid­dle of the night with intense abdom­i­nal pain. You stum­ble while car­ry­ing gro­ceries up a flight of stairs and can no longer put weight on your swollen ankle. Or your baby spikes a high fever on the weekend.

  These sit­u­a­tions are stress­ful and it’s hard to think when you’re under stress. But you need to decide where to go to get med­ical care for your­self or a loved one. Under­stand­ing the lev­els of acute med­ical care before you need it can help you focus and get the appro­pri­ate help quickly.

  Read More »

• Controlling Employee Benefit Costs Amidst Inflation

  August 22, 2022

  Tags: employee benefits, Inflation

  

  Infla­tion is a silent bud­get killer- it caus­es every­thing to go up, from your gro­ceries to your gas, as the pur­chas­ing pow­er of mon­ey decreas­es.  Amer­i­cans are feel­ing the pinch as the U.S. expe­ri­ences the high­est infla­tion lev­el in 40 years.

  Infla­tion has been par­tic­u­lar­ly frus­trat­ing for Amer­i­cans who are strug­gling to pay for items such as hous­ing, food, ener­gy, and vehi­cles.  How­ev­er, con­sumer goods aren’t the only thing that have increased — employ­ee ben­e­fit costs are also on the rise.  With ris­ing infla­tion rates, many employ­ers are strug­gling with ris­ing health­care costs.  A sur­vey of large employ­ers from the Kaiser Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion found that 96% of respon­dents agree that the high costs of offer­ing health­care to their employ­ees are excessive.

  Read More »

• 6 Ways to Help Employees Combat Burnout

  August 16, 2022

  Tags: Employee Burnout, Labor Shortage, mental health, Retention

  Respon­dents to the lat­est State of HR report list burnout as the great­est con­se­quence of the pan­dem­ic. In fact, the Great Res­ig­na­tion lingers, in part, because the burnout has got­ten worse. Now, com­pa­nies are fac­ing infla­tion, the yank­ing of job offers, and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of lay­offs. While they are tight­en­ing their belts and being far more cau­tious, their work­ers remain over­worked and burdened.

  So, HR lead­ers are in hot pur­suit of men­tal health and well­ness solu­tions, ways to reach out and show they care. They want to help improve reten­tion and ensure a func­tion­ing, healthy work­force. Know­ing where to begin with a burnout pre­ven­tion plan is challenging.

  Read More »

• How Inflation Influences Layoffs

  August 8, 2022

  Tags: Budget Cuts, Inflation, Layoffs

  The Unit­ed States, like some oth­er coun­tries around the world, includ­ing the Unit­ed King­dom and Chi­na, are fac­ing an infla­tion cri­sis in this post-pan­dem­ic era. Infla­tion has great influ­ence on Human Resources because it can cause the need for wage stag­na­tion and bud­get cuts. The biggest dis­ap­point­ment dur­ing times of high infla­tion is the pos­si­bil­i­ty of lay­offs.

  Read More »

• 5 Things You Should Know About the Americans with Disabilities Act

  August 3, 2022

  Tags: Americans with Disabilities Act, DEI

  The Amer­i­cans with Dis­abil­i­ties Act of 1990 makes it ille­gal for com­pa­nies to dis­crim­i­nate in employ­ment against a qual­i­fied indi­vid­ual with a dis­abil­i­ty, accord­ing to the U.S. Equal Oppor­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion (EEOC). This leg­is­la­tion, which has been amend­ed in the years since it was orig­i­nal­ly signed into law, pro­vides guide­lines to employ­ers for accom­mo­dat­ing and being fair to the dif­fer­ent­ly abled.

  There are lim­i­ta­tions to protection.

  Read More »

• Relax! Vacations are Good for Your Health

  July 25, 2022

  Tags: Vacations, well-being

  Amer­i­can work­ers are noto­ri­ous for being worka­holics. In fact, The Cen­ter for Eco­nom­ic and Pol­i­cy Research has gone so far as to call the U.S. the “No Vaca­tion Nation.”  Decid­ing you need a vaca­tion may feel indul­gent but in real­i­ty, it is a cru­cial key to our over­all health.

  Read More »

• PCORI fees are due by Monday, August 1, 2022

  July 18, 2022

  Tags: ACA, PCORI

  By way of back­ground, the Afford­able Care Act (ACA) cre­at­ed the Patient-Cen­tered Out­comes Research Insti­tute (PCORI) to study clin­i­cal effec­tive­ness and health out­comes. To finance the Institute’s work, a small annu­al fee—commonly called the PCORI fee—is charged on group health plans. Grand­fa­thered health plans are not exempt.

  Most employ­ers do not have to take any action because employ­er-spon­sored health plans are com­mon­ly pro­vid­ed through group insur­ance con­tracts. For insured plans, the car­ri­er is respon­si­ble for cal­cu­lat­ing and pay­ing the PCORI fee and the employ­er has no addi­tion­al duties.

  How­ev­er, employ­ers that spon­sor self-fund­ed group health plans are respon­si­ble for cal­cu­lat­ing, report­ing, and pay­ing this fee each year.

  Read More »

• What Employees Want: On-Demand Pay

  July 13, 2022

  Tags: EWA, Instant Pay, On-Demand Pay

  Pay­roll works the same way in almost every full-time job.  Employ­ees earn mon­ey by work­ing, and they all receive their earn­ings on a set date: pay­day.  How­ev­er, in an era of same-day ship­ping, on-demand movies, and unlim­it­ed mobile access, indi­vid­u­als are increas­ing­ly expect­ing prompt access to near­ly any­thing they need. For employ­ees, this also means get­ting quick­er access to their paychecks.

  Read More »

• Can HR Capitalize on Resignation Remorse?

  July 5, 2022

  Tags: Great Resignation, recruitment

  The Great Res­ig­na­tion has paved the way for res­ig­na­tion remorse, accord­ing to a num­ber of pub­li­ca­tions. In fact, 72% of the 2,500 U.S. work­ers sur­veyed by The Muse said their new role or com­pa­ny was very dif­fer­ent from what they had been led to believe. For HR lead­ers still deal­ing with a labor short­age or sim­ply try­ing to fill open posi­tions, this news could help.

  Read More »

• Benefits Education 101 for Employees

  June 29, 2022

  Tags: Benefits Communication, employee benefits

  Com­pa­nies spend a large amount of time and mon­ey cre­at­ing valu­able ben­e­fits plans for employ­ees.  But after all that work, they often get low par­tic­i­pa­tion.  Good ben­e­fit choic­es require an effort from employ­ers to ensure that employ­ees have help in under­stand­ing their ben­e­fits options.  To make things even more com­plex, employ­ers are hav­ing to con­sid­er options for a span of 4 gen­er­a­tions in the work­place which can look very dif­fer­ent.  Pro­vid­ing ben­e­fits for a multi­gen­er­a­tional work­place can be chal­leng­ing but it is impor­tant for employ­ers to sim­pli­fy the process by deliv­er­ing edu­ca­tion through the right chan­nels while avoid­ing a one-size-fits-all approach.

  Read More »

• How to Build a Learning Culture

  June 20, 2022

  Tags: education, Learning Culture, Lifelong Learning

  

  Most HR lead­ers agree that build­ing a strong learn­ing cul­ture is the foun­da­tion for achiev­ing pos­i­tive busi­ness out­comes and effec­tive­ly con­fronting the future of work. In addi­tion, a younger gen­er­a­tion of work­ers is demand­ing more of employ­ers, and they expect career devel­op­ment and con­tin­u­ous learn­ing to be the norm. As a result, learn­ing cul­ture influ­ences employ­ee engage­ment and expe­ri­ence, too.

  Read More »

• 5 Tips to Save Money on Health Care: Part 2

  June 13, 2022

  Tags: Health Care Cost, Health Insurance

  

  Smart spend­ing can keep your health care from cost­ing an arm and a leg.  With costs ris­ing on every­thing from gas to food, every pen­ny counts. It pays to shop smart – that is why it helps to learn how to take steps to lim­it your out-of-pock­et health care costs.

  Read More »

• 4 Ways Inflation and Higher Costs Impact HR

  June 6, 2022

  Tags: Cost-of-Living, Economy, Inflation

  U.S. Pres­i­dent Joe Biden recent­ly laid out his plans to com­bat infla­tion and the high cost of liv­ing. The aver­age fam­i­ly is spend­ing an addi­tion­al $327 per month com­pared to pre-pan­dem­ic costs, accord­ing to a CNN broad­cast May 10. At the time, the nation­al aver­age price of gas was $4.37. While the Fed­er­al Reserve can do more to influ­ence infla­tion than the Pres­i­dent, his announce­ment is wel­come because peo­ple are suf­fer­ing and some econ­o­mists believe a reces­sion is looming.

  Read More »

• Best Practices for Employee Appreciation

  May 30, 2022

  Tags: Appreciation, Employee Appreciation, Rewards

  

  As HR lead­ers work hard to retain tal­ent dur­ing a his­toric labor short­age, they are try­ing to show employ­ee appre­ci­a­tion. At the HR Exchange Net­work Employ­ee Engage­ment and Expe­ri­ence online event, Mary Shel­ley, Chief Peo­ple Offi­cer at Tan­go Card, shared best prac­tices for reward­ing employ­ees to inform them of their val­ue to the organization.

  Read More »

• Transparency in Coverage

  May 25, 2022

  Tags: Price Transparency, Transparency in Coverage

  

  Health plan price trans­paren­cy helps con­sumers know the cost of a cov­ered item or ser­vice before receiv­ing care. Begin­ning July 1, 2022, most group health plans and issuers of group or indi­vid­ual health insur­ance will begin post­ing pric­ing infor­ma­tion for cov­ered items and ser­vices. This pric­ing infor­ma­tion can be used by third par­ties, such as researchers and app devel­op­ers to help con­sumers bet­ter under­stand the costs asso­ci­at­ed with their health care. More require­ments will go into effect start­ing on Jan­u­ary 1, 2023, and Jan­u­ary 1, 2024 which will pro­vide addi­tion­al access to pric­ing infor­ma­tion and enhance con­sumers’ abil­i­ty to shop for the health care that best meet their needs.

  Read More »

• Mental Health is Wealth, So Start Saving Up Now!

  May 17, 2022

  Tags: mental health, Mental Health Awareness

  

  “Suck it up,” “cheer up,” “snap out of it,” “but you don’t look sick”- these are just some of the phras­es that well-mean­ing friends and fam­i­ly tell loved ones strug­gling with men­tal health issues. Research shows that one in five adults strug­gle with men­tal health con­di­tions.  Men­tal health strug­gles include depres­sion, bipo­lar dis­or­der, anx­i­ety, schiz­o­phre­nia, and eat­ing disorders.

  Read More »

• What is Mental Health and Wellness in HR?

  May 9, 2022

  Tags: health, mental health, well-being

  

  Men­tal health and well­ness in HR are becom­ing top pri­or­i­ties for employ­ers. In fact, HR lead­ers named men­tal health and well­be­ing as their third biggest prob­lem, behind the labor short­age and retain­ing tal­ent, in the lat­est HR Exchange Net­work State of HR report. In addi­tion, those sur­veyed also said burnout was the top con­se­quence of the pan­dem­ic. “Blur­ring of work and per­son­al life” and “burnout” tied, with 28% of the vote each, as the biggest chal­lenges to employ­ee engage­ment. And 30%  of respon­dents said employ­ee engage­ment and expe­ri­ence was their top priority.

  Read More »

• The 4 W’s of Lifestyle Benefits

  May 2, 2022

  Tags: Employee Retention, Fringe Benefits, Lifestyle Benefits

  

  Com­pet­i­tive wages are no longer enough to sat­is­fy and sup­port val­ued employ­ees. Today, a vari­ety of ben­e­fits and perks play an essen­tial role in attract­ing and retain­ing tal­ent. Lifestyle ben­e­fits, some­times referred to as employ­ee perks, are non-salary ben­e­fits giv­en to employ­ees to improve their over­all lifestyle that go above and beyond stan­dard med­ical, den­tal and vision ben­e­fits. These lifestyle ben­e­fits are rapid­ly becom­ing the future of employ­ee benefits.

  Read More »

• 5 Tips to Save Money on Health Care: Part 1

  April 25, 2022

  Tags: health care costs, Health Insurance

  

  Health insur­ance is essen­tial to pro­tect­ing your health but the high cost of cov­er­age may leave you feel­ing sick.  Even after employ­ers pick up a sub­stan­tial amount of the cost, every year Amer­i­cans spend thou­sands of dol­lars on health­care while costs are con­tin­u­ing to rise. By tak­ing cer­tain steps, you can stretch your health­care dol­lars and still receive the care you need to stay healthy.

  Read More »

• As Cybercriminals Act More Like Businesses, Insurers Must Think More Like Criminals

  April 20, 2022

  Tags: Generational Stereotypes, millennials

  Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty is no longer an emerg­ing risk but a clear and present one for orga­ni­za­tions of all sizes, pan­elists on a pan­el at Triple‑I’s Joint Indus­try Forum (JIF) said. This is due in large part to the fact that cyber­crim­i­nals are increas­ing­ly think­ing and behav­ing like businesspeople.

  Read More »

• What Employees Want: Hybrid Work and Flexibility

  April 11, 2022

  Tags: Balance, Flexibility, Hybrid Work, well-being, Work-Life Balance

  

  2021 was quit­tin’ time in Amer­i­ca.  Last year alone over 47.4 mil­lion Amer­i­cans quit their jobs. This year, employ­ees seem­ing­ly have the upper hand against employ­ers.  The Turnover Tsuna­mi, a.k.a. The Great Res­ig­na­tion, has forced a reck­on­ing with the work­place and few employ­ers have come away unscathed.  Orga­ni­za­tions are now shift­ing pri­or­i­ties to make employ­ee well-being and reten­tion the pri­or­i­ty.  The fact of the mat­ter is, after health insur­ance, the most desir­able perks and ben­e­fits are those that offer flex­i­bil­i­ty while improv­ing work/life bal­ance. So, what is it that employ­ees real­ly want to achieve a bet­ter work/life balance?

  Read More »

• Generational Myths Part 2: Millennials

  April 6, 2022

  Tags: Generational Stereotypes, millennials

  

  Today’s offices poten­tial­ly span five full gen­er­a­tions rang­ing from Gen­er­a­tion Z to the Silent Gen­er­a­tion. A cowork­er could just as eas­i­ly be raised with a smart phone in hand as they could have used a type­writer at their first job. Some see dif­fer­ences between gen­er­a­tional col­leagues as an annoy­ance (“kids these days!”) and many rely on gen­er­a­tional stereo­types as fact. Truth of that mat­ter is that gen­er­a­tional stereo­types have about as many holes in them as a piece of Swiss cheese. Cur­rent research ques­tions the valid­i­ty of gen­er­a­tional stereo­types. This series uncov­ers top gen­er­a­tional myths as a strat­e­gy to sup­port a diverse and healthy employ­ee population.

  Read More »

• Understanding Your EOB

  March 30, 2022

  Tags: EOB, Explanation of Benefits, Health Insurance

  

  Let’s say that you vis­it­ed the doc­tor and you are won­der­ing how much that vis­it is going to cost.  A short while lat­er, you receive some­thing in the mail that looks like a bill – and even says “amount you owe” at the bot­tom.  How­ev­er, it doesn’t have a return enve­lope or tear-off por­tion for the bill.  Con­fused?  You’re not the only one!

  Most like­ly, you’ve just received an Expla­na­tion of Ben­e­fits (EOB) from your insur­ance com­pa­ny.  The most impor­tant thing for you to remem­ber is that an EOB is NOT a bill.  It is essen­tial­ly “one big receipt” that explains your vis­it.  It shows what was billed, how much you can expect your health plan to pay, and what you — the patient — have to pay. It is always impor­tant to review your EOB to make sure it is correct.

  An EOB is a tool that shows you the val­ue of your health plan.  It will detail the cost of the ser­vices you received and how much your insur­ance will pay.

  How do EOB’s work?

  The health care provider will bill your insur­ance com­pa­ny after your doc­tor vis­it.  Then, your insur­ance com­pa­ny will send your EOB.  Lat­er, you will receive a bill for the amount you owe.  How­ev­er, if the bill does arrive before the EOB, don’t pay it yet.  Wait until you have the EOB in hand so you can com­pare it to your med­ical bill.

  While an EOB will dif­fer from one insur­ance com­pa­ny to anoth­er, they typ­i­cal­ly all include the fol­low­ing information:

  • The Account Sum­ma­ry – lists your account infor­ma­tion with details like the patient’s name, date(s), and claim number.
  • The Claim Details – lists the ser­vices pro­vid­ed and the dates of the services.
  • The Amounts Billed – details the cost of the ser­vices and what costs your health plan did not cov­er. It will also include any out­stand­ing amount you are respon­si­ble for pay­ing.  If there is a por­tion that is not cov­ered by insur­ance, the rea­son why will also be listed.

  Remem­ber, insur­ance com­pa­nies rarely pay 100% of the bill.  You will need to pay any applic­a­ble deductible, copay and coinsurance.

  Deductible: The amount you pay for health care ser­vices before your insur­ance begins to pay anything.

  Copay: A flat fee that you pay on the spot each time you go to your doc­tor or fill a prescription.

  Coin­sur­ance: The por­tion of the med­ical cost you pay after your deductible has been met.  Coin­sur­ance is a way of say­ing that you and your insur­ance car­ri­er each pay a share of eli­gi­ble costs that add up to 100%.

  Why is Your EOB important?

  Med­ical billing com­pa­nies some­times make billing errors.  Your EOB is a win­dow into your med­ical billing his­to­ry.  Review it care­ful­ly to make sure that you did receive the ser­vice being billed and that your pro­ce­dure and diag­no­sis are list­ed and cod­ed correctly.

  EOBs can help you under­stand how the health insur­ance sys­tem works and pro­vide trans­paren­cy in the com­pli­cat­ed finances of health care.  While the EOB may be com­pli­cat­ed, under­stand­ing it can help ensure that you and your fam­i­ly get the most out of your health insur­ance.  Know­ing what an EOB is and what is includ­ed on the state­ment ensures that you stay in con­trol of your health care finances.

• Generational Myths Part 1 – Generation Z

  March 23, 2022

  Tags: Gen Z, Generation Z

  

  Today’s offices poten­tial­ly span five full gen­er­a­tions rang­ing from Gen­er­a­tion Z to the Silent Gen­er­a­tion. A cowork­er could just as eas­i­ly be raised with a smart phone in hand as they could have used a type­writer at their first job. Some see dif­fer­ences between gen­er­a­tional col­leagues as an annoy­ance (“kids these days!”) and many rely on gen­er­a­tional stereo­types as fact. The truth of that mat­ter is that gen­er­a­tional stereo­types have about as many holes in them as a piece of Swiss cheese. Cur­rent research ques­tions the valid­i­ty of gen­er­a­tional stereo­types. This five-part series uncov­ers top gen­er­a­tional myths as a strat­e­gy to sup­port a diverse and healthy employ­ee population.

  Let’s start with the green­est part of the work­force: Gen­er­a­tion Z. This cohort was born between 1997 and 2012 and the elders of this group turn 25 this year. The top three myths of Gen Z include:

  1. Their inter­est in work­place flex­i­bil­i­ty is fueled by the desire for remote work. Work­place flex­i­bil­i­ty refers to how, when and where work gets accom­plished. His­tor­i­cal lit­er­a­ture pegs Gen­er­a­tion Z as a group keen to choose when and where they com­plete their work. A recent sur­vey com­plet­ed by Annemarie Hayek, Pres­i­dent and Founder of Glob­al Mosa­ic, refut­ed this pri­or claim with data. It showed less than a third want a ful­ly remote posi­tion. More excit­ing to Gen­er­a­tion Z? Com­pen­sa­tion and hav­ing their opin­ions heard by leadership.
  2. Men­tal health ben­e­fits fall into the “nice to have” cat­e­go­ry. Gen­er­a­tion Z felt the effects of the pan­dem­ic men­tal health cri­sis and val­ue qual­i­ty health­care. The Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health study pre­dicts that one third of today’s teenagers will expe­ri­ence men­tal health dif­fi­cul­ties relat­ed to anx­i­ety. Pri­or gen­er­a­tions may hear “men­tal health” and think of fluffy well­ness pro­grams, but Gen Z sees it as so much more than a webi­nar on work-life bal­ance. While this attribute is shared with Mil­len­ni­al col­leagues, this group is more active in com­mu­ni­cat­ing their needs with man­agers and peers. No shy­ing away from uncom­fort­able con­ver­sa­tions here! Men­tal health was an ongo­ing con­ver­sa­tion in their youth. For this rea­son, they are real­is­tic about the hard costs and pri­or­i­tize ther­a­py and paid time off benefits.
  3. They are uncom­fort­able with face-to-face con­ver­sa­tions. This gen­er­a­tion was raised with tech­nol­o­gy at their fin­ger­tips and social media omnipresent, so many assume they rely on text for all pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­ni­ca­tions. This com­mon mis­con­cep­tion does not pan out, says Ryan Jenk­ins, Inc. colum­nist and gen­er­a­tional expert. Data shows that 84% of Gen Z favor live com­mu­ni­ca­tion with their boss­es. This group does not hide behind a screen in or out of the office. Gen­er­a­tion Z was raised in an ever-chang­ing sociopo­lit­i­cal envi­ron­ment that includ­ed school shoot­ings, eco­nom­ic reces­sions, and increased focus on cli­mate change. Because of this ear­ly expo­sure, they are com­fort­able activists, and they bring this social aware­ness to work.

  Despite what you may have heard, the major­i­ty of Gen­er­a­tion Z isn’t opposed to work­ing in the office. They pri­or­i­tize “hard” men­tal health ben­e­fits and pre­fer live con­ver­sa­tions with their managers.

  © UBA. All rights reserved.

• Benefits for a Multigenerational Workforce

  March 10, 2022

  Tags: employee benefits, Generational Differences, Multigenerational Benefits

  

  If only every­one val­ued the same things, ben­e­fits plan­ning would be a lot eas­i­er.  If. Only.

  How­ev­er, most employ­ers have five gen­er­a­tions of employ­ees active in the work­place who want dif­fer­ent things.  With gen­er­a­tion gaps span­ning more than 75 years, find­ing a one-size-fits-all ben­e­fits pack­age can be chal­leng­ing.  How­ev­er, there are cer­tain things to con­sid­er to tai­lor employ­ee ben­e­fits for each generation.

  The Five Gen­er­a­tions in the Workforce:

  Gen­er­a­tion Z: 1997–2012, (5% of workforce)
  Mil­len­ni­als: 1981–1996, (35% of workforce)
  Gen­er­a­tion X: 1965–1980, (33% of workforce)
  Baby Boomers: 1946–1964, (25% of workforce)
  Tra­di­tion­al­ists or The Silent Gen­er­a­tion: 1928–1945, (2% of workforce)

  Regard­less of their gen­er­a­tion, every employ­ee wants tra­di­tion­al ben­e­fits like time off, health­care insur­ance, and retire­ment plan­ning. To cre­ate a ben­e­fits pro­gram with multi­gen­er­a­tional appeal, employ­ers should first think about their employ­ees’ shared con­cerns and vary­ing needs.

  One strat­e­gy for man­ag­ing mul­ti­ple gen­er­a­tion is cus­tomiz­ing ben­e­fits offer­ings to core demo­graph­ics.  For exam­ple, would your staff val­ue on-site child-care?  Would a retire­ment plan that high­lights the need for sav­ing ear­ly or tuition assis­tance be rel­e­vant for your employ­ees? Think about who your employ­ees are and which ben­e­fits are most like­ly going to sup­port their success.

  Many employ­ees are con­cerned about their finan­cial well­ness.  Sev­en out of 10 new col­lege grad­u­ates each owe $37,000 or more.  These unprece­dent­ed lev­els of stu­dent debt make finan­cial con­cerns a pri­ma­ry con­cern for Mil­len­ni­als and Gen Z.  Gen Xers share finan­cial con­cerns as they look to pay for their children’s edu­ca­tion. While fear of not sav­ing enough for retire­ment is a con­cern for all age groups, it is most con­cern­ing to Baby Boomers and Tra­di­tion­al­ists for whom retire­ment is around the corner.

  Gen X val­ues ben­e­fits that sup­port bet­ter work-life bal­ance, such as care­tak­er sup­port, flex time, well-being and sup­port and finan­cial pro­tec­tion.  Mean­while, Gen Zers favor ben­e­fits that sup­port career growth, men­tal health and diver­si­ty, equi­ty, and inclu­sion pro­grams and perks that relate to job secu­ri­ty, a key con­cern for this generation.

  While every gen­er­a­tion faces uncer­tain­ty at dif­fer­ent stages of life, Mil­len­ni­als are more like­ly to pur­chase legal insur­ance com­pared to oth­er gen­er­a­tions. Many Mil­len­ni­als start­ed work­ing dur­ing a reces­sion which has great­ly affect­ed how they view their long-term careers. Mil­len­ni­als have adopt­ed an “any­thing can hap­pen” men­tal­i­ty and are will­ing to pay for peace of mind to be finan­cial­ly stable.

  To han­dle the unex­pect­ed, health, den­tal, vision and life insur­ance are all val­ued tra­di­tion­al ben­e­fits and are espe­cial­ly impor­tant to Baby Boomers and Tra­di­tion­al­ists.   Some Tra­di­tion­al­ists and Boomers may not be full-time employ­ees.  Com­pa­nies employ­ing more of this gen­er­a­tion of work­ers should offer some sort of well­ness ben­e­fits like gym mem­ber­ships or health services.

  Beyond the core offer­ings like health care and retire­ment sav­ings plans, employ­ers can offer a menu of non-med­ical vol­un­tary ben­e­fits that employ­ees can select based on their indi­vid­ual needs.  Those might include legal insur­ance, care­giv­er leave, stu­dent debt assis­tance or tuition reim­burse­ment, on-site child-care, pet insur­ance, finan­cial coun­sel­ing, acci­dent insur­ance and more.

  Whether a Boomer or a Gen Xer, all employ­ees want to feel con­fi­dent and informed about their health­care deci­sions. Qual­i­ty health­care that is acces­si­ble and afford­able is a pri­or­i­ty for all gen­er­a­tions.  Cre­at­ing a cus­tomiz­able ben­e­fits expe­ri­ence that rec­og­nizes the diver­si­ty across the multi­gen­er­a­tional work­force will like­ly result in employ­ee reten­tion and increased job sat­is­fac­tion as well as mak­ing recruit­ing top tal­ent eas­i­er.  By focus­ing on com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the ben­e­fits mix, and under­stand­ing what is impor­tant to each gen­er­a­tion, your com­pa­ny may well be on its way to a suc­cess­ful ben­e­fits strategy.

• 6 Ways to Reduce Burnout When You’re Understaffed

  March 7, 2022

  Tags: Employee Burnout, Employee Experience, mental health, wellness

  Question

  We’ve been both super busy and under­staffed recent­ly. Is there any­thing we can do dur­ing this time to help our employ­ees avoid extra stress or burnout before we can hire more employees?

  Answer

  Yes. Here are a few things you can do to make this time run as smooth­ly and stress-free as possible:

  Remove nonessen­tial work duties: For the posi­tions that seem most stretched, make a list of tasks that could be put on hold (or per­haps reas­signed). You can invite input from employ­ees, too, but I’d rec­om­mend acknowl­edg­ing that they’re over­whelmed and say­ing that you’ll do your best to alle­vi­ate some of the pres­sure. Then hold off on nonessen­tial tasks until busi­ness slows down or you’ve increased your headcount.

  Allow for flex­i­ble sched­ul­ing: If employ­ees need to work longer hours on some days dur­ing the week, con­sid­er allow­ing them to work few­er hours on oth­er days of the week. Note that some states have dai­ly over­time, spread-of-hours, or split-shift laws.

  Bud­get for over­time: Employ­ees may need to work extra hours to keep up with the cur­rent demands of their job, so allow them to work over­time if you (and they) can swing it. If you’re pret­ty sure over­time will be nec­es­sary, inform employ­ees of that ahead of time, so they can plan accordingly.

  Ensure all equip­ment is fast and reli­able: It’s impor­tant to iden­ti­fy, trou­bleshoot, and cor­rect any slow or non­work­ing equip­ment issues (such as lap­tops, inter­net hard­ware, cash reg­is­ters, or vehi­cles). If not resolved, these issues can slow down work and add to everyone’s stress.

  Look for ways to auto­mate: Con­sid­er whether any of your employ­ees’ man­u­al and time-con­sum­ing tasks could be elim­i­nat­ed or sim­pli­fied with the use of new or dif­fer­ent technology.

  Increase safe­ty pro­to­cols: Employ­ee absences relat­ed to COVID have cre­at­ed a sig­nif­i­cant strain for many employ­ers dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. Shoring up your safe­ty pro­to­cols may reduce the risk of COVID-relat­ed absences because of sick­ness or expo­sure. Depend­ing on your cir­cum­stances, exam­ples include improv­ing ven­ti­la­tion, encour­ag­ing or requir­ing vac­ci­na­tion, requir­ing employ­ees to wear masks, and allow­ing employ­ees to work remote­ly when possible.

  By Megan Lemire

  Orig­i­nal­ly post­ed on Mineral

• Show Your Heart Some Love

  February 28, 2022

  Tags: Heart Disease, Heart Health

  

  Feb­ru­ary is Amer­i­can Heart Month, a time when all peo­ple can focus on their car­dio­vas­cu­lar health. Do you know how to keep your heart healthy? You can take an active role in reduc­ing your risk for heart dis­ease by eat­ing a healthy diet, engag­ing in phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, and man­ag­ing your cho­les­terol and blood pressure.

  Heart dis­ease accounts for near­ly one-third of all deaths world­wide. Stud­ies and experts rec­om­mend exer­cise as an impor­tant way to main­tain­ing a healthy heart, but your diet plays a major role in heart health and can impact your risk of heart dis­ease. The most impor­tant fac­tor in healthy eat­ing is hav­ing a bal­anced diet, watch­ing por­tions, and eat­ing foods you actu­al­ly enjoy. This will allow you to stick with it for the long term.

  Let’s take a clos­er look at the 4 key fac­tors for a heart healthy diet and exam­ples of how you can incor­po­rate them into your dai­ly life:

  1. Fruits and Vegetables:
  Leafy green veg­eta­bles are well known for their wealth of vit­a­mins, min­er­als, and antiox­i­dants. An analy­sis of eight stud­ies found that increas­ing leafy green veg­etable intake was asso­ci­at­ed with up to a 16% low­er inci­dence of heart disease.
  

  2. Healthy Proteins:
  Lean meat, poul­try and fish, low-fat dairy prod­ucts and eggs are some of your best sources of pro­tein. Legumes – beans, peas and lentils – are good, low-fat sources of pro­tein and are a good sub­sti­tute for meat. Also, sub­sti­tut­ing plant pro­tein for ani­mal pro­tein – ie. a black bean burg­er for a ham­burg­er – will reduce your fat & cho­les­terol intake and increase your fiber intake.

  

  3. Healthy Fats:
  Not all fats are bad. Foods with monoun­sat­u­rat­ed and polyun­sat­u­rat­ed fats are impor­tant for your brain and heart. Lim­it foods with trans-fats, which increase the risk for heart disease.

  

  4. Whole Grains:
  Whole grains are good sources of fiber and oth­er nutri­ents that play a role in reg­u­lat­ing blood pres­sure and heart health.

  

  Eat­ing heart healthy is a lifestyle, it’s about nutri­tion, bal­ance and retrain­ing our mind to make bet­ter food choic­es. What you eat can influ­ence almost every aspect of heart health, from blood pres­sure and inflam­ma­tion to cho­les­terol lev­els and triglyc­erides. A well-bal­anced diet can help keep your heart in good shape and min­i­mize your risk of heart dis­ease. With plan­ning and a few sim­ple sub­sti­tu­tions, you can eat with your heart in mind!

• Pros and Cons of the Gig Economy

  February 22, 2022

  Tags: Contract Workers, Freelancers, Gig Economy, Gigsters

  

  Since the start of the pan­dem­ic, the gig econ­o­my has become more ubiq­ui­tous. Human Resources lead­ers need to under­stand the new kind of work­er attract­ed to the world of gigs, and learn how to make that kind of non-tra­di­tion­al work­er fit into their teams.

  Some mis­tak­en­ly believe that the gig econ­o­my, also known as the shared econ­o­my, only refers to on-demand jobs like dri­ving for Uber or Lyft or mak­ing Ama­zon deliv­er­ies. How­ev­er, it is also applic­a­ble to white-col­lar jobs. It’s becom­ing a solu­tion for employ­ees, who need more flex­i­bil­i­ty, and employ­ers, who need tal­ent dur­ing a his­toric labor short­age. The HR Exchange Net­work’s State of HR Report revealed that HR lead­ers hold flex­i­ble work cul­ture as a top pri­or­i­ty, sec­ond only to employ­ee engage­ment and expe­ri­ence. Buy­ing into gig work might be a way to address both those priorities.

  What Is the Gig Economy?

  “The gig econ­o­my is a free mar­ket sys­tem in which tem­po­rary, flex­i­ble jobs are com­mon­place and com­pa­nies bring on inde­pen­dent con­trac­tors and free­lancers instead of full-time employ­ees, and in many cas­es, for short-term engage­ments,” accord­ing to Embro­ker.

  A look at the num­bers demon­strates how impor­tant it is for HR lead­ers to pay atten­tion and get up to speed on how this new kind of work arrange­ment could influ­ence their busi­ness. By 2023, the glob­al gig econ­o­my is expect­ed to be a $455 bil­lion indus­try, accord­ing to Har­vard Busi­ness Review. Two mil­lion new work­ers joined the U.S. free­lance work­force in 2020. In fact, one in three work­ing Amer­i­cans rely on free­lanc­ing for all or part of their income. Gallup esti­mates rough­ly 57 mil­lion Amer­i­cans are gig work­ers, accord­ing to Forbes.

  “The rapid­ly accel­er­at­ing growth of the gig econ­o­my rep­re­sents one of the most sig­nif­i­cant and all-encom­pass­ing chal­lenges faced by Human Resources pro­fes­sion­als,” accord­ing to SHRM. “The fun­da­men­tal ques­tion is whether Human Resources can demon­strate the agili­ty to lead the change in cul­ture, pro­grams, process­es, and poli­cies orig­i­nal­ly designed for work com­plet­ed by full-time employ­ees to a new era when more of the work is being com­plet­ed by a tal­ent port­fo­lio increas­ing­ly rep­re­sent­ed by con­tin­gent work­ers (also referred to as gig­sters, free agents, tem­po­rary help, agency work­ers, on-call work­ers, con­tract work­ers, inde­pen­dent con­trac­tors, or freelancers).”

  Pros of the Gig Economy

  Affordable Labor

  A full-time employ­ee requires a salary and ben­e­fits. You have to make hefty invest­ments in train­ing and career pro­gres­sion. Hir­ing an on-demand work­er elim­i­nates the need for all that. You pay them per project or on an hourly basis for as long as you need them. They usu­al­ly can work remote­ly or only need to come into an office or place of busi­ness on a lim­it­ed basis.

  Specific Skills or Talents

  Some­times, you need an expert in an area for one or two projects and not on a reg­u­lar basis. Being able to hire con­tract work­ers as you need them means you can look for exact­ly what you need at that moment. You don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly have to wor­ry about well-round­ed skills like you might with a full-time hire.

  Flexibility

  Free­lancers and on-demand hires offer flex­i­bil­i­ty. Even if you’re renew­ing a con­tract with one of them on a reg­u­lar basis, you only have to pay them for the work they actu­al­ly do. You can turn to them when the work demands more help or when their par­tic­u­lar ser­vice will enhance outcomes.

  Cons of the Gig Economy

  Carousel of Workers

  Team dynam­ics can be hard to pin down when you are always work­ing with dif­fer­ent peo­ple. Even if you con­sis­tent­ly work with the same free­lancers, they are not bound by the same par­tic­i­pa­tion expec­ta­tions as full-time work­ers. This can make it even more chal­leng­ing to define a cul­ture or help teams bet­ter collaborate.

  Different Kind of Relationships

  There’s more of a hier­ar­chy when you are work­ing with full-time employ­ees. Man­agers and super­vi­sors over­see their work and usu­al­ly pro­vide some sort of per­for­mance mea­sure­ments to track their progress. With free­lancers, you are their client. They are still work­ing for you, but it changes the dynam­ic of the relationship.

  This becomes most com­pli­cat­ed with con­tin­gent work­ers, who work con­sis­tent­ly for a com­pa­ny but with­out job secu­ri­ty or tra­di­tion­al ben­e­fits. They do this for a num­ber of rea­sons, includ­ing hav­ing more free­dom over their sched­ules, being able to work for oth­ers, and being their own boss. As a result, the con­tract dic­tates their work more than the man­ag­er does. How­ev­er, the man­ag­er or com­pa­ny could end up being a dis­sat­is­fied cus­tomer, and con­tin­gent work­ers can be let go at any time and you don’t have to prove they deserved to be fired.

  Lack of Routine

  If you’re work­ing with a blend­ed team – full-time employ­ees and free­lancers or con­tin­gent work­ers – you might have a hard time cre­at­ing a sol­id sched­ule or rou­tine for the group. Poten­tial­ly you could still get the job done, but full-time employ­ees might feel incon­ve­nienced or maybe even a bit resent­ful. They have to be in one place for a cer­tain amount of time, where­as their free­lance coun­ter­parts are free to work on their own clock.

  Obvi­ous­ly, there are pros and cons to the gig econ­o­my. But HR lead­ers can’t afford to ignore the fact that there is a soci­etal shift toward this kind of work­place, where peo­ple have more free­dom over their sched­ules, the kind of work they do, and even the rela­tion­ship they have with employ­ers. There’s still so much we have to fig­ure out when it comes to the gig economy.

  “Online gig work has grown increas­ing­ly com­mon in recent years – and yet there’s still lim­it­ed under­stand­ing of how to effec­tive­ly sup­port these non-tra­di­tion­al work­ers,” accord­ing to Har­vard Busi­ness Review. “While gig work­ers can ben­e­fit from greater flex­i­bil­i­ty and auton­o­my than tra­di­tion­al employ­ees, they also face unique chal­lenges: less job secu­ri­ty, few­er resources for career devel­op­ment, and often, a strong sense of alien­ation and dif­fi­cul­ty find­ing mean­ing in their work.”

  In fact, many reports have sug­gest­ed that HR lead­ers in the future will pro­vide access to resources regard­ing ben­e­fits like med­ical insur­ance instead of pay­ing for it as they would for a full-time employ­ee. Com­pa­nies may begin to sup­port co-work­ing spaces to pre­vent iso­la­tion of their con­tin­gent or free­lance work­ers. The point is that change is afoot, and HR lead­ers are paving the way for this new work paradigm.

  By Francesca Di Meglio

  Orig­i­nal­ly post­ed on HR Exchange Network

• What Employees Want: Well-Being Programs

  February 16, 2022

  Tags: Healthy Habits, mental health, well-being

  

  Work­place well­ness pro­grams have increased in the past sev­er­al years to pro­mote healthy diets and lifestyle, exer­cise and oth­er behav­iors such as quit­ting smok­ing.  As of 2020, most employ­ers had well­ness pro­grams of some kind, includ­ing 53% of small firms (those with 3–200 employ­ees) and 81% of large com­pa­nies.  Since employ­ees spend most of their wak­ing hours on the job, well­ness pro­grams seem to be a nat­ur­al fit to try to pro­mote healthy changes in behav­ior.  But, in 2022, employ­ees want more; many work­ers are look­ing for employ­ers who show authen­tic con­cern for their well-being.

  Well-being is about how our lives are going.  It’s not only about health and hap­pi­ness but also about liv­ing life to its fullest poten­tial.  In fact, data shows that employ­ees of all gen­er­a­tions rank “the orga­ni­za­tion cares about the employ­ees’ well-being” in their top three criteria.

  Finan­cial stress soared dur­ing the pan­dem­ic but so did reg­u­lar stress, too.  Men­tal health strug­gles such as anx­i­ety, depres­sion, and sub­stance abuse are also climb­ing.  These are expen­sive issues to ignore both in terms of the human suf­fer­ing but also the company’s bot­tom line: Depres­sion alone costs an esti­mat­ed $210.5 bil­lion per year.  These costs are due to absen­teeism (missed work days) and pre­sen­teeism (reduced pro­duc­tiv­i­ty at work) as well as direct med­ical costs (out­pa­tient and inpa­tient med­ical ser­vices and phar­ma­cy costs).

  Employ­ers must rec­og­nize the inter­re­la­tion­ship between the phys­i­cal, finan­cial, work and well-being com­po­nents of employ­ees’ lives.  For exam­ple, employ­ees who need help with their finan­cial well-being are sig­nif­i­cant­ly less like­ly to be phys­i­cal­ly healthy and more like­ly to report feel­ing stressed or anx­ious which can impact pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and job per­for­mance.  Vice Pres­i­dent for Com­mu­ni­ca­tions at Fideli­ty Invest­ments in Boston, Mike Sham­rell,  rec­og­nizes the need for all dimen­sions of well­ness.  “It’s tough to be well in one area when you’re unwell in anoth­er,” he said.

  Well-being is often asso­ci­at­ed with gym mem­ber­ships and green smooth­ies but it is much more than that; it is a result of many dif­fer­ent aspects of one’s life.  Here are 5 com­mon dimen­sions of well-being that can be addressed through a work­place well­ness program:

  • Emotional/Mental Health – Under­stand­ing your feel­ings and cop­ing with stress.
  • Phys­i­cal Health – Dis­cov­er­ing how self-care can improve your life and productivity.
  • Finan­cial Health – Suc­cess­ful­ly man­ag­ing your money.
  • Social Con­nect­ed­ness – Cre­at­ing and being a part of a sup­port network.
  • Occu­pa­tion­al Well-Being– Feel­ing appre­ci­at­ed at work and sat­is­fied in your contributions.

  Great employ­ees want great employ­ers.  Com­pa­nies that want cre­ative, high-per­form­ing teams must be will­ing to sup­port work­ers both in and out of the office.  Well-being has a major influ­ence on an employee’s per­for­mance and sat­is­fac­tion; employ­ees who feel val­ued and appre­ci­at­ed are more invest­ed in their com­pa­ny in return.

• What You Need to Know About Healthcare Benefits in 2022

  February 8, 2022

  Tags: healthcare, Healthcare Benefits, insurance

  

  While the new year feels like a fresh start for most work­ers, it’s also expect­ed to come with a spike in health insur­ance pre­mi­ums. Pre­mi­ums and deductibles have been steadi­ly increas­ing for years. The Kaiser Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion (KFF) found that pre­mi­ums for a fam­i­ly rose 4% in 2021, accord­ing to a sur­vey focused on employ­er-spon­sored benefits.

  The aver­age fam­i­ly pays $22,221 in pre­mi­ums, accord­ing to KFF. Work­ers con­tributed $5,969 toward their cov­er­age, while employ­ers paid the rest. In fact, since 2011 the aver­age fam­i­ly pre­mi­ums have increased 47%, which KFF found was more than wages (31%) and infla­tion (19%).

  Not only is this a finan­cial hard­ship for Amer­i­can fam­i­lies, but it’s also drain­ing com­pa­nies that are strug­gling to main­tain employ­ee cov­er­age. To com­pli­cate the mat­ter, sev­er­al fed­er­al pro­grams pro­vid­ing sup­port for health­care are due to expire in 2022.

  What to Expect in Healthcare Coverage

  Ris­ing health­care pre­mi­ums are only part of the prob­lem. Deductibles are also sky­rock­et­ing. This is the amount work­ers have to pay before insur­ance kicks in and could make a huge finan­cial dif­fer­ence for fam­i­lies deal­ing with a seri­ous health issue.

  The aver­age sin­gle deductible has dou­bled in the last decade to $1,669. For the more afford­able health­care plans, deductibles can be as high as $8,000. Over­all, 85% of the 155 Amer­i­cans with employ­er-spon­sored cov­er­age have a deductible.

  Anoth­er sur­vey con­duct­ed by the Busi­ness Group on Health antic­i­pates health­care costs increas­ing by as much as 6% in 2022. Ana­lysts point­ed out that 2021 rates actu­al­ly flat­tened out slight­ly because many Amer­i­cans avoid­ed treat­ments dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. That’s expect­ed to end in 2022, which will dri­ve up prices. Of all employ­ers sur­veyed by BGOH, 94% expect­ed high­er med­ical costs because of delays in treatment.

  Expiring Federal Support Programs

  Fed­er­al leg­is­la­tion is also expir­ing in Jan­u­ary 2022. The Coro­n­avirus Aid, Relief, and Eco­nom­ic Secu­ri­ty (CARES) Act was one of the first bills signed in 2020 to help work­ers. It gave mon­ey to busi­ness­es, enhanced unem­ploy­ment pro­grams, and fund­ed hospitals.

  One pro­vi­sion known as “safe har­bor” allowed high-deductible health plans to cov­er tele­health and remote care ser­vices at lit­tle to no cost. The CARES act expired on Decem­ber 31 and will now impact who is eli­gi­ble for tele­health services.

  Anoth­er rule under the Amer­i­can Res­cue Plan Act (ARPA) in 2021 allowed for mid-year elec­tion changes for Depen­dent Care Reim­burse­ment Accounts (DCRA). This allowed work­ers to elect high­er lim­its to help pay for child­care pre-tax. The ARPA also expires on Decem­ber 31. If the new high­er exclu­sion lim­it is not extend­ed into 2022, fam­i­lies will have to con­tend with the pre­vi­ous $5,000 limit.

  Around 30 mil­lion Amer­i­cans get their health cov­er­age from the Mar­ket­place, which was estab­lished by the Afford­able Care Act. With more enrollees and more avail­able plans in 2022, experts antic­i­pate a change in pre­mi­um sub­si­dies that could increase the total price peo­ple have to pay.

  Navigating the Future

  Regard­less of what employ­ers decide to do, HR depart­ments need to be proac­tive in guid­ing employ­ees through the process. Health­care deci­sions are com­plex and no com­pa­ny wants dis­grun­tled work­ers as a result of cut­ting or switch­ing plans with­out notice. Clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion and assis­tance are nec­es­sary to ensure a smooth tran­si­tion that is ben­e­fi­cial for everyone.

  Com­pa­nies and HR depart­ments should also keep in mind that the ben­e­fits they ulti­mate­ly choose will define future recruit­ing. Health­care ben­e­fits are a top deci­sion-mak­ing fac­tor for most prospects.

  By Mcken­zie Cassidy

  Orig­i­nal­ly post­ed on HR Exchange Network

• Pros and Cons of the Gig Economy

  January 31, 2022

  Tags: Contract Workers, Gig Economy

  

  Since the start of the pan­dem­ic, the gig econ­o­my has become more ubiq­ui­tous. Human Resources lead­ers need to under­stand the new kind of work­er attract­ed to the world of gigs, and learn how to make that kind of non-tra­di­tion­al work­er fit into their teams.

  Some mis­tak­en­ly believe that the gig econ­o­my, also known as the shared econ­o­my, only refers to on-demand jobs like dri­ving for Uber or Lyft or mak­ing Ama­zon deliv­er­ies. How­ev­er, it is also applic­a­ble to white-col­lar jobs. It’s becom­ing a solu­tion for employ­ees, who need more flex­i­bil­i­ty, and employ­ers, who need tal­ent dur­ing a his­toric labor short­age. The HR Exchange Net­work’s State of HR Report revealed that HR lead­ers hold flex­i­ble work cul­ture as a top pri­or­i­ty, sec­ond only to employ­ee engage­ment and expe­ri­ence. Buy­ing into gig work might be a way to address both those priorities.

  What Is the Gig Economy?

  “The gig econ­o­my is a free mar­ket sys­tem in which tem­po­rary, flex­i­ble jobs are com­mon­place and com­pa­nies bring on inde­pen­dent con­trac­tors and free­lancers instead of full-time employ­ees, and in many cas­es, for short-term engage­ments,” accord­ing to Embro­ker.

  A look at the num­bers demon­strates how impor­tant it is for HR lead­ers to pay atten­tion and get up to speed on how this new kind of work arrange­ment could influ­ence their busi­ness. By 2023, the glob­al gig econ­o­my is expect­ed to be a $455 bil­lion indus­try, accord­ing to Har­vard Busi­ness Review. Two mil­lion new work­ers joined the U.S. free­lance work­force in 2020. In fact, one in three work­ing Amer­i­cans rely on free­lanc­ing for all or part of their income. Gallup esti­mates rough­ly 57 mil­lion Amer­i­cans are gig work­ers, accord­ing to Forbes.

  “The rapid­ly accel­er­at­ing growth of the gig econ­o­my rep­re­sents one of the most sig­nif­i­cant and all-encom­pass­ing chal­lenges faced by Human Resources pro­fes­sion­als,” accord­ing to SHRM. “The fun­da­men­tal ques­tion is whether Human Resources can demon­strate the agili­ty to lead the change in cul­ture, pro­grams, process­es, and poli­cies orig­i­nal­ly designed for work com­plet­ed by full-time employ­ees to a new era when more of the work is being com­plet­ed by a tal­ent port­fo­lio increas­ing­ly rep­re­sent­ed by con­tin­gent work­ers (also referred to as gig­sters, free agents, tem­po­rary help, agency work­ers, on-call work­ers, con­tract work­ers, inde­pen­dent con­trac­tors, or freelancers).”

  Pros of the Gig Economy

  Affordable Labor

  A full-time employ­ee requires a salary and ben­e­fits. You have to make hefty invest­ments in train­ing and career pro­gres­sion. Hir­ing an on-demand work­er elim­i­nates the need for all that. You pay them per project or on an hourly basis for as long as you need them. They usu­al­ly can work remote­ly or only need to come into an office or place of busi­ness on a lim­it­ed basis.

  Specific Skills or Talents

  Some­times, you need an expert in an area for one or two projects and not on a reg­u­lar basis. Being able to hire con­tract work­ers as you need them means you can look for exact­ly what you need at that moment. You don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly have to wor­ry about well-round­ed skills like you might with a full-time hire.

  Flexibility

  Free­lancers and on-demand hires offer flex­i­bil­i­ty. Even if you’re renew­ing a con­tract with one of them on a reg­u­lar basis, you only have to pay them for the work they actu­al­ly do. You can turn to them when the work demands more help or when their par­tic­u­lar ser­vice will enhance outcomes.

  Cons of the Gig Economy

  Carousel of Workers

  Team dynam­ics can be hard to pin down when you are always work­ing with dif­fer­ent peo­ple. Even if you con­sis­tent­ly work with the same free­lancers, they are not bound by the same par­tic­i­pa­tion expec­ta­tions as full-time work­ers. This can make it even more chal­leng­ing to define a cul­ture or help teams bet­ter collaborate.

  Different Kind of Relationships

  There’s more of a hier­ar­chy when you are work­ing with full-time employ­ees. Man­agers and super­vi­sors over­see their work and usu­al­ly pro­vide some sort of per­for­mance mea­sure­ments to track their progress. With free­lancers, you are their client. They are still work­ing for you, but it changes the dynam­ic of the relationship.

  This becomes most com­pli­cat­ed with con­tin­gent work­ers, who work con­sis­tent­ly for a com­pa­ny but with­out job secu­ri­ty or tra­di­tion­al ben­e­fits. They do this for a num­ber of rea­sons, includ­ing hav­ing more free­dom over their sched­ules, being able to work for oth­ers, and being their own boss. As a result, the con­tract dic­tates their work more than the man­ag­er does. How­ev­er, the man­ag­er or com­pa­ny could end up being a dis­sat­is­fied cus­tomer, and con­tin­gent work­ers can be let go at any time and you don’t have to prove they deserved to be fired.

  Lack of Routine

  If you’re work­ing with a blend­ed team – full-time employ­ees and free­lancers or con­tin­gent work­ers – you might have a hard time cre­at­ing a sol­id sched­ule or rou­tine for the group. Poten­tial­ly you could still get the job done, but full-time employ­ees might feel incon­ve­nienced or maybe even a bit resent­ful. They have to be in one place for a cer­tain amount of time, where­as their free­lance coun­ter­parts are free to work on their own clock.

  Obvi­ous­ly, there are pros and cons to the gig econ­o­my. But HR lead­ers can’t afford to ignore the fact that there is a soci­etal shift toward this kind of work­place, where peo­ple have more free­dom over their sched­ules, the kind of work they do, and even the rela­tion­ship they have with employ­ers. There’s still so much we have to fig­ure out when it comes to the gig economy.

  “Online gig work has grown increas­ing­ly com­mon in recent years – and yet there’s still lim­it­ed under­stand­ing of how to effec­tive­ly sup­port these non-tra­di­tion­al work­ers,” accord­ing to Har­vard Busi­ness Review. “While gig work­ers can ben­e­fit from greater flex­i­bil­i­ty and auton­o­my than tra­di­tion­al employ­ees, they also face unique chal­lenges: less job secu­ri­ty, few­er resources for career devel­op­ment, and often, a strong sense of alien­ation and dif­fi­cul­ty find­ing mean­ing in their work.”

  In fact, many reports have sug­gest­ed that HR lead­ers in the future will pro­vide access to resources regard­ing ben­e­fits like med­ical insur­ance instead of pay­ing for it as they would for a full-time employ­ee. Com­pa­nies may begin to sup­port co-work­ing spaces to pre­vent iso­la­tion of their con­tin­gent or free­lance work­ers. The point is that change is afoot, and HR lead­ers are paving the way for this new work paradigm.

  By Francesca Di Meglio

  Orig­i­nal­ly post­ed on HR Exchange Network

• Healthy Eating Tips

  January 24, 2022

  Tags: nutrition

  

  It can some­times feel as if we’re bom­bard­ed with infor­ma­tion about the lat­est eat­ing trend or buzz­wor­thy ingre­di­ent. But good nutri­tion is real­ly about hav­ing a well-round­ed diet, and it’s eas­i­er to do than you may think. In fact, liv­ing a nutri­tious lifestyle can be easy and fun.

  Nutri­tion is about more than vitamins—it also includes fiber and healthy fats. Now is a per­fect time to learn sim­ple ways to help your whole fam­i­ly eat healthier.

  Need tips specif­i­cal­ly for young chil­dren? Learn how to intro­duce kids to healthy foods.

  Add healthy fats.

  Not all fats are bad. Foods with monoun­sat­u­rat­ed and polyun­sat­u­rat­ed fats are impor­tant for your brain and heart. Lim­it foods with trans fats, which increase the risk for heart dis­ease. Good sources of healthy fats include olive oil, nuts, seeds, cer­tain types of fish, and avocados.

  Try this:

  • Top lean meats with sliced avo­ca­do, or try some avo­ca­do in your morn­ing smoothie.
  • Sprin­kle nuts or seeds (like sliv­ered almonds or pump­kin seeds) on soups or salads.
  • Add a fish with healthy fats, like salmon or tuna, into your meals twice a week.
  • Swap processed oils (like canola or soy­bean oil) for oils that are cold-pressed, like extra-vir­gin olive oil and sesame oil.

  Cut the sodium.

  Good nutri­tion is about bal­ance, and that means not get­ting too much of cer­tain ingre­di­ents, such as sodi­um (salt). Sodi­um increas­es blood pres­sure, which rais­es the risk for heart dis­ease and stroke. About 90% of Amer­i­cans 2 years old or old­er con­sume too much sodi­um. For most peo­ple ages 14 years and old­er, sodi­um should not exceed 2,300 mg per day.

  Try this:

  • Avoid processed and prepack­aged food, which can be full of hid­den sodi­um. Many com­mon foods, includ­ing breads, piz­za, and deli meats, can be sources of hid­den sodium.
  • At the gro­cery store, look for prod­ucts that say “low sodium.”
  • At restau­rants, ask for sauces and dress­ings on the side. Get more tips for low­er­ing sodi­um while eat­ing out.
  • Instead of using salt, add deli­cious fla­vor to your meals with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, a dash of no-salt spice blends, or fresh herbs.

  Bump up your fiber.

  Fiber in your diet not only keeps you reg­u­lar, it also helps you feel fuller longer. Fiber also helps con­trol blood sug­ar and low­ers cho­les­terol lev­els.^3,4 Fresh fruits and veg­eta­bles, whole grains, and legumes (beans and peas) are good sources of fiber.

  Try this:

  • Slice up raw veg­gies and keep them in to-go bag­gies to use as quick snacks.
  • Start your day off with a high-fiber break­fast like whole grain oat­meal sprin­kled with pecans or macadamia nuts.
  • Steam veg­gies rather than boil­ing them. When buy­ing frozen veg­gies, look for ones that have been “flash frozen.”
  • Add half a cup of beans or peas to your sal­ad to add fiber, tex­ture, and flavor.

  Aim for a variety of colors on your plate.

  Foods like dark, leafy greens, oranges, and tomatoes—even fresh herbs—are loaded with vit­a­mins, fiber, and minerals.

  Try this:

  • Sprin­kle fresh herbs over a sal­ad or whole wheat pasta.
  • Make a red sauce using canned toma­toes (look for “low sodi­um” or “no salt added”), fresh herbs, and spices.
  • Add diced veg­gies like pep­pers, broc­coli, or onions to stews and omelets to give them a boost of col­or and nutrients.

  Are you eat­ing healthy to help you get to a healthy weight? Learn more about bal­anced eat­ing.

  Orig­i­nal­ly post­ed on Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC)

• Healthy Teeth, Healthy Mouth, Healthy You!

  January 18, 2022

  Tags: Dental Health, Oral Health

  

  Did you know that prob­lems in your mouth can affect the rest of your body? Or that your den­tal health offers clues about your over­all health?  Poor den­tal health con­tributes to major sys­temic health prob­lems. Con­verse­ly, good den­tal hygiene can help improve your over­all health.  As a bonus, main­tain­ing good oral health can even REDUCE your health­care costs!

  Researchers have shown us that there is a close-knit rela­tion­ship between oral health and over­all well­ness. With over 700 types of bac­te­ria in your mouth, it’s no sur­prise that when even one of those types of bac­te­ria enter your blood­stream that a prob­lem can arise in your body. Oral bac­te­ria can con­tribute to:

  1. Endo­cardi­tis—The infec­tion of the inner lin­ing of the heart can be caused by bac­te­ria that start­ed in your mouth.
  2. Car­dio­vas­cu­lar Dis­ease—Heart dis­ease, as well as clogged arter­ies and even stroke, can be traced back to oral bacteria.
  3. Low birth weight—Poor oral health has been linked to pre­ma­ture birth and low birth weight of newborns.

  Over $45 bil­lion is lost in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in the Unit­ed States each year because of untreat­ed oral health prob­lems.  These oral dis­eases can result in the need for cost­ly emer­gency room vis­its, hos­pi­tal stays, and med­ica­tions, not to men­tion loss of work time. The pain and dis­com­fort from infect­ed teeth and gums can lead to poor pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in the work­place, and even loss of income. Chil­dren with poor oral health are more prone to ill­ness and may require a par­ent to stay home from work to care for them and take them to cost­ly den­tal appoint­ments.  In fact, over 34 mil­lion school hours are lost each year because of emer­gency den­tal care.

  So, how do you pre­vent this night­mare of pain, dis­ease, and increased health­care costs? It’s sim­ple! By fol­low­ing through with your rou­tine year­ly den­tal check-ups and dai­ly pre­ven­ta­tive care, you will give your body a big boost in its gen­er­al health. Check out these tips for a healthy mouth:

  • Main­tain a reg­u­lar brushing/flossing routine—Brush and floss teeth twice dai­ly to remove food and plaque from your teeth, and in between your teeth where bac­te­ria thrive.
  • Use the right toothbrush—When your bris­tles are mashed and bent, you aren’t using the best instru­ment for clean­ing your teeth. Make sure to buy a new tooth­brush every three months. If you have braces, get a tooth­brush that can eas­i­ly clean around the brack­ets on your teeth.
  • Vis­it your dentist—Visit your den­tist for a check-up every 6 months. He/she will be able to look into that win­dow to your body and keep your mouth clear of bac­te­ria. Your den­tist will also be able to alert you to prob­lems they see as a pos­si­ble warn­ing sign to oth­er health issues, like dia­betes, that have a major impact on your over­all health and health­care costs.
  • Eat a healthy diet—Staying away from sug­ary foods and drinks will pre­vent cav­i­ties and tooth decay from the acids pro­duced when bac­te­ria in your mouth comes in con­tact with sug­ar. Starch­es have a sim­i­lar effect. Eat­ing healthy will reduce your out of pock­et costs of fill­ings, hav­ing decayed teeth pulled, and will keep you from the increased health costs of dia­betes, obe­si­ty-relat­ed dis­eases, and oth­er chron­ic conditions.
  • Drink more water—Water is the best bev­er­age for your over­all health—including oral health. Drink­ing water after every meal can help wash out some of the neg­a­tive effects of sticky and acidic foods and bev­er­ages in between brushes.

  A healthy oral hygiene rou­tine will do won­ders for your teeth, mouth, and smile from a den­tal per­spec­tive.  Oral health is also a key indi­ca­tor of over­all health and well-being.  That should keep the rest of your body smil­ing as well!

• How to Make (and Keep!) a New Year’s Resolution

  January 10, 2022

  Tags: Goals, New Year, Resolutions

  

  Ever won­der why the res­o­lu­tions you make in Jan­u­ary don’t stick around after March? You aren’t alone! Stud­ies show that only 8% of peo­ple keep their New Year’s res­o­lu­tions. Why? And how do peo­ple achieve their goals set at New Year’s? We’ve bro­ken it down for you so you can iden­ti­fy your goal-break­er as well as give you some tips on how to make those res­o­lu­tions stick.

  There are three main rea­sons that New Year’s res­o­lu­tions fail. The first goal-break­er is tak­ing on too much (too big of a goal) and expect­ing it to hap­pen too fast. Researchers have found that it takes 66 days to break a habit. That’s much high­er than the pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished 21 days. It con­verse­ly means that it also takes 66 days to form a new habit. So, bat­tle your goal-break­er by set­ting small­er, achiev­able goals to focus your ener­gies on rather than spread­ing your­self too thin on lofty goals.

  The sec­ond rea­son you fail to keep your res­o­lu­tion is you don’t have any­one sup­port­ing you. This could be because you sim­ply didn’t tell any­one that you have new life goals. It could also be due to fear of account­abil­i­ty. You need some life-cheer­lead­ers that root you on to vic­to­ry. These cheer­lead­ers also call you out when you are rid­ing off the tracks. Their sup­port isn’t tied to your achieve­ment of your goals but instead their sup­port is firm­ly tied to you and they want to see you succeed.

  The last goal-break­er set­ting a goal that is too vague.  You can’t get to your des­ti­na­tion if you don’t know where you are going.   A goal like “I want to try hard­er at work” or “I want to save more mon­ey this year” is too gen­er­al a notion that does not give you some­thing spe­cif­ic to work towards or a well-defined path to fol­low.  And if you can’t pro­vide spe­cif­ic bench­marks, you can’t mea­sure your progress.

  Now, let’s steer this ship back on course with some tips on KEEPING your New Year’s resolutions.

  Plan Ahead

  To ensure suc­cess, plan ahead so you can have the resources avail­able when you need them.  Then, you won’t have excus­es for why you can’t fol­low through.  Here are a few things you can do to prepare:

  • Read up on it – Get books on the sub­ject. Whether it’s tak­ing up run­ning or becom­ing a veg­e­tar­i­an, there are books to help you pre­pare for it.
  • Plan for suc­cess – Get every­thing you need so things will go smooth­ly. If you are tak­ing up run­ning, make sure you have the clothes, shoes, and playlists so that you are ready to get started.

  Reward Yourself Along the Way

  Small rewards are great encour­age­ment to keep you going dur­ing the hard­est first days.  After that, you can try to reward your­self once a week with a lunch with a friend, a nap, or what­ev­er makes you tick.  Lat­er, you can change the rewards to month­ly and even pick an anniver­sary reward!

  Write Your Goals Down on Paper

  Writ­ing estab­lish­es inten­tion but action needs to be tak­en to achieve your res­o­lu­tion.  Have a writ­ten account of your goals is a con­stant reminder to take action.  Mark Mur­phy says “Writ­ing things down doesn’t just help you remem­ber, it makes your mind more effi­cient by help­ing you focus on the tru­ly impor­tant stuff. And your goals absolute­ly should qual­i­fy as tru­ly impor­tant stuff.” 

  Start When You’re Ready

  When you launch your res­o­lu­tion on Jan­u­ary 1^st, you are mak­ing a change based on a cal­en­dar date.  What are the chances that you’re going to be ready for a life change at exact­ly the same time the cal­en­dar rolls over to a new year?  There’s no need to launch your res­o­lu­tion on Jan­u­ary 1^st or even in Jan­u­ary.  Start work­ing on your goal when you’re ready.  That’s not to say that you need to wait until you feel ful­ly con­fi­dent before start­ing (that may nev­er hap­pen).  Delay­ing your goal a few weeks or a few months is bet­ter than aban­don­ing it altogether.

  Identify Your Purpose

  Know­ing your “WHAT” (goal) is impor­tant but know­ing your “WHY” can be just as impor­tant when it comes to fol­low­ing through on your inten­tions. Why do you want to lose weight in 2022? When you put the why to the what, you are tru­ly focused on what mat­ters. “I want to lose weight so that I can play with my chil­dren with­out get­ting tired and show them that hard work is worth it.”  Now, THAT’S a great goal.

  Iden­ti­fy­ing goal-break­ers and goal-mak­ers are equal­ly impor­tant pieces to achiev­ing what you set out to accom­plish, espe­cial­ly with regards to New Year’s res­o­lu­tions. Com­mit to mak­ing this year the year that your res­o­lu­tion is going to stick!

• HR Trends to Watch in 2022

  January 5, 2022

  Tags: Employee Retention, Labor Shortage, recruitment, The Great Resignation

  

  Human Resources lead­ers are always being asked to look into a crys­tal ball and pre­dict the future. You prob­a­bly don’t have any super pow­ers. But your Spidey sense might be telling you that a few trends that are sur­fac­ing are like­ly to stick around through the new year, 2022.

  The coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic has changed your work and life. Slow­ly, things are improv­ing and you’re get­ting your orga­ni­za­tion (not to men­tion your­self) used to the new nor­mal. While you’re set­tling in (and still hav­ing an occa­sion­al pan­ic attack, no judg­ment), you might want to pay spe­cial atten­tion to what’s com­ing next.

  Transformation of Human Resources

  There’s no doubt that the biggest sto­ry of 2021, the Great Res­ig­na­tion, will spill over into 2022. When the pan­dem­ic began in 2020, HR lead­ers sud­den­ly had a seat at the table. You were charged with being the light as peo­ple nav­i­gat­ed safe­ty pro­to­col and tran­si­tioned to remote teams in the dark­ness. Your stature only con­tin­ued to grow.

  Then, peo­ple start­ed quit­ting jobs in droves. In 2021, you fig­ured out why this was hap­pen­ing. Peo­ple were tired of low wages, lack of child care and health­care, and an over­all malaise about the kind of work they were doing. Some renamed the era the Great Reshuf­fling because peo­ple were seek­ing a bet­ter fit in their work and more work-life bal­ance. In 2022, you will be deter­min­ing the best ways to recruit and retain top tal­ent. These strate­gies won’t be as basic they once were. It will def­i­nite­ly be a case of out with the old and in with the new.

  Four-Day Workweek

  In the wake of the pan­dem­ic, employ­ees learned how to be ultra-pro­duc­tive at home. They used the extra time that remote work afford­ed (with­out a com­mute) to enjoy their fam­i­lies, pur­sue their hob­bies, and get in a lit­tle me time. Peo­ple don’t want to give that up. Employ­ees have the lever­age now, and they are ask­ing for more flex­i­bil­i­ty in their sched­ules. While that’s already hap­pen­ing, some are talk­ing about tak­ing flex­i­bil­i­ty even further.

  All this prompt­ed dis­cus­sions about the four-day work­week, a con­cept that has come up before. The debate will con­tin­ue on into 2022, and some com­pa­nies may adapt to this sched­ule to woo recruits and retain employ­ees dur­ing what con­tin­ues to be an his­toric labor shortage.

  Mental Health and Wellness

  The pan­dem­ic revealed that men­tal health and well­ness is impor­tant to every­one. No one is immune to stress, espe­cial­ly dur­ing uncer­tain times. Busi­ness­es are rec­og­niz­ing this fact and pro­vid­ing employ­ees with tools for reliev­ing stress, address­ing men­tal ill­ness­es, and pre­vent­ing burnout. Some com­pa­nies are offer­ing more flex­i­bil­i­ty, but they also pro­vide pro­grams. Maybe the employ­er offers a yoga class or med­i­ta­tion time. Some pro­vide men­tal health days as part of paid time off (PTO). Employ­ers are going to get more cre­ative and pay more atten­tion to the men­tal health of their employ­ees mov­ing for­ward. This will only become a big­ger part of HR leadership’s responsibilities.

  Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)

  At the height of the pan­dem­ic, the world watched the Black Lives Mat­ter protests unfold before their eyes. Many demand­ed that busi­ness­es take a stand and show their sup­port for the move­ment. By putting the spot­light on injus­tices relat­ed to polic­ing, peo­ple began rec­og­niz­ing the lack of rep­re­sen­ta­tion in lead­er­ship and man­age­ment and even at junior levels.

  While diver­si­ty had been on the minds of HR lead­ers for some time already, DEI strate­gies have risen in terms of pri­or­i­ty. In 2022, you can expect DEI to remain at the fore­front of recruit­ing and reten­tion strategies.

  The Possibility of More Variants

  The Omi­cron vari­ant swept the nation dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son, and it upend­ed plans for a return to the office for many employ­ers. While some tra­di­tion­al­ists are hold­ing out for in-office-only work­ers and some occu­pa­tions require going to a phys­i­cal loca­tion to get the job done, the real­i­ty is that most com­pa­nies will have to keep some lev­el of remote work as an option because of the var­i­ous COVID vari­ants that might sur­face. Until the pan­dem­ic turns into an endem­ic, some com­pa­nies will be remote only. Oth­ers will remain hybrid workplaces.

  Com­ing up with suf­fi­cient strate­gies on how to col­lab­o­rate, forge bonds, con­duct per­for­mance mea­sures, and attain desired results is a must. Of course, there are dread­ed con­ver­sa­tions to be had about mask­ing up and get­ting vac­ci­nat­ed. Take a holis­tic approach, make sure the strat­e­gy match­es your val­ues, and con­sid­er the risks asso­ci­at­ed with what­ev­er deci­sions you make.

  Generational Differences

  For the first time in his­to­ry, four gen­er­a­tions (Boomers, Gen­er­a­tion X, Mil­len­ni­als, and Gen Z) are in the work­force at the same time. The dif­fer­ences among the gen­er­a­tions – from pop cul­ture ref­er­ences to tech savvy – pop up at the water cool­er on a dai­ly basis. The real­i­ty is that Mil­len­ni­als and Gen Z hold most of the pow­er. The Boomers are retir­ing and Gen Xers are the small­est group and often get ignored or forgotten.

  In any case, many HR experts focused on the gen­er­a­tional dif­fer­ences that influ­ence the suc­cess of orga­ni­za­tions. The pan­dem­ic real­ly brought out some of the pro­found dis­agree­ments, like whether to per­mit work­ing from home in any city you choose or push­ing or a return to the office. Gen Z report­ed­ly del­e­gates to their old­er supe­ri­ors, while Mil­len­ni­als take a more mid­dle-of-the-road and even prac­ti­cal approach as they gain esteem and rise to pow­er. These gen­er­a­tional gaps will con­tin­ue into 2022, and you might notice more dif­fer­ences. Cer­tain­ly, HR lead­ers are going to be work­ing hard to unite all these groups. After all, DEI efforts should include age vari­a­tions, too.

  By Francesca Di Meglio

  Orig­i­nal­ly post­ed on HR Exchange Network

• 10 Unforgettable Quotes on Employee Engagement and Experience

  December 26, 2022

  Tags: Talent Management

  Employ­ee engage­ment and expe­ri­ence is at the core of what most Human Resources pro­fes­sion­als do on a dai­ly basis. From hir­ing to suc­ces­sion plan­ning, HR is first and fore­most focused on recruit­ing and retain­ing top tal­ent. Keep­ing those tal­ent­ed peo­ple engaged in their work is key to achiev­ing pos­i­tive busi­ness outcomes.

  Read More »

• Achieving Healthy HR: Thoughtful Compensation

  December 18, 2022

  Tags: Benefits Packages, compensation, HR

  • The pan­dem­ic and job mar­ket have made it dif­fi­cult for employ­ers to attract and retain tal­ent, neg­a­tive­ly impact­ing oper­a­tions and prof­itabil­i­ty.
  • Mineral’s Healthy HR frame­work shows you what com­pa­nies with high pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, morale, and engage­ment have in com­mon.
  • The Healthy HR frame­work is built on per­form­ing well on all four of the fol­low­ing pil­lars: thought­ful com­pen­sa­tion and ben­e­fits, good work-life bal­ance, the poten­tial for career growth, and appro­pri­ate work­load.
  • On aver­age, 70% of orga­ni­za­tions are research­ing com­peti­tors and look­ing to improve their com­pen­sa­tion pack­ages to attract and keep talent.

  Read More »

• Tis the Season for Holiday Wellness

  December 14, 2022

  Tags: Healthy Habits, Holidays, well-being

  The hol­i­days are often the busiest time of the year for a lot of peo­ple which can make it hard to stay men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly healthy.  With a lit­tle inten­tion­al­i­ty and under­stand­ing, you can ful­ly enjoy the hol­i­days while keep­ing your health in mind.

  6 Tips to Make Your Hol­i­days Brighter:

  Get Enough Sleep

  Sleep is often the first thing to go dur­ing a busy hol­i­day sea­son.  Poor sleep, espe­cial­ly over a peri­od of a few weeks, leads to poor func­tion­ing: it impacts your immune sys­tem, abil­i­ty to con­cen­trate and your mood – all things that make you even more stressed out.  It’s a vicious circle.

  Pri­or­i­tize “Me Time”

  Tak­ing some much need­ed “me time” isn’t self­ish; tak­ing care of your­self is one of the best men­tal well­ness gifts you can receive.  Do some yoga, take a walk, relax in the bath­tub, or sim­ply take some time to catch up on some read­ing.  Your men­tal health will thank you for it.

  Prac­tice Self-Con­trol When It Comes to Food

  Cook­ies, muffins, cakes and count­less oth­er temp­ta­tions are preva­lent dur­ing the sea­son! The hol­i­days are a time when a lot of peo­ple pull out their stretchy pants from the back of their clos­ets so they can eat sweets and deli­cious foods to their hearts’ con­tent. It’s okay to enjoy hol­i­day treats but it’s impor­tant to be mind­ful of your choic­es and then bal­ance your treats with healthy foods.

  Plan Ahead to Avoid Last Minute Stress

  Stay­ing on top of your errands and to-do list by think­ing ahead.  Get­ting your hol­i­day shop­ping done ear­ly helps you avoid the stress of last-minute shop­ping when you might not be able to find the things on your list.

  Get Some Exercise

  Exer­cise is an excel­lent way to destress.  But don’t wor­ry if you miss some time at the gym – the hol­i­days are always busy and mak­ing your reg­u­lar 7 a.m. spin class after a hol­i­day par­ty prob­a­bly isn’t going to hap­pen, and that’s okay.  Focus on sim­ply mov­ing your body.  Take the stairs or park your car fur­ther away from your des­ti­na­tion to get some more steps in!

  Don’t Com­pare Your­self to Others

  Pin­ter­est floods your feed with extrav­a­gant par­ty dec­o­ra­tions.  Not to men­tion see­ing beau­ti­ful­ly dec­o­rat­ed homes in TV com­mer­cials or social media posts of lav­ish gifts can make you feel over­whelmed. You might even start to think your hol­i­day cel­e­bra­tions aren’t up to par.  Just remem­ber: your hol­i­day tra­di­tions are your own and they don’t have to be like any­one else’s.

  While the hol­i­days can feel exhaust­ing, it’s also a time to be enjoyed and savored.  Make time for the activ­i­ties you enjoy this sea­son, such as Christ­mas bak­ing, hol­i­day movies, ice skat­ing, and favorite fam­i­ly tra­di­tions.  But most impor­tant­ly, be present.  That’s the best tip of them all.

   

• 5 Lessons to Learn about Learning and Development

  December 7, 2022

  Tags: Learning and Development

  Learn­ing and devel­op­ment is a nec­es­sary part of life, and it is required for mobil­i­ty and suc­ces­sion plan­ning at work. Yet, many HR depart­ments fail to imple­ment a com­plete L&D strat­e­gy or they do not even know where to begin.

  Read More »

• What Employees Want: Praise and Recognition

  November 30, 2022

  Tags: Employee Experience, Praise, Recognition

  “What gets rec­og­nized gets rein­forced, and what gets rein­forced gets repeated.”

  -Unknown

  In today’s ultra-com­pet­i­tive work envi­ron­ment, the com­pa­nies with the win­ning edge are the ones that have the best-trained and well-skilled staff. How­ev­er, even the best employ­ees can­not per­form well (or may even jump ship) when they are not moti­vat­ed enough. Praise and recog­ni­tion pro­vide the kind of pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence that can increase employ­ees’ morale, moti­va­tion and engage­ment, and renew their com­mit­ment to their orga­ni­za­tion.  This is why employ­ee praise and recog­ni­tion in the work­place has to be an innate part of any company’s culture.

  Read More »

• What You Need to Know About Diabetes

  November 21, 2022

  Tags: Diabetes, Gestational Diabetes, Type 1, Type 2

  Dia­betes is increas­ing at an alarm­ing rate in the Unit­ed States. Accord­ing to the CDC’s (Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol) Nation­al Dia­betes Sta­tis­tics Report for 2020 cas­es of dia­betes have risen to an esti­mat­ed 37 mil­lion (or 1 in 10 peo­ple in the U.S.).  Novem­ber is Nation­al Dia­betes Month and is a great time to bring atten­tion to this dis­ease and its impact on mil­lions of Americans.

  Read More »

• Emotional Compensation: An Employee Engagement and Retention Tool

  November 9, 2022

  Tags: Emotional Compensation, Retention

  First came the pan­dem­ic, which was fol­lowed by The Great Res­ig­na­tion and the labor short­age, and now qui­et quit­ting. Employ­ers are chal­lenged to attract and retain employ­ees among all these upheavals, keep them engaged, and main­tain a psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly safe work environment.

  Read More »

• What Is Human Resources in the Modern Workplace?

  November 7, 2022

  Tags: employee engagement, Employee Experience, HR

  Human Resources man­age­ment is always evolv­ing. Over the years, it has become a more promi­nent part of every busi­ness because it is prin­ci­pal­ly respon­si­ble for recruit­ing and retain­ing the tal­ent that allows the orga­ni­za­tion to achieve goals and flourish.

  No longer mere­ly an admin­is­tra­tive depart­ment, Human Resources pro­fes­sion­als align tal­ent man­age­ment and hir­ing deci­sions with busi­ness objec­tives. They are wel­come in the C‑suite, and their reach con­tin­ues to expand beyond over­see­ing hir­ing, ben­e­fits, and com­pa­ny regulations.

  Read More »

• Workplace Wellbeing: 5 Recommendations from the U.S. Surgeon General

  November 1, 2022

  Tags: well-being, Workplace Wellness

  The U.S. Sur­geon Gen­er­al, Dr. Vivek Murthy, recent­ly released the Frame­work for Work­place Men­tal Health & Well­ness to set a new stan­dard for expec­ta­tions of employ­ers. In this new nor­mal, Human Resources lead­ers must take some respon­si­bil­i­ty for the well­be­ing of those who work in their organization.

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• Effective Leadership Begins with You!

  October 24, 2022

  Tags: Business Leaders, Leadership

  There may not be an “I” in team, but there is an “I” in disengaged.

  What does this have to do with lead­er­ship? Well, regard­less of what, why and where you lead, you — as the leader — are direct­ly respon­si­ble for the engage­ment of those who fol­low you.  It’s up to you to decide whether you are lead­ing pos­i­tive­ly or neg­a­tive­ly — and whether you choose to focus on engage­ment or mere­ly output.

  Read More »