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“A Night in Tuscany” and the North Coast Wine Industry Expo Gallery
“A Night in Tuscany,” hosted by Arrow Benefits Group at its 33rd annual event in November for the North Bay Children’s Center, raised more than $420,000. About 160 guests visited the Jacuzzi Family Vineyards in Sonoma to enjoy fine wines and tasty treats. Senator Mike McGuire served as emcee and auctioneer. [Photos by Stuart Lirette]
How employers can build a worker-centric business — and why they must
By Rosario Avila & Andrew McNeil
Normal best practices is a thing of the past. To survive our new reality, a company must make intentional efforts to exceed what its competition is doing. Employees are harder to retain and nearly impossible to hire. What’s equally as troubling is that traditional benefits and compensation programs seem to have less of an impact on an employee’s decision to remain at a company or accept a new job.
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Why employee mental health is your concern
By Andrew McNeil and Rosario Avila
According to Glassdoor, “More than four in 10 working adults (44%) say their current job has an impact on their overall health, and 43% report their job has a negative impact on their levels of stress” — and that was in 2018, before COVID-19!
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Which health insurance is best for my employees? Here are some tips
By Andrew McNeil and Rosario Avila
In short, the main differences between HMOs and PPOs are affordability and flexibility, but which will work best for you really depends on your current situation. Employers often ask us what other companies are offering when it comes to their benefits program…we give a general overview of the trends we see for small businesses (under 100 employees) in 2022.
Image credit: (Vitalii Vodolazskyi / Shutterstock)
Making Space for Me-Time
by Emily Hodges Wallace
In a Zoom call with a group of professional women last week, one of the participants said, “I need to make space for me.” All the women nodded their heads in resounding agreement. As we enter COVID year No. 3, we have been asked to: “get used to the new normal,” “roll with this crisis” and “face this new challenge.” This burden has disproportionately fallen hard on workplace leaders, especially many women.
How employees can thrive in a remote or hybrid workplace
By North Bay Business Journal columnists Andrew McNeil and Rosario Avila
The Bay Area leads the nation in the number of days employees want to work from home. According to a recent survey conducted by Stanford economics professor Nicolas Bloom, workers want to cut days they spend in the office by more than 53% — and, after seeing what employees were able to accomplish remotely since March of 2020, this makes sense…employers who have embraced this new way of working are starting to run into some challenges, especially when dealing with junior employees who still need mentoring.
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Is your bicultural company communicating effectively?
By North Bay Business Journal columnists Rosario Avila & Andrew McNeil
One employer’s workforce is 50% native Spanish–speaking, yet the 401(k) vendor’s presentation was done to the entire population in English.
The art of communication is difficult for most people to master. Clear and concise exchanges are the key to influencing others and creating powerful teams, relationships, and partnerships to achieve successful outcomes in both business and in life.
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Why you should regularly reevaluate your business vendor relationships
By North Bay Business Journal columnists Rosario Avila & Andrew McNeil
We understand how comfortable and easy it can feel to work with a vendor with whom you have a long-established relationship. So many businesses avoid re-evaluating longstanding associations for this and a variety of other reasons. However, the better you know your vendors — and, more important, the better they know you — the more you will benefit from premier services, special pricing and better terms.
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Not changing from pre-pandemic times can lose you workers
By North Bay Business Journal columnists Rosario Avila & Andrew McNeil
Companies that have not listened to their employees (or former employees) have been losing people at an alarming rate and, at the same time, have not been able to attract new members to replace the ones they have lost.
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Health Benefits and Custom-Designed Plans
by Matthew Sohn
A common conversation I have with both employers and employees sounds something like this: “Health insurance is too expensive. The coverage doesn’t fit. I want the best plan you have available, at the best price. There is a gap between what most people want out of health coverage and understanding how it all comes together. There are solutions.
