Benefits Buzz

Jack of All Trades & Master of None

Poor focus hampers wellness implementation.

Are you updating your facebook status via Twitter from your iPhone as you apply your make-up or eat your burger on the driveto your next open enrollment meeting?  Many Americans feel as though they are good at multitasking and engaging in multiple activities simultaneously leads them to believe they are accomplishing more. 

In her book, Distracted: The Erosion of Attention And The Coming Dark Age, author Maggie Jackson points to a growing body of research studies that seem to suggest the opposite.  A flood of stimulation, interruption and fleeting human contact have created a culture of "diffusion, fragmentation."

She points out the consequencesof what most of us consider par for the course in our lives and working environments:

Interruption and the knowledge worker:

• Knowledge workers switch tasks every three minutes. And once interrupted, a worker takes an average 25 minutes to return to their original task, according to informatics scientist Gloria Mark.
• How often are we interrupted?  The average worker gets 156 emails a day, according to the Radicati research group. And that's just the beginning; instant-messages, phone calls, faxes and snail mail add to the influx.

Making a national habit of multitasking:

• Sixty-five percent of people eat while they drive.
• Sixty percent of kids age eight to 18 multitask some or most of the time they're doing homework.
• Twenty-five percent of restaurant meals are ordered from the car, up from 15 percent from 1988.
• American kids are exposed on average to nearly six hours a day of non-print media.
• Two-thirds of children under six live in homes that keep the tv on half or more of the time, an environment linked to attention-deficiencies.

Time and time again in the world of wellness we see this habitual tendency toward mindless overcommitment, interruption, and multitasking lead to programs that are too diffuse to do much good if the desired outcome is a healthier workforce and reduced health care costs.

Why wellness fragmentation does not equal results

How does ROI for wellness work?  It is more of a cost avoidance than an actual savings in most cases.  Here is a simple (and maybe a little too simplistic) example to help walk you through the "savings." 



Half of your workforce participates in a risk based population health strategy (wellness program) and the other half does not.

For the participating half of the population, whose risk is known, you are able to offer outbound (active) and passive programs that directly impact and address the risks you've identified as prevalent to this group. 

Let's say the programs you've implemented are effective, engagement in them is high, and you retain these employees.  Over a series of years you should see something happen that is counter to what will have happened with no intervention. 

That is to say, this group will not get sick as often as non-participants because your interventions were effective and employees stuck around long enough for you to see results.

The non-participants at your company, as an aggregate, are an unknown entity to you.  You have very little data on their risks and, as a group, they will most likely continue to use health care at the same rate as before. 

Yet, if your company-wide wellness communications are effective and appealing, your participant group is vocal and influential, and your non-participants stay at your company without developing any major illness then some studies indicate that your wellness program might actually have a halo effect. 

That is to say, even non-participants will learn a little more about self care whether they participate or not.  Sure, that could slow the rate of health care cost growth in that group, though probably not by a lot.

Both groups' cost trends together is your overall trend.  Both may continue to rise, but your participant group's trend over several years will rise more slowly - making your overall costs appear to grow more slowly. 

UNLESS.  Yes, there is an unless.  Unless, your participant group is so small and the growth in the cost of health care is so large that your non-participants' health care usage effectively nullifies any impact you had on participants.    

Wellness is not Wii Fit.  You need to focus.

As much as we know that on an individual level good health is as simple as: sleep well, eat right, and move more, achieving a successful organizational wellness strategy is as much an art as it is a science.  It takes focus, discipline and rigorous measurement to impact behavior, motivate and sustain participation, and to quantify results.

If your program is to be successful then you will need to engage a large chunk of your workforce, stratify their risks, and follow a disciplined series of stepsover several years in order to see return on investment.  Oh, and do all of this while simultaneously carrying out the core work of your company.

Fight the urge to multi-task

While multi-tasking may be transitioning out of vogue when it comes to work effectiveness, its cousin  - work sequencing - can help break large and complex tasks into more manageable pieces. 

Plan to succeed by drafting a multi-year strategy with a realistic timeline.  Schedule monthly (core team), quarterly (key shareholders and decision makers) and annual reviews (company wide) of a the wellness program before you even begin work.  This will hold you accountable for reporting progress toward implementing your strategy and plan. 

Build up to maximum efficiency by starting with only a few key program components that will get you the most bang for your buck.  Gradually add complexity as your initial program begins to show results. 

More often than not, companies initially underestimate how much time it takes to implement a strategic wellness program.  They allocate too few resources and take on too many program components to ever really get much traction.  As a result, their programs suffer from poor participation due to fragmented management and the overall program shows high attrition.  Plan intelligently and sidestep this common trap.

Editor's Note: By day, Kris Dunn is the VP of People at DAXKO, a cool software firm dedicated to providing solutions to the best membership-driven organizations in America. At night, he morphs into a blogger at The HR Capitalist and the Founder and Executive Editor of Fistful of Talent. That makes him a career VP of HR, a blogger, a dad and a hoops junkie, the order of which changes based on his mood. Tweet him @kris_dunn...

Comparing the Cost of Google Daycare with the Rest of the Free World...

The price tag bandied about regarding Google Daycare - 57K for 2 kids under Google's new bundling plan - sent a shockwave out across parents in the working world.  Relax everyone, it's got more to do with the cost of stuff in the valley than it does with any Google desire to stick it to working parents.

For some perspective, let's rely on economic data supplied by yours truly and trusted subscribers to the Capitalist:

-First, there's me.  I live in Birmingham, Alabama, a metro area with a population of a little over one million.  The southeast/sunbelt is known as a pretty affordable area to live, and the magic city was recently rated as the 3rd most affordable housing market in America.   I had two kids in high end, education-first day care for four years, and the biggest annual bill I ever had was around 16k.  That's 8K per kid, and that came down a bit as the youngest one got out of infant care, etc.  (total annual cost per kid - 8K).

-Then, there's my friend Evil HR Lady, who hit us in the comments to the original post.  I don't know where she lives, but my guess is it's a metro area bigger than Bham that's not on the west coast.  She gave us the weekly cost of $300 for one kid, which is $1,200 per month or $14,400 annualized (assumes 2 weeks out for a trip to the EHRL beach house) (total annual cost per kid - 14.5K).

-Next, friend of the Capitalist, Meg, gave us the baseline cost of daycare in the Silicon Valley area, providing a figure of $10/hour or 20K annually for solid daycare.  Ouch.  (total annual cost per kid - 20K)

So, those are the market figures, and it's important to note that those prices represent parents paying 100% of the cost.

And, that's where the math gets freaky when comparing the market to Google's subsidized daycare. 

Let's start with what's easy.  Daycare at Google, for those fortunate enough to get the benefit (supply/capacity issue) use to be able to get 2 kids in daycare for 33K a year, or 16.5K per kid.  That made it twice as expensive as Birmingham, but comparable to where Evil HR Lady lives and cheaper than what folks could buy on their own in the Valley.  With the price increases, that figure goes up to 57K, or 28.5K per kid.  That makes it twice as expensive as EHRL, and significantly more costly than what Meg reported as a baseline.

But, that's not the full story, since Google was subsidizing and continues to subsidize the cost of their daycare.  According to the NYT article, Google was subsidizing the cost-per-child, before the change, to the tune of 37K per child, meaning the total loaded cost was 53.5K per child (wow).  The article suggests that Google was making changes to the childcare operation that included raising the child per caretaker ratio.  That would naturally drop the total cost.

Assuming Google made changes to the childcare operation that resulted in them providing a subsidy per child similar to Cisco and Oracle (12K per child), the total cost of the Google daycare solution would be 40K per child (28.5 per kid plus 12K - I rounded down).

And that's roughly 5 times the Birmingham price, 3 times the EvilHRLadyville price, and 2 times the normal Silicon Valley price. 

Which means if I ever work for Google, I would be... how do we say it....

...a Telecommuter, from Birmingham.

WOW.      

The price tag bandied about regarding Google Daycare - 57K for 2 kids under Google's new bundling plan - sent a shockwave out across parents in the working world.  Relax everyone, it's got more to do with the cost of stuff in the valley than it does with any Google desire to stick it to working parents.

For some perspective, let's rely on economic data supplied by yours truly and trusted subscribers to the Capitalist:

-First, there's me.  I live in Birmingham, Alabama, a metro area with a population of a little over one million.  The southeast/sunbelt is known as a pretty affordable area to live, and the magic city was recently rated as the 3rd most affordable housing market in America.   I had two kids in high end, education-first day care for four years, and the biggest annual bill I ever had was around 16k.  That's 8K per kid, and that came down a bit as the youngest one got out of infant care, etc.  (total annual cost per kid - 8K).

-Then, there's my friend Evil HR Lady, who hit us in the comments to the original post.  I don't know where she lives, but my guess is it's a metro area bigger than Bham that's not on the west coast.  She gave us the weekly cost of $300 for one kid, which is $1,200 per month or $14,400 annualized (assumes 2 weeks out for a trip to the EHRL beach house) (total annual cost per kid - 14.5K).

-Next, friend of the Capitalist, Meg, gave us the baseline cost of daycare in the Silicon Valley area, providing a figure of $10/hour or 20K annually for solid daycare.  Ouch.  (total annual cost per kid - 20K)

So, those are the market figures, and it's important to note that those prices represent parents paying 100% of the cost.

And, that's where the math gets freaky when comparing the market to Google's subsidized daycare. 

Let's start with what's easy.  Daycare at Google, for those fortunate enough to get the benefit (supply/capacity issue) use to be able to get 2 kids in daycare for 33K a year, or 16.5K per kid.  That made it twice as expensive as Birmingham, but comparable to where Evil HR Lady lives and cheaper than what folks could buy on their own in the Valley.  With the price increases, that figure goes up to 57K, or 28.5K per kid.  That makes it twice as expensive as EHRL, and significantly more costly than what Meg reported as a baseline.

But, that's not the full story, since Google was subsidizing and continues to subsidize the cost of their daycare.  According to the NYT article, Google was subsidizing the cost-per-child, before the change, to the tune of 37K per child, meaning the total loaded cost was 53.5K per child (wow).  The article suggests that Google was making changes to the childcare operation that included raising the child per caretaker ratio.  That would naturally drop the total cost.

Assuming Google made changes to the childcare operation that resulted in them providing a subsidy per child similar to Cisco and Oracle (12K per child), the total cost of the Google daycare solution would be 40K per child (28.5 per kid plus 12K - I rounded down).

And that's roughly 5 times the Birmingham price, 3 times the EvilHRLadyville price, and 2 times the normal Silicon Valley price. 

Which means if I ever work for Google, I would be... how do we say it....

...a Telecommuter, from Birmingham.

WOW.      

Have You Tried to Relocate A Candidate Lately?

Cross one category of candidates off your prospect list - homeowners you have to relocate...

Relocating employees has always had a "haves" and "have-nots" type of feel.  Back in the 90's, most Fortune 500 companies had the "gold-plated" standard of employee relocation - covered physical moves, lump sums to handle all types of misc. costs and the ultimate in closing remote candidates - the home purchase program.   Throw that package at a candidate, and you were closing business regardless of their financial situation..

Flash forward to 2009.  Since the market crash of 2000, Fortune 500 companies have been steadily eliminating relocation packages including a home purchase program.  Eager to slash the expense associated with such programs, big companies first moved to reserve home purchase programs for director-level and above candidates only.  Over time, many Fortune 500s have restricted the availability of these programs even further, and many have eliminated the programs altogether.

That means most of us don't have a home-purchase program in our arsenal as we try and recruit candidates requiring relocation.    So we limp by with these components at our disposal - usually a physical move (perhaps capped at a certain $$ amount to limit the exposure) and a lump sum to handle misc. costs and to provide assistance, to the extent we can, with realtor's fees and the potential costs of having two residences at the same time (which frequently occurs until the candidate gets their house sold on their own).

That package worked OK when the housing market was hot.  Of course, now it's not, which means you won't be relocating many candidates for a while.    Here's data on the drop in home values from a couple of years ago via the New York Times:

"Prices fell 6.1 percent from October 2006 in 20 large metropolitan areas, according to Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller indexes, compared with a 4.9 percent decline in September. On a monthly basis, prices fell 1.4 percent in October, the fastest they have declined in at least the last seven years.

All but three of the 20 regions experienced a fall in real estate values, and even the three areas — Seattle, Portland, Ore., and Charlotte, N.C. — where prices were up from a year ago, had a decline from a month earlier.

Prices have fallen the most in Miami (down 12.4 percent from a year ago), Tampa (11.8 percent) and Detroit (11.2 percent). Prices are also falling in the nation’s two largest metropolitan areas — Los Angeles (8.8 percent) and New York (4.1 percent)."

That data means two things.  Homes are taking much longer to sell, and many candidates will find themselves scrambling to cover drops in overall home values.  Many will consider the potential loss unacceptable as they consider selling.

Which means they won't be accepting your limited relocation assistance offer.

Time to add "are you a homeowner" to your initial phone screen when talking to remote candidates, if you haven't already. 

A Soft But Heavenly Benefit - Chaplains Rotating Through Your Workplace...

I'm a HR guy by trade, and one of the things that's always made me a bit queasy is taking a stand on religion in the workplace.  I feel myself softening on that concern as I grow older, although in supporting a workgroup where they're are at least six different religions represented, it's still on my mind.

Additionally, times are tight and you have to find benefit value where you can find it.  With Medical expense bearing down on all of us, it comes as a surprise that some of the benefits that have the most impact could cost relatively little. 

Like what you ask?  How about a non-denominational Chaplin rotating through the plant or call center floor?

What? More on offering some old-time religion as a benefit to your employee base from the Bradenton Herald:

"During a routine visit at Manatee Diagnostic Center, Jim Jaeger greets employees as he makes his way through the building. He asks employees how they’re doing, follows up with some on previous concerns discussed, while some workers ask Jaeger for some time to talk. Jaeger is a corporate chaplain and he has a position in the workplace that is becoming increasingly more sought after by businesses nationwide.

He is one of 104 chaplains employed by Corporate Chaplains of America, which was founded in 1996. The program is available to employers on flat fee basis and is offered much like an extension of employee benefits.

As a member of Corporate Chaplains of America, Jaeger serves about nine companies in Manatee and Sarasota counties. His job duties are to visit local businesses that have recruited the program’s services at least once a week.

During visits, the chaplain reserves a couple hours to meet with employees and managers, on a voluntary basis, to discuss personal and professional issues on a confidential level. “We talk about anything they would like to cover,” Jaeger said. “It’s quite a bit — from family concerns, to financial concerns, to work-related stress.” 

Corporate Chaplains of America is growing so much so the organization is projecting it will employ more than 1,000 full-time chaplains and serve more than a million employees by 2012.

Currently, the corporate chaplains, who are nondenominational, serve 450 firms in 26 states. Eight years ago, Corporate Chaplains of America served fewer than 50 companies.

Like I said, I feel myself loosening up on the religion front as I turn into a crusty veteran of the HR game.  Add some positive comments from my Muslim and Hindu friends who have experienced this type of Chaplin, and I just might give it a try...

Compensation Dreams...Massage Therapist Gig at Google - Priceless!

I once had a drawer full of optons from a previous employer that were granted about a year before the dotcom crash.  Total value today?  Zero - not much of a retention tool when I was pondering another opportunity.

Of course, I didn't work at Google.

Put down your HR trade and start rubbing backs for profit (they really don't go together anyway, know what I mean?).  It can work out pretty well if you work at Google.  From a clip in the NYT:

"Bonnie Brown was fresh from a nasty divorce in 1999, living with her sister and uncertain of her future. On a lark, she answered an ad for an in-house masseuse at Google, then a Silicon Valley start-up with 40 employees. She was offered the part-time job, which started out at $450 a week but included a pile of Google stock options that she figured might never be worth a penny.

After five years of kneading engineers’ backs, Ms. Brown retired, cashing in most of her stock options, which were worth millions of dollars. To her delight, the shares she held onto have continued to balloon in value.

“I’m happy I saved enough stock for a rainy day, and lately it’s been pouring,” said Ms. Brown, 52, who now lives in a 3,000-square-foot house in Nevada, gets her own massages at least once a week and has a private Pilates instructor. She has traveled the world to oversee a charitable foundation she started with her Google wealth and has written a book, still unpublished, “Giigle: How I Got Lucky Massaging Google.”

Ugh.  I can't even follow that up with clever analysis...

Does Your Company Sponsor Employee Clubs? Not Even a Wine Club?

Kristina Shevory has a cool article up at the New York Times about employee clubs.  From her article at the NYT:

"Fat paychecks, pensions and health insurance are not enough to recruit and keep employees these days. Companies are again finding that adding a bit of social context to work is crucial to keeping employees happy and productive. That is where employee clubs come in. Workplace specialists say clubs are a way to build camaraderie and help people get to know fellow employees away from work. Companies benefit, too. Clubs help create loyal employees, reduce turnover and improve morale while costing very little."

Interesting stuff.  I should know because she called me last year (found me from the HR Capitalist) and we talked about the challenges for employers who aren't Boeing or Google.  It was good conversation, and we talked about things that cash-challenged companies can do.

We talked for about 30 minutes.  What she quoted me on serves as a cautionary tale.  Here's my quote from the story.  Get ready to channel the Grinch:

"Still, perks can be impermanent. During the technology boom in the 1990s, companies piled on the benefits to attract talent and then promptly got rid of them when the economy soured. Many companies, whether they are battling bankruptcy or are flush with cash, have rolled back benefits, eliminated pensions and increased health care premiums to reduce expenses. Any nonessential perk, like an employee club, is also fair game.

“If they ever existed, the first thing that goes is the frilly, frilly stuff,” said Kris Dunn, vice president for human resources at SourceMedical, a Birmingham, Ala., software company, and author of the blog The HR Capitalist."

Bah Humbug... So my quote is true, but Mercer and the consultants get the fun quotes.  I get the fiscal hawk quote.... The HR person's trying to take all the fun out of the workplace...

Check out the article, it's a good read.  Finding out that Boeing funds over 100 employee clubs at seven locations nationwide is kind of like finding out that a Massage Therapist from Google is now a millionaire from her stock options.

It's hard to relate to from the trenches.... Boeing has a VP of Wine....

Crazy Energy Stats Related to Telecommuting...

I've riffed in the recent past about the craziness of gas guarantees for employees in the face of rising fuel prices.  Not exactly the most progressive way to handle the cost of energy.  With that said, here are some cool stats on telecommuting from Sun Microsystems as reported by Green Car Congress (hat tip to Kevin Grossman at HR Marketer):

• Employees saved more than $1,700 per year in gasoline and wear and tear on their vehicles by working at home an average of 2.5 days a week.

• Office equipment energy consumption rate at a Sun office was two times that of home office equipment energy consumption, from approximately 64 watts per hour at home to 130 watts per hour at a Sun office.

• Commuting was more than 98% of each employee’s carbon footprint for work, compared to less than 1.7% of total carbon emissions to power office equipment.

• By eliminating commuting just 2.5 days per week, an employee reduces energy used for work by the equivalent of 5,400 Kilowatt hours/year.

• Working from home 2.5 days per week saved the employees in the study an average of 2.5 weeks of commute time (8 hours/day, 5 days/week).

Through this program, Sun has nearly 19,000 employees around the world work from home or in a flexible office, representing more than 56% of Sun’s employee population. 

WOW.  Compelling stuff.  Add to that tally, as I'm reminded by Kevin, the increase that can occur in productivity if employees treat the arrangement professionally, and the business case is strong. 

While we have some telecommuters, I've been working on something to help institutionalize the approach.  I need to wrap that up and get it to market, ASAP...

Friday Telecommuting - Can You Smell the Organizational Backlash?

Here's a nugget of wisdom from a manager I know.  Enjoy the organizational savvy:

Me: How's the Telecommuting Program going?  Did you get it launched?

Manager: Yes, we're starting this week in our department.  Everyone is looking forward to it, although I've got a couple of people who are unsure about how working from home is going to go.

Me: How did you split up the department in terms of what days everyone gets?

Manager: I thought it through a little bit, and I decided to make some standard telecommuting days for the department.

Me: Really?  Tell me more.

Manager: Well, the last thing I wanted, for the departments that rely on my team, is for them to come in looking for anyone on a Monday or a Friday, and not be able to find them.  To me, the perception is that the employee is creating a 3 day weekend by telecommuting on a Monday or a Friday.  Plus, let's face it, it's human nature at 3pm on a Friday to want the weekend to get here already, so it would be tempting to play a little frisbee, etc.  So, I've opted to nip that in the bud.

Me:  Smart idea...

So, here's the story...  New telecommuting program, lots of desire to telecommute in the organization, and the manager proactively takes a look at a potential organizational reaction to his team being out on a Friday afternoon, and institutionalizes something to control for that.

Smart idea, especially given the fact that the program is new and still has to "prove in."

If I could, I'd do one of those "Real Men of Genius" commercials to celebrate the organizational savvy.  I'd call it "Mr. Anticipate the Organizational Backlash" guy. 

Worst Benefit Idea of 2008 - The Gas Price Guarantee....

Gas prices are high.  Jeff Spicoli high.

With that in mind, companies are doing what they should - thinking about the burden carried by employees  who have long commutes.  For many, that means thinking about what, if anything, can be done to help employees out with the cost of fuel for the commute.

But there's a right way, and a wrong way.

First the right ways -

1.  Encourage car pooling.

2.  Find opportunities for telecommuting where possible.

3.  If you're up for spending some money, perhaps encourage car pooling or public transit with some mild incentives. 

Now for the wrong way:

1.  Provide a guarantee on the price of gas, creating a program that states the company will reimburse employees for gas prices that exceed $2.85 per gallon for travel on their normal commute.

You're kidding me, right?  While it's great for the employees, the program effectively discourages any type of car pooling or alternative travel plans and creates a burden for the company, when gas prices keep going up, and the company looks back and says the following - "Whoops - we thought this thing was going to top off at $3/gallon, now that it's at $5, the program's going away.  Sorry.."

Not to mention, the lovely employee relations issues that go with providing a greater benefit to employees with longer commutes, or those that choose to drive an Accord instead of an Excursion...

Gas prices are high.  Jeff Spicoli high.

With that in mind, companies are doing what they should - thinking about the burden carried by employees  who have long commutes.  For many, that means thinking about what, if anything, can be done to help employees out with the cost of fuel for the commute.

But there's a right way, and a wrong way.

First the right ways -

1.  Encourage car pooling.

2.  Find opportunities for telecommuting where possible.

3.  If you're up for spending some money, perhaps encourage car pooling or public transit with some mild incentives. 

Now for the wrong way:

1.  Provide a guarantee on the price of gas, creating a program that states the company will reimburse employees for gas prices that exceed $2.85 per gallon for travel on their normal commute.

You're kidding me, right?  While it's great for the employees, the program effectively discourages any type of car pooling or alternative travel plans and creates a burden for the company, when gas prices keep going up, and the company looks back and says the following - "Whoops - we thought this thing was going to top off at $3/gallon, now that it's at $5, the program's going away.  Sorry.."

Not to mention, the lovely employee relations issues that go with providing a greater benefit to employees with longer commutes, or those that choose to drive an Accord instead of an Excursion...

The Cost of Commuting - Did You Know There's a FSA for the Morning Commute?

With the cost of a gallon of gas heading towards $5, you're no doubt hearing about the pain from your employees.  With that in mind, there's no such thing as a bad idea when it comes to thoughts to provide cost relief to commuting employees. 

Would you believe there is such a thing as a "Flexible Spending Account" for commuting costs?

It's got limited application, but it's there.  From Jerry at the Retirement Plan Blog:

"There is a way employers can help employees put more dollars in their paychecks at no additional expense to them. In fact, tax savings are available to both employers and employees.

So what is it, and how does it work? It’s an oft forgotten program that allows employers to offer employees the opportunity pay for certain transportation expenses on a pre-tax basis under Internal Revenue Code Section 132 and the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21).

Qualified transportation expenses generally include payments for the use of mass transportation, e.g., train, subway, bus fares), and for parking. Amounts are indexed for inflation. For 2008 the maximum monthly pre-tax contribution for mass transit is $115.00, and $220.00 for parking.

And there’s one more goodie. While Section 132 benefits are similar to the pre-tax flexible spending accounts available for medical expenses and dependent care under Section 125, there’s one important difference. The transportation benefit does not include a "use it or lose it penalty," as required with medical/dependent care flexible spending accounts."

If you deal with FSA's, you know Pre-tax means before income taxes and FICA, which is valuable to employees because they effectively increase take-home pay. A more minor benefit goes to your company since the employer avoids paying its share of FICA.

If you've read this whole post, you're probably thinking a lot like me.  It's a great benefit on paper, but doesn't help those who are driving to work, which seems like it covers 99% of America.  Still, if you are in a metro area, it's a good benefit to publicize to your workforce if public transit exists, or if you're in the core metro area where employees have to pay for parking.

I can't really advocate for expanding this FSA type program to the cost of gas for a personal vehicle.  I think to really impact the problem, we need to turn to telecommunting and other options.  Perhaps expanding the FSA-like benefits for the cost of fuel for employees who carpool?

With the cost of a gallon of gas heading towards $5, you're no doubt hearing about the pain from your employees.  With that in mind, there's no such thing as a bad idea when it comes to thoughts to provide cost relief to commuting employees. 

Would you believe there is such a thing as a "Flexible Spending Account" for commuting costs?

It's got limited application, but it's there.  From Jerry at the Retirement Plan Blog:

"There is a way employers can help employees put more dollars in their paychecks at no additional expense to them. In fact, tax savings are available to both employers and employees.

So what is it, and how does it work? It’s an oft forgotten program that allows employers to offer employees the opportunity pay for certain transportation expenses on a pre-tax basis under Internal Revenue Code Section 132 and the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21).

Qualified transportation expenses generally include payments for the use of mass transportation, e.g., train, subway, bus fares), and for parking. Amounts are indexed for inflation. For 2008 the maximum monthly pre-tax contribution for mass transit is $115.00, and $220.00 for parking.

And there’s one more goodie. While Section 132 benefits are similar to the pre-tax flexible spending accounts available for medical expenses and dependent care under Section 125, there’s one important difference. The transportation benefit does not include a "use it or lose it penalty," as required with medical/dependent care flexible spending accounts."

If you deal with FSA's, you know Pre-tax means before income taxes and FICA, which is valuable to employees because they effectively increase take-home pay. A more minor benefit goes to your company since the employer avoids paying its share of FICA.

If you've read this whole post, you're probably thinking a lot like me.  It's a great benefit on paper, but doesn't help those who are driving to work, which seems like it covers 99% of America.  Still, if you are in a metro area, it's a good benefit to publicize to your workforce if public transit exists, or if you're in the core metro area where employees have to pay for parking.

I can't really advocate for expanding this FSA type program to the cost of gas for a personal vehicle.  I think to really impact the problem, we need to turn to telecommunting and other options.  Perhaps expanding the FSA-like benefits for the cost of fuel for employees who carpool?

Telecommuting or Gas Vouchers for Employees? Either Way, Choose Soon for Retention...

We've riffed in the past couple of weeks regarding the benefits of telecommuting, and also chronicled the reaction of companies with workforces not suited for telecommuting (think production/manufacturing, retail, etc.) to provide gas vouchers/guarantees.

A new study by Beyond.com indicates that you might need to choose one or the other soon to maximize retention:

"20,000 respondents answered the following question - “What alternatives are you considering as a result of high gas prices affecting your commute to work?”

Here's the response breakdown....

79% - Find a job closer to home
13% - Telecommuting from home
6% - Public transportation or walking
2% - Carpooling with colleagues"

Looks like it might be time to get a game plan together.  It will be interesting to see if any of the companies providing compensation for gas will be able to point to ROI from the plan.

My big question - if you provide compensation for gas, when does that end?  Doesn't that become an entitlement on day 2? 

Start a telecommuting program if you can....

Dropping Labor Day for Muslim Holiday? The Case for Floating Holidays....

A Tyson plant in Tennessee has decided to offer the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr -- which marks the end of Ramadan -- as a paid holiday instead of Labor Day.  Almost 700 of the plant's 1,200 employees are Muslim.  Somehow, I think this is going to be an emotional one...

More details from MSNBC:

"Workers at the Tyson Foods poultry processing plant in Shelbyville will no longer have a paid day off on Labor Day but will instead be granted the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr. According to a news release from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, a new five-year contract at the plant included the change to accommodate Muslim workers at the plant.

Tyson's director of media relations Gary Mickelson said the contract includes eight paid holidays -- the same number as the old contract.

Eid al-Fitr -- which falls on Oct. 1 this year -- marks the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.  Union leaders said implementing the holiday was important for the nearly 700 Muslims, many of them Somalis, who work at the plant that employs a total of 1,200 people.

Nineteen-year plant veteran William Pentecost doesn't agree with the decision. "I don't think it's right. I really don't think it's right," he said.

Tyson company spokeswoman Libby Lawson said by phone that, "This isn't a religious accommodation, this is a contractual agreement. The majority asked for it."   The change didn't bother some workers.

"I think it's fine. I don't have any problem with it. There's a whole bunch of them here, so they've got to do something for them," said worker John Smith.   Nineteen-year plant veteran William Pentecost doesn't agree with the decision.  "It shouldn't happen. I mean, I think, we're in America, you're in America, I think that they should go with our holidays," Pentecost said."

Lots of stuff imbedded in this one.  America, religion, etc.  For most work locations, the standard operating procedure of Amercian and Christian holidays satisfies the majority.  When that's challenged or no longer makes sense in a mutil-cultural environment, doesn't it make sense to move a large portion of the fixed holidays into floating holidays to offer employees the flexibillity to identify the days most important to them to be away from work?

Just thinking out loud.  The other issue embedded in this one is workforce planning, in that the plant needs to know when they are going to shut down for full days to plan production. 

Is it ever easy?  The answer is most certainly no, but we'll see the standard idea of Christian holidays challenged more and more in the future, as the Amercian workforce continues to diversify. 

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