California Employer Health Benefits

Employee Self-Service: Why Employees Care

May 11, 2017 by CorpStrat News Leave a Comment

In the 20th century, there was a clearer delineation between work and life: there was what you did to earn income, and there was everything else. But with the advent of mobile technology — which allows employees to be “on” anytime, anywhere — work is no longer confined to the office.

While this mobility offers great advantages, it also allows work to infiltrate employees’ lives. It’s a challenge for employers, large and small!

Today, life is pushing back! The enjoyment of life is beginning to take back its rightful place in the lives of employees. Today’s employees put increased focus on happiness at work—they change jobs more often, their careers take unexpected twists and turns, and personal satisfaction can be as important as the numbers on their paycheck.

Employers are recognizing these changing priorities, by investing in employee engagement, culture, and team development. Technology is the key.

Using Technology to Put Your Employees First

This employee-first focus is shaping everything from office floor plans to vacation policies and management styles, making the workplace a more dynamic and expressive place.

With so much change in the workplace, employees are looking for more stability, protection, and a safeguard against disruption. If they can find it in their employer, they’ll show their appreciation through loyalty.

Between work and life, employees want harmony—not just balance. With this new blended experience, they expect their employers to keep up with current trends and proactively provide solutions for their changing needs. Specifically, employees are seeking a sense of financial and emotional wellbeing.

Today’s employee experience needs to be more complete.

Here are 5 ways to meet employees where they are:

Offering a breadth of employee benefit options helps to alleviate the anxiety that comes with the integration of work-life and home-life.

When employers deliver digital and tailored HR solutions, they help an increasingly diverse workforce find the assurance and security it’s looking for.

When employees have access to the right information on their terms, it ensures they can get the info they need to meet their lifestyle objectives.

By providing clearer information about workplace policies and procedures, employers can empower employees and minimize areas of exposure.

Lastly, when communication is simplified, employees are able to discover the immense value of their workplace and benefits.

This appreciation results in engagement, loyalty, and commitment to the company.

Companies that embrace technology to help employees bridge the gap between “old school” and full-service digital employee engagement will thrive in a changing business world.

CorpStrat’s 21^st Century HR Solution helps companies change the game and change the ways employees engage.

How can HR Technology Streamline ACA Reporting?

December 27, 2016 by CorpStrat News Leave a Comment

In past posts, we have discussed the value of a fully-integrated HRMS system for evaluating performance evaluations and hiring decisions. This value can also extend to your ACA reporting to the IRS, by reducing the amount of time you need to invest both ensuring year-round ACA compliance, and compiling employee data for year-end reporting.

Your HRMS dashboard can be configured to give you information on employees who are eligible for benefits, or may soon become available based on measurement period data, so that management can quickly make informed benefits and budgeting decisions.

How it Works

Employee Onboarding

ACA Reporting relies on a lot of basic employee information, including Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN). A properly secured and designed HRMS allows employee enrollment data to be cross-referenced by your payroll, legal, and ACA reporting HR systems, and can warn you of any potential TIN mismatch errors before you risk an IRS penalty.

Significant Life Events

Eligibility periods for significant life events can be small, and a major headache if an employee finds out too late that an election period has expired. Organizations can make use of their HRMS to communicate eligibility for insurance adjustment, as well as election deadlines to enroll or remove a spouse or child from benefits coverage.

Measurement and Stability Periods

If you have employees who work an average of 30 hours per week, these are variable hour employees – and their health benefits eligibility can be complicated. In order to reduce the overhead involved in hourly employee health benefits management, your HRMS can calculate any employees’ average hours worked per week, to determine their ACA eligibility during your Measurement Period, and track their eligibility though a Stability Period.

When further integrated with CorpStrat Payroll, CorpStrat HR simplifies the process. By allowing employees to enroll into the system online, CorpStrat HR can track employees through their stability period to ensure that deductions are made accurately and on-time.

Your CorpStrat Account Manager will help you configure these data dependencies by understanding your organizations’ individual needs and capabilities, and provide the information that empowers your employees, HR department, and management teams to make the most informed benefits decisions.

Ask us how you can spend less time on ACA reporting and more time on growing your business. Contact us today, or learn more about CorpStrat HR and CorpStrat Payroll.

What Are Employee Assistance Programs?

December 13, 2016 by CorpStrat News Leave a Comment

For many Americans, admitting to having an ongoing health problem or mental illness is a source of embarrassment and discomfort – even if it is the result of a very stressful crisis situation. Many people would rather handle these challenges individually, and never bring them up with their leadership at the office.

The issue that leaders face, then, is that they are managing employees who are being negatively impacted by a solvable problem, and they can’t do anything about it. [Read more…] about What Are Employee Assistance Programs?

Managing the Costs of Millennial Employees’ Expectations

November 30, 2016 by CorpStrat News Leave a Comment

We all know that Millennials (Middle-class members of the workforce who completed high school and college in the first ten years of 2000s) can be a contradictory group to manage – from social media use in the office to expectations around office ‘face-time’, millennials can switch from having ‘high-touch’ employment expectations to wanting a ‘low-touch’ workplace experience.

How can Boomer managers reconcile Millennial expectations into a smooth management philosophy?

How Can Organizations Manage Open Enrollment?

November 22, 2016 by CorpStrat News Leave a Comment

It’s open enrollment season again, and you know what that means: The HR department is frazzled, your managers are hunting down wayward employees in the hallway, admins are bracing for a paperwork blizzard, and nobody can really explain what’s supposed to be going on.

With the proper preparation, open enrollment can leave your employees feeling better served by your HR department, and HR can act strategically to create new benefits opportunities for the employees that need them most. Moving from a traditional paper brochure open enrollment to a technology-centric benefits enrollment period can make all the difference.

Cafeteria Plans: Are You Missing The Benefits of Voluntary Benefits?

November 15, 2016 by CorpStrat News Leave a Comment

The underutilized benefit the IRS doesn’t want you to know about!

With the rising cost of health insurance and increasing out-of-pocket expenses, there are additional expenses being put on both employees and employers due to the ACA. Employers are challenged, chief among these balancing the value of health benefits and optional coverage provided to employees, versus the costs and reporting burdens put on employers and employees.