Category Archives: Company Culture

Helping Employees During Los Angeles Wildfires

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The following is intended to help employers support their employees impacted by the Los Angeles fires. Please consult with your tax advisor for further guidance.

The wildfires ravaging various parts of Los Angeles County are truly tragic and expected to cost more than $50 billion in damages, making it the most expensive natural disaster ever in the United States. For employers with employees in the impacted areas, there are several ways to help.

First, an employer may provide disaster assistance payments under IRC section 139 on a tax-free basis:

to reimburse or pay reasonable and necessary personal, family, living, or funeral expenses incurred as a result of a qualified disaster.
to reimburse or pay reasonable and necessary expenses incurred for the repair or rehabilitation of a personal residence or repair or replacement of its contents to the extent that the need for such repair, rehabilitation, or replacement is attributable to a qualified disaster.

Thus, employers can pay for hotel stays, money for food and clothing, or even to help repair homes damaged or destroyed by the fires. There is no limit on such payments, meaning employers can determine how much assistance to provide those affected.

Second, employers can create a leave-sharing program for employees impacted by disasters. Under a leave-sharing program, employees donate accrued but unused leave to employees who have exhausted their leave. For the donation to be tax exempt to the donor, an employer-sponsored leave-sharing program must comport with the following requirements:

The plan must allow a leave donor to deposit unused, accrued leave in an employer-sponsored leave bank for the benefit of other employees who have been adversely affected by a major disaster. An employee is considered adversely affected if the disaster has caused severe hardship to the employee or family member that requires the employee to be absent from work.
The plan does not allow a donor to specify a particular recipient of their donated leave.
The amount of leave donated in a year may not exceed the maximum amount of leave that an employee normally accrues during that year.
A leave recipient may receive paid leave from the leave bank at the recipient’s normal compensation rate.
The plan must provide a reasonable limit on the period of time after the disaster has occurred, during which leave may be donated and received from the leave bank, based on the severity of the disaster.
A recipient may not receive cash in lieu of using the paid leave received.
The employer must make a reasonable determination of the amount of leave a recipient may receive.
Leave deposited on account of a particular disaster may be used only by those employees affected by that particular disaster. In addition, any donated leave that has not been used by recipients by the end of the specified time must be returned to the donor within a reasonable time so that the donor may use the leave, except in the event the amount is so small as to make accounting for it unreasonable or impractical. The amount of leave returned must be in the same proportion to the leave donated.

The IRS does not allow special tax treatment for major disaster leave-sharing plans that do not comply with the above requirements. For example, the IRS rejected special tax treatment for an employer-sponsored leave-sharing program that allowed employees to draw from its leave bank in the event of a “catastrophic casualty loss.” Under the program rejected by the IRS, employees were allowed to donate hours of paid leave for the benefit of an employee who experienced severe damage to or destruction of their primary residence that required immediate action by the employee to secure the residence or to those who were affected by a terrorist attack, natural disaster, or public health crisis. The IRS determined that a “catastrophic casualty loss” was too broad to be permitted as an eligible medical emergency plan since the plan may or may not involve a personal or family medical emergency. The IRS also found that the plan was outside the scope of an eligible major disaster leave-sharing plan because the plan was not “designed to be limited specifically to aid the victims of a ‘major disaster’ as declared by the President of the United States.”

Other resources may also be available. For example, employers might consider reminding employees about EAP programs or other benefits that are available to them should they be struggling with mental health issues relating to the stress of the wildfires. And of course, simply checking up on employees to ensure they are safe is always a good idea.

4 Attraction and Retention Trends to Monitor in 2023

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Last year’s labor market was a roller coaster and we believe 2023 will be no different. A lot is uncertain but one thing is clear: employers will struggle to compete for top talent. Labor metrics indicate that though the market has slightly improved over last year, it’s still a tight labor market, numbers remain historically high. While most employers project an increase in salaries in 2023, many will look beyond pay alone to help attract and retain current and prospective employees.

While some companies have been offering higher compensation and better benefits packages, many organizations also are looking for other ways to optimize their offerings and enhance employee experience. As they compete for talent, many may take a total rewards approach to fulfill employees’ workplace desires. Today, we’re talking about four attraction and retention trends to watch in 2023.

1. Redesigned Flexibility

Remote work exploded at the height of the pandemic and many organizations shifted to a flexible work model out of necessity. Nearly three years later, having flexible and remote work models has shifted from a perk to a given. Employees want the flexibility to work when and where they want.

For employers, it’s essential to balance organizational goals with employee desires. It’s important to adapt to employee expectations around flexible work models while also keeping an eye on business priorities that might call for having employees back in the office. While workplace flexibility is not always feasible, employers can evaluate their own situations and consider ways to develop flexible arrangements. The goal is to focus on output and productivity rather than time spent online or in the workplace.

2. Mental Health Support

Between the pandemic, inflation and job duties, more employees feel burnt out or are battling mental health challenges. More employers will be considering how to take a proactive approach towards employee mental well-being and resilience. A survey from the employee wellness platform, Gympass, revealed that nearly half of employees (48%) say their well-being declined in 2022. In addition, 28% say they are miserable at work. Health experts predict that employees’ mental health will continue to decline amid economic uncertainty, which means the demand for mental health care will increase in 2023.

Employers can offer benefits, perks, and wellness programs designed to support mental well-being. To address burnout, many employers will offer or expand their employee assistance programs, behavioral health anti-stigma campaigns, and training for recognizing employee and peer behavioral health issues. Employers are poised to offer the education and support that today’s workers need and are looking for.

3. Learning and Development Opportunities

Learning and developing efforts have been on the rise in recent years. Not only are workers looking for professional growth opportunities at an employer, but many organizations are upskilling or reskilling workers, as it’s often less expensive to reskill a current employee than hire a new one. On the flip side, employees who receive learning and development opportunities are more likely to stay with the company and grow into different roles. Therefore, learning and development initiatives prove to be a win-win situation for employers and employees.

As employers go head-to-head in the competitive race for talent in 2023, upskilling their current workforces could be a solution to finding workers for their in-demand roles. Furthermore, organizations are prioritizing internal mobility to address skills gaps and strengthen employee retention.

4. Increased Focus on Belonging

Nurturing a sense of belonging is a critical component of company culture. At work, belonging is the experience of employees feeling accepted and included by those around them. While belonging doesn’t necessarily come with a price tag, employers can invest efforts and resources into ensuring their workplaces are inclusive, collaborative, and connected. Employees are looking for a work environment that’s authentic and accepting. A focus on belonging can play a crucial role in improving workplace culture.

Many workplace factors can impact employees’ sense of belonging, including company culture, benefits offerings, communication methods, learning and development resources and mental health support. Any day-to-day interactions among co-workers and managers or companywide initiatives may impact workplace culture and the overall employee experience. When an organization develops reputation for being an inclusive and supportive workplace, new talent is eager to join. Employers can elevate employee experiences by creating workplaces where employees feel they belong and can be their authentic selves.

Summary

Employers can get ahead of the game in 2023 by monitoring the trends shaping the ever-evolving labor market and driving current and prospective employees’ needs and wants. While attraction and retention challenges are likely to continue this year, these trends demonstrate ways employers can elevate and strengthen their talent strategies to win and keep more workers.

Reach out to CorpStrat for more guidance on these topics and other employee attraction and retention trends.

Identifying and Retaining Key Employees

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Identifying and retaining key employees is especially important in light of ongoing attraction and retention difficulties employers have been facing. According to Zywave’s 2022 Attraction and Retention Survey, more than 75% of employers consider attraction and retention to be among their top five business challenges. In response to changing work demands brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and trends such as the “Great Reshuffle”—a mass movement of workers from their current roles to positions that meet their shifting job expectations and priorities—retaining employees has become increasingly difficult for employers.

In order for organizations to continue to succeed, it is important that they are able to find and retain their best workers. These workers are those who affect performance and drive business for their employers, making them critical assets. This article provides more information on key employees, explains how to identify them, and offers ways employers can retain such workers.

Key Employees Explained

So who are your Key Employees? Key employees are those whose skills, knowledge, and excellent performance can be linked to their organizations’ overall success. There are different attributes that may contribute to workers who are critical to their organizations. Often, these employees have special proprietary knowledge, additional certifications, degrees, or licenses that help their organizations function more efficiently.

Key employees may also help establish strong relationships within their organizations and with clients. The primary takeaway is that key employees have a tangible impact on their companies and they are difficult to replace.

Identifying Key Employees

To retain key employees, employers have to know how to identify them. The traits of key employees may differ between organizations. Here are some general indicators of such workers:

Exceed expectations—These employees consistently go above and beyond what they are expected to do.
Enhance strategies—Such employees proactively search for ways to improve their companies’ strategies and operations without being told to do so.
Affect performance—The presence of these employees is often connected to increased performance and their absence can have negative effects on overall results.
Impact business relations—Losing such employees may hurt relationships with clients and vendors.
Connect teams—These employees foster connections between various teams and help smaller team cultures blend into their companies’ larger cultures.

These attributes are important ones that can help employers make general determinations regarding which workers are the most irreplaceable within their organizations.

How to Retain Key Employees

Once you’ve identified your key employees, now you can begin the work of retaining them. Here are some ways employers can work to keep their key employees:

Identify your key employees. If employers cannot figure out who their key employees are, they are far less likely to be able to retain them.
Maintain open communication. Openly communicating with your key employees will help ensure that you’re aware of what their needs are. When there is a lack of communication, these employees could be driven to look elsewhere.
Ensure competitive compensation. Key employees usually go above and beyond the duties set out in their roles. As such, employers should consider compensating them for that extra work so they feel their efforts are being valued. It may be a good idea to reevaluate compensation strategies before top-performing workers decide to leave for other organizations that may pay them more.
Provide learning and development opportunities. Employees who overachieve are often eager to learn more and want their organizations to help them do so. Employers should consider offering learning and development opportunities. This can both satiate employees’ desires to learn, as well as help their workers to enhance their skill sets.
Update Employee Benefits. Employers should ask their employees which benefits they get the most use out of and which additional offerings they might like to see. Part of retaining key employees is ensuring they receive benefits and compensation that match their needs. It is important to determine whether their current benefits offerings help achieve those goals.
As employers strive to keep key employees, it remains crucial to treat all employees fairly, particularly when making employment decisions related to compensation, promotions and learning and development opportunities. Organizations should ensure their performance management practices comply with all applicable employment laws.

Takeaway

Key employees are vital to the success of their organizations. It is important to figure out who these employees are and how to keep them. Employers should stay alert to indicators of key employees within their organizations and figure out those workers’ desires so they can implement effective strategies to retain them.

For more information on attraction and retention, contact CorpStrat today.

Are You Creating Company Culture That Builds Retention?

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It takes a lot of effort to build culture, and it takes very little to destroy it.

A recent study revealed that 75% of workers cited Company Culture as the primary factor that influenced their decision to work at a company; for many, culture ranked higher than salary. It might be surprising to hear but job seekers are likely to pass on a “perfect job” if the Corporate Culture isn’t a good fit.

So what exactly is Corporate Culture and how do you create culture that builds retention. Read on to learn more.

What is Company Culture?

In short, Company Culture is simply the way things are done in an organization.

Every company has values, rules, and unspoken routines that make it a one-of-a-kind entity. Some are formal and some are informal but your culture bleeds into everything: the way you handle problems, the way employees interact with each other, and the way your leadership team carries itself.

It doesn’t stop there, culture also sets the tone for virtually every interaction your employees have with your customers. From emails to face-to-face interactions, your Company Culture is constantly on display in your employees to your customers. For your clients, it really doesn’t matter what you say to them, what you DO is what they’ll remember. This is why having a motivated workforce that both believes in the company mission and feels supported by their team is so key to building and fostering client relationships.

How do you build positive Company Culture?

Positive Company Culture trickles down to every aspect of your business. It can be seen in communications in your office, the way your team interacts, how your team behaves, and how your people connect with one another.

Good Company Culture will foster both engagement and retention. Conversely, bad Company Culture will emphasize punishment and reward the wrong behaviors. It’s hard to see how far reaching the effect of Company Culture is because its impact is both internal and external; intrinsic and extrinsic.

Signs of a bad Company Culture can look like toxic employee gossip, high turnover rates, and overall poor morale. If you’re noticing the beginnings to these behaviors, now is the time to act. Prioritizing Company Culture is a choice. It starts with hiring the right people to do the right jobs and continues with intentional effort. Building a great Company Culture requires thoughtful leadership, time, attention to details, and is not really based on compensation

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Building culture should be fun and rewarding. If you need help cultivating a positive Company Culture, reach out to us at marketing@corpstrat.com

How to Simplify Communicating New Hire Rates to Employees

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Communicating new hire rates to employees has grown increasingly complex in recent years. Back in the day, it was simple and straightforward: rates were the same for either single employees, an employee plus a spouse, or an employee with a family. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case.

Since the inception of the ACA in 2010, California employers with 100 or less employees have a rate based on each employee’s actual date of birth and their home zip code. On top of that, each eligible dependent has a rate based on their birth date. When you combine that with most companies having somewhere between six to eight plan choices, the layers of complexity really start adding up.

How can you simplify this?

Between differing rates, benefits plans, multiple products, regional variances, state requirements, and demographics, you need to find a sustainable way to communicate these specifics in a clear and easy to understand way to your employees. To us, this really starts and ends with automating the process. If you’re not embracing technology for this, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. Automating this process means employers can deliver all of their rates, plan options, benefit summaries, and even the SBCs to remain compliant in a seamless, paperless experience.

If your Employee Benefit enrollment experience is clunky or is still paper based, let’s talk. We can help you save time, save money, and increase efficiency and compliance. We’d love to help make your organization look great to your team and your potential new recruits.