HR Insights

The much ballyhooed Cadillac Tax has been delayed until 2020. The Cadillac Tax is a planned 40% tax on ultra-luxurious employer benefits. 

There is plenty of opposition from a number of sources, so the plan could be further delayed or shelved entirely.

At present, the Cadillac Tax has been fundamentally weakened, allowing for employers who hit the threshhold for penalty to write off the cost as a business expense.

Further, critics of the Tax have found success arguing that the penalty would be hurtful to people nearing retirement and for women.

There are many aspects of the typical manager's job – monitoring, reporting, maintaining procedures, sharing information – which will be taken over by computers in the near future.

Does this mean that human managers will go the way of the dinosaur? That's highly unlikely say industry analysts, but the nature of human management is likely to change.

2016 will be the year that Millennials attain managerial roles in great numbers. 

This professional coming of age is sure to bring with it many changes for the American workplace landscape, but how much of the Millennial culture hype will actually result in innovation?

For HR teams crafting employer benefits options, it's important to understand that different generations of employees tend to have much different preferences.

In a study by MassMutual, Millennials and Baby Boomers were found to value one benefit above all: vacation time.

Generation X workers, however, far preferred high standards of retirement benefits.

Every company – whether healthcare, defense contracting, publicly traded equities, or international trade – must have a corporate compliance program.

Compliance programs are required to feature annual training for all employees, an anonymous hotline, and promotion/enforcement of a code of ethics.

In many ways, Compliance and HR have the same goals in mind, but they don't always cooperate intentionally (or at all).

Research at Carnegie Mellon indicates that only 7% of women negotiate salary offers, compared to 57% of men.

Nationally, women work for 78 cents for every dollar a man makes. Some see salary negotiation as the crux of salary inequality.

While some are trying to put things right by offering women negotiation education, others suggest making all salaries nonnegotiable.

The battle for comprehensible health coverage in the workplace continues. Large employers like GM are trying to better educate their massive workforce about available healthcare options by using a new comprehensive system.

Still, employee engagement is low — but the tide seems to be turning. Workers who take active part in the learning and selection process of an employer health plan often report that the coverage selected is both the most affordable and the best possible option.

Facing an economy in recession, Canadian businesses are being forced to take serious action on workplace policies, changes which could cast light on the way people work around the world.

Employers the nation over have traditionally responded to productivity woes by increasing hours.

As prominent international corporations bring 24/7 work culture into the public eye, smaller companies may be taking things in the opposite direction.

Competitive benefits are the latest way companies are trying to attract and retain the best talent.

Despite awesome benefits, however, studies show that 56% of employees spend 30 minutes or less when selecting benefits, and most devote little time to using the benefits they have.

After years of industry-wide price increases, America's employers are showing signs of taking control of all aspects of employee healthcare.

The advent of workplace health clinics, on-site fitness facilities, and workforce health enhancement initiatives are just a few examples of how today's workplaces are bringing worker health methologies under one roof.