[vc_row][vc_column] This week’s episode of Talent10x features Workforce editor Rick Bell as he and Talent EconomyManaging Editor Frank Kalman interview employment lawyer and Workforce columnist Jon Hyman about President Donald Trump’s call to ban all transgender people from the military and the potential implications for the private sector workforce.
When it comes to setting financial goals, younger employees are less focused on retirement and more concerned about meeting day-to-day expenses, and that should concern employers, according to a recent study by accounting firm PwC.
About one-third of millennial and Gen X employees have withdrawn money from their retirement plans and about half think it’s likely they will need to do so in the future.
A growing number of millennial and Generation X employees are withdrawing money from their retirement plans, leaving them vulnerable at a time when defined benefit plans are disappearing and health care costs are soaring, according to Kent Allison, a partner at PwC.
“The recurring theme is that people continue to be stressed and can’t withstand any short-term shock to their finances,” he said. “Employers tried to solve the retirement savings deficiencies by adopting auto enrollment and auto escalation features that forced people to contribute to their retirement plans, but they never asked why employees weren’t contributing in the first place. People have competing cash flow objectives so in a way, companies are exacerbating the situation.”
About one-third of millennial and Gen X employees have withdrawn money from their retirement plans and about half think it’s likely they will need to do so in the future, according to PwC’s 2017 “Financial Wellness” survey. Topping the list of financial stressors for younger workers is student loans. Among the millennials and Gen X employees with student loans, a growing number say their loans are preventing them from meeting other financial goals — 45 percent of millennials (up from 35 percent last year) and 42 percent of Gen X (up from 31 percent last year).
In addition to managing student loan debt, an increasing number of younger workers are also supporting a parent or in-law while raising children, reflecting the challenges faced by baby boomer colleagues. These financial burdens take a toll not only on overall worker well-being and productivity, but also on the company’s bottom line.
Employees who are stressed about their finances are nearly five times more likely to be distracted by their finances at work and twice as likely to spend three hours or more at work dealing with financial matters than colleagues who are not stressed about money, according to the survey.
Employers need to broaden their financial wellness efforts and focus on saving money beyond retirement, according to Allison.
“If they want people to focus on long term goals they need to help them deal with the short term,” he said.
Rita Pyrillis is a writer based in the Chicago area. Comment below or emaileditors@workforce.com. FollowWorkforceon Twitter at@workforcenews.
Like many of you reading this article, I stumbled into HR as a career.
As a journalism student who had never heard of employee benefits or HR or consulting, I was drawn to benefits because of the complexity and challenge of making sense of such meaty topics. But I soon discovered a much deeper sense of purpose in this work — and that purpose has kept me both in benefits and incredibly passionate about this industry.
Here’s why: Employee benefits touch the health and financial security of nearly all Americans and millions of people around the world.
Working in benefits is one of the few careers in which you can know you’re making a difference in what’s really important to people — almost all the time. Whether you’re working as a provider, a consultant or in an employer HR department, you’re having an impact on a lot of lives. You’re doing work that matters. The same can be said about so many other important areas of HR — training, learning and development, organizational development, to name just a few.
But how many people outside our industry know that? Does anyone grow up wanting to be an HR pro?
I’ve been thinking about this since my company, Benz Communications, concluded our interview series of 27 benefits pros as part of celebrating our 10th anniversary last year. (You can read all the interviews on LinkedIn.) They are an inspiring group of benefits leaders at large employers and benefits providers.
When we asked, “How did you get into employee benefits,” nearly everyone we spoke with confessed they stumbled into their career in benefits, and then fell in love with the space — much like I did. Without exception, what struck us was the absolute passion and the sense of pride and purpose these benefits leaders have about their careers.
Sarah Lecuna said she “fell into” benefits. “I wanted to be in the HR function, but wasn’t sure where would be the best fit for me and I the best fit for it. When I got a job in benefits I thought it would be temporary, but I love the work, the ever-changing landscape, and the impact it has on people’s lives.” Now she’s the global benefits leader at Intuit Inc. And Lecuna was named one of Workforce’s Game Changers in 2014.
Allison Wendelberger also didn’t get into benefits by design.
“I was finishing grad school and didn’t have a clear path in mind. Since I was a math major, I decided to take a couple of actuarial exams to make my résumé more enticing,” she recalled. She landed at HR consultancy Mercer and then spent 15 years with Aflac until she moved to her current role as business development manager for ITA Group.
“Essentially, we create programs that motivate behavior change in all the people who matter to an organization,” she explained.
Virgin Pulse President and CMO Rajiv Kumar started out as a doctor, but said, “Working in employee benefits allows me to positively impact the greatest number of lives. In clinical practice, I’d only be able to see a finite number of patients each day. Virgin Pulse, on the other hand, has touched more than 5 million lives around the world. The potential is inspiring.”
Inspiring, it is. The scope of all we touch in benefits is huge, which most people don’t realize.
“I love the fact that we make an impact at both an individual level as well as a social level. In benefits, I have a view of the difference we make not only in our employees’ lives, but also in our company culture, communities and even legislation. I find it extremely gratifying,” said Rosemary Arriada-Keiper, senior director of global benefits at Adobe.
Most people want careers that give them a sense of purpose. They want to do work that has meaning and value in the world. Employee benefits are ideal in that sense. But how do we make it less happenstance for great young people to get into the industry?
Clearly, our profession isn’t exactly front and center when children are aspiring to what they want to be when they grow up. There’s no Benefits Adviser Barbie or HR Director Lego set for our career.
But, we can all play a role in making HR a more desirable — and earlier — career aspiration. Accepting external speaking opportunities, sharing our stories and talking in the press about the great work our companies do is a start. Finding ways to brag about your career at your kids’ school or a college career fair can’t hurt, either.
All of those efforts can help inspire the next generation of game changers.
Fatherhood isn’t just Brad Harrington’s work; it’s his life. As the lead author of fatherhood research at the Boston College Center for Work and Family, Harrington also has three children of his own.
Brad Harrington, executive director and research professor, Boston College Center for Work & Family
When a baby gets fussy or starts to cry, “It’s just so easy for fathers to stand there and think, I don’t know exactly what to do here. It’s natural to look to your wife even if she’s a first-time mother, if she’s been home with the child for a couple of months. You think instinctively she knows what to do better than I do,” said Harrington. That projection continues to solidify gender roles for both, he added.
Gender roles of opposite-sex couples have shifted over time, but that doesn’t mean people automatically mesh into new roles. More dads are involved in their children’s lives than in previous generations — since 1965, fathers have more than doubled their family involvement, cited NPR — but they’re not necessarily more confident in their parenting abilities.
Employers can play a part in making dads more comfortable in their fatherhood role. Most conspicuously, paid parental leave evens the parenthood playing field, according to Harrington. What’s key here is that parental leave is available to both men and women.
Several organizations have made massive leaps in paid leave in the past two years, he said. At some companies, “Suddenly it’s eight weeks, 10 weeks, 12 weeks, 16 weeks. It’s been a big surprise that this amount of paid leave has been extended to women, and the fact that they’ve mirrored that for their male employees has been terrific as well,” he said.
Some companies that have expanded paid parental leave include Intel, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Ikea and Hilton, he said.
“The more I’ve researched fatherhood, the more I’ve come to appreciate the importance of paid leave,” said Harrington. “Having a father take leave and spend time with their child on their own, one-on-one, and providing care directly is huge in terms of whether or not we achieve gender equality.” It’s a chance for dads to develop confidence in their role as a caregiver.
Michelle Birnbaum
Meanwhile other resources like affinity groups and public forums, although less conspicuous than paid leave, are also important, he noted.
MetLife Inc. is one company that seeks equality in its employee leave policies and other workplace resources for parents. What’s important in the communication of these resources is that a company make it very clear that by parents, they mean moms and dads, said Michelle Birnbaum, the former head of work-life and director of global diversity and inclusion at MetLife.
One of the insurance company’s diversity business resource networks — similar to an employee resource group — is Families at MetLife. It’s one of the newer resource networks but already has close to 400 members, and on a national level it has male and female co-chairs. They hold events such as a live-streamed career panel headed by working dads across all levels of the company and an adoption panel where both mothers and fathers share their stories.
It helps to share stories and to have the messaging come from different people, said Birnbaum. “When you’re thinking about positioning any kind of support or program, work-life or wellness or benefits, considering your different audiences is important,” said Birnbaum. “When you try to take this more gender-neutral approach, there are so many pieces to look at, but it’s worth it.”
Eddie Hollowell, communications and multimedia lead at MetLife, has taken advantage of many of these perks. He took parental leave and worked reduced hours following the birth of his son.
Paid parental leave evens the parenthood playing field. What’s key here is that parental leave is available to both men and women.
He’s used a back-up care benefit when other child-care options fell through. And he’s attended panel discussions and webinars to get advice.
“This support from MetLife and from my co-workers and management is why I have continued to be a committed employee and it’s why I have remained with this company for 10-plus years,” said Hollowell in an email interview.
Another area in which employers tend to communicate to women more than men is workplace planning, said Jackie Reinberg, national practice leader, absence, disability and life at Willis Towers Watson. Most men go back to work full time after the birth of a baby because that’s the expected rationale, she added, and oftentimes they’re sleep-deprived or otherwise unprepared for their new reality.
“Part of what men need is having the management structure that helps them with workforce planning, when they’re going to take paternity or parental leave, and when they’ll come back to work,” said Reinberg.
Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at@workforcenews.
Bill Innes, co-author of “Your Next Season: Advice for Executives Transitioning from Intense Careers to Fulfilling Next Seasons.”
Bill Innes spent the bulk of his career with Fortune 100 firm ExxonMobil, retiring as president of ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Co. He recently co-authored “Your Next Season: Advice for Executives Transitioning from Intense Careers to Fulfilling Next Seasons,” with Leslie W. Braksick, offering keen insight to life beyond the boardroom. Workforce Editorial Director Rick Bell caught up with Innes via email to discover what winds are blowing through these changing seasons.
Workforce:Just what do you mean by “Your Next Season?”
Bill Innes: As the biblical quotation says, “for everything there is a season.” The idea of your next season is to suggest that the period after retirement is one that naturally has a different place in the span of a lifetime. It is a time when satisfaction and success can be defined differently; and unless it is approached differently, you may miss the joy and fulfillment of a wonderful opportunity. Seasons are inexact in their timing; there are patterns we expect with seasons, but always include surprises and weather that was unanticipated. Corporate transitions are similar. We prepare; we plant; we fertilize and we water, and yet what we expect may not be realized.
WF:What constitutes a successful next season?
Innes: The attributes of success in your next season are similar to other stages in life — a sense of purpose, self-fulfillment and self worth. What is different is that the field in which it can be found is wonderfully unconstrained — you don’t have to earn a living, you don’t have to lead the parade unless you want to, you can work to your own schedule, you don’t even have to be knowledgeable! What is the same is that you will be most successful if you are thoughtful and deliberate about the decisions about where to spend your time.
WF:Do people struggles with this transition?
Innes: Many people struggle with this transition. In many ways the more successful they are in their primary career, the more difficulty they may have in imagining another focus for their life that will be as fulfilling. It takes time and deep reflection to accept that a very satisfying stage in life has come to a conclusion, to let it go and to believe that another door is opening with possibilities that may be just as fulfilling. Tragically, some never succeed in making the transition. We have, however, found that those who prepare well for the transition, struggle less. This is why we wrote the book.
WF:You talk about “essentials for the journey.” What are they?
Innes: Essentials for the journey — like any transition these include a thoughtful and deliberate approach, knowledge of oneself, willingness to listen and awareness of the needs of others. In this particular transition at this time in life, health, openness to a newly defined purpose and companionship are particularly important. Your health defines so much of what you can take on. Openness to a newly defined purpose is essential to breaking the constraints of your work life and role; and companionship makes the leap into something new less daunting.
WF:Is “Next Season” applicable to anyone contemplating life after the workplace, or just corporate executives?
Innes: Your next Season is applicable to anyone contemplating life after the workplace, although the challenge for executives in situations where their work demands leave little energy or opportunity to develop other interests is particularly difficult. In every case the end of commitment to the workplace is one of life’s major changes.
WF:Who is this book aimed at?
Innes: This book is aimed in the first place at those who are approaching the transition to their next season. It may also be helpful for HR professionals who are important in helping executives prepare for this transition. More broadly we hope that this book may stimulate people to think about the nature of this change and how corporations may facilitate a productive environment pre and post retirement.
WF: When I hear corporate executives, I think old white guys. Are there takeaways here for women executives? Minority corporate leaders?
Innes: Several of the executives quoted in the book are either women or minorities. However the challenges would seem to apply to all executives. I think that any difference would be more a reflection of their position as individuals rather than their gender or race.
WF: Are there takeaways here for Gen Xers and millennials?
Innes: Nothing specific except, it’s coming! We see Gen X’ers and millenials doing a better job in general of ensuring balance in their lives. I am part of a “live to work” generation; they seem to be more of a “work to live” generation. Somewhere in the middle is probably right.
Rick Bell is editorial director at Workforce. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. FollowWorkforce on Twitter at@workforcenews.
Let’s talk about money. Every time I read an article or internet think-piece about how people are stressed about money, I have to actively stop the incoming eye roll. Of course people are stressed about money. Is that a surprise?
“You can’t just assume that everyone who doesn’t save isn’t educated, is making the wrong decision and is a mess. That’s very much not the case,” said Nathan Voris, managing director of business strategy at Schwab Retirement Plan Services.
CNN recently reported that half of Americans are spending their whole paycheck; they have no financial cushion. And although individual spending habits contribute to this to some degree, much more of this problem could be associated with the bigger picture. “People are spending a shockingly large amount of income on housing. They have to pay for transportation to get to a job. These costs are going up while their wages stay the same,” said Jennifer Tescher, president and CEO of Center for Financial Services Innovation, according to a CNN article. CFSI is the organization that released this study. Also a factor: irregular income, a problem that won’t go away as the gig economy becomes bigger.
Keeping this in mind, it’s no wonder that so many people aren’t contributing the maximum to health savings accounts and retirement funds. Does raising the HSA contribution ceiling or auto-enrollment/auto-escalation solve that problem? I recently heard that people should be contributing 20 percent to their 401(k) or Roth IRA, which is laughable even for people who don’t spend all of their paycheck. I can contribute 20 percent now because I’m saving money, paying off student loans and living with my parents, but for any self-supporting person out there with expenses for rent, food, utilities, child care, eldercare and health care, is that even possible? And is it possible to do that while also contributing a maximum amount to an HSA?
OK, end of rant. For all of these structural elements in place, of course at least some of these money management problems fall on the individual. And from the company’s point of view, of course individuals need to learn how to be responsible for their own finances. In my experience, money management isn’t something that’s taught in a formal/academic setting; people learn that from role models like their parents or don’t really think about it at all. It’s a positive thing to give people those tools once they enter the workforce.
What a fantastic idea. The two people mentioned in the article used their day off in different ways. One man found out his wife had a tumor that would take $100,000 worth of surgery to treat. The two of them used this day to go over their finances and figure out how they would pay for it. According to the article, the man made the decision to change his health insurance to be better protected, attended classes about financial health and learned how to communicate with his wife about money, which helped them sort through everything effectively.
Another man highlighted in this article didn’t use the day for his own financial health. He visited his father and aunt at their retirement community and helped go over their finances. They were all able to have this important conversation about living expenses and insurance.
Nathan Voris, managing director of business strategy at Schwab Retirement Plan Services
For more information on financial health strategies, I recently spoke with Nathan Voris, managing director of business strategy at Schwab Retirement Plan Services about financial health tips. Schwab recently released a survey of 300 executives that found that more and more, companies are considering financial wellness programs as a core part of a compensation package.
A few highlights of this conversation: Financial wellness has moved from something “fringe” to mainstream the past two years, said Voris. “It went very quickly from a concept to an expectation,” he added. “You don’t see that quick movement in the 401(k) world very often.”
He also mentioned the “convergence of health and wealth,” which I think is a really spot-on way to articulate how companies are treating fiscal stress as part of total well-being. It’s basically just another way to say “holistic well-being” or one of the other buzz phrases out there, but it’s solid. And it’s relatively new, in the context of the employer space and what companies are doing.
On the topic of employee engagement and usage of these solutions, engagement can be as low as 3 percent and as high as 40 percent, Voris said. It depends on the population, partly. Also, it depends on what you’re communicating about the plan. At Schwab, they tend to be data-driven and evidence-based, added Voris. They dig into the data, figure out the specific pain points of an individual and design things around those issues rather than have a “canned wellness strategy.”
This “personalization” approach isn’t anything new, but worth mentioning considering the stark differences between people’s individual financial situations.
I also asked him how companies can deal with different types of employees, like those who are simply bad with money versus those who are not in a financially secure situation because of some unavoidable, unexpected high cost things (like a major surgery, for example).
“What life stage you’re in has a lot of different factors,” said Voris. “You can’t just assume that everyone who doesn’t save isn’t educated, is making the wrong decision and is a mess. That’s very much not the case.” Again, his company tries to tackle that through data-driven solutions.
The message he tries to drive home for people not in a financially secure position is that small things do matter, even if it doesn’t seem like they do. “Don’t try to boil the ocean,” he said. “Scratch one little thing off the list at a time. Over time, over a few years, those little things turn into big things. That’s how we approach it, recognizing that everyone is a little bit different.”
Voris’ final piece of advice? “We need to stop the guilt trip,” he said. “This picture of a handsome, gray-haired man leaning up against the Corvette and looking out into the ocean … the reality is that’s not real for a lot of people. We need to teach people how to retire with dignity and own their situation.”
That’s a good trend we’re seeing in financial wellness, he added. The solutions are becoming more well-rounded to address the needs of people of different financial situations.
Andie Burjek is aWorkforceassociate editor. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. FollowWorkforceon Twitter at@workforcenews.
David Holden, director of HR technology, benefits and administration at Crowley Maritime, in Jacksonville, Florida
Being tasked with heading HR technology, benefits or administration for a company of 5,000 people would be a full-time job for most anybody.
Apparently David Holden isn’t just anybody, though. Holden, 39, is responsible for all three disciplines — HR tech, benefits and employee programs — as well as compensation.
His estimable workload hasn’t gone unnoticed, either. Holden and his team have been recognized for a number of awards both regionally and nationally, including the National Best and Brightest Award in Wellness in 2016.
Holden has implemented onsite virtual health kiosks — think telemedicine — a “live well” employee well-being program and he has placed a heavy emphasis on financial wellness for his employees.
With a push for employee advocacy, Holden is adding something else to his already full plate: challenging the status quo.
John Palmer was a longtime AT&T employee who became the company’s first chief learning officer in 2016 as CEO Randall Stephenson laid out plans to digitize a business that was entrenched in a legacy as a telephone company.
Palmer, 39, started with the company in the late 1990s managing call centers, and now focuses on learning, collaboration between departments and implementation of the 238,000-employee company’s reskilling to achieve Stephenson’s vision. Palmer’s team achieves this through AT&T University, which partners with Georgia Tech, University of Notre Dame, University of Oklahoma and for-profit education organization Udacity to offer employees specialized technical training.
Palmer’s passion for learning extends to his board membership with the Texas Rangers Association Foundation, where he helps ensure that children of state law-enforcement officers have funding to pursue higher education. The married father of three is also a mentoring lead for AT&T’s largest employee resource group, Women of AT&T.
Companies that want to add value to their benefits offering without spending a lot of money are using voluntary benefits to fill the gaps. The idea behind voluntary benefits is that employees pick and choose from a variety of additional benefits packages, and cover the cost themselves.
It’s a growing area of the benefits sector for a number of reasons, said Amy Hollis, national leader of voluntary benefits for Willis Towers Watson. One key driver is the desire to attract millennial workers.
“Companies need to add value beyond salary and traditional benefits,” she said.
That’s lead to a variety of new voluntary benefits options, including identity theft protection, health club memberships and student loan repayment programs, to compliment the more traditional vision and dental insurance, critical care coverage and life insurance that appeal to older generations.
Companies are also using these plans to help all employees balance the risk of rising health care costs, said Nelson Griswold, vice president of the Voluntary Benefits Association and president of Bottom Line Solutions in Nashville, Tennessee.
“Employees are facing high out-of-pocket costs that can cause them to make poor health care decisions,” he said. They may delay early interventions to avoid paying deductibles only to end up in the emergency room, requiring more extensive care and additional time off work. Voluntary benefits give employees a safety net to cover these costs and prevent small health care concerns from turning into crises
Traditionally, employees have covered the cost of these benefits themselves. Though recently, some companies are paying for some of these offerings as a way to balance their health insurance program costs. For example, a company may choose an insurance plan that has a higher deductible but lower premium, then add critical illness or other medical plans to fill the financial gap, Griswold said. “They are creating an umbrella of coverage options to balance the odds for their employees.”
Hollis has also seen many tech companies pick up the tab for identify theft benefits, as they view this as a risk to themselves as well as their people. “It’s as much about protecting the brand and the employee,” she said.
Ask What They Need
Voluntary benefits options can be appealing for companies that want to cater to the needs of their employees, however they shouldn’t go overboard, said Rob Shestack, chairman and CEO of the Voluntary Benefits Association in Philadelphia.
“You have to look at the demographics of your employee population, including age, gender and salary,” he said. “If the average employee is earning less than $25,000, their benefits choices will be very different from those earning six-figures.”
Many companies want to offer multiple package options to accommodate these different demographics, though he urges them to limit choices to a few targeted plans. Otherwise they risk making decisions overwhelming for users.
“Assemble a top list of benefits, than narrow it down and get employee feedback,” he advised. Companies can also look to carriers for help in manging enrollment and participation. Most carriers in this $7 billion industry are expanding their online capabilities and streamlining enrollment to accommodate product offerings from multiple carriers.
Once a program is selected, benefits managers need to actively promote it and provide employees with the training and support tools to make the best choices. Shestack said an Aflac study showed Americans lose up to $750 a year by making poor benefits choices, because they don’t spend enough time analyzing their options.
“It is not enough to offer passive support programs,” he said. He argued that every employee should have to go through a short training program on how to make the right benefits decisions. “It may not cause everyone to make different choices, but for the people who do, it can be a real financial benefit.”
Sarah Fister Gale is a writer based in the Chicago area. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. FollowWorkforceon Twitter at@workforcenews.
As a journalism student who had never heard of employee benefits or HR or consulting, I was drawn to benefits because of the complexity and challenge of making sense of such meaty topics. But I soon discovered a much deeper sense of purpose in this work — and that purpose has kept me both in benefits and incredibly passionate about this industry.
The message he tries to drive home for people not in a financially secure position is that small things do matter, even if it doesn’t seem like they do. “Don’t try to boil the ocean,” he said. “Scratch one little thing off the list at a time. Over time, over a few years, those little things turn into big things. That’s how we approach it, recognizing that everyone is a little bit different.”
Traditionally, employees have covered the cost of these benefits themselves. Though recently, some companies are paying for some of these offerings as a way to balance their health insurance program costs. For example, a company may choose an insurance plan that has a higher deductible but lower premium, then add critical illness or other medical plans to fill the financial gap, Griswold said. “They are creating an umbrella of coverage options to balance the odds for their employees.”