Benefits, OSHA investigations

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1. Describe why companies provide benefits to their employees. What constitutes great benefits? What constitutes poor benefits? Let?s say that you were hired as a human resources manager and you were in charge of rolling out employee benefits for the company, how would you structure the benefits? What is your reasoning for doing so? What challenges might you encounter and why?

Companies provide benefits to their employees as part of a comprehensive employment package. By doing so, the company is able to both attract and retain qualified talent. Benefits also form a relationship of loyalty between employee and employer. The employee is able to see that the employer is taking steps that are additional from compensation, to further compensate the employee for their efforts, and benefits is the most common way to do so. Great and poor benefits are largely determined by the type of employer. Great benefits usually include benefits where the purpose lives up to their name -- they benefit the benefits. Benefits such as these add to the employee's life, in terms of helping the employee to achieve their health, pension, or retirement goals. Many companies that have workers with young children offer dependent care benefits, and many employers with older workers offer more comprehensive health care, so it really can be employer-based. Poor benefits are benefits that are so limited that it makes almost no difference to the employee, in terms of cost. Poor benefits are typically designed as packages to employers that cost the employer the minimal amount of money, and that are not designed with the employee in mind, they're designed based solely on the needs of the employer saving money but still being able to say that they offer benefits.
I would structure the benefits to accommodate the needs of the majority of the employees. If the employee population is older, I would include comprehensive medical benefits. If the employee base was younger, I would include dependent care benefits with comp time or flex time so that parents who needed time off for events with their kids, like conferences and doctor visits, could do so without losing pay. The biggest challenge would be that no employer can accommodate every employee's needs as far as benefits are concerned, all of the time. It's just not realistic. The key is to determine where the main benefits are needed, and to structure the benefits around those key points.

2. Identify and describe four legally required benefits for employees.

(1) Worker's Compensation -- this is an employer-funded benefit. The Bureau of Worker's Compensation in every state administers and manages the program respective to their state. Twice per year, employers receive premium notices, where they must report the total gross payroll and number of employees covered. The premiums, which can run into thousands of dollars and beyond, provide worker's compensation protection, should an employee become injured while working. It is a legally required benefit that employers must provide.
(2) State unemployment -- this is another legally required benefit that is completely employer-funded. At the end of each quarter, the employer must pay a calculated amount into the employer's state unemployment policy, which is calculated based on the first $9,000 in wages an employee makes. For example, if I make $15,000 for the entire year, and the rate for my company was 0.7%, my employer would pay 9,000 x 0.7% = $63 for me, for the entire year. State unemployment is a benefit to all employees who have worked a minimum number of weeks (it's usually 21 weeks of continual employment with the same employer), and are then able to collect unemployment, should the employee be laid-off or fired.
(3) Social security taxes -- employers must pay social security taxes for employees, which includes social security and Medicare. The amounts are based on the employee's gross wages. The employees pay 4.2% for social security, and 1.45% for Medicare out of their paychecks, which goes to their social security taxes. The employer must pay 6.2% of the employee's gross wages for social security, and pay 1.45% for Medicare. In total, 10.4% of the ...