Every few months, news outlets release rankings of the benefits that employees value most. They include the usual: compensation, remote work, health insurance, paid time off, retirement plans, blah, blah, blah. While these benefits are consistently listed, the rankings vary slightly based on factors like age, gender, and location.
It’s 2024. We’re in an era where certain benefits are now baseline expectations. If you want to attract and retain truly talented employees, offering good health insurance, competitive PTO, retirement plans, and life insurance is no longer optional. These are the minimum requirements just to compete. Without them, you’re not even in the game.
So, what can genuinely differentiate your company in this competitive landscape?
If you ask me, the answer is simple: flexible work schedules. It’s THE employee benefits that employees care about.
Flexible work schedules are a big plus for many employers, but they don’t work for everyone. An insurance company can allow employees to start their day at 10 AM and work until 7 PM without impacting operations. But, a restaurant can’t have its cook showing up at 2 PM when the lunch rush starts at 11:30 AM.
If your business can handle flexible work schedules, you’ll have an advantage in attracting top talent.
Why aren’t more companies embracing flexible work schedules? Many industries and organizations that haven’t traditionally offered flexible schedules could do so with minor adjustments. However, they’re often led by baby boomers and some Gen Xers who believe that if they can’t see you working, you must not be working. It’s really that simple.
The reality is that time spent in a seat is no longer a valid measure of productivity. With modern technology, we can accurately track the productivity and performance of our workforce. Unless an employee’s role strictly requires specific hours, does it matter if she prefers to start at 9 AM and finish at 6 PM instead of the traditional 7:30 AM to 4:30 PM?
Another common argument against flexible schedules is that it’s unfair unless everyone can benefit from them. What?! Not everyone gets a company car, but that doesn’t stop companies from offering them.
Employees who need to be there at specific times get why it’s necessary and probably won’t mind others having flexible hours. Instead of treating everyone under the same blanket schedule, why not be more flexible where you can? Your employees will appreciate it, and it won’t cost you anything.
Remember the excitement of getting a birthday card and feeling a little cash fall out? I know we all felt it.
In the past, payday used to be the same. It was a big deal. You’d get your paycheck handed to you in person, maybe chat a bit with your boss or HR, and it felt good. If you’re too young to remember, just ask someone older than 30—they’ll fill you in.
Picture this: a physical piece of paper you’d take to the bank, sign, and walk out with cash. It was a whole event! But now, that tradition has pretty much vanished.
These paycheck deliveries did some very motivating things that we have now lost:
The thrill of payday! Back in the day, as paychecks circulated, you could practically sense the excitement rippling through the workplace. Managers or HR reps would stroll around, engaging in light conversation, and offering cheerful remarks like, “Enjoy your weekend!” or “Don’t splurge it all at once!”—or, my personal favorite, “Can I borrow a buck?”
Building bridges with leadership. Handing out paychecks compelled many leaders to step out and personally deliver earnings for the week. It created opportunities for them to talk with each team member and drop a couple of dad jokes asking if they’d like their paycheck with extra zeros this time around.
A symbol of achievement. Holding that paycheck was like clutching a trophy. And everyone got one. It felt like tangible proof of your hard work and dedication. There’s something special about seeing, touching, and yes, even smelling the ink on that piece of paper—it’s a sentiment that resonates, especially for those of us who grew up in the ’70s.
The switch to direct deposit might be more efficient, but it’s lost some of the personal touch. No more Friday visits from HR, no more chats with coworkers, and no more physical evidence of your earnings.
Would you ever consider going back to handing out physical paychecks? I’m sold – show me the cash!
In the realm of motivational quotes, one has continually stuck with me: “It’s hard, but it’s fair.” An older football coach used it to fire up his players, but it speaks volumes about life today.
“It’s about sacrifice. It means that if you work hard, at the end of the day, fairness aligns with your efforts. It’s about investing time and readiness for the opportunities.”
We all think our parents are hard on us growing up. I recall stories I tell to my own sons of my Dad waking me up on a Saturday morning at 7am, after I was out to late the night before, and ‘making’ me help him with something, like chopping wood or cleaning the garage out. He didn’t really need my help, he was trying to teach me a lesson about choices. If I chose to stay out late at night, it was going to suck getting up early to go to school. He shared with me stories of his father doing the same thing – one night my Dad had gotten home late, so late, he didn’t even go to bed, just started a pot of coffee and waited for my grandfather to get up, figuring that was easier than getting a couple of hours of sleep and then hearing it from my grandfather the rest of the day.
In my role as an HR professional, I witness this every day in the workforce. There are those who consistently dedicate themselves without expecting special treatment. Others will put in the minimum, then expect a cookie. It’s a tough life lesson for those folks. Often, they depart, perceiving unfair treatment, and move between jobs, slowly learning the importance of effort and time investment. In my three decades in HR, genuine hard workers rarely face injustice. Occasionally, undeserving individuals might receive promotions, but the hard workers usually secure the better end of the deal.
As a parent, I hope I can teach my sons this lesson: Life is inherently challenging, but commitment and hard work pave the path to fairness.
We all know of that one co-worker that just finds a way to take advantage of every possible benefit to the fullest extent possible! These are the folks who, when on a work trip, will find a way to use every single penny of that per diem! “Hey, can I get a $3.27 gift card added to my dinner bill?”
Well, I think I found one of those folks who cracked the code on PTO! Take a look:
So, there’s some creative PTO math in this video for sure, but I love it. Of course, how he’s doing this by also adding in paid holidays and weekend days with his PTO, which I hate to tell a young millennial that workers have been doing this since the advent of paid time off, but he’s so excited I don’t want to burst his little bubble.
I wonder what he could do if he added in his “work from home” days! OMG! He would have like 400 days off a year!
What is your favorite PTO trick? Hit me in the comments!
I was on the Workday Ventures analyst call yesterday and they had one of their new venture partner companies, Wellthy, and their CEO, Lindsay Jurist-Rosner, on to discuss her company and experience, etc.
Wellthy is a fascinating company, especially when you take into context the current demographics of the U.S., and really all industrialized countries. Wellthy is a digital care concierge service. Think about taking care of aging parents and how you have to deal with the logistics and administrative burden on top of everything else. This is where Wellthy steps in and helps families with this burden.
Lindsay said something profound that stuck with me in terms of how they look at each family and their ability to care for their family: “Who is in your circle of care?” Meaning, when you need help, who are those who will take care of you. What her company finds is it’s almost always the parents. For so many people, this is problematic and that problem is growing as we live longer and a larger portion of the population ages.
It’s not just helping to take care of aging parents, although that is a giant issue, it’s also how we care for our own children, or extended family with needs, maybe even a close friend or neighbor who relies on us (their circle of care).
I’ve written before about how helpful my personal board of directors has been to me over my career with big decisions. I never thought about my circle of care!
Can you write down your circle of care network?
Immediately I have my wife. She’s the CEO of the Timmy circle of care network. I would also put in my Dad, even though he’s about to turn 80, if something happened to me, he would do whatever he could to care for me. My three sons would also be in there, but honestly, until this moment, I never even thought of them in that context. But they are adults and if something happened I know they would gladly find me a home! (just kidding – they wouldn’t be happy about the price and money being taken out of the estate!)
Beyond family, I have my co-workers that probably know more about my medical issues than most of my family. I mean we spend so much time together, so I’m guessing they would also be considered part of that circle of care. I have some neighbors and friends that would help out in a pinch from time to time, as I would do that for them as well.
As I write all of this down, god damn, I’m a pretty lucky person. I can count on a lot of people in my circle of care.
Unfortunately, most of our employees aren’t so lucky. Many have almost no one that they could count on within their circle of care. This is why Wellthy and this type of technology are growing quickly within the HR Tech landscape. We no longer live in a world where we can expect to keep their personal lives at home and not have it impact their work life. So, the best companies will find ways to support an employee’s circle of care.
It’s interesting if you think about it, at every age we need care and support. Some of us are lucky to have that robust circle of care along the way, but many will never have it, or have it and lose it, or not have it and gain it. All of our employees will be at different levels of support, no matter their age, gender, ethnicity, etc. As health care issues are taking a national stage currently, it’s important for us as leaders to rethink how we are supporting our employees and their wellbeing.
Obviously, we had major news recently around abortion rights in America.
What I really want to talk about today is an amazingly quick response by organizations to immediately offer a new health benefit. Within hours of the announcement, we saw major employers come out publicly stating they would pay for the expense of their employees to obtain legal abortions if they could not get one in the state they lived and worked. Some employers also announced that they would pay for relocations for their employees to live in states with legal abortions.
All of this, just from a health benefit plan design perspective is quite remarkable!
Most employers can’t agree on offering smoking cessation programs for their employees or paying for gym memberships, but within hours, we are now paying for abortions. We have severely unhealthy obese employees, but we won’t pay for bariatric surgery. Organizations tend to move very slowly in making benefit design changes, and those changes tend to mostly be around cost/benefit.
Are we being “Inclusive” by offering an abortion benefit?
Again – I’m 100% in favor of a woman’s right to choose!
But we need to have a conversation about the hypocrisy of some of these decisions being made around this issue. This is what we do as professionals in HR. We discuss decisions we make as organizations, and how each decision tends to lead to other issues we can’t yet know what they might be.
So, we are now offering abortions as a health benefit. Why?
Let’s say we are willing to pay $5,000 dollars for our female employees to get an abortion. It definitely makes us sound like we are a very progressive employer! It’s interesting, though, that many of the employers who are willing to pay for your abortion are not willing to pay for your parental leave if you chose to keep your baby. They are unwilling to pay for childcare assistance after you have your baby.
Why is that?
Could it be, that not having children make you a more productive and less expensive to insure employee?
We must ask ourselves this question, if not only to ensure we are being inclusive in our insurance offerings to our female employees.
If you want to be “inclusive” you offer a woman a full choice. Yes, you can choose to have an abortion and we’ll support you! Yes, you can have the baby, and we will still support you! If you only choose one side, you are being exclusionary. Why?
Abortion as an employer-paid health benefit
There are benefits we pay as employers that have very little financial impact but make us look like we are an employer of choice. College Tuition reimbursement was always the biggest one. We offer you college tuition reimbursement knowing almost no one actually takes advantage of it. It’s one of the lowest-used benefits a company can offer! But, we feel great about ourselves when we market this out to candidates and employees.
Are abortion benefits the next college tuition benefit? You offer it up, knowing it makes you look like a progressive employer, but you know it really has very little financial impact. On the flip side, offering paid parental leave and childcare assistance, well, those benefits actually cost us real money, so no, we won’t offer those!
All women should be allowed to make their own choice with their bodies. Period. Employers are going to decide if they should help women with that decision. I think we, as HR leaders and professionals, should be advising our executives that having a “Choice” is about more than one option. Our benefit plans should support any choice a woman wants to make, not just one.
Abortion is health care. Having and caring for a child is health care. Organizations need to support all choices that a woman might want to make.
First, shoutout to @Hervbird21 (Recruister) on Twitter for starting this conversation (Editor’s Note: Hervbird21 I don’t know who you are but send me a note and I’ll share your LinkedIn if you’d like) Also, take a look at the Twitter thread as there are some exceptional recruiting thought leaders who had thoughts on this subject.
I’ve written about this a number of times over the years, but with the recruiting market being so hot right now, I’ve actually had a number of Recruiter compensation calls with corporate TA leaders trying to figure out three main things: 1. How do we retain our recruiters; 2. How do I attract more recruiters; 3. How do we reward great recruiting performance?
First, I’m all in on the fact that recruiters should be paid in a pay-for-performance model. That doesn’t mean that corporate recruiters, agency recruiters, and RPO should all be paid the same way. All three of those roles are different and should be compensated based on what the organization needs from each recruiter.
Let’s take a look at the Pros and Cons of Performance Pay for Corporate Recruiters
Pros:
You get more of what you measure and more of what you reward.
Your best recruiters will be compensated more, and higher compensation is tied to longer tenure.
Low performers and internal recruiters who actually hate recruiting will hate it and self-select out.
It will most likely raise individual recruiting team member performance in the aggregate.
Cons:
You will most likely have turnover with this type of change
Potentially, you could get behaviors that aren’t team-oriented. (IE., senior recruiters not helping junior recruiters)
Potentially, you could lower your quality of candidates as recruiters move quickly to gain performance comp. (the quantity over quality argument)
It actually might increase your compensation budget, initially, until you can find the model that is most effective.
Okay, wait, why did I say “potentially” on the Cons? Primarily, because it truly depends on the model design. Just making a decision to pay more for hires is ridiculous and leads to bad outcomes. But, developing a model that rewards individual performance that is based on recruiting behaviors that lead to better hires, quickly, and in a team setting, well, now you diminish the negative outcomes of pay for performance.
How could we make pay for performance work for corporate recruiters?
I’m not trying to dump on all the folks who commented on “Quarterly Bonuses” but stop that! “Quarterly Bonus” really means, “I don’t want to be individually measured and held accountable, but I also want more money on top of my great base salary”. Quarterly bonuses in most corp TA shops are a joke. They are usually based on Hiring Manager satisfaction and days to fill, two of the most subject measures that have zero correlation to better recruiting.
Also, internal recruiting pay for performance is not just a modified agency or RPO model. Corporate recruiters do much more than just recruit in most TA departments, so if you reward them to just recruit, understand, you’re just standing up an in-house agency model. Your internal recruiting model for corporate has to be unique to the job.
Some thoughts and ideas:
– Spend a bunch of time deciding what you actually want from your recruiters and from your function as a whole. Those two things must be aligned.
– Before going to a pay for performance model you need to get your arms around your recruiting funnel data. Otherwise, you’re just guessing at what and who to reward.
– In most cases, you can’t make the rewards the same because recruiters have different requisition loads and levels of position. Also, in most cases, certain areas of your organization hire at different times. So, get ready to test and be flexible to do the right thing at the right time.
– It’s okay if a recruiter makes more than you think if the model is producing what you want it to produce. Too often I hear from TA leaders that are like, “Jill is making too much!” But, Jill it killing it and the top recruiter.
– If you can’t get your head around paying for hires, pay for the behaviors and activities that lead to more hires.
– Start with a month or quarter test, make sure during the test no one will lose money. The goal is to try and reach some sort of outcome of better performance, to see if it can work. If they are only concerned they might make less money, you won’t truly see what can work or not work.
– It’s not about quality or quantity. It’s about quality and quantity. I’ve never led a recruiting team in a corporate or agency where good recruiters would ever send a crappy candidate on purpose. That just doesn’t happen, normally. If it did, that recruiter didn’t belong on the team.
I don’t believe in recruiting “team” rewards as pay for performance in most cases. Most teams are not designed and measured for “team” performance, so many on the team are getting the reward for a few doing most of the heavy lifting. You can still have team rewards, but you truly have to think about how you reward your most effective recruiters, short and long-term.
I think the ideal ratio for compensation for corporate recruiters should be 75% base salary and 25% pay for performance, where your best top recruiters can make 125% of their normal total comp if they are killing it. As I mentioned above, you will have recruiters quit because you have “recruiters” on your team that didn’t take the job to recruit, but to administer a recruiting process and collect a nice base salary.
Okay, tell me what I missed in the comments or if you have a model that is working you would like to share with everyone!
Let me start this by saying I’m 100% pro-vaccine. I’m vaccinated and my entire immediate family is vaccinated. I encourage everyone to get vaccinated where it’s healthy for them to do so.
Organizations are really struggling right now to figure out what they should do about Covid vaccinations and employees. We see some giant employers mandating vaccinations and I’ll also publicly say I think that mandating vaccines for 100% of your employees is basically stupid.
Wait, what?!?! (TRIGGERED!)
I get that we all want everyone to be safe. I do as well. I also pay attention to the science and after you had Covid, there is no reason to get vaccinated. There is a growing mountain of global research and evidence, from real doctors and scientists that care about ending this pandemic, that show those who have had Covid already carry the same amount of antibodies as those who have been vaccinated. So, forcing someone who has had Covid to get vaccinated, is frankly, stupid!
Too many good employees are losing their jobs over this and many of these folks have valid reasons to not get the vaccine, and some honestly have already had Covid and don’t need the vaccine, but we are forcing it upon them for really no reason whatsoever.
The Tim Sackett Covid Vaccine Employer Policy
1. If you want to work here you have to get a Covid vaccination. We care about each other. We care about our customers and clients. We all want to live our best lives, alive.
The caveats:
If you have had a verified case of Covid. That means you have to be able to show a positive PCR test, and or a blood anti-body test that shows you previously had a positive case of Covid, you do not need to get the vaccine as a condition of employment.
If you have a religious objection to getting the Coivd vaccine, you do not need to get the Covid vaccine. But you do have to document your objection (see form A). This form gives you the ability to explain your religious objection and it also has you sign off that our company is not responsibile for your medical care if you become Covid positive. Upon completion and signature of this form A, we will not require you to get the Covid vaccine as a condition of employment.
If you have a medical disability where a doctor documents that it is not in your best medical interest to get the Covid vaccine, we will not require you to get the Covid vaccine as a condition of employment.
If you receieve a religious or medical accomodation, and you have not recieved a Covid vaccination and you have not had a verifiable case of Covid, you will be required to wear a medical approved mask while at work over your nose and mouth. We will provide you with a mask if you choose not to have an approved mask of your own.
Policy Instructions for HR Leaders and Executives:
If someone fills out Form A and signs it. Accept it and walk away.
If someone brings you a signed doctors note saying they shouldn’t get the vaccine for medical reasons. Accept it and walk away.
Ensure no one, either vaccinated or unvaccinated, is discriminating or harrassing the other because of their status.
That’s it. That’s the policy. Short and simple. The best policies are.
I know some folks will lose their minds about this. I get that. I’ve heard stories about HR departments forcing people to “prove” their closely held religious beliefs. I mean, really?! This is time well spent? Forcing someone to prove their religion. Come on, we are better than this. We are smarter than this. There are better ways we can torture employees, right!?
I think there are only two real arguments when it comes to mandated vaccinations:
Hey, let’s try and not kill people! But, it’s basically them killing themselves, not the folks who already got vaccinated. As both vaxed and unvaxed are passing the virus around to each other. But those who are vaxed are much more likely to have a less severe case.
Hey, you getting a bad case of Covid cost our insurance plan a ton of money, which means we all now have to pay for your stupid decision. This is a super valid argument, and if I’m running a big HR shop I would really be thinking hard about a “Unvaxed” health insurance premium. Great! You don’t want a vaccine, your insurance now costs an additional $2000 per month.
FYI – for those looking for a link to “Form A” there isn’t one. It’s just an example of what we do and what we make in HR. If you want a Form A go make one, you don’t need my help!
It’s interesting for sure as you have most HR pros believing everyone should get the vaccine, but also that corporations should not be charging employees if they do not get the vaccine. Some other reactions have been why should an employee be charged a premium, now that we know the vaccine won’t stop you from getting Covid. And an unlimited amount of other opinions as well!
Isn’t this just the smoking premium?
About a decade ago employers started charging employees who smoke higher health care premiums. Walmart charges employees who smoke an additional $2000 per year in increased health insurance premiums. When this was first done by a small employer in Lansing, MI a decade ago, lawsuits were filed, the HR community became unglued, and we had these huge ethical arguments over whether this was right or not to do to an employer.
What right is it of an employer to charge me more if I want to smoke or not! You’re not charging Tim over there eating a Big Mac and drinking a gallon of soda!?
Delta’s Covid decision is causing similar outrage about the vaccine.
Here’s the thing…
From the data we currently have, and the recent FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine, we know statistically those with the vaccine are much less likely to be hospitalized or die from Covid. The “average” cost of a Delta employee who gets the virus and is hospitalized is $50,000!
$50,000 is not a small cost! Multiply that by hundreds of employees and it’s becoming a major issue. The issue being, on individual employee’s personal decision to not get the vaccine, is actually costing every single Delta employee, with upcoming increased insurance costs!
“Yeah, Tim, but someone made the personal decision to light up a cigarette. No one is making the personal decision to get the Covid!” Ugh…
You know you can’t send your kid to public school in the U.S. unless they have their approved vaccines. Millions of kids each year, go get their vaccines and go to school. We’ve pretty much eradicated all kinds of terrible diseases. An extremely tiny amount of parents have an issue with this. Ultimately, science has proven to be effective in helping our kids stay alive. Yay! Science!
More employers will go down this path.
Already we are seeing more and more employers mandate vaccines for employment. SHRM, the largest HR association in the world, has mandated vaccines for its employees. This isn’t a political statement. It’s actually not a statement of empathy, either, although most PR teams will try and turn it into one. It’s a financial statement of fact. We can’t afford for you to be stupid and play Russian Roulette with the virus.
All of this does lead us down a slippery path. It started out with something we all now know is harmful to our health, smoking. If you smoke, you will pay more for health insurance. Now it’s Covid. If you don’t protect yourself, by getting a vaccine, we will charge you more for health insurance. What’s next?
On episode 70 of The HR Famous Podcast, longtime HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn, and Jessica Lee come together to discuss the 2021 Summer Olympics, the concept of collective time off and entire companies shutting down, and the lack of women returning to the workforce.
2:30 – The Olympics are here! Tim’s wife is Olympic-obsessed and watches anything and everything.
4:00 – KD’s favorite Olympic sports are men’s basketball and the decathlon. He loves seeing some bigger dudes struggling with the run at the very end. Tim is a swimming and track-and-field fan.
6:45 – JLee is more of a winter Olympics fan, but she loves watching archery during the summer. She loves watching the Koreans kick butt in archery at the Olympics.
9:00 – To help combat burnout, companies have started to implement the concept of “collective time off,” where the entire company shuts down. Bumble recently decided to give their entire staff a week off at the same time.
11:00 – KD is skeptical of the concept — calling it Privilege — since a lot of companies cannot afford to let all of their employees take off a day like that.
14:00 – JLee mentions that at her company, Marriott, they cannot afford to give every employee time off since they are a 24/7 operation and that opens them up to controversy and criticism.
17:20 – JLee asks Tim if this can be used as a recruiting tactic. When he was working at Applebee’s, he found himself working an HR job on Black Friday even though there was nothing to do. Then they got a new CEO that changed the mindset not to treat everyone the same.
22:45 – There has been some more data released recently about women in the workforce. JLee mentions how it might not be an option for some women to return to the workforce now. Tim recently found a data point that said there are 2 million people that still have not returned to the workforce.
27:45 – KD thinks this isn’t an issue that HR can fix on its own. It can be a lot of work, but it can be very worthwhile since it’s one of the biggest untapped segments out there.
30:00 – JLee remembers seeing two moms that job-shared and thinking how progressive and seamless it was.
32:00 – Tim mentions how his brother-in-law is a teacher and only took home $10-15k a year after paying for childcare.
