Voluntary benefits programs and employee adoption

¶ … Benefits You Would Offer to Your Employees and Explain Why You Chose Those Benefits

The benefits available to an employee can be classified into two categories, those that are mandatory and those that are voluntary. In the mandatory list are the benefits that must compulsorily be given to the employee and as such the employer has no chance of discarding or denying the benefit except for choosing, wherever applicable the appropriate agency or service. There are other popular benefits that are left to the discretion of the employer where the choice is more. Therefore in considering the mandatory benefits we have: 'Social Security Taxes,' 'Unemployment Insurance,' 'Workers Compensation Insurance,' and in some cases 'Disability Insurance' are mandatory. And hence there is little choice for selection. (Business. Gov, 2011)

Since these are mandatory enlarging on the benefits of this is not purposeful to the analysis. These benefits have to be given in full and therefore the choice is limited to the type of plan and the cost and tax saving aspects of the plan. Of the others there are three plans that are beneficial to the employee and these are: a) the primary benefit to be given is the well ness and medical preventive care is the first set of employee benefits are now more than simple health insurance. Therefore for the health coverage of the employee coinsurance like the BlueShield, and blue cross hospitalization plans can be used for medical compensation and insurance. The major coverage is for high limits and using the provision of coinsurance the employee can be given maximum medical and insurance cover. (Rosenbloom, 2005)

This could include physical checkup, screening and diagnostics, baby care, immunization vision, cardiac and other types of features that companies offer. Thus preventive care is very attractive and important in the situation of rising cases of diabetes and other ailments. Another benefit that can be attempted is the extension of the benefits to family members who are dependants -- as a part of the package with a slighter expense on this account to the employee. b) the second is the life insurance, especially the group paid up life insurance which provides for care after dependants after the employee. This is advantageous because the premiums are small and is a sort of savings that come back with returns. Secondly group insurance provides tax and cost benefits and also can be the source of post retirement income benefits. (Rosenbloom, 2005) c) Private pensions are the best method of making the package attractive and beneficial and the employee contribution is negligible. Private pension offers the employee stability after they cease to work and is an attractive scheme. (United States General Accounting Office, 2004)

Some other benefits could be leave facilities with pay like a sabbatical leave program, these have tremendous benefits in terms of boost of morale and training programs and many more schemes that work with employee leave and leisure including free training in their chosen profession could be considered. (Rosenbloom, 2005)

Q2) Identify issues employers face with benefits, explain why they face them and share how to resolve them

The primary problem is the misuse and overuse of the insurance and medical programs included to the employee benefit and it opposite that it is never used. In either case the expenditure becomes wasteful. To prevent misuse there can be supervision of the accounts by the HR and making annual checkups mandatory can avoid non-use. (Rosenbloom, 2005)

One problem is the distinguishing between the casual and regular workers and providing for different set of benefits for each. In this case there is the benefit that status differences boost employee morale but has its own drawbacks while treating casual employee rights and benefits, especially training. For a casual or part time employee training packages that suit the vocation make a great benefit and the legal implications of treating these employees differently from the regulars may tend to some type of discrimination. (Krausert, 2009)