Day: August 17, 2012

Contraceptive Mandate Enforcement Stay Revised to Admit More Employers

Compliance with the contraceptive coverage mandate under health reform is stayed until Aug. 1, 2013 for employers that fit into a slightly expanded enforcement safe harbor described by the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) in an Aug. 15 memo. Reform’s preventive care mandate requires plans and insurers to cover a host of […]

IRS Proposes Rule on Reimbursed Entertainment Expenses

Employers that pay advances, allowances or reimbursements to employees for work-related entertainment expenses — including taxpayers who, in turn, get reimbursed by their clients for such expenses — have until Oct. 30 to comment on a proposed regulation IRS published Aug. 1. The proposed rule clarifies who — among the employer, its client and an […]

Deferral Rates Beat Asset Allocation, Fund Choice for Retirement Goals

Plan sponsors and participants both want to ensure better retirement savings but they often wonder which factor in the process matters most. A study from Putnam Institute suggests sticking with the obvious: The higher the deferral rate during an employee’s working life, the greater the long-term returns. Despite intense focus on fund performance in the […]

‘Honest Suspicion’ of FMLA Abuse Justifies Firing, Courts Rule

A multibillion-dollar corporation that hired a private investigator to combat excessive employee absenteeism and suspected FMLA abuse withstood an interference and retaliation claim by a fired factory worker in a case brought before the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The case is Scruggs v. Carrier Corp., No. 11-3420 (Aug. 3, 2012). Daryl Scruggs, who […]

Hiring from Outside? Think Again

Here’s the bottom line. Management professor Matthew Bidwell, of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, has researched the question for several years—from 2003 to 2009. The basics of his findings are these: External hires get significantly lower performance evaluations for their first 2 years on the job than do internal workers who are […]