Companies and organizations across America are constantly struggling with two major workplace challenges: attracting top talent, and then, retaining that talent. This is especially true as we go through the Great Resignation when 4.2 million Americans quit their jobs back in October. When an employee thinks about your benefits program, are they content, confused, disappointed, or simply unaware?

Regardless of industry or service, every HR department and Corporate Executive wants to keep their best current and future employees satisfied. In order to push employees to their fullest potentials, leaders in an organization should demonstrate they are making positive strides to better their employees’ lives, both inside and outside the workplace.

It’s a usual weekday morning and you find yourself in an all too common situation that bogs down many executives and managers: Your employees seem unenthused and unengaged at the office. The worst thing you can do is sit there every day, watch this happen, and take no action to determine the root cause. So, what are the best ways to go about re-engaging employees, especially those paramount individuals that you don’t want to lose? Here are a few ideas for you to implement:

This content was originally published  by Theodore P. Stein, Esq.

On March 13, 2018, the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, issued a Memorandum Opinion in one of my cases granting summary judgment to my client, a defendant, and dismissing a claim that my client had breached its fiduciary duty under ERISA, the federal statute governing employee benefit plans.  The case is Damiano v. Institute for In Vitro Sciences, et al.  Although the Court ruled in favor of the defendant, the decision should be a wake-up call to employers about the danger of misrepresenting the benefits under a welfare or pension plan—even if the misrepresentation is accidental.

For many companies and organizations, the task of crafting the perfect investment menu can be an overwhelming mission; but it doesn’t need to be. It can be as simple as picking a dish from a menu. A well-made investment lineup is similar to the restaurant menu that offers just the right amount of options to make selecting the perfect dish an enjoyable experience.

When we’re constructing an investment menu for our clients, we advise committee members to build-out their investment menu to satisfy three types of investors: 1) the active investor, 2) the passive investor, and the 3) do-it-for-me investor. First and foremost, committee members need to be familiar with their plan's investment policy statement in order to design the line-up fittingly. Below, we detail a few items often included in a well-rounded investment menu.

Many millennials are looking for their company’s employee benefits program to go beyond the typical healthcare and retirement plan by also addressing other key priorities, such as student loan assistance, financial education, and flexible schedules. While news headlines sometimes turned their demands into stories of “entitled” or “needy” millennials, at the core, their goals are similar to past generations - they want help to take actionable steps towards achieving a healthier lifestyle -  mentally, physically, and financially.

When you think about a 401(k) plan, do you consider why it has risen to such a popular option over a pension plan? Initially, when the IRS created the code that introduced 401(k)’s in the early 1980s, it was to give high ranking executives an added benefit to their pension plan. Today, most companies have done away with pensions plans and exclusively use defined contribution plans, such as 401(k)s and 403(b)s, as a way to mitigate costs.

Last week the Wall Street Journal published an article titled, Downside of Automatic 401(k) Savings: More Debt; and while it follows this emerging journalistic trend of shocking and salacious news, it makes me wonder – are headlines like this destroying the way Americans think about saving for retirement (among other things)?