Benefits and Health Safety

Benefit Packages

What are some of the key issues facing businesses today in terms of continuing to offer a competitive benefits package?

Health care has emerged as one of the most important issues in contemporary American business in relation to competitive benefits packages. That is because under the current health care framework in the U.S., employer health care plans are the most common source of health insurance access (Reid, 2009). Before the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), only businesses employing at least 50 employees were required by law to provide group health insurance to their employees. That meant that smaller companies often were at a competitive disadvantage in attracting the best talent because employees value health insurance so much. Since the enactment of the ACA, smaller companies will also be required to provide health insurance plans to avoid tax penalties for choosing not to do so (Pickert, 2012).

What are companies doing to control costs in this area?

Some companies have responded to the new requirements of the ACA by following the long-time lead of organizations such as Wal-Mart that have purposely manipulated the positional designations and hourly schedules of employees for the express purpose of avoiding their obligation to provide health care to "full time" employees (Reid, 2009). Specifically, they have reduced the available working hours to many of their employees to make sure that they remain part-time employees because businesses have no obligation to provide health insurance plans to part-time employees (Reid, 2009). Meanwhile, more ethically responsible employers have attempted to address the problem of reducing overhead costs attributable to employee health care by promoting healthy lifestyle choices and behaviors throughout their organizations instead of limiting the availability of health insurance (Miller, 2010)

Health and Safety

1. Discuss the key responsibilities of the employer for making the workplace healthier and safer.

The employer's responsibilities for making the workplace healthier include providing employee wellness resources such as education and subsidies for healthier lifestyle choices. Employers can provide incentives to encourage responsible health-related choices by employees and they can help employees by subsidizing health choices such as joining health clubs (Miller, 2010). When it comes to workplace safety, the employer's responsibilities include complying in good faith with applicable industry standards and government regulation (Halbert & Ingulli, 2009). From an employee-relations perspective, that also means cultivating an organizational culture that encourages good-faith reporting instead of covering up problems (Halbert & Ingulli, 2009).

2. Discuss the key responsibilities of the employee for making the workplace healthier and safer.