Question

You own a company providing dog-walking and dog-sitting services in the West Chester area. As part of your compensation strategy, you have decided to offer benefits. You have 27 employees, 20 of whom are full-time and 7 of whom are part-time. Your employees are a mix of college students, young professionals, and retirees looking to stay active. The average full-time salary for your employees is $75,000 a year (pre-tax).

Within your benefits package, you have the ability to offer the following benefits: health insurance, dental and vision insurance, life insurance, dependent care, retirement savings, and paid sick leave.

Assignment: Given the information above, address the four benefits administration issues discussed in your text on page 454 (also listed below). For the purposes of this assignment, your business (feel free to give it a name!) is incredibly successful and all the rage in the borough. Therefore, you are financially comfortable, which is one of the reasons why you’d like to offer benefits to your employees.

1. Who will be protected or benefited?

2. How much choice will employees have from an array of benefits?

3. How will benefits be financed?

4. Are your chosen benefits legally defensible?

Answer 1

A1. I would like most of my employees to be benefited from the benefits and hence, I would apply them to all the full-time employees of the company. I would provide them with health insurance and paid sick leaves. This will help me in maintaining the health of the workforce which will be beneficial to the business as well.

A2. The employs will have limited say. The health insurance and the amount will be decided by the companies for all after their health check-up and diagnosis. Paid sick leaves will also be decided by the company and the employees can decide only the time when they would take them.

A3. A certain percentage of the revenues will be kept aside to finance the employees benefits every month. This amount will be accumulated and used at the end of the financial year to fund the insurance.

A4. Yes, both health insurance and paid sick leaves are not only legally defensible but are encouraged by various legal authorities as they help in maintaining the health of the workforce and reduces burden on the health care system of the country.