Question

please write short essays answer this question:Name at least 3 legally required benefits.

How can Mangers minimize the costs that are associated with legally required benefits?

Answer 1

Legally Required Employer Benefits

In addition to paying Social Security taxes at the same rate as paid by employees, and offering leave for jury duty and voting, most employers are required by federal law to provide four benefits to employees:

1. Unemployment Insurance

Workers who lost their jobs through no fault of their own—for example, the company was downsized, restructured or shut down—are eligible to apply for unemployment.

Unemployment replaces a portion of laid-off employees’ lost wages while they look for work. Employees typically receive half pay for up to 26 weeks. If your business is required to pay these taxes, you must register with your state's workforce agency.

2. Workers’ Compensation Insurance

Workers’ compensation offer financial protection to employees that suffer an injury or illness at work or while performing the duties of the job, resulting in their needing medical care and/or missing work. Workers’ compensation reimburses employees for medical expenses and loss of pay.

Work comp insurance is a legal requirement for most employers, but because it is regulated at the state level, the requirements vary. Your policy will reflect the state(s) where employees work, as well as the nature of the work performed.

3. Family and Medical Leave

The Family and Medical Leave Act ensures that employees can balance work and family responsibilities. FMLA allows employees to take unpaid, job-protected leave (up to 12 weeks) for significant family or medical reasons, and group health benefits are maintained.

It is most commonly associated with maternity and paternity leave, but also applies to adoption, foster care and caring for a family member with a serious health condition; however, the employee must have at least one year of employment to be eligible.

4. Disability Insurance

Similar to workers’ compensation, disability insurance supports employees that are injured or ill to an extent that they are unable to perform their job functions, providing partial wage replacement.

Health Benefits as a Target for Cost Reduction

The first perspective raises the question of why employers would want to devote much managerial effort to containing premium increases. Yet, many employers clearly have devoted resources to this end over the years, suggesting that they hold a different view

If an employer could cut expenditures for health benefits, or control their rate of increase, and its competitors in the product market could not, it could lower product prices, increasing market share and profits. These gains might be short term in nature if other firms have access to the same cost containment approaches, but nevertheless they may be worth pursuing. Labor market considerations are seen as important constraints on employer cost containment efforts, but the goal of cost control is paramount.

Health Benefits as Infrastructure

A third perspective on employer health benefits decision making emphasizes the number and strength of the constraints employers face in managing health benefits. Under this perspective, local health benefits managers may wish to manage health benefits to make them more attractive to potential employees, or to reduce costs, but they are severely constrained in doing so. For example, the policies and procedures in large firms may make health benefits decision making relatively inflexible and insensitive to local labor market conditions. Or, a highly structured collective bargaining process may tie the hands of health benefits managers who otherwise would pursue more aggressive management strategies. Faced with limited options, the primary goal of health benefits managers, under this perspective, is to minimize costs associated with benefits administration, as well as employee complaints that could reflect negatively on the managers' efforts.

Employer Efforts to Manage Costs

Employers were faced with the choice of increasing wages to compensate for lost value in the health benefits area or altering characteristics of plans to improve perceived value. The need to compete for labor tended to receive a higher priority than cost control. Health benefits managers reported pressure from top-level managers in the firm to respond to employee concerns quickly and meaningfully in order to mitigate workforce dissatisfaction, retain and attract employees, and maintain production in an expanding economy. They did so by pressuring health plans to expand provider networks; making only benefit changes that did not significantly reduce coverage; and pushing health plans to improve customer service.