5 pages please see attached

Question 1 – 200 words

Health and Wellness Initiatives

Read the article "Be Healthy and Get Rewarded--Incentives Driving Engagement in Health and Wellness (https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnnosta/2014/04/09/be-healthy-and-get-rewarded-incentives-driving-engagement-in-health-and-wellness/.)." Taking into consideration some of the significant changes to health insurance policies, please review the article and address the following two questions. Explain your answers in at least 200 words.

As described in the article, what options do patients with preexisting health conditions have in regards to wellness initiative compliance?

Are the new health plans truly helping consumers to live a better and healthier lifestyle or are they actually hindering consumers ability to freely pursue getting proper treatment, if needed, due to the fear of high deductible costs?

Question 2 – 200 words

Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 and The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010

Discuss the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. What are the most prominent elements to understanding these two acts? How do they impact the employee and the organization?

PAPER – 4 PAGES

Social Security Programs

Conduct research on the current state of Social Security. Based on your research, write a three-to-five page paper (not including the title and reference pages). Your paper should be written in a scholarly third-person tone; it should be in APA format. The essay should address the following:

Explain the concept of Social Security as originally envisioned by President Roosevelt.

Evaluate the viability of Social Security within the next 20-30 years.

Provide two or three recommendations that would improve the viability of Social Security for the next generation.

Evaluate how these recommendations can best be implemented within the highly political environment that exists with this issue (including factors such as the implementation itself, communication, education, support, etc.).

In addition to the text, cite at least two scholarly references to support your discussion.

Required Resources

Text

Read the following chapters in your text,  Strategic compensation :

· Chapter 9: Discretionary Benefits

· Chapter 10: Legally Required Benefits

Article

Nosta, J. (2014, April 9).  Be healthy and get rewarded--incentives driving engagement in health and wellness (Links to an external site.). Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnnosta/2014/04/09/be-healthy-and-get-rewarded-incentives-driving-engagement-in-health-and-wellness/

 

Recommended Resources

Articles

Nordquist, C. (2016, September 5).  The Affordable Care Act: Healthcare reform in the U.S (Links to an external site.). Medical News Today. Retrieved from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/247287.php

Purcell, P. (2010, April). Income and poverty among older Americans in 2008. Journal of Pension Planning and Compliance, 36(1), 1-29.  Retrieved from the Proquest database.

Purcell, P. (2010, April). Pension sponsorship and participation: Summary of recent trends. Journal of Pension Planning and Compliance, 36(1), 30-48. Retrieved from the ProQuest database.

Schnaubelt, C. (2018, May 30).  Social Security: Past, present and future (Links to an external site.). Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/catherineschnaubelt/2018/05/30/social-security-past-present-and-future/#4c10bb0359ab

Web Page

U.S. Department of Labor. (n.d.).  Wage and hour division (WHD) (Links to an external site.). Retrieved from https://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/

Websites

You will find a list of websites that you may find useful under the Course Materials section.

Lecture

we will evaluate the use of benefits in compensation packages. Additionally, we will assess the impact of using employer-sponsored retirement plans in place of pensions. We will also examine the origins of Social Security and propose recommendations to improve the viability of Social Security.

In today’s workforce organizations need to not only provide a competitive salary to attract employees, but it should also provide a competitive benefits packages. When deciding on an appropriate and competitive benefits package, HR professionals need to consider the cost of said packages as well as different generational needs and expectations. The benefits package needs to be cost-effective to enhance the lives of employees and their families but also achieve desired organizational goals and objectives (Martocchio, 2017).  Since employees are enticed and motivated in different ways a variety of benefits should be considered to cover several different bases. There are a variety of benefits an organization can provide their employees; however, some benefits are mandatory, and some are discretionary. Many times, the organization will offer a package that consists of both mandatory and discretionary benefits. 

Mandatory employee benefits are those benefits that the organization is required to provide the employees under various federal and state laws. Mandatory benefits include those provided under the Affordable Care Act, Family Medical Leave Act, Social Security, Workers Compensation and Medicare taxes as well as Unemployment Compensation. For example, under the FMLA companies with fifty or more workers shall provide employees up to twelve weeks of job-protected, unpaid leave for significant family or medical reasons, including paternity leave, adoption, foster care, to care for a family member that has a serious health condition, or an employee’s own personal health condition. Several states have specific laws that mandate additional benefits for employees. However, organizations do not have to provide for paid or unpaid leave to employees other than what is required under the FMLA and if they do it is considered a discretionary benefit.

Discretionary benefits are those that the employer provides to employees, but are obviously not required to do so under any federal or state law. The most common type of discretionary benefits are healthcare and vacation time or paid time off (PTO). There is a list of benefits employers provide employees to attract and retain including but not limited to: dental and vision insurance, health insurance, flexible spending accounts, holidays, sick time off, 401(k) plans or other retirement plans, maternity/paternity leave, gym time, disability insurance, tuition reimbursement, onsite day care, remote working options, and flex time. Again, most employers will provide a package that include mandatory as well as a few discretionary benefits. To maximize their return on investment, organizations need to know and understand the market, what benefits are available, and conduct return on investment analysis to see how the overall benefits costs impact the organization (Martocchio, 2017). 

One of the mandatory benefits required by federal law is Social Security taxes. While it is labeled a tax, it is a benefit that employees pay into over their career. The Social Security Act created an insurance program designed to pay retired employees at the earliest age of 62 and older, a continuing income. Employees paid into the social security throughout their working years to fund their own government retirement benefit. Today, the SSA provides not only retirement benefits to the employee but also benefits for disability, as well as survivor benefits. There is a concern today that social security will no longer be available in later years to those who are currently paying into social security. This concern is mainly due to changing demographics in the U.S. population. Social Security is intended to be “pay-as-you-go,” meaning each generation of workers pays for the benefits of current retirees. However, the number of workers per retiree has decreased over the last few years. As a result, the concern is that by the time the current employees retire the funds will have been depleted and the money they paid into social security will no longer be available to them.

Social security is just one method of retirement planning and as we discussed above many employers do offer retirement funds as part of their benefits package. With the state of the social security, providing a retirement plan as part of a benefits package may provide a means to attract employees. Overall, in order to be competitive and stay competitive the organization need to provide a cost effective benefits package to its employees.

Please review the  Mandatory Benefits (Links to an external site.)  video which will provide an overview of mandatory employee benefits.

References

Gregg Learning. (2015).  Mandatory benefits (Links to an external site.)  [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKC47BMlw4o

Martocchio, J. (2017). Strategic compensation: A human resource management approach (9th ed.). New York, New York: Pearson.