You may not be able to insulate your employees from the escalating costs of health care, gas, and groceries. Once your salaries are set at a competitive level, you may feel like there isn't much more you can do to help them through this rough economy. But what if you could save your employees more than $800 a year, without costing your company anything?
A compensation plan self-audit may seem intimidating, and it's true that you may want to seek expertise to help you the first time through. But once the tracks are laid, you can follow them every year or so to learn whether your compensation plans are doing what you want them to--or whether they are not.
One of the provisions of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 enables enables plan sponsors to offer investment advice to employees without exposing themselves to liability for the outcome of that advice. While the Department of Labor has forthcoming regulations that will further clarify a plan sponsor's responsibilities, William Arnone and Lynn Finkelstein, both Employee Financial Services Practice Leaders with Ernst & Young, say you should be thinking about whether offering such advice is the right decision for your organization.
The results of the Survey of Exempt Compensation are in--and the slow growth in wages for exempt employees continues in 2007. Employers surveyed nationwide reported increases in exempt salaries for all of the 44 benchmark exempt positions surveyed. Salary increases for benchmarked jobs ranged
from a high of 4.66% to a low of 1.37%, with an average increase of 3%.
Nonexempt employees realized very little growth in their hourly wages over the
last year, according to Business & Legal Reports' 2007 Survey of Nonexempt
Compensation.
