Rosa Sanchez, single, age twenty-five, received two job offers after college graduation. Both were with organizations that she respected, and the nature of the work at each place sounded very interesting to her. One job was with a larger, well-established firm and offered $22,000 per year in salary plus noncontributory benefits worth $7,000 per year. The other job was with a small business and offered a salary of $30,000 per year without employer voluntary benefits (the employer is required to pay for social insurance programs). Rosa’s mother suggested that she make the choice between the two jobs based on which offered better total compensation.
Henry Zantow, the comptroller for Kado Industries, was discussing the supposed advantages of a true cafeteria plan versus a traditional plan with Lloyd Olsen. Lloyd agreed with Henry that a cafeteria plan certainly seemed the better of the two plans. Both Henry and Lloyd looked at each other and in the same breath said, “I wonder why anyone would choose a traditional plan?”
Jan Czyrmer, the employee benefits manager at Ludlow Enterprises, wants to restructure the leave policy for the company. He is concerned that employees abuse the sick leave policy, taking sick leave time for personal reasons not related to illness. He wants to abolish particular types of leave (such as sick leave, vacation leave, personal leave) and give employees a certain number of general leave days per year to use as they choose.
Knowledge Networking, Inc., provides a growing business of high-tech and electronics equipment and software. It is a specialty retail and online business that has tripled its revenues in the past seven years. The company started fifteen years ago and includes fifty outlets on both the East and West coasts. In 2005, the company went public and now, despite the major financial crisis, it is doing very well with innovation and creative offerings. The company has 5,600 full-time employees and 1,000 part-time employees. Knowledge Networking, Inc., provides all the social insurance programs and offers its employees a cafeteria plan with many choices. Employees have generous choices of health, life insurance, and disability coverages; dental and vision care; premium conversion plan; and flexible spending accounts as part of the cafeteria plan. Each employee receives $5,500 a year from the employer to pay for the benefits.
Yolanda Freeman is evaluating whether federal nondiscrimination laws have helped or hurt employees.