According to a recent Merrill Lynch survey, one-fourth of all women and 36 percent of men now put a part of each paycheck into retirement savings. That way of thinking is now changing, as people are more aggressively managing their careers. There is an increasing focus on the 'now' kinds of benefits, like training and development, rather than the future benefits which really dovetail with longer-career employees. And adequate explanation of benefits is often an issue. Or, if he is, he has very little sense of the value of the program.
Smart companies provide monthly benefits statements and conduct meetings to explain changes.
Well, when you talk to the individuals who share those jobs, frankly they're willing to do them for less money just to have that flexibility. So this whole notion of flexibility at the worksite is starting to become a much bigger issue for employers. And those who are on Fortune' s or Working Mother' s or Business Week' s top 50 companies to work for are the ones who are doing some of these things. Ironically, a lot of the things don't cost the employer anything to do. And typically, the election rate isn't that high, because if you have a couple living together, each partner may already have benefits in his or her own right, and the tax treatment for domestic benefits isn't that favorable.