Author Archive for Joe Larocque

Page 2 of 3

The Latest Symptom of Poor Employee Financial Health – 401(k) Loans/Hardship Withdrawals

Fidelity Investments recently reported a drastic increase in 401(k) hardship withdrawals and loans during the second quarter this year. Over the last 12 months, 11% of active participants initiated a loan, up 2% from the year prior. Some additional statistics offered by the study included:

Retirement Plan Loans Symptomatic of Financial Health Issues

During the second quarter, 62,000 participants initiated a hardship withdrawal, as compared to 45,000participants who initiated one during the prior quarter;

Published by Joe Larocque on August 26, 2010

Financial Wellness – A Key Hiring Criteria?

An amazing 60% of companies used candidates’ credit reports to help make hiring decisions in 2009, according to a recent Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) poll.

So, the natural question is why a credit score of all things would be used to evaluate a prospective employee?

One likely reason might be that employers worry that a poor credit score indicates a lack of responsibility that could ultimately translate into poor performance.

Credit score indicative of a poor performer?

Published by Joe Larocque on August 23, 2010

Open Enrollment: How Will You Communicate Medical Care Cost Increases?

While this likely won’t come as a shock to many reading this post, it appears

Benefits Communications for Delicate News

that medical care costs will once again rise at near double-digit rates in 2011. According to PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute, medical care costs are expected to increase by 9% in 2011, a slight deceleration from the 9.5% rise posted in 2010.

Cost sharing has become a critical tool to help keep medical care costs affordable for both employer and employee. 2011 will be no different. Here are the key findings of the PwC report:

Published by Joe Larocque on June 17, 2010

Financial Wellness Eases Presenteeism – Digging Into the Numbers

Historically, presenteeism has been a word used to describe sick employees

Financial Wellness ROI

who “tough it out” and come to work but operate far below normal productivity. But, there are many types of presenteeism. There could be any number of reasons why an employee checks out and productivity suffers. And, while presenteeism is a relatively new term, you likely have some established policies in place for helping employees stay focused at work. For instance, over half of US companies have blocked access to Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Presenteeism, in its entirety, is a huge productivity issue that far exceeds that of absenteeism.

Published by Joe Larocque on June 9, 2010

Gallup Study Highlights Financial Wellness as a Key Determinant of Overall Wellbeing

For many employers, the term “Wellness” is used to encapsulate a philosophy or an approach to employee benefits. In other words, the goal of a benefits program is to improve the overall well-being of employees and their families.

Achieving Well-being

But what does that term wellness really mean? What are the determinants? How do you measure employee well-being and what sort of programs can you put in place to improve it?

Published by Joe Larocque on June 1, 2010

Snoopy Weighs in on Financial Wellness

MetLife released its 8^th installment of its Annual Study of Benefits Trends on Monday. In comparison to prior

Employee financial issues a central theme in this year's survey

years, the themes of employee financial security and benefits communications played a more prominent role than ever before. This was a natural emphasis given the backdrop of economic volatility and a renewed employer focus on benefits cost control.

We wanted to highlight and provide my perspective on three key points that came out of this year’s study:

Published by Joe Larocque on April 14, 2010

A $16 Million Benefits Communications Problem: CDHPs

One of the largest issue that our clients face is providing comprehensive and affordable health care for employees and

Focused Benefits Education Can Help You Drive CDHP Enrollment

their families. In light of recent studies, employer interest in Consumer Driven Health Plans or CDHPs has grown tremendously. In fact, a recent study by NBGH/Towers Watson finds that 54% of companies offer a CDHP and that number is expected to grow to 61% in 2011.

Published by Joe Larocque on April 5, 2010

Financial Wellness. Why Employees Turn to their Employers.

In 2007, for the first time since MetLife began running their Annual MetLife Study of Employee Benefits Trends, more than half of employees surveyed indicated that they receive a majority of their financial products from their employer.

For most HR professionals this may seem somewhat intuitive. Prior to 2008, many employers had built out their benefits, retirement and equity programs to compete in what was considered an all out war for talent. So, it may not be surprising that the large investments that employers have made to offer a compelling total compensation package have made employers the number one source of financial products for their employees.

Published by Joe Larocque on March 29, 2010

April is Financial Literacy Month

Back in 2000, April was declared “Financial Literacy for Youth Month.” Now, it’s just “Financial Literacy Month.” Over the course of the last decade, it seems that us grown ups have shown that we really don’t know much more about money than our kids do – and therefore the Senate decided to drop the “youth” bit and include us adults in their call for better financial education.

Published by Joe Larocque on March 22, 2010

Benefits Communications for Today’s Employee

Traditional Benefits Communications Not Reaching Today's Employee

We used to make this distinction about certain people being “web savvy” but these days it seems we’re all pretty web savvy – perhaps there is just different degrees. One of my colleagues always uses the example of his 85 year old grandfather forwarding him YouTube clips to illustrate this point.

Published by Joe Larocque on March 15, 2010

Financial Wellness Blog