Bills, bills, and more bills. Over 80% of U.S. workers are “at least somewhat concerned that there will be a recession in the next year or that inflation will remain high for the next 12 months,” according to new research from the Employee Benefit Research Institute. While 70% could handle an emergency expense of $500, only 4 in 10 “feel at least somewhat prepared to handle an emergency expense of $5,000.”
In better news from the survey, employees feel satisfied with their benefits package by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, especially their health coverage. Still, the financial stress that many Americans are facing is impacting the hiring process, especially for small businesses, as we discuss below.
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Wage Floor Rising: Businesses Struggle to Meet Post-Inflation Salary Demands
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Everything costs more lately, so it’s no shock that employees want higher salaries. But it might be a shock that the reservation wage — the lowest amount that an average worker will accept for a new job — rose to $79,000 in August, according to the Federal Reserve.
For college graduates, the amount is just under $100,000, which could go even higher with the unfreezing of student loan repayments. Amazon, Meta and Google can afford that kind of overhead — but how can the local corner store, especially on top of recent interest rate hikes?
One possibility is to keep your staff smaller than you’d like. Another is to give yourself a pay cut, although that’s not the goal of starting a business.
Perhaps the best plan is to help your workforce feel less burdened in other ways. Nicole Bufanio, a senior change management & communication consultant at Mercer, recommends focusing on your benefits package, ensuring that total reward programs align with employees’ varying needs.
“Package their financial health benefits in a way that meets employees where they are,” Bufanio told b.
Offer a range of benefits from which employees can choose, such as discounted pet insurance or flexible spending accounts. (Access to a financial coach is a pertinent benefit.) To determine which benefits they’d value most, don’t be afraid to ask.
“Employers may consider conducting employee listening exercises — such as digital focus groups or a brief survey — where they can obtain employee input on their current programs and future considerations,” Bufanio said. “[This] will yield the biggest employee experience return on investment, with the added benefit of letting employees know, ‘We heard you and your voice is reflected in our offerings.’”
It’s important to keep this conversation about financial health going, not only during the time of open enrollment but also at the beginning of the year. However, while great benefits and culture are important, ultimately employers will need to match the market to retain and attract employees.
“Many companies consider benchmarking their total rewards offerings against industry peers … that may have similar talent demographics,” Bufanio said.
For more insights from Bufanio, check out Mercer’s 2022 Inside Employees’ Minds study.
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When you can’t bear disorganization, think PandaDoc.
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Keeping your team organized is half the battle, but getting them on the same page doesn’t have to be a challenge. PandaDoc offers an intuitive document management system that makes creating, sharing, editing, and managing your business documents a piece of cake.
Choose from more than 750 templates and customize them with a drag-and-drop editor to make something that’s truly yours. Then, monitor your document in real-time as collaboration tools allow other team members to work on it as well. And, with document workflow automation, you can save tons of time creating, approving, and sending proposals and contracts, complete with redlining and e-signature capabilities.
With PandaDoc, you can make your business’s document workflow as simple as black and white. If you’re ready to level up your document management and collaboration, check out PandaDoc today.
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Prevent Unethical Choices by Asking Yourself These 9 Questions
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Dr. Steven Rogelberg is a chancellor’s professor at UNC Charlotte, former president of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and author of Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings.
Making unethical choices in business can harm your reputation, as well as your customers, clients, and colleagues. It also sets a normative example, harming the moral fabric of society.
To make good ethical choices, ask yourself the following questions and reflect on the answers, which should steer you in the best possible direction:
- Would I be comfortable explaining my decision to a friend, a mentor, or family members?
- What are the long-term consequences of my choice (not just the short-term gains)?
- Does the decision I am considering uphold my integrity and reflect well on me?
- Could this decision harm others? (Pay particular attention to the potential harm it could cause to vulnerable populations.)
- What alternative courses of action would have fewer negative consequences?
- Have I sought advice and considered other perspectives?
- Does it pass the “front-page test”? (Imagine your decision as a headline in a newspaper; if it would cause shame, that tells you something important.)
- Will this choice bring me pride in myself or am I already feeling guilty for entertaining it?
- Would I want others to make the same decision if they were in a similar ethical dilemma, especially if I were on the side being affected?
Learn how to create a code of ethics for your business.
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How Prohibition Gave Rise to NASCAR
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Everybody knows that Prohibition led to speakeasies and moonshiners in the 1920s. It also led to NASCAR.
Delivery drivers for moonshiners, known as “runners,” had to modify their vehicles to evade authorities on unpaved, windy, single-lane roads. When Prohibition ended in 1933, those runners continued racing their high-performance vehicles as a pastime throughout the South — and stock races in Daytona Beach, Florida, saw large turnouts.
By 1948, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) was officially established. Hall of Famer Junior Johnson told the BBC, “If it hadn’t been for whiskey, NASCAR wouldn’t have been formed. That’s a fact.” (Johnson continued to work for his family moonshine business in North Carolina even after achieving race car stardom.)
Today, NASCAR generates an estimated $3 billion per year. And you can purchase beer at the track legally.
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“Ever experienced the mystery of the unclaimed leftovers in the office fridge? A colleague brought in a homemade lasagna and placed it in the communal fridge. It stayed there untouched for so long that it developed its own ecosystem. [We] started jokingly referring to it as the ‘Lasagna of Unknown Origins.’ Eventually, it became a sort of office mascot until a brave soul finally decided to properly dispose of it.”
—Anonymous
What are the funny, surprising, or just plain weird stories from your office? Spill the tea at b.newsletter@gmail.com.
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Written by Elizabeth Barton and Ali Saleh. Comic by John McNamee.
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