Small Company Benefits

Christine Clemons

We are a small manufacturing business (60 EMPLOYEES). I am looking for responses from other small business about their benefit package. We currently pay a portion of premium for health insurance and provided 10,000 of life insurance for our employees. All employees accrue vacation at the same rate. We have Personal Time for all exempt employees and office (non exempt) personnel who do not have the opportunity for OT. Out production people, unless they are exempt are not eligable for Personal Time. We give 40 hours of PT at the beginning of the year and allow them to carry over each year up to 240 hours. Do other companies allow exempt employees who work weekends away at a trade show comp time?
I am also considering offering supplement benefits at our employees expense. Have you found this to be a bonus to benefit packages?

aay information you would share iwth me about your benefit packages I would appreciate!

marc

Also a 60 person employer, a non-profit in Nevada.

We offer 12 vacation days and 12 sick days each year up to 3 years. After 3 years the vacation goes to 3 weeks.These days are earned pro-rata each paycheck. We give two personal days at the beginning of each calendar year and allow a day off for the ees birthday, taken during the bday payperiod.

Two time salary for paid life insurance, maximum of $200,000 and we pay the ees group insurance premium for health and require them to be on our policy. We have a cafeteria plan with a number of ee paid options, such as vision, dental, std, ltd, a medical savings plan, and various Aflac insurance policies.

We also recognize a ton of holidays. We have a wellness program that allows ees to earn up to $300 per year for good health, and we allow 1.5 hours per payperiod for outside community volunteer activities.

This is a good benefit package which is unfortunately off-set by wages that are mostly below mid-range for our area.

Hope this helps.

Pork

CHRISTINE: Welcome to the net! You have several issues here. Am I reading this correct that someone is collecting PTO for O/T worked, because they don't have an opportunity to collect O/T! Tell us more!!

PORK

Christine Clemons

PORK: Thank you. I have had instances where exempt employees have worked a weekend away at a trade show and then ask if they can trade out that time they worked at the trade show instead of using a vacation day or PT when they need time off at a later date.

Also we have non-exempt employees who may also work a weekend at trade show. We give them comp time so they do not exceed 40 hours in that week. But..these non-exempt employees also have the benefit of PT same as exempt employees.

Pork

CHRISTINE: With Exempts you can do whatever you deem appropriate. I work 10 hour work days and my company GM recognizes my efforts on behalf of the company and does not mind giving me time off as compensatory time off which he does not count off of the vacation time awarded. On the other side of the coin when the FEEDTRUCK DRIVER RUNS HIS 18 WHEELER OFF THE ROAD AT 1AM IN THE MORNING HE CAN EXPECT THAT I WILL PERSONALLY BE THERE TO TAKE CARE OF THE VEHICLE ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION AND THE COMPANY PUBLIC RELATIONS!

Now, the NONEXEMPT employee, like my assistant who helps me with the vehicle accident investigation goes on the clock the minute she lives her home and is on the clock until I tell her to go home and clock and clock out. It does not matter whether it is during the week or on the week-end. There is nothing called compensatory time off and payment in time off for time worked for non-exempt ees. FLSA will not allow you to do that, you see FEDERAL UNCLE SAM AND THE STATE SAM WANT THEIR MONEY IN THE FORM OF INCOME TAX THAT YOU PAY TO THE EMPLOYEE AND COLLECT FOR THE TREASURY based on hours worked in a published workweek. You can grant time off for extra time worked in the same work week, for instance my assistant can work 10 hours today and I can allow her to come in 2 hours late tomorrow within this same work week. Together, the total time in two days is 16 hours earned toward her 40 hour work week. If on Saturday she comes into work for 8 hours, I can not tell her to take off 8 hours on Monday in payment for the Saturday work hours, BECAUSE THOSE HOURS ARE DUE HER AS OVERTIME AND THE GOVERNMENT WANTS THEIR CASH.

PORK

I have a son who is paid hourly, and handles all of the travel driving and set-up for trade shows and the company pays a perdium rate ($25.00 a day) for the travel day and then forces the employee to take off the next week in payment for the extra week end hours worked based on an 8 hour day. He sometimes works 10 and 14 hour days during the trade show, there is no time clock to punch in, so the company pays in time two 8 hour days on Monday and Tuesday of the next week. This arrangement is so illegal but my son refuses to make an issue for he loves what he is doing. I have advised him to keep good records because at some point the company is going to make you mad or find some reason to let you go and when they do I'll retire and personally manage his law suite.