U.S. Robotics (often referred to by its abbreviation USR) is a company that makes computer modems and related products. It sold high-speed modems in the 1980s, and had a reputation for high quality and compatibility.[citation needed] With the reduced usage of voiceband modems in North America in the early 21st century, USR is now one of the few modem companies left in that market. It now employs about 125 people worldwide.
Employee Retention is the act of proactively working to keep your employees just that—your employees. It’s estimated that 55 percent of employees plan to quit or often think of quitting at any given time, according to a survey conducted by Sibson & Company. And employees who quit end up costing you big bucks, in terms of: lost productivity, flagging employee morale, frustrated customers who have to keep switching contacts at your company, the costs incurred for exit interviews, administrative functions related to termination, separation/severance pay and any increase in unemployment compensation.
There are also the costs incurred in finding a replacement. The cost of replacing an employee is about 30 percent of that employee’s salary.
Here’s what you may have to pay for to find a new employee: attracting applicants, entrance interviews, testing, travel/moving expenses, pre-employment administrative expenses, medical exams and acquisition and dissemination of information.
Employees are internal customers. You work hard to keep your customers or clients happy, right? So it makes sense that you also work hard to keep your internal customers, or employees, happy, too.
Because without happy personnel who enjoy their jobs and the workplace you provide, there’s no way your external clients will be happy.
That said, you’re probably thinking that money’s the answer. If so, you’re only partly right. According to the National Study of the Changing Workforce, published by the Families and Work Institute, earnings and benefits have only a 2 percent impact on job satisfaction.
In fact, job quality and workplace support have a combined 70 percent impact. And job quality and workplace support are two areas you can improve without spending a fortune.
When your employees are satisfied, your company is more likely to save money on such things as lost productivity, absenteeism, and turnover. Your customers will receive better care and more consistent care, because they’ll be working with the same people for a longer time period, instead of getting used to new employees all of the time.
A long-lasting, satisfied group of employees also enjoys higher morale and even a more competitive edge, considering employees often deflect to competing companies. You want to keep them happy—and employed by you!
In today's global and economic environment, more small to mid-sized companies are looking for a competitive advantage, cost savings, and ways to operate more efficiently and to pursue new growth.
Lone Star Corporate Services can provide our offshore expertise to help your organization operate in today's world.
For over a decade, Lone Star Corporate Services has established processes, technical capabilities, infrastructure, and the labor resources required to provide highly-skilled offshore talent that will help you operate and grow your business more efficiently.
COST REDUCTION
employing offshore talent will reduce your employee costs by more than 60%, and eliminate any costs
associated with recruitment, hiring, space, equipment and benefits.
SPEED TO MARKET
employing offshore talent means immediate focus on your job requirements, resulting in shorter
deliverables or removing employee stress on current projects.
EXPERTISE
employing offshore talent means accessing teams of professionals trained specifically for your task
at hand.
FOCUS
employing offshore talent means freeing up in-house resources to focus on your primary objectives.
RISK MANAGEMENT
employing offshore talent means ensuring your project or job responsibility will be completed on
time and on budget.
FLEXIBILITY
employing offshore talent means that each stage of a project can be customized to maximum
Not only was General Mills offering no asset management, it also decided to limit valuation to monthly statements. "We believe monthly valuation has an advantage," says Davis, explaining that it keeps participants focused on the long term. That eliminated other vendors committed to offering daily valuation only. "Our search was narrowed quite a bit," Davis says.
The winning bid came from New York-based Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., which has aggressively pursued the 401(k) market since acquiring Benefit Services Corp. in 1996 and Bankers Trust's 401(k) recordkeeping business in 1997. Met Life not only will keep the books and produce quarterly statements and monthly valuations, it also will offer a brokerage window through Charles Schwab. Adding a direct-investment option to the mix of options was essential, Davis says, because General Mills believed it should offset the limitations of monthly valuation for participants who want to manage assets more actively.
The transition was "a ton of work," Davis says, but the system was blacked out a mere 24 days. "If I underestimated anything at the beginning, it was the effort you need to communicate the change," he says.
That's where the employee representatives on the task force proved especially valuable to the process. They reported that employees didn't fully understand the ramifications of the switch. "We realized quickly the need to bolster what we did and how we did it," Davis says.
Leave
Using the Vecna leave system, an employee can actually take over 35 days off work per year. Leave time is used for holidays, sick days, and personal time off. Vecna provides a generous 200 hours (25 full leave days) which accumulate in your leave bank at 8 hours and 20 minutes (1.04 days) per pay period. However, combined with the four hour time minimum of the Extreme Flextime mentioned above, the 25 leave days can be stretched to an amazing 35 full days of time off. Unused leave (up to 25 days) does roll over to the next year.
Maternity Leave
In accordance with the Family and Medical Leave Act, employees may take up to twelve weeks leave conditioned upon the following:
The employee must have been employed by Vecna for at least one year prior to the date of requested leave. If the employee has worked less than one year, they are allowed 6 weeks leave.
Employees must use any accrued leave as part of the twelve week leave, with understanding that any days taken over the amount of earned leave will be unpaid.
Life Insurance & Disability
All Vecna full time employees are covered with $50,000 of life insurance, short & long term disability and optional additional group life insurance for themselves, their spouse and dependents.
Medical/Vision
Vecna has partnered with United Health Care and Hirsch Financial Services to provide a generous and comprehensive medical plan and Health Reimbursement Account (HRA). Vecna has elected to pay 100% of the family premium for PPO family medical, prescription, and vision. The HRA account, which is also fully funded by Vecna, also covers any copays and most other patient medical, dental, vision, or prescription expenses. (The account funds surpass the needs of most participants.)
Dental
Provider: Sun Life Financial using the Aetna network of Dentists. Employees contribute a small portion towards the Dental Premium
Type of Service: PPO
Eligibility: Coverage begins on the 1st day of employment
Employee Retention is the act of proactively working to keep your employees just that—your employees. It’s estimated that 55 percent of employees plan to quit or often think of quitting at any given time, according to a survey conducted by Sibson & Company. And employees who quit end up costing you big bucks, in terms of: lost productivity, flagging employee morale, frustrated customers who have to keep switching contacts at your company, the costs incurred for exit interviews, administrative functions related to termination, separation/severance pay and any increase in unemployment compensation.
There are also the costs incurred in finding a replacement. The cost of replacing an employee is about 30 percent of that employee’s salary.
Here’s what you may have to pay for to find a new employee: attracting applicants, entrance interviews, testing, travel/moving expenses, pre-employment administrative expenses, medical exams and acquisition and dissemination of information.
Employees are internal customers. You work hard to keep your customers or clients happy, right? So it makes sense that you also work hard to keep your internal customers, or employees, happy, too.
Because without happy personnel who enjoy their jobs and the workplace you provide, there’s no way your external clients will be happy.
That said, you’re probably thinking that money’s the answer. If so, you’re only partly right. According to the National Study of the Changing Workforce, published by the Families and Work Institute, earnings and benefits have only a 2 percent impact on job satisfaction.
In fact, job quality and workplace support have a combined 70 percent impact. And job quality and workplace support are two areas you can improve without spending a fortune.
When your employees are satisfied, your company is more likely to save money on such things as lost productivity, absenteeism, and turnover. Your customers will receive better care and more consistent care, because they’ll be working with the same people for a longer time period, instead of getting used to new employees all of the time.
A long-lasting, satisfied group of employees also enjoys higher morale and even a more competitive edge, considering employees often deflect to competing companies. You want to keep them happy—and employed by you!
In today's global and economic environment, more small to mid-sized companies are looking for a competitive advantage, cost savings, and ways to operate more efficiently and to pursue new growth.
Lone Star Corporate Services can provide our offshore expertise to help your organization operate in today's world.
For over a decade, Lone Star Corporate Services has established processes, technical capabilities, infrastructure, and the labor resources required to provide highly-skilled offshore talent that will help you operate and grow your business more efficiently.
COST REDUCTION
employing offshore talent will reduce your employee costs by more than 60%, and eliminate any costs
associated with recruitment, hiring, space, equipment and benefits.
SPEED TO MARKET
employing offshore talent means immediate focus on your job requirements, resulting in shorter
deliverables or removing employee stress on current projects.
EXPERTISE
employing offshore talent means accessing teams of professionals trained specifically for your task
at hand.
FOCUS
employing offshore talent means freeing up in-house resources to focus on your primary objectives.
RISK MANAGEMENT
employing offshore talent means ensuring your project or job responsibility will be completed on
time and on budget.
FLEXIBILITY
employing offshore talent means that each stage of a project can be customized to maximum
Not only was General Mills offering no asset management, it also decided to limit valuation to monthly statements. "We believe monthly valuation has an advantage," says Davis, explaining that it keeps participants focused on the long term. That eliminated other vendors committed to offering daily valuation only. "Our search was narrowed quite a bit," Davis says.
The winning bid came from New York-based Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., which has aggressively pursued the 401(k) market since acquiring Benefit Services Corp. in 1996 and Bankers Trust's 401(k) recordkeeping business in 1997. Met Life not only will keep the books and produce quarterly statements and monthly valuations, it also will offer a brokerage window through Charles Schwab. Adding a direct-investment option to the mix of options was essential, Davis says, because General Mills believed it should offset the limitations of monthly valuation for participants who want to manage assets more actively.
The transition was "a ton of work," Davis says, but the system was blacked out a mere 24 days. "If I underestimated anything at the beginning, it was the effort you need to communicate the change," he says.
That's where the employee representatives on the task force proved especially valuable to the process. They reported that employees didn't fully understand the ramifications of the switch. "We realized quickly the need to bolster what we did and how we did it," Davis says.
Leave
Using the Vecna leave system, an employee can actually take over 35 days off work per year. Leave time is used for holidays, sick days, and personal time off. Vecna provides a generous 200 hours (25 full leave days) which accumulate in your leave bank at 8 hours and 20 minutes (1.04 days) per pay period. However, combined with the four hour time minimum of the Extreme Flextime mentioned above, the 25 leave days can be stretched to an amazing 35 full days of time off. Unused leave (up to 25 days) does roll over to the next year.
Maternity Leave
In accordance with the Family and Medical Leave Act, employees may take up to twelve weeks leave conditioned upon the following:
The employee must have been employed by Vecna for at least one year prior to the date of requested leave. If the employee has worked less than one year, they are allowed 6 weeks leave.
Employees must use any accrued leave as part of the twelve week leave, with understanding that any days taken over the amount of earned leave will be unpaid.
Life Insurance & Disability
All Vecna full time employees are covered with $50,000 of life insurance, short & long term disability and optional additional group life insurance for themselves, their spouse and dependents.
Medical/Vision
Vecna has partnered with United Health Care and Hirsch Financial Services to provide a generous and comprehensive medical plan and Health Reimbursement Account (HRA). Vecna has elected to pay 100% of the family premium for PPO family medical, prescription, and vision. The HRA account, which is also fully funded by Vecna, also covers any copays and most other patient medical, dental, vision, or prescription expenses. (The account funds surpass the needs of most participants.)
Dental
Provider: Sun Life Financial using the Aetna network of Dentists. Employees contribute a small portion towards the Dental Premium
Type of Service: PPO
Eligibility: Coverage begins on the 1st day of employment