Sue

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Sue
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  • Hunter: I'm a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee alumni too and its great they made it so far! I hope they win against IL tonight. Go Panthers!
    in On, Wisconsin! Comment by Sue March 2005
  • I'm late with this post too. Each year, mid-December our garbageman, Jim, leaves us a Christmas card with his name. For the past few years I've bought him and the postal worker a small gift (less than $10) as thanks for a good job. I like giving, …
  • I'm proposing that our company does a "useless gift exchange" this Christmas. The objective is to not go out and shop, but to bring in an item that expired, is useless or is just plain silly. The empoyees pick gifts in a certain order and can opt t…
    in Christmas Comment by Sue October 2003
  • Mine is simple - my son, who is 22, brough a girl home for us to meet. We all loved her! They seemed perfect together!
  • Regarding the staff accountants; I would say if they have a 4-year degree in Accounting (an Accounting Major) that would suffice in the professional exemption.
  • This may off the topic, but a similar thing happened in Milwaukee. During Brewer's baseball games there is a tradition of "sausage races". Young adults wear huge sausage costumes and race around the field. During this particular game a Pirate's p…
  • We looked into this and figured out it would be easier to allow the time to be unpaid, rather than prepaid for. It saves all the headaches of biweekly payroll calculations and what wages to use. An employee can take 5 days per year as unpaid vacatio…
  • This probably varies by state. In Wisconsin we can force employees to use vacation during shut downs. If the time is unpaid, they can collect unemployment. I would check with your state.
    in Shutdowns Comment by Sue April 2001
  • Thank you so much Kathy. And, yes, I will be listening to the audio conference on Monday!
  • It seems extra vacation is easily asked for while hiring. We often make this exception for managers. We also allow employees to take 5 days of unpaid vacation per year. Its called the vacation option benefit and is very popular.Its easy to manage.
  • We implemented an high deductible plan and an HRA in March 2003 when our initial rate increase was 67%! We adopted a $1000 deductible plan (up from $200) and the rate increase dropped to 25%. The employees pays the first $250 and the company pays t…
    in HSA's Comment by Sue February 2005
  • I've been to several presentations and have three problems with HSA's. 1) Documentation. The employee can submit a claim with no documentation (to buy a boat). The only time the documents are check, is if the IRS audits the individual's personal ta…
    in HSA's Comment by Sue February 2005
  • I agree, the definition is in your contracts with each benefit provider. We consider 30 hours or more per week as fulltime.
  • We pay a one-time fee of $100.
  • It is paid through a section 125 plan, so it does not effect payroll. The check is sent from the Flex administrator.
  • We are in our second year with this type of policy. The single deductible is $1,000 for in-network hospital/surgical, lab/xray. We are fully insured through United Healthcare. It lower our 2003 increase from 62% to 27%!! The employee pays the first…
  • We experienced this also and we did comply. It is used to get bids and would not have been necessary if we stayed with our current carrier. Each employee had to complete a generic Health Questionnaire - which was very detailed. They were highly caut…
  • I wish you luck. We did a similar switch two years ago and found that it took a huge amount communication. Our single deductible is $1,000. Employees pay the first 250 and the company pays the next 750 through the Flexible benefits plan (section 12…
  • We administer our own plan because the are so few claims per year. I've looked at Jefferson-Pilot's advice to pay program and it seems like a great service.
  • We discussed allowing employees to "buy" more vacation time. After much discussion, we designed a Vacation Benefit Option. The program allows employees to take five days of UNPAID vacation time each year. It's simple to administer and employees lov…
  • I agree with looking for the plan document. Each plan should have a summary plan description which would discuss run out periods. Otherwise, if you use an outside administrator, they would know. Our specific plan has a 60 day runout period.
  • My understanding is the DOL wants employers to use the new forms and notices right now. The remainder of the proposed regulations involves documenting procedures - which does not have a set date.
  • We starting charging smokers more on March 1. We announced this 8 months ago. We charge $15/mth more and if they quit by the end of our plan year, and have been quit for at least 120 days - we double their money back. We call it the Pay to Quit plan…
  • Lola, I have the same aggresive sales people here in Wisconsin. I think every independent insurance agent thinks this is the greatest thing. I handled it by putting a question in an annual benefits survey. There wasn't enough interest to move forw…
  • Our policy in Wisconsin is to require one-half of available vacation be used for all unpaid FMLA leaves. We only apply this after the first two weeks (which are covered by WI FMLA).
  • We had a recent case that answered your question. We were told by our attorneys that the employee is not eligible if they did not work 1,250 hours (1,000 in Wisconsin) even if it was a covered FMLA illness.
  • We had a purchasing manager arrested for dealing cocaine. We were lucky that he did not call in while in jail and we were able to use the '3 days no call no show' quit. Your situation probably depends heavily on your state laws, so I would recomme…
  • Contact the Psychological Corporation and use the Bennett Mechanical Comprehension test. You can find it on the internet.
  • We build this type of testing into our Substance Abuse reasonable suspicion policy wording, it reads, ""Reasonable suspicion" is a suspicion based upon the conduct, speech, odor or appearance of an employee sufficient to lead a prudent person to sus…
  • We had a guy like this and got stuck with a stress-related workers compensation case, AND an EEOC sexual harassment charge. It cost big bucks.