Blog - Beckham Insurance Group

ZipRecruiter: Mentions of Benefits in Job Postings on the Rise

Attracting and retaining top talent has always been important for long-term success in business. It has become even more important recently, though, with a tight job market and workers who are more willing to switch jobs for a situation that is best for them.

Today, employees are no longer singularly concerned with how much money a job will pay them. They are increasingly focused on the overall benefits package a company offers to help support their overall well-being.

Job site ZipRecruiter reported recently that job postings on their site mention employee benefits at the highest rate ever, with more and more positions offering a benefits package that includes paid time off, paid parental leave and health insurance.

Here’s why taking a flexible and holistic approach to benefits can benefit your company’s employee recruiting and retention efforts, as well as some outside-the-box benefits you can offer employees.

Benefits Help You Stand Out from Others

A comprehensive and creative benefits package can help your company stand out among your competition in recruitment efforts. As the ZipRecruiter analysis highlighted, employees today are looking for much more than just a reasonable salary when searching for jobs; they also want their employers to provide them with benefits that help them improve all aspects of their life.

By offering a benefits package that is both competitive and creative, you’ll be able to not only attract more top talent to your job postings, but you’ll be giving your company a better chance of landing them during the interview process.

The great part about a solid benefits package is that it can keep top talent from leaving your company, too. When employees today evaluate job offers and opportunities, they take into consideration the direct and indirect costs of competing benefits plans.

If your plan is considerably better than others, you’ll have a better chance of retaining top talent.

Creative Benefits You Can Offer

All competitive benefits packages start with health insurance. This is especially important today, considering the cost of health care continues to rise at exponential rates. When you provide health insurance that helps employees keep their costs low — or at least at reasonable rates — you are contributing to their physical, mental and financial well-being.

Speaking of finances, employers that include retirement planning into their benefits packages are more likely to attract and retain top talent. Employees want to feel financially secure, both for now and for their future, and offering a retirement plan with an employer match is a great way to do that.

You can also include financial wellness resources into your benefits package, such as customized retirement goal calculators, budgeting classes and materials, and even one-on-one financial counseling.

Businesses should also get creative with the types of benefits they include in their package as well. This could include flexible working hours and/or locations. By allowing employees to work different hours or to even work remotely at times, you’ll be allowing them to juggle everything they have on their plate on a day-to-day basis — both inside and outside the office.

Providing food and/or snacks that are paid for by the company is a great way to enhance employee wellness. Even if you can’t afford to pay for the food, by offering healthy options, you’ll be ensuring that employees are eating well and not having to worry about meal planning for the days ahead.

You can also offer other perks such as professional education and development classes, memberships to gyms, subscriptions to wellness apps and services, and even cash bonuses.

Perhaps one of the most valued benefit that employees look for today is a solid paid time off program. Whether employees need a day or two to just reset or a longer stretch of time off to deal with an injury or sickness, or care for a loved one, by providing the necessary paid time off, you’ll be showing employees you care about their life outside the workplace.

Beckham Insurance Group Can Help You Craft an Attractive Benefits Package

There’s no denying the fact that a benefits package is one of the best ways to stand out from your competition when recruiting and retaining top talent. Employees today seek much more than just a salary from their employer, which is why benefits are so important.

Beckham Insurance Group has been helping employers in the Georgia and South Carolina region create the best benefits packages for their employees. The professionals on our team have years of experience with outside-the-box thinking and approaches to creating these plans so that your company can stand out from others.

To find out more, contact us today.

Three people working and laughing together.

Why You Need To Encourage Friendships in the Workplace

/in Blog /by Beckham Insurance Group

Friends form the foundation of a solid support network. They are there for you when you need a pickup. They are there for you when you need to vent. And they are there for you to celebrate your successes.

It used to be that many people found life-long friends in the workplace, but that has been changing in recent years.

A recent study called the EY Belonging Barometer 2.0 revealed that an overwhelming majority of employees (80%) said they either feel or have felt lonely while at work, something that has been caused in no small part by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most employees also reported they would not talk to their manager if they were experiencing struggles, which accentuates the importance of having good friends in the workplace.

Employers can help employees in this regard by encouraging friendships in the workplace. Here are some reasons why that’s important.

People Spend a Lot of Time at Work

On average, Americans spend the equivalent of nine years or more of their life at work, according to a recent Gallup survey. In total, the average time spent at work in a lifetime is more than 81,000 hours.

It’s obvious to see, then, why having an environment that people like coming to is so important. These hours can certainly drag on — and have huge negative domino effects on other parts of their life — when employees feel lonely at work.

Having friends at work helps to lessen any potential burdens or worries people experience while on the job. Since work is such an enormous part of people’s day-to-day lives, it’s crucial that they enjoy their time there.

Friends Help Reduce Stress

It’s inevitable that people will experience stress at work. Sometimes, this stress is directly related to the work they do, while other times, it’ll be related to something in their personal life that they’ll bring into the office.

Many studies have shown the dangers of stress in the workplace, which can result in people suffering from anxiety and depression, being absent from work more often, being less productive when at work and changing jobs frequently.

Friends are a natural source of stress reduction. Sometimes, people just need to blow off steam, vent for a couple minutes and get perspective from someone they know, love and trust. Friends create a support system for employees, and help them relieve stress by lending a helping hand, or even just an ear, when someone needs it.

Camaraderie Results in Creativity

Having friends creates camaraderie, which helps to make teamwork more enjoyable. When you enjoy working with your colleagues, you’re more likely to care about the work you do and put in your full effort.

When employees have a positive work environment that is nurturing and supportive, they’re more likely to feel included, speak up and be more creative. This leads to not only a happier employee base, but also one that results in more innovation, better communication and increased creativity.

All of this serves to benefit not only the employees themselves but also the company in the long run.

Connections Help Advance Careers

When employees make friends at the office, they are making connections. And connections play a central role in advancing careers.

Friends help to encourage you to try new things, to apply for that promotion or to seek out the resources you need from your manager. Employees can bounce ideas off their friends and gain their feedback before they have to make a work presentation or pitch a new idea, for instance.

When employees establish better connections in the workplace, it often leads to a more successful and rewarding career — within your company. Friends can tell others of an opening in their department, a benefit they might not be taking advantage of or present different angles to overcome a challenge.

Again, these connections serve as the building blocks for successful organizations, and it all starts with friendships.

Foster Work Friendships with the Help of Beckham Insurance Group

All companies today should encourage friendships in the workplace. There are immense benefits not only to the employees but to the company as well when you do so.

There are many ways to do this, including hosting employee get-togethers, providing ample in-office space for people to chat and taking a collaborative approach to work.

Beckham Insurance Group can help businesses located in the South Carolina and Georgia region create an inclusive plan to encourage these work friendships from forming. It can be part of an overarching benefits package that serves as a great recruitment and retention tool as well.

Want to learn more? Contact us today.

Two people of different races shaking hands.

Use Inclusion to Create Financial Wellness for Employees

/in Blog /by Beckham Insurance Group

Employers today are playing an increasingly vital role in their employees’ wellness. More and more companies are creating formal programs around diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), which helps to create a better work environment that ultimately results in increased productivity.

There are many aspects of these DEI programs, including focusing on helping employees be more well-rounded and happy individuals. This is done by supporting workers’ overall wellness, both inside and outside the workplace.

One major area that employers can have a critical effect on employee happiness is creating financial wellness. Here’s how employers can use inclusion to do this.

Why Financial Wellness is Important

Finances are a huge concern for all employees. After all, they’re working so they can earn enough money to pay for the life they dream of. Yet, as of 2022, more than 50% of all full-time employees in the United States reported that they were struggling to cover their ongoing living expenses.

Money can be a source of major stress for people, and that stress can trickle down to other areas of their life. When people are stressed-out, they’re more susceptible to suffering from anxiety and/or depression. These “at-home issues” can carry over to the office, resulting in reduced production and even increased absences.

Employers may think that simply providing a salary is enough to support their employees’ financial wellness, but that’s not true anymore. Businesses have the ability to play a positive role in boosting financial wellness for their employees in many more ways.

Provide Financial Education

For many employees, financial troubles don’t necessarily come from a lack of money, but a lack of education about how to properly budget and spend their money. Businesses can help in this regard by providing employees with financial education classes and resources.

This could include everything from formal guided budgeting to free budgeting and financial resources to direct access to a financial planner. All this will help employees feel more included, as they feel like their employer cares about their overall well-being.

The education doesn’t have be limited to just finances as well. By providing educational opportunities to help employees build their knowledge and skillsets, you’ll be helping them create a more stable future.

In doing so, companies will be taking a more hands-on role and partnering with their employees so they can build a long-lasting and successful career.

Ensure Fair Pay

At the same time, you can create a more inclusive workplace by ensuring that all employee groups are paid fairly for the jobs they are doing. Salary discrepancies are a major issue for many businesses. These can sometimes exist from one department to the next, or from one demographic to the next.

When you create salary equity, you’ll be making sure that all employees are compensated fairly for the work they do — regardless of their title, their background or their makeup.

Not only will this help to create a more equitable and inclusive work environment, but it’ll make it easier for your business to improve diversity.

Review the Benefits You Offer

The needs of today’s employees are a lot different than they were even 20 years ago. By reviewing the benefits you offer your employees, you can ensure that you’re meeting them where they are.

This review will allow you to identify whether your benefits package is still serving your employees well, or whether you need to make adjustments to make sure it aligns with their needs.

From a financial standpoint, it’s important to provide employees with an affordable physical and mental health plan, a retirement plan with possible employer match and other support resources.

In addition, employees increasingly desire income protection offerings, such as paid medical and family leave that they can use to recover from an injury or illness, help a family member do the same, or expand their family when they have children.

Other financial support features of a well-designed benefits package could include disability products that provides income protection should an employee ever need to miss an extended period of time due to an injury or illness.

Create Financial Wellness for Your Employees with Beckham Insurance Group

Today, it’s very important for businesses of all sizes and from all industries to create an inclusive work environment that allows their employees to achieve financial wellness. There are many ways to approach this topic, and it starts with offering a benefits program that takes into consideration more than just your workers’ physical health.

If your business is located in the South Carolina or Georgia area, working with Beckham Insurance Group is the best way to create an inclusive benefits package that helps create financial wellness for your employees. Our team of experienced professionals has the know-how to design a benefits package that fits your business and your employees best.

To learn more about how we can help you in this regard, contact us today.

mental health spelled out in letter tiles

Mental Health Tricks for Your Employees

/in Blog /by Beckham Insurance Group

No longer is it OK for businesses to only provide support for their employees’ physical health. It’s now incumbent on all businesses to protect the mental health of their employees as well.

Mental health is becoming a major focus of people all across the country today and for good reason. Studies have shown that it’s directly related to physical health. In other words, if you don’t take care of your mental health, you have a chance of becoming physically unhealthy as a result.

Work is a major part of people’s mental health. In some cases, a poor work environment could be contributing to people’s negative mental health. In other cases, a person’s mental health issues could be having a negative effect on the job they do in work.

That’s why employers need to do everything they can to support their employees’ mental health. Here are some ways you can support your employees’ mental health.

Address Stress

A vast majority of Americans believe that their job is stressful. Chronic stress, no matter where it comes from, can cause some major health problems. Inside the workplace, stress can contribute to employee fatigue and irritability. Some studies have suggested it even costs employers in the U.S. about $300 billion per year due to lost productivity.

Employers may not be able to help their employees eliminate stress entirely. However, they can help them better manage it. Managers can take a hands-on approach to helping their employees juggle their schedule and manage their time.

Creating an open line of communication for employees to air grievances in a safe place can also prove very effective. When employees know you’re listening to them and care, it helps to reduce their stress.

Provide Training

Managers have a lot to deal with nowadays, and the mental health of their employees is a major focus. There is a stigma that revolves around mental health, even if it’s getting better by the day.

Employers can help their managers understand how to help support their employees’ mental health by providing them with specific training in this regard. How should they handle a situation where an employee comes to them with a mental health problem? What should they do if they believe an employee is dealing with a mental health issue?

Providing proper training to managers can help them identify potential issues and know resources they can give to employees should they need them.

Create Flexible Scheduling

People have a lot to balance today, so providing them with flexible scheduling options — if possible — can go a long way in helping them improve their mental health. When employees are given the proper time to deal with everything they need to do outside the office, they are more likely to be more productive inside the office.

Employees who have flexible schedules and sufficient paid time off are often more satisfied with their job, which helps lead to less stress and better overall mental health.

Provide Mental Health Benefits

Many employer-sponsored health plans offer mental health-related benefits today. A great idea is to evaluate the current plan that you offer and see if there are ways you can integrate mental health coverage. Does your plan cover visits to a therapist if an employee needs that service?

In addition to covered visits, consider adding other plan perks that could support your employees’ mental health. This could be direct benefits such as free subscriptions to mental health apps, reduced costs for massages or memberships to a gym.

It could also be benefits that indirectly support mental health, such as financial planning services. This could help reduce stress related to money, which is one of the biggest contributing factors to stress and anxiety.

Employers today can get creative with what mental health support benefits they provide, as there are many choices in this regard.

Work with Beckham Insurance Group to Support Your Employees’ Mental Health

Supporting your employees’ mental health is essential today. It’s no longer a “nice to have” but rather a “must have.”

If your business is located in the Southeast region, you should work with Beckham Insurance Group to figure out what mental health benefits you can integrate into your employer-sponsored health care plans. Our experienced professionals have years of experience working with companies just like yours and can help advise you on what programs are available and how you can get creative to support your employees’ mental well-being.

To find out more, contact us today.

Worst States for Working Moms

/in Blog /by Beckham Insurance Group

Working moms make up a large sector of the workforce. As of 2022, almost half of the workforce in the United States was made up of women, 73% of whom had at least one child younger than 18 years old, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Being a working mom can be very challenging. As if having to balance all the life responsibilities with work responsibilities wasn’t challenging enough, working moms earn 82% of what their male counterparts earned in 2022, the Pew Research Center reports.

These challenges can be even more pronounced in certain states that are, generally, considered to be “unfriendly” to working moms. Below is a list of the “top” 10 worst states for working moms.

How the List Was Compiled

WalletHub conducted a recent study on the best and worst states in the U.S. for working moms. They broke down their analysis into three major areas — child care, professional opportunities and work-life balance. Each state was given a ranking based on these areas to give them a final score.

One of the experts who was cited in the report, David Rothwell from Oregon State University, said that whether a state was good or bad for working moms depends on its housing cost, policies regarding sick leave and paid family leave, and the cost of and access to daycare.

So, without further ado, here are the 10 worst states for working moms, according to the WalletHub study.

1. Louisiana

The Bayou State found itself at the bottom of the WalletHub list — or the top of our list — as the worst state in the country for working moms. It had an overall score of 29.14, which is significantly below Massachusetts, which ranked as the top state for working moms with a total score of 66.20.

Louisiana ranked dead last in the categories of child care and professional opportunities, and 38^th for work-life balance.

2. South Carolina

Next up is the Palmetto State, with an overall score of 30.20. That score came from the fact that South Carolina ranked 48^th for child care, and 45^th for both professional opportunities and work-life balance.

3. Alabama

The Cotton State ranked as the third-worst state for working moms, according to the WalletHub study, with an overall score of 31.04. Alabama ranked 46^th for child care, 47^th for professional opportunities and 43^rd for work-life balance.

4. Mississippi

The Magnolia State is the fourth-worst state for working moms, as it garnered an overall score of 32.17. That’s because Mississippi ranked 44^th for child care and professional opportunities and 49^th for work-life balance.

5. West Virginia

The Mountain State is up next, with an overall score of 32.31. West Virginia was ranked 47^th for child care, 51^st for professional opportunities and 32^nd for work-life balance.

6. Idaho

The Gem State landed as the sixth-worst state for working moms, with an overall score of 35.07. Idaho ranked 51^st for child care, 36^th for professional opportunities and 17^th for work-life balance.

7. New Mexico

The Land of Enchantment found itself seventh on this dubious list, with an overall score of 35.99. It ranked 42^nd for child care, 48^th for professional opportunities and 28^th for work-life balance.

8. Oklahoma

The Sooner State ranks eighth on the list of the worst states for working moms, with an overall score of 36.31. Oklahoma ranked 32^nd for child care, 49^th for professional opportunities and 40^th for work-life balance.

9. Nevada

The Silver State is ninth on the list, with an overall score of 36.89. Nevada ranks 45^th for child care, 12 for professional opportunities and 46^th for work-life balance.

10. Arizona

Rounding out the top 10 worst states for working moms is The Grand Canyon State, with an overall score of 38.07. Arizona ranked 43^rd for child care, 33^rd for professional opportunities and 34^th for work-life balance.

Be Friendly for Working Moms with the Help of Beckham Insurance Group

No matter what state your company is based in, you can make sure you are friendly to working moms. One of the best ways to do this is to offer an employee benefits package that caters to moms at your office.

If you’re located in the coastal Southeast region, you should work with Beckham Insurance Group to make this happen. Our team of experienced professionals has years of experience helping companies just like yours create employee benefits packages that help to support working moms.

To find out more, contact us today.

hands of different skin tones joined on a table

Ways to Improve Your Company’s Diversity Initiatives

/in Blog /by Beckham Insurance Group

Workplaces that embrace DEI initiatives — or those that focus on diversity, equity and inclusion — are more successful overall. They are able to increase their revenue, improve employee retention and innovate more, among many other benefits.

When companies have a diverse workplace, they are ensuring that there will be a diverse set of ideas, inputs and thoughts into everything they do. A diverse employee base will bring in perspectives from different aspects of life to help a company better itself in many respects.

Those are just some of the reasons why investing in diversity initiatives is so important today. Below are some ways that you can improve your company’s diversity initiatives.

Make It a Stated Priority

It’s easy to say that you want to boost diversity at your company, but if it isn’t a stated priority of the company’s, then it can be easy to lose focus. DEI initiatives have to be strategic priorities if you want them to be successful.

To this end, it’s important to create a written plan for these DEI initiatives. Define what the goals of the program are and how you are going to measure the performance of the plan.

Diversity initiatives should be something that’s discussed with the company’s leadership team on a regular basis, too. You shouldn’t just come up with a plan and hope it works. Constantly addressing it and conducting a “check-up” will help ensure that you’re successful.

Incorporate a Diverse Team of Recruiters

There are two parts to recruiting — the candidates and the recruiters themselves. If your company is only focusing on incorporating diversity into the candidate side, then you are falling short of the mark.

It’s important to incorporate diversity into your team of recruiters, so that you can ensure that you are recruiting and hiring the right diverse candidates. When your recruiting team is diverse, they’ll be able to bring in new perspectives that otherwise wouldn’t be present.

So, if you really want to be effective at recruiting diverse talent, then your recruiting team needs to be filled with diverse talent as well.

Create a Mentor Program

Hiring diverse talent is step one. Ensuring that all that diverse talent at your company has the ability to rise up the corporate ladder is step two.

Many companies today are improving their diversity at the ground level, but that diversity hasn’t yet reached the upper rungs of the organizational chart. A great way to solve that problem is by creating a mentor program where employees can learn from others who have been there before — and who come from a different background as them.

The program should also integrate opportunities for employees to be promoted, as they learn the nuances of the company and prove themselves.

The mentor program is likely to produce significant benefits for both the mentee and the mentor, as each will be able to learn from the other.

Provide Diverse Benefits

One area that doesn’t get a lot of attention in diversity initiatives is a company’s benefits package. The fact is, though, that different people need different types of support.

Women often have much more responsibilities as caregivers than men do, for instance. Black women typically have increased responsibilities in this regard compared to Caucasian women, according to a study conducted by Great Place To Work.

As a result, women are more likely to need, and desire, benefits that help support them and their unique caregiving needs. Every group of employee will have their own unique and personal needs and desires when it comes to company benefits.

That’s why it’s important to review your current benefits package to ensure you aren’t just providing a one-size-fits-all offering. The more personal you can make your benefits package, the better you can support a diverse workforce. This, then, can result in you attracting a more diverse workforce to your company.

Beckham Insurance Group Can Help You Craft a Diverse Benefits Package

If you want to improve your company’s diversity initiatives, you need to consider the benefits package you are providing your employees. A package that only fits a certain type of employee is likely to convince employees to stay away from your company, rather than attracting them to it.

If your company is located in the Georgia or South Carolina region, you can work with Beckham Insurance Group to create a diverse benefits package. We have years of experience doing just this for companies just like yours. Our experienced professionals can advise you on all your options for creating a diverse benefits package to help support your company’s diversity initiatives.

To find out more, contact us today.

Do Part-Time Employees Get Benefits?

/in Blog /by Beckham Insurance Group

If you hire part-time employees to supplement your full-time staffers, you may be wondering whether you need to offer them health insurance. While the Affordable Care Act includes part-time workers into their calculation for whether companies are required to offer health insurance to their employees, it doesn’t mandate that these employees be offered such insurance.

Answering whether part-time employees get benefits or not isn’t as straightforward as you might think. Below, we’ll dive deeper into some of the factors that go into it, as well as how your company can stand out among the competition when it comes to attracting part-time employees.

Qualifying Events for Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance

/in Blog /by Beckham Insurance Group

Every year, there is an open enrollment period where employees are able to sign up or renew their employer-sponsored health insurance coverage. During this period, employees have the right to switch plans — if the employer offers multiple choices — or sign up for a plan if they haven’t had one before.

Once this open enrollment period ends, under most circumstances, employees can no longer sign up for health insurance or make changes to their plan. In order to qualify for a plan outside of this period, employees must have what’s known as a qualifying event.

When Does an Employer Have to Offer Health Insurance?

/in Blog /by Beckham Insurance Group

A lot of changes in health insurance were made when the Affordable Care Act went into effect in March of 2020. One of the major changes was a mandate that certain employers had to offer their employees health insurance coverage, otherwise they could face stiff penalties.

If your company fits within certain limits, you will be subject to the mandates in the ACA. If your company does not, you don’t have to offer health insurance to your employees, but the ACA does offer a program for you to make it more affordable.

What Are Supplemental Benefits?

/in Blog /by Beckham Insurance Group

The health insurance landscape has experienced massive changes in recent years. As health care costs have increased, so, too, have the costs of providing health coverage to people all around the country. Many insurance companies have passed on those increased costs to those they insure so that premiums remain reasonably affordable. As a result, high-deductible health plans that used to be few and far between are quickly becoming the standard.

Because of this, people have had to shoulder a much more significant financial burden for their healthcare; this has led to the rising popularity of supplemental benefits, which can help you pay for medical costs not covered by your primary health insurance.