Employers try new tactics to retain workers

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While employers are slashing benefits to save money, they are using other tactics to try to retain workers, according to a recent study.In its "2008 National Study of Employers" the Families and Work Institute found that employees are more likely to stay with on the job if employers provide flexibility in the workplace.The study also found that while employers are dealing with the faltering economy by cutting benefits, such as health care and pensions, that directly take away from the bottom line, programs that cost money but improve the quality of life at the workplace, such as on-site child care, are not being reduced."Where they are cutting back is paid benefits," said Ellen Galinsky, the president and co-founder of the Families and Work Institute.While 94 percent of companies still provide health insurance coverage for family members of employees, just 4 percent now cover the entire bill, down from 13 percent ten years ago. Nineteen percent will not pay any of the bill to cover family members, which is up from 12 percent in 1998. For employees who receive health insurance, 34 percent have seen their costs toward that insurance rise in the past year.Although health benefits have taken a direct hit, 31 percent of employers now offer health benefits for unmarried partners of employees, which is up from 14 percent 10 years ago. More employers, 65 percent, now offer Employees Assistance Programs to help workers deal with psychological problems, which is up 9 percent over 10 years.And, while life has gotten better for new mothers at work, with 53 percent of companies now providing a private space for breast-feeding women to express their milk (up 16 percentage points in the past decade), fewer of them received their full pay for maternity leave. The study found that the percentage of companies that provided women with their full paychecks during their maternity-related disability dropped to 16 percent from 27 percent ten years ago.Another employer-paid benefit, the defined benefit pension plan, took a huge hit in the past decade. The study found that 48 percent of employers provided that traditional pension plan in 1998, but that has dropped to 29 percent now.The study noted two conflicting findings on flexibility. In the past decade, employers have become more flexible in regards to when people get to and leave work, with 79 percent of employers allowing at least some of their workers to alter their start times, which is up from 68 percent in the same study 10 years ago.Yet employers are more reluctant to let workers shift from full-time to part-time and back while retaining the same position or level of employment. The current study said that in 2008, 47 percent of employers said they allowed employees to shift easily between full- and part-time, which is down from 57 percent in 1998.E-mail Ann Belser can be reached at abelser(at)post-gazette.com(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)