Through customized queries, the tool now allows for comparing and contrasting benefits offerings, objectives, strategies, and preferences along more than 80 dimensions such as industry, company size, region, and many employee demographics, according to MetLife. Users can compare and contrast the data along multiple variables, creating more than 600 possible charts.
Another new feature of MetLife’s Benefits Benchmarking Tool is the ability for employers and brokers to answer a few questions to determine their—or their client’s—benefits profile. Determining into which of four benefits profiles an employer falls can not only help in defining the current approach to benefits, but also help in determining future benefits strategies, MetLife said.
Through examining market research data about employer attitudes about benefits business objectives and strategies, Ronald Leopold, vice president, MetLife U.S. Business, found four distinct benefits profiles (see “MetLife Book Offers Strategies for Maximizing Benefits Investment”), which he labeled: Traditional (preserving commitments), Standard (providing the basics), Progressive (innovating for competitive advantage), and Flexible (balancing employee choice and cost).
The MetLife Benefits Benchmarking Tool uses as its underlying data the MetLife Study of Employee Benefits Trends and the MetLife 2008 Open Enrollment Study (see “Study Finds Employer-Worker Disconnect about Advice” and “Gen Y Wants Financial Advice in the Workplace”).
The free tool is available at www.whymetlife.com/benefitsbenchmark.
QVC Loan Probe Continues
QVC said it continues to investigate alleged irregularities regarding employee 401(k) hardship withdrawals at its Rocky Mount, North Carolina, distribution center.
QVC told WITN Thursday, “As the plan administrator of its 401(k) plan, QVC is required by the terms of the plan and federal regulations to conduct this investigation to ensure the appropriate operation of the plan and to protect all participants in the plan. We are working with Fidelity Investments, the third-party provider retained by QVC to help administer the 401k plan, to complete this process and anticipate having a resolution in the near future.”
According to the report, QVC said every employee involved in the investigation will have an opportunity to meet with them to discuss the allegations, and all employees who return to work after the investigation will be made whole for any loss of scheduled hours.
According to reports earlier in the week, employees received letters instructing them to schedule a meeting with a company loss prevention specialist and HR representative to prove their loans, already paid by Fidelity Investments, were legitimate. “Failure to set up a meeting will indicate your decision to voluntarily resign from the company,” the letter stated (see “QVC Investigates 401(k) Loans” http://www.planadviser.com/NewsInvesting.aspx?id=6409).
Workers indicated they had been forced to tap into their retirement plans because the company has imposed a salary freeze, cut back on overtime and hours, and started paying employees bi-weekly, instead of weekly.
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