|
Financial Planning
| • |
Forty-four percent of working Americans say they're likely to work after retirement because they'll need income. (“Pre-retirees worry about medical dollars,” Retirement Weekly, 11/12/04)
|
| • |
Recent MetLife research found that 60 percent of working Americans are highly concerned about their families' financial well being in the event of their own deaths. (“Life Insurance Providers Can Make or Break a Program,” Human Capital, 10/04)
|
Flex-Time
| • |
In a survey by Corporate Project Resources, Inc., 1,400 chief financial officers were asked which employee benefits their workers valued most. Their top choice, cited by 30 percent, was flexible scheduling. (“Employers take lead on work/life,” Chicago Tribune, 11/9/04)
|
| • |
A whopping 86 percent of workers cited work fulfillment and work/life balance as their top career priority, while only 35 percent said being successful at work and moving up the ladder were their top priorities. (2003 Spherion Employment Solutions survey of 3,200 workers; Employee Benefit News, 9/15/04) |
Health & Wellness/Medical
The number of employers providing paid sick leave dropped from 82 percent in 2002 to 76 percent last year, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. (USA Today, 11/12/04)
Within the past 30 years, the number of overweight children between the ages of 6 and 12 has doubled; the number of overweight teens (12-19 years) has tripled. These children and youth are at an increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, elevated blood pressure, and low self-esteem. (“A Fact Sheet on Children/Youth in Out-of-School Time;” National Institute on Out-of-School Time, 1/04)
Americans fret more about medical costs than about losing their job, paying their rent/mortgage, losing money in the stock market, or being the victim of a terrorist attack. About 47 percent of Americans are very worried about having to pay higher medical expenses. (Kaiser Family Foundation, BenefitsNews.com; 11/4/04
Miscellaneous WorkLife
| • |
The most commonly cited reasons for offering work/life programs are to enhance recruitment efforts (73 percent), raise morale (74 percent), and remain competitive (72 percent). (Mellon Financial Corporation's Human Resources & Investor Solutions (HR&IS) Survey, 2004)
|
| • |
Organizations now use an average of eight work-life programs, up from seven in 2003. Notable are the overall increases in programs that offer employees flexibility and those related to health/fitness, as well as the increase in eldercare programs. (2004 CCH Unscheduled Absence Survey)
|
| • |
Unscheduled absences are at a 5-year high, costing businesses an average of $610 per employee. For large companies that adds up to more than $1 million per year, says the CCH 2004 Unscheduled Absence Survey. (“Unscheduled absences soar,” WorkLife Today, 11/04)
|
| • |
Working parents aged 25 to 54 appear to have the longest day, according to a national survey by the U.S. Dept. of Labor. In 2003, they spent eight hours a day working/commuting, slept for 7.5 hours, spent 2.6 hours on leisure/sport, 1.3 hours caring for others, and 1.1 hours on housework. The rest of the day was spent eating, shopping, grooming or on other activities. (“Americans get plenty of sleep, watch lots of TV,” San Diego Union Tribune, 9/14/04)
|
|
