Our best employee benefits news stories

Best of the week roundup

December 6, 2024 12:02 PM

Retirement and healthcare savings account balances have grown since last year for the 4 million or so employees with 401(k) accounts with Bank of America. As freelancer Keith Button reports, the average 401(k) account balance for the group was $102,660 in September, up $22,635 from one year earlier, while the average health savings account balance was $5,130, up $650.

Editor Lee Hafner interviewed the CEO of Global Guardian, a security solutions company, who advises both employers and employees to prepare for emergencies. While disasters such as a wildfire or a terrorist attack can happen unexpectedly, the company nonetheless says there are measures individuals and employers can take in advance to stay safe.

And senior reporter Deanna Cuadra examines the possible ways a Trump administration could impact reproductive health. She spoke to the chief strategy officer of advocacy group MomsRising who vows to continue the fight for abortion and reproductive rights.

Read more on these topics and other important stories in this week's weekly roundup.

Retirement savings have increased for Bank of America clients

Retirement and healthcare savings account balances have grown since last year for the 4 million or so employees with 401(k) accounts with Bank of America clients, signaling an improvement in their collective financial wellbeing, according to the bank.

"We were actually quite pleased with some of the results that we saw in the third quarter," says Lisa Margeson, a managing director in BofA's retirement research and insights group in Boston. "Those positive trends: I read those as signaling some optimistic signs for the future and that participants were feeling they were in a good place."

The average 401(k) account balance for the group was $102,660 in September, up $22,635 from one year earlier, while the average health savings account balance was $5,130, up $650, BofA reports. Much of the retirement savings increase was probably due to the overall stock market performance, Margeson says.

How employers and employees can prepare for emergency situations

Disasters are rarely predictable, but individuals and companies don't have to be taken by surprise.

Whether employees work from one location or are spread across the country or globe, employers have a duty of care to their workforce, including taking steps to prevent harm and address any risks. Part of this is understanding the potential for emergencies such as natural disasters, violent conflicts, acts of terrorism, and any other circumstances that may put employees in danger, says Dale Buckner, CEO of security solutions company Global Guardian.

"If you have a global workforce in Eastern Europe right now, you need to be thinking about evacuation," he says. "If you have employees that live in California or the West or Arizona, where wildfires are getting bigger and bigger, you better have an answer for how you're going to evacuate your employees if those fires get out of control. If you live in Florida, Taiwan or Japan, or you have employees there, you better have a tsunami and or hurricane plan to get your people out of that if they get stuck."

How Trump's incoming presidency might impact reproductive care

Donald Trump's incoming presidency doesn't bode well for anyone vested in reproductive healthcare. But the future of abortion access remains murky, with the president-elect himself voicing contradicting opinions during his campaign.

In March, Trump voiced support for a nationwide ban on abortions, but towards the end of his campaign, he said that abortion access should remain a state-by-state decision.

Further compounding concerns is that the Trump 2016 administration and 2024 campaign team included Project 2025 contributors — contributors who helped outline conservative policy recommendations like forcing states to report personal information of all patients who received abortion care and restricting access to birth control and emergency contraception — and it's likely that reproductive freedoms will face a wave of legislative and legal challenges during the next four years.

3 ways to make menopause benefits more inclusive

As employers consider how to implement and expand menopause benefits, there are some supplemental considerations to keep in mind.

The workforce populations of millennial and Gen X women are now close to or in the perimenopause and menopausal stages. And while the number of companies providing helpful health benefits is increasing, there is still a long way to go. Mercer reports that as of 2023, only 14% of large companies (those with 500 or more employees) offered or planned to offer menopause benefits. This is a stark contrast to the 64% of women who want access to these benefits, according to a 2023 survey by Bank of America.

Employers that offer tailored menopause support and access to preventative healthcare are off to a good start. Still, there are additional benefits to keep in mind, says Flory Wilson, the founder and CEO of Reproductive and Maternal Health Compass (RMHC). RHMC works with employers to identify what women's health benefits and policies they already have in place and what they can add or change to take their practices to the next level.

Is there a cure for bad bosses?

Bad bosses can seem like permanent fixtures of the work world — every company likely has at least one. However, in order for employers to address a problem, they first have to identify it.

According to employee data resource Perceptyx, 24% of employees were working for their "worst boss" in 2023, with workers describing their leaders as "incompetent," "unsupportive," "disrespectful" and "unfair." And while it may be easy to write workers off as whiny, bad bosses do have an impact on business: People working for their worst manager ever were three times more likely to be disengaged and nearly four times more likely to say they planned to quit in the next year.

So, who is a bad boss? They can come in different forms, but ultimately, they're leaders whose behavior unknowingly — or knowingly — impedes their team from performing without putting their well-being at risk, explains Jamie Woolf, the first director of culture and learning at Pixar Animation Studios and the current CEO and co-founder of Creativity Partners, a company focused on helping employers foster healthy workplace cultures.

4 workplace culture trends to watch in 2025

This year has been filled with return-to-office mandates, resulting in demands for work-life balance, as seen through trends like quiet quitting and growing anxiety around what the future has in store for workers. And it looks like in 2025, employers will see their employees follow up on these issues.

Demands for flexibility, higher quality of management, work-life boundaries and mental health support will continue to shape workplace culture in the new year, further driving home that corporate America cannot return to its pre-2020 norms and practices, says Frank Weishaupt, the CEO of video conferencing tech company Owl Labs. However, it's not clear how much employers will concede to employees in the next year, especially in a labor market that now favors employers over talent.

In a survey of 2,000 full-time employees, Owl Labs found that 62% of respondents work full-time in an office, a 4% drop from 2023. At the same time, 46% of workers said their company added or increased employee activity surveillance software in the last year. Overall, 27% of workers are actively looking for new jobs, marking a 4% increase from the previous year.