Author Archive for: Dev

Summary Employees often misunderstand life insurance, leaving them with a false sense of security. Employers can prevent disappointment and build trust by explaining coverage in plain English, using real-life examples, keeping the conversation ongoing, and encouraging questions. Clear communication ensures life insurance delivers on its promise of protection.     Life insurance is one of those benefits people may forget about once they purchase it. They assume the coverage is “enough” and move on.  However, most people aren’t sure how much coverage they have, what it actually means for their family, or how long it would realistically last. And this lack of understanding is risky for them and frustrating for you as the employer when it comes back around.

Summary  Employee engagement is slipping, with only 31% of U.S. workers feeling connected to their jobs. The fix is helping employees feel that their work matters. Career conversations, frequent recognition, and flexible policies build loyalty, prevent burnout, and strengthen business results. Start small: talk about growth, celebrate wins, and support people as humans.      Leaders constantly worry about keeping employees engaged. According to Gallup, only about 31% of U.S. employees are engaged today, while more than half report feeling disengaged.   Benefits, company culture, and professional development are important drivers of engagement. But if you look at engagement from a personal, even emotional, level, there’s something deeper at play.  Think about the last time you became disengaged with a project. More often than not, we lose interest because we feel the work doesn’t matter, and we lose our sense of purpose. That deep human need to feel valuable, useful, and appreciated drives whether we bring our best to work or slowly check out.

The straight-talk summary   New hires leave jobs because expectations are murky, the culture feels vague, and they can’t figure out how to get their questions answered. AI can’t replace a good onboarding experience, but it can surface what makes employees feel like outsiders. When you use it to flag those silent friction points, you give your people the clarity they need to stay.      We’ve all been there. We hire an employee, they show up for their first week, and then spend the next few months trying to figure things out.  Who do they go to for a real answer?   What do “LOA,” “PTO rollover,” or “GTL” mean? (Answers: Leave of Absence, Paid Time Off rollover, and Group Term Life insurance).   Who are the decision-makers?  Do we hold team meetings? When? And who’s expected to attend?  This is where onboarding often breaks down. If you’re not translating the unwritten rules, you’re leaving new hires to figure it out alone. 

The straight-talk summary   Resumes alone don’t tell you what really drives a candidate. If you want to hire people who thrive in your culture and stick around, you need a hiring process that uncovers what motivates them and aligns with what your company offers.      You wrote a job description. You posted it on job boards like Indeed and LinkedIn. Now you’re waiting for the applications to roll in and for the resumes to hit your inbox.   But here’s the problem: Resumes don’t tell the whole story. In fact, most hiring managers spend about 7 seconds skimming a resume, usually just looking at education and experience. That’s not nearly enough to figure out what makes someone tick.   If you want to hire the right people, you need to rethink how you evaluate them.   Someone’s personality, behaviors, and habits (how they actually show up day to day) are some of the best indicators of how they’ll perform. These behaviors are shaped by two kinds of motivation:   Extrinsic motivation that comes from outside: job role, location, salary, benefits.  Intrinsic motivation that comes from within: personal values, belief in the mission, respect for the team.  Your job is to understand both so you can hire people who truly fit your culture. 

  One of the most well-known components of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is that it requires applicable large employers (ALEs), meaning those employers that averaged at least 50 full-time and full-time equivalent employees during the previous calendar year, to (1) offer minimum essential coverage (MEC) to at least 95% of their full-time employees and the dependent children of those employees and (2) ensure that minimum value (MV) coverage is affordable to their full-time employees at the lowest-cost, employee-only coverage level. Full-time employees who do not receive an affordable MV offer from their ALE can receive a subsidy for enrolling in Exchange coverage, which exposes the ALE to employer mandate tax penalties. ALEs are not required to offer affordable coverage to the spouses and dependents of full-time employees, though these individuals can also enroll in subsidized coverage through an Exchange if the employer-sponsored coverage they have access to is unaffordable.  The ACA defines a plan as being affordable if the lowest-cost, employee-only, MEC, and MV option costs less than 9.5% of the employee’s household income. However, the percentage of income for this purpose is adjusted annually for inflation. Recent guidance from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has increased the affordability percentage from 9.02% for 2025 to 9.96% for 2026. The affordability percentage adjustments apply on a plan year basis, meaning that an employer with a non-calendar plan must satisfy the percentage for the year in which the plan year begins. For example, an employer with a medical plan year of July – June would use 9.02% for the plan year beginning in July 2025 and 9.96% for the plan year beginning in July 2026. ALEs with calendar year plans, on the other hand, should begin complying with the 2026 affordability percentage in January of 2026.   The IRS has created three safe harbors for ALEs to establish and report on benefits affordability: the federal poverty line safe harbor, the rate of pay safe harbor, and the W-2 safe harbor (which is based on Box 1 of the W-2). The rate-of-pay and the W-2 safe harbors are calculated on an employee-by-employee basis, while the federal poverty line safe harbor is a dollar constant based on the federal poverty level guideline in effect within six months before the first day of the ALE’s plan year. Of note, because it is unlikely that employers will have access to employee household incomes, ALEs are permitted to perform their affordability determinations according to the income the employee receives from the specific ALE.  Employers with calendar-year plans should soon begin considering their 2026 benefits package and how the affordability percentage increase may affect their overall 2026 strategy. Please contact Lumelight if you have any questions.