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Student needs input on Work/Life EAP benefit to graduate
Benefits & Compensation
Student needs input on Work/Life EAP benefit to graduate
Exchange ideas about health plans, retirement, work/life benefits, and employee assistance.
Thank you in advance for taking my survey, this project is a pass/fail requirement for graduation and your input will help me greatly.
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Forums » Topic Forums » Benefits & Compensation » Student needs input on Work/Life EAP benefit to graduate
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Student needs input on Work/Life EAP benefit to graduate
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Student needs input on Work/Life EAP benefit to graduate
posted at 3/31/2011 8:09 AM EDT
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Posts: 3
First: 3/31/2011 Last: 4/4/2011 |
Thank you in advance for taking my survey, this project is a pass/fail requirement for graduation and your input will help me greatly.
http://miller.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_9EPnUfFy7c8cXPK |
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Student needs input on Work/Life EAP benefit to graduate
posted at 4/1/2011 7:37 AM EDT
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Posts: 3
First: 3/31/2011 Last: 4/4/2011 |
Being in a forum for workforce management professionals I figured this was a good place to find the individuals I need to survey. I did fail to mention I am looking for Human Resource managers, especially those that manage work/life programs or EAPs.
My project is to write a business plan that will be reviewed by a panel of 4-6 executives, VCs, and other professionals. There is usually an accountant, always a former grad of the program, and if they have an expert from your area in their pool of judges they will assign them to you. Ball State University is the only University in the country where an independent panel is allowed to assess the students work and then pass or fail them without NEEDING to consult with professors, although they sometimes do. About my project: (MyErrand) MyErrand is a residential supply chain company enabling a better quality of life through an online shopping and delivery experience. It facilitates delivery of perishable, time-sensitive, and non-packaged items between retailers and consumers, providing a cost-effective means to conduct commerce in the âlast mileâ of the supply chain. MyErrandâs target customer is middle-class and affluent all-parent working households. These households currently average of 3,885 working hours per year, and this is a number that has been increasing over the last decade. MyErrand will not only market to these households directly but will also offer this service to employers and residential communities. Many employees are unhappy with their work/life balance, and the average employees now spends 125 minutes a day at work, outside of their lunch, on personal business. The stress from this imbalance and the resulting lost productivity is costing businesses $759 Billion a year. MyErrand is a cost-effective way for these organizations to increase productivity, reduce stress, and improve the quality of life of their employees, residents, and guests by offering MyErrandâs services as a work/life balance benefit or amenity. Why I am asking for your survey: I have been working with Human resource managers in my target market but I do not have enough data for pricing or to measure the overall level of interest in a service like what I am offering. Here is some of the data I used to define the need for a service like I will offer: ⢠81% of Americans are unhappy with their work/life balance ⢠A recent study in Canada found that 82% of respondents would take a pay cut to take a job that guaranteed better work/life balance ⢠Middle income married couples work 3,885 hours a year; 247 hours more than 10 years ago ⢠Employees spend 125 minutes a day at work, outside of their lunch, on personal business ⢠Indiana employees ranked 2nd for most time wasted, 168 minutes a day, costing Indiana employers $25.1 Billion ⢠The national average cost is $5,720 but in Indiana the lost productivity amounts to $9,251 a year Companies with highly effective Health & Productivity programs have superior human capital and financial outcomes compared to their peers: ⢠11% higher revenues per employee ⢠1.8 fewer days absent per employee ⢠28% higher shareholder returns ⢠Lower medical trends by 1.2 percentage points Excessive levels of stress is impacting effectiveness of H&P efforts, the top three sources of stress are: 1) Excessive work hours (78%) 2) Lack of work/life balance (68%) 3) Fears of job loss (67%) Sources: - National Statistics - Snapshot of work and family in america study - Salary.com/AOL.com Survey (2005) - 2009/2010 Staying@Work Report - Watson Wyatt Worldwide (now Towers-Watson) - An Employerâs Guide to Employee Assistance Programs â Center for Prevention and Health Services December 2008 |
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Student needs input on Work/Life EAP benefit to graduate
posted at 4/1/2011 8:33 AM EDT
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Posts: 2442
First: 2/12/2000 Last: 9/14/2011 |
Might I inquire regarding the source of this statistic:
"...and the average employees now spends 125 minutes a day at work, outside of their lunch, on personal business" |
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Student needs input on Work/Life EAP benefit to graduate
posted at 4/1/2011 9:29 AM EDT
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Posts: 544
First: 9/27/2004 Last: 9/13/2011 |
Thank you for clarifying, I will be happy to look at the survey...May I offer an unsolicited caution about your choice of language? Just something to think about since you are a scholar.
It may a leap of judgment or a bias to assume that time at work spent on managing non-work tasks is a "cost" or "time being wasted" - it could well be that these tasks are being done to prevent absenses and other forms of distraction that can inhibit productivity. There are two sides of the equation and the citiations you provide are only looking at the one. There is a lot of research about the boundaries between work and family/life and there is a tremendous amount of variability in how people choose to manage or how they prefer to manage both spheres. |
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Student needs input on Work/Life EAP benefit to graduate
posted at 4/1/2011 10:36 AM EDT
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Posts: 1771
First: 10/24/2002 Last: 9/14/2011 |
"It may a leap of judgment or a bias to assume that time at work spent on managing non-work tasks is a "cost" or "time being wasted" - it could well be that these tasks are being done to prevent absenses and other forms of distraction that can inhibit productivity. There are two sides of the equation and the citiations you provide are only looking at the one."
Agree. As my boss said to me once, "Since I know most people have to stay here [our workplace] at least 10 and sometimes 12 to 14 hours a day, how can I possibly complain if they spend a small portion of that time attending to personal business?" |
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Student needs input on Work/Life EAP benefit to graduate
posted at 4/4/2011 9:23 AM EDT
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Posts: 3
First: 3/31/2011 Last: 4/4/2011 |
Howard7: That statistic is from the AOL/Salary.com survey (2005), the original language was âfritter awayâ 2.09 hours per day, I donât remember why it was changed, but it seems I did some damage re-wording it because âpersonal businessâ was a sub-category of that time spent. I have reworded it to fix that. According to that study about 44% of that time is spent online and about 25% is spent talking to co-workers, in fact only 6.8% is spent on personal business and another 3.1% of the time is spent actually running errands off-site. It was not my intent to argue that employees are spending two hours a day getting their oil changed and dropping off dry cleaning when they should be working; they donât even spend two hours a day doing those tasks. While MyErrand only addresses about 10% of time actually wasted at work, it also addresses time spent doing work for an employeeâs household which also impacts work/life balance and stress levels.
Deltac: I donât mean to suggest that all of the time is âwasted.â The AOL survey I mention in my response to H7 noted that HR professionals assume that employees will waste about an hour a day in addition to lunch, but employees admitted to wasting 2.09 hours a day or about twice what was expected. Your statement that some time is okay because it prevents absence is also right in line with some older stats I found that said stress related absence cost organizations $602/year per employee, if a phone call or a short break prevents them from needing time off that is certainly for the best. If a few minutes here and there helps an employee solve a problem and remain productive that is certainly not unreasonable; that is actually part of my reasoning for why MyErrand could be useful. MyErrand offers solutions for commonly run errands for around 3-6 minutes a day in cost (in terms of the employees salary, less if you factor in total compensation, based on 2080 hours a year for a salaried individual making $60,000 a year or more). Also, please do not feel that anything you have to say is unsolicited, even if I havenât asked. If you have a suggestion I want to hear it. If you want to blow holes in the idea Iâm thankful for that too. I will probably have an HR professional on my panel; I would rather hear it from you now instead of from that person on E-day and not have an answer. My final answer to the panel can be that this will not work and I can still graduate, it is all about what I learn in the process. Another possible approach I am considering is what if the employer didnât subsidize it at all. If employees with cafeteria style benefits packages could choose to add my service from the list of benefits or if they exceed their cap choose to pay for it would I have better luck if I was only asking organizations for 100-200 sq. ft. of space to offer the service from on-site. I have conducted about 100 surveys of employees at employers either at or similar to those I plan to target and 62% said they would likely or very likely to use a service where they could drop off or pick up basic errands through a service offered by their employer. Similarly 47% said they would pay $5 a trip for service that would pick up or drop off from home. I have not surveyed if they would pay to use it at work. |
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Student needs input on Work/Life EAP benefit to graduate
posted at 4/4/2011 9:51 AM EDT
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Posts: 2442
First: 2/12/2000 Last: 9/14/2011 |
Without getting into all your offerings I doubt that you can make money picking up folks at $5.00 per trip given the cost of gasoline. (unless of course you are a municipality with a bus route ). Heck the minimum wage is likely more than the cost of the trip you are proposing..........
Also, forget about employer subsidy of this IMHO. Finally, I assume you know the large percentage of folks that live from paycheck to paycheck and I assume you know about the rapidly rising rate of real inflation. Folks just do not have the money for these niceities unless they are very wealthy and have these folks as part of their households already. |
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