Work perks

Tampa Bay area companies are pulling out the stops, delivering everything from car detailing to stock options and more paid time off, to attract and retain workers.

[Times photo: Lisa DeJong] Dental hygienist Carmen Sutera explains how to use dental wash to Leen Suleiman, 5, who was at the dentist's office for her six-month checkup. Leen's mother works at Franklin Templeton Investments, which provides free dental care for employees and their dependents.

Personal Finance editor HELEN HUNTLEY E-mail: Click here Archive

By HELEN HUNTLEY

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 1, 2000

If your boss doesn't offer to pick up your dry cleaning or get you a discount on pet insurance, just wait. The day could be coming soon.

While traditional pension plans are on the wane, companies are adding dozens of new benefits in an effort to stand out in a job seekers' market.

In the Tampa Bay area and nationally, two of the hottest trends are concierge services, such as dry cleaning, shoe shining and car detailing, and discount deals on everything from concert tickets and car insurance to laser eye surgery. Companies also are increasing paid time off, particularly for the recently hired, and trying to inject more flexibility into their benefits programs.

[Times photo - Dirk Shadd] Jabil Circuit Inc. worker Janice Bartlett stretches at the St. Petersburg company's fitness facility, a perk she enjoys four times a week.

"A competitive benefits package can convince candidates who are on the fence to say yes," said Bill Hoke, director of human resources at Tech Data Corp. in Clearwater.

The computer distributor recently added a raft of discounted services, including pet insurance, an arrangement made simple by the emergence of Internet-based companies packaging products and services at cut-rate prices. For Tech Data, the only real cost is communicating the availability of the benefits to employees and monitoring whether the arrangement is worth continuing.

"Employers are offering more and more things that have relatively low cost but that for individuals have very high value," said Dallas Salisbury, president of the Employee Benefit Research Institute of Washington.

But not all the improvements being made to benefits can be categorized as low-cost sizzle. Tech Data also removed its $500 annual cap on matching contributions to employees' 401(k) retirement savings plans. That's worth an extra $1,000 to an employee making $50,000 a year and contributing at least 6 percent of his or her salary to the plan.

Historically, Tampa Bay area employers have not been noted for generous benefits. But competition is forcing companies here, as elsewhere, to take a closer look at their offerings. With the unemployment rate hovering at about 2.8 percent, attracting and retaining workers has become a challenge.

The benefits race is particularly evident among the bay area's call centers, which offer fitness centers and other fun perks along with more traditional benefits.

"When Capital One came in, they set the tone," said Lorraine Mariano, St. Petersburg-based vice president of human resources for Franklin Templeton mutual funds' U.S. operations. "Hats off to them for recognizing that you need to position yourself to get the talent. Now there's probably six or seven companies that are all keeping pace with each other in terms of the benefits that are offered, the amenities that are offered and the physical environment."

And it's not just call centers that are having to sell themselves to workers.

"The hospital market is very competitive," said Deborah Menendez, director of team resources for Bayfront St. Anthony's Health Care. "We have to keep doing more than the rest of them."

The competition is particularly fierce among those trying to hire information technology workers and telephone customer service representatives.

Companies are improving benefits as an alternative to boosting wages, said Christine C. Crews, director of human resource services for the Employers Association of Florida. "I haven't seen the wage inflation as much as I thought I would see with this market."

Crews said Florida employers are shortening or eliminating waiting periods for new employees to get health or life insurance and sign up for a 401(k) plan. And at many companies, workers no longer have to spend five years on the job to get a three-week annual vacation.

Franklin Templeton now brings new hires into the 401(k) plan within weeks instead of having to wait several months. The company has added vacation days, giving first-year employees 15 to 18 paid days off, depending on job classification, and eight sick days and nine holidays a year.

"People are looking for balance between their professional lives and their personal lives, and companies need to recognize that," Mariano said.

Capital One not only has one of the most generous vacation policies, but it also allows employees to take four of their vacation days each year with just 30 minutes' notice to supervisors at the Tampa call center.

"If it happens to be a great day and they need a break, they can do that," company spokesman Hamilton Holloway said. "We put a lot of effort into finding really good people and we want to make sure that we keep them."

Bayfront St. Anthony's' effort to prove itself family friendly includes on-site child care, sick child care and a school in partnership with the Pinellas County School Board. The hospital also has added concierge services and extended more benefits to part-timers.

Many Florida companies are broadening benefits coverage by including their employees' same-sex domestic partners, Crews said. Nationally, about 18 percent of workers are employed at companies that offer domestic partner benefits, according to a survey last year by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust. Some cover opposite-sex as well as same-sex partners.

Many benefit trends are a response to what employees say they want, said Salisbury at the Employee Benefits Research Institute. He said surveys repeatedly show that the benefits employees value most, in order, are cash, vacation days, health insurance and a retirement savings plan such as a 401(k).

But beyond the top four, employee opinions diverge, he said.

As a result of this diversity, some employers are trying to make their benefits flexible.

"We realize we can't have one program that will meet the needs of everyone," said Paula Labian, senior project director for benefits at Blue Cross and Clue Shield of Florida, which has operations in Tampa. "Employees tell us they want more accountability to make their own decisions."

The company recently collapsed its vacation, sick days and personal days into a single bank of days employees can use for any purpose. Next up on the agenda is creation of a benefits package that will let employees choose how they want to spend their personal share of the company's benefit dollars. These so-called "cafeteria" plans have been growing in popularity even though their complexity requires a bigger effort to educate employees about their options.

"We'll see a lot more companies going toward these cafeteria-style benefit plans," Labian predicted. She said when employees select the benefits, they value them more.

Lack of perceived value has helped hasten the decline of traditional pension plans, which pay a set monthly benefit for life. Not only are the plans costly and cumbersome for companies to run, but employees fail to fully appreciate them, Salisbury said.

"Now everybody assumes they will spend only a limited amount of time with any employer," he said. "Even the 20 percent who will still spend 25 to 30 years with one employer who should want traditional benefits don't wake up to realize that until their 21st year."

About 40 percent of private-sector workers who have a retirement plan have a traditional pension, down from 85 percent in the early 1980s, according to institute research. Those plans are being replaced by retirement savings plans that leave employees responsible for building their own retirement security through good investments.

On the plus side, many companies that never had a traditional pension plan now offer retirement savings plan.

Large companies are far more likely than small ones to offer traditional pensions, retirement savings plans and health insurance. But many small companies are adding low-cost, less traditional benefits.

"Smaller firms are becoming very creative with their benefits packages," said Crews at the Employers Association. "The larger companies are not always the trendsetters with respect to innovative benefits."

Companies with publicly traded stock are attempting to use it to build loyalty and reward workers for staying on. Robert Half International, which has operations in Tampa, grants stock options to all employees. If they hang around at least two years, they are guaranteed a 15 percent profit.

Nationally, about one of every 10 private sector workers holds employee stock options, according to a survey by OppenheimerFunds. Two-thirds of those who don't said they would consider the availability of stock options at least a "somewhat important" consideration when looking for a new job. A fourth said they would consider taking less salary in exchange for stock options.

Companies with a national presence sometimes tailor their benefits as well as their pay market by market. United Parcel Service, for example, offers an "earn and learn" education assistance package in Jacksonville but not in the Tampa Bay area, where it says it hasn't had as much difficulty attracting and retaining workers. The program offers part-time employees who are attending college up to $15,000 in grants and $8,000 in loans, which can be forgiven if the employee stays with the company.

But companies say they recognize that benefits are not everything.

"They lag behind offering challenging work and competitive pay," said Hoke at Tech Data. "But they're clearly part of the rewards that we're going to deliver."

A benefits sampler

Which Tampa Bay area employers offer the best benefits? Here's a sampling of some that rise to the top.

401(k) match

First Union employees can contribute up to 15 percent of pay, and the company matches 100 percent of the first 6 percent. Employees are fully vested on the first day of participation. A more typical company match is 3 percent of pay, and vesting often takes five years.

Profit-sharing

Contributions vary with company profits, but last year Franklin Templeton gave employees a bonus equal to about 6 percent of pay.

Education benefits

Eckerd College waives tuition for employees' children and spouses. Children also qualify for substantial tuition discounts at dozens of colleges nationwide on a space-available basis. Employees can take one free class each semester in Eckerd's Program for Experienced Learners.

Allstate Insurance reimburses employees up to $5,250 per year for tuition for approved undergraduate and graduate courses or testing costs for certifications.

Each year, AmeriSteel awards two $2,500 renewable college scholarships to children of employees. Bank of America also has a large scholarship program for employees' children.

Stock options

Robert Half International gives all employees stock options twice a year: six shares for each $1,000 in pay they earned in the previous six months. The options vest in two years, and employees are guaranteed a profit of 15 percent even if the stock has gone down. If it has gone up, they make more.

Stock purchase plans

Many companies allow employees to buy stock at a discount to the current market price. A 15 percent discount is available at AmeriSteel, Ceridian Corp., Jabil Circuit, Tech Data Corp. among other companies.

Franklin Templeton employees get a 10 percent discount on the lowest price of the parent company's stock (Franklin Resources Inc.) during a six-month period, and the company gives them one additional share for every two they purchase.

Paid time off

Instead of vacation and sick days, employees of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida earn paid time off they can use for any purpose. Employees with less than five years' service can take 25 days off each year while those with more than 25 years' service get 37 days off. That's not counting the nine corporate holidays.

Capital One employees earn three weeks of vacation after their first year. After five years, they get four weeks. They also can use benefit credits to "buy" up to five additional days under the company's flexible benefits plan. In addition, they have eight holidays and three days of "family care leave" each year.

To promote involvement in the schools, Bank of America allows employees two hours of paid time off each week to volunteer.

Health care

Franklin Templeton provides free medical coverage for employees and charges $40 a month to cover a family of four. Employees and dependents get free dental insurance.

Dependent care

Bank of America offers up to $152 a month to defray child care costs, while Tech Data gives employees $70 a month toward each preschool-age child's costs.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida subsidizes up to 80 hours a year of in-home care for dependents recovering from illness or surgery.

Bayfront St. Anthony's Health Care provides on-site care for employees' sick children at a heavily subsidized $15 a day.

Adoption benefits

PricewaterhouseCoopers has paid adoption leave, with between 60 percent and 100 percent of salary for up to six weeks if you are the "primary care parent" of a newly adopted child who is under age 18. The company also will reimburse up to $5,000 of adoption-related expenses (up to $6,000 for a special needs child).

A sampling of employee freebies

Safe deposit box at First Union.

Use of fitness center at Jabil Circuit and Franklin Templeton.

Use of boats and waterfront recreation at Eckerd College.

Car seats for new parents at Allstate.

Cable TV and America Online Internet service at Time Warner.

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