4 ways to prepare for and avoid ACA penalties; Target to send part-timers to buy HIX plans; study IDs your most engaged worker: 3 things you need to know this week in employee benefits

4 ways to prepare for and avoid ACA penalities

As you ease into 2014 … are you prepared for 2015?

Employer penalties tied to the Affordable Care Act will be implemented in less than a year, and a slideshow published by Employee Benefit News hones in on four key areas on which to focus your efforts.

Employers should take this year to “devise tactics that will negate negative outcomes,” including “working with payroll and HRIS vendors now to create systems that will flag hours employees work and maintain them in a form that will be suitable for use to prove to the government,” advises benefits lawyer Peter Marathas, of the firm Proskauer Rose and its Health Care Reform Task Force team.

For example, does your team include various contractors or freelancers? A $2,000 per-employee fee will be imposed upon employers who don’t provide health benefits to full-time workers. Although freelancers/contractors don’t count as full-time, if more than 5% of the employees fall into this bracket, penalties for failing to provide benefits still would come in to play.

Target to send part-timers to buy HIX plans

Target will stop offering health coverage to part-time employees on April 1, acknowledging that this employee segment could save money by buying health insurance through the exchange marketplace.

"By offering them insurance, we could actually disqualify many of them from being eligible for newly available subsidies that could reduce their overall health insurance expense," according to a statement from the retailer to NBC News by way of Reuters. In lieu of health benefits, Target team members affected by the shift—less than 10% of the company’s 361,000+ employees—will receive $500 toward purchasing a new plan.

Target follows other large retailers, including Home Depot and Walgreens, in eliminating benefit plans for part-time workers to defray rising health care costs by leveraging insurance exchanges, which now cover more than 2.1 million people.

This week’s hidden gem: Vast majority of workers are engaged in their jobs

Are you engaged, excited and happy at work? The answer most likely is yes, according to the Keas Employee Happiness Index, which polled 762 employees across the country who participated in its employer-offered health program. 92% of respondents said they are indeed pleased—compared to the less rosy 30% revealed by Gallup’s State of the American Workplace survey.

Using demographic information, Keas unsurprisingly finds that motivation, productivity and happiness all contribute to employee engagement. Those three factors also go hand-in-hand with overall employee wellness/wellbeing, Keas CEO Josh Stevens tells Workforce. “Healthy employees don’t have to dedicate time and resources to managing challenges in their health, and in turn are able to be more productive in their day-to-day lives.”