Long-distance trips may be something to boast about, with wanderlust-driven influencers posting perfectly filtered photos on their social media accounts. Work-sponsored road trips also may sound glamorous but workers should recognize the potential negative impacts of business travel on their health.

Frequent business travel is associated with poorer health outcomes, according to “Business Travel and Behavioral and Mental Health,” a 2018 article from the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The analysis found that people who traveled more often for work were more likely to smoke, have trouble sleeping and show higher levels of anxiety and depression symptoms. The study concluded that “employers should provide programs to help employees manage stress and maintain health while traveling for work.”

Hal F. Rosenbluth, chairman and CEO of New Ocean Health Solutions, at one point hit the road every other week for work. Rosenbluth knows the challenges of regular business travel within the U.S. and abroad. For people who travel overseas, there’s “always the possibility of sickness or geopolitical events that require immediate attention and sometimes evacuation,” he said.

Also read: Helping HR Care for the Business Traveler

Medical and travel security services firm International SOS and medical insurance provider Geo Blue are among the options for these travelers. “I typically use it if I’m traveling to countries where medical care isn’t terrific or I’m out of the city somewhere where there isn’t a lot of care. If something goes wrong, I know I can have a plane or a helicopter get me to where I need to go,” Rosenbluth said.

Lengthy international trips may “cause a person to lack focus after arrival” and Rosenbluth recommends travelers delay meetings for 24 hours to recover from the flight and adapt to time changes.

Whether someone is traveling domestically or abroad, work-life balance may take a hit. Especially for people with young families, the partner who remains at home with the children may feel overwhelmed, Rosenbluth said, and that communication is important.

Business professionals informally polled on LinkedIn by Workforce had several suggestions to stay healthy while traveling for work and how employers can help.

• Find quick, healthy grab-and-go options near the hotel to resist the urge to eat fast food.
• Join a gym with multiple locations to use the membership while traveling.
• Employers can maintain a company culture that stresses positive health behaviors like getting enough sleep and allowing people time to eat.
• Reimburse reasonable wellness expenses for fitness classes in travel destinations.

Rosenbluth suggests that travelers exercise, which may be difficult if there’s no fitness center or if the destination poses a safety hazard for walks offsite. Business travelers also should be careful about what they eat and should carefully consider food safety.

Also read: Got Breast Milk? These Female Business Travelers Do

The post Business Travelers May Need Help Managing Their Health appeared first on Workforce.

https://www.workforce.com/2019/05/15/business-travelers-stress-management-health/

The $5 trillion in retirement plans have become a “tempting target” for hackers to access sensitive information held by plan providers in the industry, so two legislators asked the Government Accountability Office to examine data protections, processes and procedures within the private retirement system.

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, and U.S. Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott, D-Virginia., sent the letter in February, saying that cybersecurity protections are ill-defined, especially when it comes to what needs to be done in the event of a data breach. The legislators asked the GAO to examine 10 pointed questions around the safety of the private retirement system.

“It is important that workers and retirees know their savings are in fact safe, and that a cyberattack will not throw the retirement they have spent years working and planning for into jeopardy,” the letter said.

While there is no hard data on retirement-savings breaches, and organizations remain tight-lipped to minimize exposure to cybersecurity risks, it appears to be a growing threat to companies large and small that offer retirement plans.

Currently there is no comprehensive national law governing cybersecurity in the private retirement sector, a December working paper published by the Pension Research Council reported. The intent of the paper was to put into context the challenges faced by the industry today, said Ben Taylor, senior vice president at Callan LLC and one of the four authors of the paper.

In the retirement business, a lot of money and personal information is at stake. Names, birthdates, addresses, Social Security numbers, bank accounts and other sensitive information are all common data points that are transferred between organizations and providers. Right now, there is no set framework or standard for how this information should be protected, Taylor said.

“There is a lot of gray area when it comes to cybersecurity,” he added.

While there is no hard data on retirement-savings breaches, it appears to be a growing threat to companies large and small that offer retirement plans.

In fact, Taylor noted that in some cases, it is hard to determine where a plan sponsor needs to go to report a hack. He added that one client, who didn’t know which law enforcement handled breaches in his area, ended up going to the state highway patrol — the presiding authority for cyberthreats in that state.

“It’s a pretty complicated matrix of threat responses,” for plan sponsors to know about, he added.

The private sector hasn’t waited for the federal government to come up with cybersecurity standards for the industry. The SPARK Institute, which stands for the Society of Professional Asset-Managers and Recordkeepers, created the Industry Best Practice Data Security Reporting standards in September 2017. With this paper, SPARK established 16 data security control objectives that service providers can use as a communication tool to show their level of cybersecurity sophistication.

Also read: The Long, Winding Road to Retirement 

Providing information to plan sponsors in the world of cybersecurity can be complicated for service providers, said Tim Rouse, SPARK’s executive director and co-author to the Pension Research Council’s working paper. Plan sponsors want providers to explain how data are protected from breaches. Meanwhile, providers need to keep some level of secrecy to protect against being hacked. The SPARK standards created a base of communication between providers and plan sponsors that uses a third-party auditor to evaluate and then relay to plan sponsors the provider’s level of data protection.

Rouse said the standards are not meant to guarantee against data breaches. It’s more of a tool for plan sponsors to use when evaluating service providers.

“If a provider’s [security processes] information gets distributed to a plan sponsor, it’s just as good as becoming public knowledge. It becomes the road map that the bad guys can use to get into someone’s system,” Rouse said. “A third party auditor brings flexibility to the system. The hackers don’t know what they are up against.”

Using a third-party auditor to evaluate a provider’s level of sophistication has worked well, said Neal Ringquist, executive vice president for Retirement Clearinghouse, an industry service supplier, specializing in providing consolidation and portability services to defined contribution plans.

To protect Retirement Clearinghouse’s process, “There are certain things that we would not want to disclose” to a client, Ringquist said. “This is a middle ground that can accommodate both sides.”

Also read: Remodeling Retirement for the 21st Century

While SPARK’s standards help provide some level of assurance, industry experts agreed national standards are needed.

“It is clear that the lack of cybersecurity expertise in the adviser community, the need for plan sponsors to protect participant data, and the lack of a uniform standard or process for third-party audits of cybersecurity measures all call for a solution,” the working paper said.

Getting to that national solution for the retirement industry will be difficult, experts agreed. Issues including determining the regulator for cybersecurity, coordinating state and federal rules, possibly setting a required level of insurance coverage are all part of creating an overall solution. In addition, lawmakers will need to consider whether failing to protect plan data would result in plan sponsors breaking their fiduciary obligations.

“The industry is looking for clarity on how to respond and distinguish different types of threats,” Taylor said. “Determining how and when to do what can be an extraordinary challenge.”

The post Cybersecurity Retirement Risks Trouble Benefits Leaders appeared first on Workforce.

https://www.workforce.com/2019/05/13/cybersecurity-retirement-risks-benefits-leaders/

Score a perfect 100 for corporate social responsibility.

CSAA Insurance Group announced that the company achieved a 100 percent employee volunteerism rate in 2018.

All 3,800 employees, including executive leadership, donated a total of 47,045 hours through the company’s 609 volunteer events across the United States. The hours employees spent volunteering represented about $1.16 million, according to company officials. Some of the volunteer projects supported nonprofit organizations such as American Heart Association, Habitat for Humanity, Junior Achievement and The Crayon Initiative.

The AAA insurer is based in Walnut Creek, California, and provides AAA-branded insurance to 23 states and the District of Columbia. CSAA, which is based in Walnut Creek, California that provides AAA-branded insurance to 23 states and the District of Columbia, originally set a corporate goal in 2012 to achieve 80 percent volunteerism participation among their employees, said Senior Manager of Community Affairs Vanessa Chan. The company did not initially aspire to have all of its employees participate in the volunteer program, she said.

“That wouldn’t be authentic of us,” Chan said. “We wanted volunteers, not volun-tolds.” The following years saw employee participation climb to 98 percent in 2015 and finally 100 percent in 2018.

Chan gave credit to the employees for making that happen. In fact, Chan noted that she was not surprised that the volunteer programs achieved 100 percent participation.

“Our company values include being caring and doing the right thing. When you hire people based on those values, our results are not surprising,” she said.

While the employees manifested this achievement, leadership played an important role by reaffirming a culture that empowered employees to pursue their passions.

“Part of that culture comes from leadership volunteering alongside our employees,” Chan said. Another aspect of creating a socially responsible corporation comes from empowering the employees through company initiatives and policy, said Chan, who emphasized that a company should approach volunteer programs in a way that is reflective of the corporate values.

“As a company, you really need to understand why you want a volunteer program,” Chan explained, “You have to be authentic when you roll out a volunteer program.”

In order to make the volunteer program more accessible to employees, CSAA has eight locations. These locations are operated employees who serve on a volunteer committee that is supported by a full-time volunteer manager. Employees have the option to propose an event to the committee based on their passion for a project or organization and the committees collectively manage the volunteer events. For Chan, having employees be a part of the planning and decision-making has made the program more authentic, and therefore successful.

“I think that the more authentic that you can be, the better.”

Employee resource groups have also been integrated into the volunteer program at CSAA including Somos, the Hispanic/Latino resource group; the Black Employees Association; and the Asian/Pacific Islander connection group.

“We look to our ERGs to help us identify volunteer activities, so we are making an impact in those communities,” Chan said.

Chan’s advice to companies wanting to develop a volunteer program or grow a pre-existing one is to utilize data to support leadership decisions.

“One of the things that really helped us get the support from [leadership] when we started was looking at the data. Data can help inform a lot of things like how many people are volunteering, which locations are most successful, and looking at best practices,” Chan said. Data was key to adding on-site volunteering opportunities for employees that worked in CSAA call centers.

“We recognized that it was harder for them to get off the phone in order to have more flexibility in terms of volunteering,” Chan said.

CSAA partnered with Maryland-based VeraWorks, a consulting firm that helps companies with socially responsible initiatives. Over a six-month period, employees who participated in volunteer events showed an uptick in engagement.

The research also showed 97 percent of employees reported that they were satisfied with the volunteer program. Employees also reported that volunteerism was one of the most meaningful things in their lives, second only to family.

Chan attributes this success to the top-down support of volunteer efforts, active volunteer committees and a year-round volunteer program. CSAA also offers 24 days of paid time off annually in order for employees to take advantage of volunteer opportunities.

“Without the volunteer committees and offering time off, I don’t think we would have as many people volunteering,” Chan said.

Alongside the company’s commitment to charity, CSAA is also focused on sustainability and conservation. “It’s not just our company saying, ‘Employees what can you do to be green?’ It’s the company leading by example as well,” Chan said. The insurer’s headquarters in Northern California is ‘Gold’ certified in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, which is the second highest LEED rating a building can achieve. This building is also designed with electric vehicle charging stations for the company’s fleet of hybrid vehicles.

Environmental awareness is also a part of the company’s community outreach initiatives. In conjunction with their regular volunteer practices CSAA held a Heart-to-Earth event in April of this year which is a week-long campaign that supports environmental organizations through volunteer services, awareness, education and financial support. “We also offer a sustainability community of practice that encourages employees to regularly discuss how we can improve our efforts to go green,” Chan said.

Chan doesn’t expect the company to change the volunteer program.

“Even though we hit 100 percent last year, we don’t have the goal of hitting 100 percent. What’s really important to us is having an authentic program,” Chan said. “We want to make sure that we are doing work that is important to all of our employees.”

The post Employees Literally All in With Corporate Social Responsibility appeared first on Workforce.

https://www.workforce.com/2019/05/09/employees-literally-all-in-with-corporate-social-responsibility/