In today’s environment, when every dollar counts, you may be looking for ways to provide more benefits to your employees without breaking the bank. Listed below are a few ideas to consider with little to no expense to you.

* Do all annual reviews on time. Most companies tie annual pay raises to the annual review. By doing the review on time, employees receive their raises when they should - not many months later. If you are consistent with doing reviews on time, it shows the company’s commitment to provide its employees timely feedback and monetary rewards. In this day and age, the much-needed pay raise is needed when it is due. And, if you consistently do reviews on time, you can use that fact to market yor commitment to your employees as you seek out potential new employees.

* Initiate a New Employee Program that sets up a first week (or a shorter period of time if that’s more appropriate) of scheduled events and meetings to make sure each new employee is made to feel welcome when they join your company. Assign specific tasks to existing employees so the new employee and staff get a chance to meet while at the same time, the new mployee is learning how your company operates. Be sure to include lunch plans the first week with an officer or management staff.

* Provide a Flex Hours Program. If it’s possible, allow employees the ability to set their “own” hours. Depending on their commute, coming in around 6 AM or after 9 AM might make all the difference in how well they perform their job. One suggestion if you do set up flex hours once they select their work hours, they need to stick with them or you will have chaos. You might offer the ability to select new flex work hours once (or possibly twice) a year.

* Most banks offer an Automatic Deposit program. Pairing up with a local/the company’s bank allows you the ability to offer automatic deposit of paychecks for employees. This benefit eliminates the hassle for the employee to run to the bank to deposit it on payday. And, when an employee is on vacation, their paycheck is automatically deposited for them! Although this is a convenience for them, you eliminate the need to generate checks every payday. It can also strengthen your company’s relationship with your bank.

* Initiate a Recognition Program. You can determine what type of behavior you wish to reward (and how you will reward it), but some ideas on recognition programs include: length of service, perfect attendance (for a selected period of time), customer service (when recognized in writing by a customer) or meeting deadlines consistently over a certain period of time. You might set up this type of program so they are distributed once a quarter or only once a year. A free way to give the employee recognition is to post the awards on your web site. This goes a long way in rewarding the employee but it also gives your current and potential clients and idea of how you value your employees.

This is just a sample of ideas you can use to continue to reward your employees during any type of economy.

Universal Live Insurance (ULI) is an insurance policy with a cash savings value attached to it. The premiums are set at a fixed or sometimes flexible rate and are paid into the accounts principal fund. The Cost of Insurance (COI), which is what you are actually being changed for the insurance coverage, is debited from that principal. Because at the onset of a policy the premiums are more than the COI the principal gains value through premiums as well as through interest.

As the insured individual ages the COI goes up. At some point it will exceed the premiums at which time interest and if necessary principal funds will be used in addition to the premiums to pay the COI.

ULI policies are being marketed heavily by insurance companies, but does that mean they are a good deal for you? Let’s do some math.

If a 30 year old man buys a $500,000 ULI policy the premium will be in the neighborhood of $400 a month. With a good interest rate and assuming a steady rate of ULI increase from 30 to 60, at after 30 years of paying premiums the insured party will have accumulated $200,000 in principal. If he keeps the policy beyond that point the principal will began to decline as the COI starts to exceed the premium and place a drain on the principal.

If, in the example above the insured person dies at age 55 his beneficiary will receive $500,000 per the policy benefit. So what happens to the principal? GONE part of the “management cost of the policy”. So with this arrangement, if the insured outlives the policy it pays $200K, if not it pays his beneficiary $500K.

There is a better way.

A 30 year old male can take out a 30 year $500K flat term policy for about $57 a month. That’s quite a drop from $400 a month but of course the term policy doesn’t have a savings plan built in. Fortunately, most people who can buy insurance can also start investment accounts. So what would happen if our 30 year old bought the term policy and put the other $343 a month in a Roth IRA invested in some good growth stock mutual funds averaging at least 12% interest, a number that isn’t hard to find by the way?

At the end of the 30 years the money in the Roth IRA (which grows tax free) would have grown not to the $200,000 that the ULI would have but to a whopping $1,200,000. There would be no need to continue the policy beyond this point because the investment principal is now more than double the policy!

But what happens if the insured person dies at 55? Well, the beneficiary would receive the policy benefit of $500K just like with the ULI, but the Roth IRA would be worth $638,374 for a grand total of $1,138,374. According to my math that is much better than $500K.

So who needs a ULI.

Must be for people who can’t do math!

You’re answering a voice mail message when you get a notice that a text message has arrived. Sitting in front of your computer, your mail icon indicates receipt of a new email while your IM screen pops open. What to respond to first? Is this a typical day? Unfortunately, most likely it is.

As we struggle to stay up with the various communication options available, many people feel they are wasting more time than they are saving, due to constant interruptions. Technology creates immediacy. Before we decide to stomp on our cell phone or smash the computer, let’s look at some ways to incorporate a little structure, letting the technology work for us instead of against us.

VOICE MAIL
Be sure that your voice mail message asks for the caller to leave a detailed message. That should be a given, but how often do you get a message that says, “Hi. Give me a call; I have a question.”? So you call back, and they aren’t available. You can’t leave a response because you don’t know why you’re calling. So the phone tag begins. If they had stated the question, you could have called back with the answer and most likely the process would have ended at that point.

When you are leaving a message, give enough detail that the person can properly. If information must be researched first, they will complete that task before responding, again saving both of you a lot of call-backs and getting nothing accomplished.

Make it a habit to return calls on the same business day if at all possible. If someone is waiting for your answer, it is courteous and professional to get back with them as soon as possible. If you have a policy of response time, state it in our voice mail message so the caller will know when to expect to hear from youwithin 24 hours, the next business day, etc.

EMAIL
Here is a scenario that happens consistently with most everyone I know: You are working at your desk and the little envelope appears, or your computer dings’ (or both). Mail has arrived. Hurry up and check it! This interruption can take just a minute, or enough of them can consume your day. If you just can’t ignore these notifications, turn off the audio and the envelope icon.

I’ve heard from business associates that they read their emails only 2 or 3 times a day. Some choose first thing in the morning and after lunch. Others check their mail mid-morning, after lunch and mid-afternoon. Their theory is that waiting until mid-morning rather than reading emails right away allows them to address immediate needs before attending to the emails, plus they’ll still have time to answer this correspondence before lunch, providing a timely response.

Try a few different times and see what works best for you. Reading and responding to emails in blocks rather than continually throughout the day will prevent a lot of interruptions and provide for a more focused work day. I heard at a seminar years ago that each interruption causes a loss of 15-30 minutes before you’re back functioning at the level you had achieved prior to the break in concentration. Think of how many times your email causes this!

Another of my articles, titled “24 Hours A Day Is All We Get”, discusses handling interruptions and the 3-options process. We can do the same with email throw it away (delete), file it (save to a folder for future reference) or answer it (then file it or delete it).

NEWSLETTERS
Email newsletters arrive daily. Some are extremely educational, others informational, and still others just a nuisance. You have total control over this, and it’s as easy as clicking “Unsubscribe” to the email newsletters you have no interest in receiving.

I receive a lot of newsletters from fellow members of Rainmakers, a networking organization (www.gorainmakers.co m). I like to get them because it’s a quick, monthly reminder to refer business to them, and it helps me stay up with changes in their businesses, new products, new employees, etc. I will scan the headlines, and if nothing draws my interest, I delete it, at a cost of less than a minute of my time. If there is an item of interest, I choose to take the time to review the article.

Try these suggestions; you’ll have a more focused, productive and time-efficient day.

by : Cindy Hartman

Financial planning for the senior depends upon individual circumstances. Some couples approach retirement with the same partner they originally married. Married, with adult children and grandchildren, they seek to spend earnings, generated through a lifetime of effort, and leave the balance to the kids. It turns out this is a much easier scenario to plan, then the couple who has lost a spouse through divorce or widowhood, has remarried, and each spouse has their own children and grandchildren. In the latter case, financial planning is more complicated.

Some couples enter their “golden years” fully prepared to reap rewards of years of hard work. Throughout life, they planned, generated revenue streams to care for them, and, with social security benefits, find they have enough money to live for the duration of life. Others aren’t so fortunate, as they avoided considering their retirement, or faced an unexpected hardship, and then suddenly realized, social security, would not generate enough money to support them.

There are so many possible scenarios that could have occurred throughout life, that planning tips for older couples is impossible, without an understanding of the resources available. Therefore, the first step to planning for your financial future is to carefully analyze what resources you have available.

Analyze monthly income: What is your monthly income? Do you have social security benefits adequate to meet monthly living expenses? Do you have savings accounts? Stocks? Bonds paying dividends? Pensions? Insurance benefits? The very first step you must take to evaluate how much money you have to live on, is to carefully evaluate what you have in income each month.

Determine monthly costs: How much money does it cost you to live each month? What are the expenditures? Do you have a home, or are you renting a home? Even if you own a home, you still need to pay yearly taxes, and insurance on this home. Not having a mortgage is a great benefit, but you must consider other expenses of homeownership.
Just as with financial planning at any age, you will need to consider the amount of money it costs you to live each month. Consider taxes, insurance, medical, food, entertainment, gasoline for the car, utility bills, cable, phone.

Consider assets: Consider stock and bond funds, pension funds, social security income, primary or secondary homes, annuities, jewelery, cars. All of these are considered in financial planning.

Evaluate debt: How much do you need to pay off debts to creditors? Do you have credit card debt? Mortgage debt?
Do your best to eliminate all debt.

Subtract liabilities from assets, and this is your net worth.
After considering net worth, and cash flow each month determine if you have enough to live out your life. Remember there is a big unknown factor, as none of us have a crystal ball and know exactly how long we will live. You will want to consider in the event your spouse dies, will you be able to meet your monthly expenses?: If not, develop a plan.

Assuming you have planned well, and have reached the golden years with enough financial resources, you will want to consider how to invest the money you have. Consider stocks and bonds. When you were young, you wanted to have more money invested in stocks for growth. Now that you are older, you will want to place more of your funds in bonds that generate dividends, that you can use to live on. When young, place 60% of investment money into stocks, and 40% into bonds. Now that you are older, you will want to reverse this, placing more money in bonds, then in stock funds.

Think about leaving money to children and grandchildren. If you are of the original marriage, and have the same children you will have a simpler plan then if you have different children, from previous marriages.

Whatever, wherever, or whoever you decide to leave resources to, write it down. Create a plan for the inheritance and the distribution. You might want to speak with an attorney about creating a “living trust” In the event you should fall ill, you don’t want to be wiped out from medical expenses not covered by insurance or Medicare.

While leaving money to the kids is nice, but I am a firm believer in taking care of you first. You earned the money. You should reap the rewards. Take time to enjoy some of the income you may have available to you. You cannot take it with you.