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196 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
Equal Work |
Work having equal skills, equal efort, equal responsibility, and similar working conditions, all performed at the same location.
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Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA)
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Act that established uniform minumum standards for employer-sponsored retirement and health and welfare benefit programs.
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457 plans
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Plans that allow employees of states, political subdivisions or agencies of states, and certain tax-exempt organizations to defer receipt of wages.
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401k Plans
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Plans that allow employees to make tax forward pay deferrals toward retirement savings through a payroll deduction plan
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Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA)
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Act that provides individuals and dependents who may lose medical coverage with opportunity to pay to continue coverage.
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Exempt employees
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Employees who are excluded from FLSA minumum wage and OT pay requirements
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Deferred compensation
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Plan that provides income to employees at some future time as compensation for work performed now.
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403 b plans
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Plans that allow employee of certain tax exempt organizations to contribute pretax dollars toward retirement savings
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Compensable factors
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Reflect the dimensions along which a job is perceived to add value to the organization;used to determine which jobs are worth more than others.
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Davis-Bacon Act
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Act that established prevailing wage and benefit requirements for contractors on federally funded constructions projects
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Copayment
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Specified percetnage (typically 20% to 30%) of covered medical expenses that employee pays or fixed dollar amt that covered persons pays each time he or she visits a physicial or purchases prescription drugs
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Call-back pay
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Pay that employees receive when they are called back for an extra shift in the same workday.
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Cliff Vesting
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Requires participants to complete a specific number of years of service with an ER before they get any vested benefits, after which they are now 100% vested.
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Balance Billing
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Practice where an uncontracted medical provider bills a patient for all charges not paid for by the patients insurance plan, even if those charges are above the plans usual customary rate or are considered medically unnecessary.
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Copeland "Anti-Kickback" Act
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Act that prohibits federal contractors from receiving kickbacks from EEs or subcontractors for wages earned on federal projects.
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Deductible
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Initial amount of covered medical expenses an individual must pay before receiving paid benefits under a health-care plan.
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Commission
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Payment made to salespeople, usually calculated as a percentage of sales.
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Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA)
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Periodic compensation payment given to eligible employees regardless of their performance or organizational profitability; usually linked to inflation.
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Capitate health-care plan
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Type of health care plan in which the physician is paid on a per capita (per head) basis rather than for actual treatment provided.
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Base Pay
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Basic compensation an employee receives, usually as a wage or salary.
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Consumer-directed health care
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Health care options intended to help employers better control costs while allowing employees to make more decisions abut their health care.
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Comparable Worth
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Concept that states that jobs requiring comparable skills, effort, responsibility, and working conditions filled primarily by women should have the same job classification an salary as similar jobs filled by men.
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Cash Balance Plan
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Form of defined benefit plan that defines the promised benefit in terms of a hypothetical account balance and features benefit portability.
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Benchmark Jobs
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Jobs used as reference points when setting up a job classification system and when designing or modifying a pay structure.
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Defined benefit plan
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Plan that promises employee a retirement benefit amount based on a formula.
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General pay increase
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Pay increase given to all employees (or a class of ee's such as office or productions workers) based on local competitive market requirements; awarded regardless of employee performance.
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Full cafeteria plan
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Type of Section 125 plan that allows employees to choose from a menu of benefits and allocate pretax dollars to pay for those benefits.
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Flat-Rate pay
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Provides each incumbent of a job with the same rate of pay, regardless of performance or seniority; also know as single-rate pay.
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Fully insured health-care plan
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Health-care plan in which the ER pays a third-party insurance carrier premiums that cover medical charges, administrative costs, sales commissions, taxes, and profits.
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Flexible spending account (FSA)
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Type of Section 125 plan that allows employees to use pretax dollars to pay for out-of-pocket health and dependent care expenses.
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Coordination of benefits
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Eliminates the duplication of payments when an employee, spouse, or dependents have health coverage under two or more plans
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Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
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Act that provides employees with up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for family members or because of a serious health condition of the employee.
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Explanation of benefits (EOB)
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Written statement provided by an insurance provider indicating what portion of a benefit claim was paid to the health-care provider and what portion of the payment, if any, the individual is responsible for.
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Excess group-term life insurance
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Amount of Employer-provided group-term life insurance over 50K.
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Emloyees
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Workers who are covered by Fair Labor Standards Act regulations as determined by the IRS.
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Coverdell Education Savings Account (ESA)
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Trust created exclusively for the purpose of paying the qualified education expenses of a designated beneficiary.
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Preferred Provider Organizations (PPO)
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Formed by an insurance company, an employer, or a group of ERs who negotiate discounted fees with networks of health are providers; in return, the ERs guarantee a certain volume of patients.
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Simplified Employee Pension (SEP)
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Tax-deferred account to which the self-employed and employees of very small businesses can contribute.
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Severance Package
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Sets of benefits provided to employees who are terminated for some reason other than cause.
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Self-funded health-care plan
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Health-care plan in which the employer takes on the role of the insurance company and assumes some or all of the risk.
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Salary compression
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Occurs when there is only a small difference in pay between employees regardless of their skills, experience or seniority; also know as pay compression
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Revenue rulings
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Rulings published by the IRS as general guidelines to all taxpayers or organizations
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Red-circle rates
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Describe situations where employees pay is above the range maximum.
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Qualified domestic relations orders (QDROs)
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Create or recognize the right of an alternative payee to receive all or a portion of the benefits under a retirement plan.
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Productivity-based pay
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Pay based on the quantity of work and outputs that can be accurately measured.
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Premium Pay
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Extra pay for working holidays or vacation days.
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Single-rate pay
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Provide each incumbent of a job with the same rate of pay, regardless of performance or seniority; also known as flat-rate pay.
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Shift Pay
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Supplemental pay paid to employees who work less-desirable hours, such as second or third shifts.
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Seniority
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System that shows preference to employees with the longest service.
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Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees (SIMPLE)
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Retirement plan by which employees can contribute each year to a 401k plan or IRA
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Roth 401K/403b plans
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Plans that allow after-tax contributions to existing 401k or 403b plans
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Emergency Shift pay
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Extra pay that employees receive when they are called into work during and emergency (e.g., a power outage)
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Compa-ratio
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Pay rate divided by the midpoint of the pay range.
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Clawback provision
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Allows a publicly traded company to take back previous executive incentive-based compensation in specific circumstances.
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Broadbanding
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Combining several salary grades or job classifications with narrow pay ranges into one band with a wider salary spread.
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529 plan
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Qualified tuition plan that provides families a federal tax-free way to save money for college.
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Golden parachutes
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Clauses written into executive contracts that provide special payments to key executives who might lose their position or be otherwise disadvantaged if another organization took control through a merger or acquisition; also know as parachutes.
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Gatekeeper
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Individual, usually a primary-care physician, who is given control of patient access to specialists and services in a managed care organization.
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Frequency table
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Shows the number of people or organizations associated with data organized in a frequency distribution.
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Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)
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Private, not-for-profit body that decides how public financial executives should report their firms financial information to their shareholders.
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Factor comparison method
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Job comparison method that ranks each job by each selected compensable factor and then identifies dollar values to develop a pay rate.
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Draw
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Amount advanced on future commissions
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Defined Contribution Plan
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Plan in which the employer and sometimes the employee make an annual payment to the employees retirement plan account.
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Graded Vesting
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System by which qualified retirement plan participants become incrementally vested over a period of years of service.
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International Social Security Agreements
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Bilateral social security agreements that coordinate the US social security program with the comparable programs of other countries; also know as totalization agreements.
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Performance -based pay
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Situation where an individuals performance is the basis for the amount and timing of pay increases also called merit pay.
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Reasonable and customary
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Reimbursement standard used by insurance companies to determine how much providers should be paid for their services.
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Qualified deferred compensation plan
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Retirement benefit offered to all employees in the organization; provides tax advantages and is protected under Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
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Private-letter rulings
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Rulings issued by the IRS to specific taxpayers or organizations that request interpretation of the law
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Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
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Act that regulates employee status, overtime pay, child labor, minimum wage, record keeping, and other administrative concerns.
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Experience Rating
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Rating system that bases insurance rates on claims history.
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Reporting pay
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Pay provided to employees who report for work as scheduled but then find that no work is available.
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Qualifying event
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Under COBRA, an event, such as termination for reasons other than gross misconduct, that allows employees to continue their group health-care coverage for a specific period of time.
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Profit Sharing plan
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Plans that distribute a portion of an organizations profits to its employees.
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Premium Sharing
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Situation in which employee pays a portion of the required monthly premium for health care coverage.
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Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC)
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Tax credit to encourage employers to hire people from targeted groups.
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Vesting
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Process by which a retirement benefit becomes nonforfeitable.
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Excess deferral plans
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Nonqualified deferred compensation plans that provide benefits to selected management or highly compensated employees beyond Section 415 limitations.
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Employee stock-ownership plan (ESOP)
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Stock plan structured as a form of ERISA-governed qualified retirement plan.
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Direct compensation
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Pay that is received by an employee, including base pay, differential pay, and incentive pay.
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Gross earnings
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Total earnings before taxes; include regular wages plus additional earnings such as tips, bonuses, and overtime pay.
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Golden handcuffs
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System of overlapping short-and long-term incentives to make it less likely that key employees will leave an organization.
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Gainsharing plans
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Group incentives where a portion of the gains an organization realizes from group efforts is shared with the group.
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Frequency Distribution
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Listing of grouped data, from lowest to highest.
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Fee-for-services health-care plan
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Full choice health care plan that allows covered employees to go to any qualified physical or hospital and submit claims to the insurance company; also known as indemnity health-care plan.
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External equity
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When an organizations pay rates are at least equal to market rates.
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Exclusive provider organization (EPO)
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Plan in which participants must use providers in the network of coverage or no payment will be made.
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Equal Pay Act (EPA)
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Act that prohibits wage discrimination by requiring equal pay for equal work.
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Employee Commuting Flexibility Act
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Amendment to the Portal-to-Portal Act; clarifies that commuting time is not paid working time.
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Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act
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Law that calls for fundamental changes in executive compensation disclosure, compensation committee independence, shareholder voting rights, and clawback provisions in publicly traded companies.
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Lump-sum increase (LSI)
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One-time payment made to an employee; also called performance bonus.
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Lifetime maximum benefit
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Maximum dollar amount of covered medical expenses that a health-care plan will pay on behalf of any covered person during that persons lifetime.
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Involuntary deductions
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Payroll deductions such as tax levies and court-ordered child support that an employee must pay.
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Indirect compensation
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Compensation commonly referred to as benefits
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Hourly wage
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Form of base pay that is dependent on the number of hours worked.
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Health maintenance organizations (HMOs)
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Form of health care that provides services for a fixed period on a prepaid basis.
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Group-term life insurance
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Form of insurance carried by employers for their employees that provides a lump-sum payment to the employees beneficiaries.
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Managed care
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General term for a medial plan that seeks to ensure that the treatments a person receives are medically necessary and provided in a cost-effective manner.
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Line of sight
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Concept that states that employees must be able to influence the attainment of a goal and see a direct result of their efforts in order for incentive pay plans to be effective.
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Job classification
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Evaluation method that groups jobs into a predetermined number of grades or classifications, each having a class description to use for job comparisons.
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Unemployment Compensation Amendments (UCA)
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Imposed a mandatory 20% federal income tax withholding requirement on most qualified retirement plan proceeds that a recipient does not roll over into another qualified retirement plan or individual retirement account.
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Total rewards
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All forms of financial and nonfinancial returns that employees receive from their employers.
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Taxpayer Relief Act (TRA)
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Act that created tax-advantaged savings mechanisms.
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Supplemental unemployment benefits (SUB)
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Benefits paid to unemployed workers beyond required government unemployment benefits.
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Small Business Job Protection Act (SBJPA)
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Act that made changes to rules regarding the ability of tax-exempt organizations to institute retirement plans modeled after 401k and IRA accounts and to the definition of highly compensated employees
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Workers compensation
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State insurance program designed to protect workers in cases of work-related injuries or diseases.
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Voluntary deductions
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Payroll deductions selected by the employee such as charitable contributions.
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Unemployment insurance
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Mandatory benefit program set up as part of the Social Security Act designed to provide employees with some income when they lose their jobs through no fault of their own.
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Totalization agreements
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Bilateral social security agreements that coordinate the US Social Security program with the comparable programs of other countries; also known as international social security agreements.
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Time-based differential pay
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Pay rates that are affected by when an employee works
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Supplemental wages
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Pay beyond base salary or wages such as bonuses and commissions.
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Social Security
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Social Security Administration program that provides retirement, disability, death, and survivors benefits.
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Work-related disability
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Physical condition (accident or illness) that is caused, aggravated, precipitated, or accelerated by work activity or the work environment.
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Individual retirement accounts (IRAs)
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Tax deferred accounts to which wage earners can contribute an amount up to a yearly maximum.
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In loco parentis
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"In place of a parent"; term used in expansion of FMLA coverage to employees who stand in place of a parent with day to day responsibilities to care for and financially support a child or who have a day to day responsibility to care for or financially support a person who stood in loco parentis for them.
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Health reimbursement account (HRA)
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Employer-funded plan that reimburses employees only for eligible and substantiated health-care expenses.
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Hazard pay
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Pay earned by employees who work in an environment that is considered more risky from a safety or health point of view.
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Market-based evaluation
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Method similar to job evaluation systems that evaluates jobs based upon their market value.
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Long-term care insurance
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Insurance coverage that provides a daily monetary benefit to people who are chronically ill and who require living assistance either at home or in a residential facility.
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Job evaluation
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Systematic determination of the relative worth of jobs within an organziations
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Internal equity
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Occurs when people feel that performance or job differences result in corresponding differences in pay rates.
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Incentive pay
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Form of direct compensation where employers pay for performance beyond normal expectations to motivate employes to perform at higher levels
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Health Savings Account (HSA)
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Tax-sheltered savings account similar to an IRA but created primarily to pay for medical expenses.
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Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
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Act that made changes to improve health-care coverage portability and accessibilty and provide medical record privacy and security
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Maturity Curves
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Correlate pay with time spent in a professional field such as teaching or research.
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Long-term disability (LTD) coverage
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Replaces a portion of employees lost income after short-term disability coverage ends.
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Job ranking
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Evaluation method that establishes a hierarchy of jobs from lowest to highest based on overall importance to the organization.
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Indemnity health-care plan
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Full-choice health care plan that allows covered employees to go to any qualified physician or hospital and submit claims to the insurance company; also known as fee for service health care plan.
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Highly compensated employee (HCE)
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Determined by an array of issues such as business ownership and /or salary.
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Health insurance purchasing cooperative (HIPC)
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Purchases health care plans for large groups of employers to provide small organizations the economic advantages large organizations have.
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Physician hospital organizations (PHOs)
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Consist of hospital and physician practices that merge into vertically integrated structures.
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Pay Surveys
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Collect information on prevailing market rates and include topics such as incentive plans, overtime pay and base pay.
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Parachutes
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Clauses written into executive contracts that provide special payments to key executives who might lose their position or be otherwise disadvantaged if another organization took control through a merger or acquisition; also known as golden parachutes.
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Out-of-pocket maximum
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Stated amount out of pocket the insured can pay for medical costs in a 12 month period before copayments end.
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Nonqualified deferred compensation plan
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Income deferral benefit offered to a select group of management or highly compensated employees in the organization.
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Money purchase plans
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Plans in which employers make mandatory payments (a fixed percentage of an eligible employees compensation) to a retirement plan.
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Mental Health Parity Act (MHPA)
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Act that addresses parity between mental health benefits and medical benefits.
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Medical tourism
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Involves traveling to hospitals and health-care providers that are outside an employers local area or network; also called medical travel.
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Point-factor method
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Most commonly used method of job evaluation; involves using specific factors to evaluate job worth.
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Performance-sharing plans
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Organization-wide incentive plans in which funds are made available for incentive awards based on predetermined criteria and standards.
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Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC)
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Set up by ERISA to insure payment of benefits in the event that a private-sector defined benefit pension plan terminates with insufficient funds to pay the benefits.
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Pay compression
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Occurs when there is only a small difference in pay between employees regardless of their skills, experience, or seniority; also know as salary compression.
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Overtime pay
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Required for nonexempt workers funder FLSA at 1.5 times the regular rate of pay for hours over 40 in a workweek.
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Older Worker's Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA)
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Act that amended ADEA to include all employee benefits; also provided terminated employees with time to consider group termination or retirement programs and consult an attorney.
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Multinational enterprises (MNEs)
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Organizations with operations in multiple countries.
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Merit Pay
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Situation where an individuals performance is the basis for the amount and timing of pay increases; also called performance-based pay.
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Point of service (POS) organizations
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Combination of a PPO and HMO; provide direct access to specialists.
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Perquisites
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Special privileges for executives that are usually noncash items.
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Pension Protection Act (PPA)
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Act that changed the laws that affect defined benefit plans, defined contribution plans individual retirement accounts, and other issues related to retirement planning
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Pay grades
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Used to group jobs that have approximately the same relative internal or external worth and are paid at the same rate or within the same pay range.
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Paid-time-off (PTO) bank
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Large bank of time comprising all of an employees paid time off (i.e. vacation, sick, leave and holidays) that the employee can use as he or she sees fit.
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Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA)
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Act that reduced compensation limits in qualified retirement programs.
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Nonduplication of benefits
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In health plans, requires a secondary carrier to reimburse only up to the level of reimbursement the primary carrier would have paid.
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Minimum wage
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Minimum hourly amount, determined by Congress, that nonexempt employees can be paid.
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Medicare carve-out
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Health plan where benefits are reduced for employees eligible for Medicare; Medicare becomes the primary provider.
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Portal-to-Portal Act
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Act that defines what is included as hours worked as is therefore compensable and a factor in calculating overtime.
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Person-based pay
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Pay systems in which employee characteristics rather than the job, determine pay.
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Performance bonus
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One-time payment made to an employee; also called a lump-sum increase (LSI)
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Pay ranges
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Set the upper and lower bounds of possible compensation for individuals whose jobs fall in a pay grade.
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Medicare
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Social Security Administration program that provides medical care for people after age 65
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Paired-comparison method
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Job ranking method in which evaluator compares each job with every other job being evaluated.
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Walsh-Healey Act
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Act that extended concept of prevailing wage to employers who manufacture or supply goods under government contracts and required time and a half.
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Unweighted average
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Raw average of data that gives equal weight to all factors, with no regard to individual factors such as the number of incumbents or organizations.
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Travel Pay
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Typically paid to nonexempt workers for the time they spend traveling to or between work assignments.
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Time-based step-rate pay
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System in which pay is based on longevity in the job and pay increases occur on a predetermined schedule.
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Tax Reform Act
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Act that made significant changes in employee benefits programs, especially retirement plans.
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Stop-loss coverage
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Insurance policy that protects employers with partially self-funded insurance plans by limiting individuals and group-wide claims.
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Workweek
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Any fixed, recurring period of 168 consecutive hours ( 7 days times 24 hours =168 hours).
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Weighted average
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Average of data that takes other factors such as the number of incumbents into account.
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Utilization review
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Audit of health-care use and charges to identify which benefits are used and to make certain that care is necessary and costs are in line.
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Underwater
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Describes a stock option when the stocks current market value is less than the options exercise price.
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Top hat plan
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Nonqualified deferred compensation plan that provides retirement benefits to select group of management or highly compensated employees.
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Taxable wages
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All remuneration for services (including noncash benefits) that is taxable when paid.
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Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (EGTRRA)
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Act that adjusts minimum vesting schedules, increases retirement plan compensation and contribution limits, permits catchup contributions by participants age 50 or older in certain retirement plans, and modifies distribution and rollover rules.
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Differential pay
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Pay that is based on when the employee works (e.g., overtime pay, shift pay differentials) or where the employee works.
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Green-circle rates
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Situation where an employees pay is below the minimum of the range.
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Geographic differential pay
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Pay based on where an employee works
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On-call pay
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Pay that employees receive when they can be called in to work but are not working before receiving the call to return to work.
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Nonexempt employees
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Employees covered under FLSA regulations, including minimum wage and overtime pay requirements.
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Modified-duty programs
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Offered to employees who are on leave for injuries under FMLA; job tasks are modified to meet the employees restrictions.
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Medicare supplement
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Health plan that covers specific expenses not covered by Medicare.
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Short-term disability (STD) coverage
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Replaces a portion of lost income for a specified period of time for employees who are ill or have nonwork-related injuries.
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Serious health condition
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As defined in DOL regulations, a condition that involves employee incapacity for more than three calendar days plus "two visits to a health care provider"
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Section 125 benefit plans
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Written benefit plans maintained by the employer that allow employees to use pretax dollars to pay for certain qualified benefits.
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Roth IRA
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Account providing tax-free income growth; contributions are made with after tax dollars.
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Retirement Equity Act (REA)
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Act that provided certain legal protections for spousal beneficiaries of qualified retirement plans.
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Rabbi trust
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Grantor trust designed to segregate nonqualified deferred compensation benefits from an employers general accounts.
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Prudent person rule
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States that an ERISA plan fiduciary has legal and financial obligations not to take more risks when investing employee benefit program funds than a reasonably knowledgeable, prudent investor would under similar circumstances.
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Premium-only plan (POP)
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Type of Section 125 plan that allows employees to pay for certain qualified benefits with pretax dollars
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Preexisting conditions
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Medical conditions that existed before a health care policy is taken out.
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Sick leave
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Specified period of time during which employees who are ill or have nonwork-related injuries receive their full salary.
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Service Contract Act
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Act that extended prevailing wage rate and benefit requirements to employers providing services under federal government contracts.
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Securities and Exchange Act
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Act that regulated "insider trading'
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Salary
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Uniform amount of money paid to a worker regardless of how many hours are worked.
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Revenue Act
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Act that added Sections 125 and 401k to the Tax code
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Sunset Clause
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Identified time period and ending point in incentive pay plans
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