MR. KOJO NNAMDIThe times they are a changing, particularly when it comes to the benefits you can expect at a job. Just a few decades ago most retiring employees got a pension that would carry them through their golden years. That's increasingly rare these days, particularly in the private sector with private retirement accounts the norm. And as far as that other major job benefit, health insurance, people have seen their co-pays and deductibles go up -- way, way up in many cases.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIMeanwhile Obamacare and a new government-backed option for a retirement account are rolling out. And how these government options will ultimately affect what's offered by employers is not entirely clear yet. But joining us to explore the changing nature of workplace benefits is Howard Ross. He's a principal at Cook Ross and a regular guest on this show. He's the author of "Reinventing Diversity: Transforming Organizational Community to Strengthen People, Purpose and Performance." Howard, welcome.

MR. HOWARD ROSSHi, Kojo.

NNAMDIAlso in studio with us is Bruce Elliott, manager of compensation and benefits at the Society for Human Resource Management. Bruce Elliott, thank you for joining us.

MR. BRUCE ELLIOTTThanks for having me, Kojo.

NNAMDIBruce, the concept of job lock has been in the headlines recently. It came up in light of the congressional budget office report on Obamacare that projected that the Affordable Care Act would result in a reduction of two million jobs. Can you explain what job lock is and why we're talking about it?

ELLIOTTYeah, job lock is a situation where an employee is stuck in an organization or stuck in a job because they offer a medical benefit, a dental benefit, some sort of benefit that is keeping them there. So, you know, as a result, you know, if I change my job, well then I lose this great medical plan that I have. So it serves as kind of a handcuff to the employee to stay in that job as a strong incentive. And for the employer, quite frankly, offer good benefits, I keep and retain, you know, qualified good, you know, outstanding performers.

ELLIOTTSo it kind of works both ways for both the employer and the employee, you know, to both their benefits.

NNAMDISo if I'm really at heart an artist but I'm working in a job in an accounts office because I get health benefits there, but that's not what I really want to be doing, then when I get -- can get the benefit of the Affordable Care Act I leave...

ELLIOTTRight, exactly.

NNAMDI...because I'm locked into that job because of health benefits.

ELLIOTTExactly. Well, you know, one of the advantages to the ACA, you know, is the fact that, you know, not only, you know, is there a broad range of medical plans to choose from, whether it's gold, silver or bronze, but they're also subsidized -- the government will also subsidize premiums with regard, you know, to that medical coverage. And it's portable so that, you know, if you have that struggling artist, you know, that in his heart, you know, wants to play guitar, write songs, you know, become the next Bruce Springsteen, you know, but the medical -- you know, the medical benefit that his current employer in accounts receivable, you know, is offering him, you know, is keeping him at the job.

ELLIOTTWell, the employee may find that what the ACA medical plan -- or what the medical plan has offered on the exchanges, you know, are providing, including subsidy will be about the same as what the employee is actually spending, you know, on the subsidized -- you know, on subsidized premiums that their employer is offering. So...

NNAMDIWell, you should know that...

ELLIOTT...to me that's a good thing.

NNAMDI...you should know that Howard Ross at plans to be the next Bruce Springsteen.

ROSSThat's true. That's true.

NNAMDIHe still plays in a band very recently, but he does have a job that he loves. Howard, what do you see as the issues when people feel tied to a job and not necessarily because, unlike you or me for that matter, they're happy there?

ROSSI'll answer that after the next song goes up. No, but you know, it's funny because when Bruce was talking I was thinking about that, you know, because all these things are true, you know. We can look at it from the standpoint of people's creativity or the things that they like to do. But there are other aspects of this that are, of course, even more insidious, and that is, I don't really believe in the mission of my organization anymore. I don't like my boss anymore. I don't like the people that I'm working with anymore but I'm sticking around because of these golden handcuffs that keep me here.

ROSSAnd that has a tremendous impact on employee engagement. And not simply the employee themselves but also the person that employee's working next to. Because if that employee is phoning it in every day because they're keeping the job simply because of their benefits. And of course this is accentuated at times when we have high unemployment or difficulty in movement in jobs because the options that are out there in a workplace look even less for me. I don't necessarily look for jobs as much. And so what I do is I hold onto this job because at least I've got my family taken care of.

ROSSAnd it's an interesting dynamic. I was just -- it's funny because just this morning I was leading a leadership program with a client and we were talking about this. And I said, there's no shame in an employee keeping a job simply because of their benefits. But what I was saying to them is, if you're doing that at least be responsible for the fact that you're making that choice. And don't do that with resentment to the organization.

ROSSSo if I know that I don't like working for this boss and the boss is never going to change, you know, a lot of times what happens with people is they'll sit around and their behavior both overtly and covertly is to make the boss wrong and to undermine the boss, passive aggressive behavior as opposed to saying, look I know who this person is. I've chosen to work for them because I want to keep my benefits. So it's my responsibility to make this work. And I think that there is a shared responsibility on the part of both people to have that happen.

NNAMDIBruce Elliott, people have seen their employer-sponsored health insurance changing for more than a decade now, and typically not for the better. What has been the trajectory?

ELLIOTTYeah, I mean, these are not the benefit plans, you know, that we certainly had -- or certainly I had growing up in Westfield, N.J., I mean, as a kid, you know, where my father worked for General Motors, had the standard indemnity plan. You know, back in the '80s and '90s we saw a move towards managed care, you know, in preferred provider organizations or exclusive provider organizations.

ELLIOTTIt's funny because now with costs being such an important piece to providing medical care to employees, you know, employers are starting to go back towards the indemnity plans along with an HAS or a Health Savings Account. You know, you may not -- you won't see a 500 or $1,000 deductible. You'll probably see something, you know, closer along the lines of a 3,000, 5,000, maybe $6,000 deductible. But what the employer will also do is offer, you know, a Health Savings Account to go along with that so that the employee can put aside pretax money to help them one, pay for their medical care but also help in meeting that deductible.

ELLIOTTSo that, you know, they get to a point where medical and -- you know, when they get to the point where, you know, they have $1,000 bill and the employer offers say, you know, $1,000, you know, in an HSA contribution, well the employees are not out any money. I mean, yeah, they still have $2,000 left in their deductible but in actuality they're really not out any money because the employer is actually paying them.

ELLIOTTAnd actually really in sense in a consumerist approach to medical care, you know, where the employee will look for a lower-cost provider because they look at the HAS money as their own money, which is -- you know, and that's good for the employee because they're not spending as much on medical care. Again it's good for the employer because it's helping to keep their premiums down and helping to maintain any type of subsidy that they're offering to the employee with regard to their coverage.

NNAMDIBruce Elliott is manager of compensation and benefits at the Society for Human Resource Management. He joins us in studio to discuss workplace benefits. Also with us is Howard Ross, principal at Cook Ross and author of "Reinventing Diversity: Transforming Organizational Community to Strengthen People, Purpose and Performance." We're taking your calls at 800-433--8850. Has anything changed in your benefits package recently? Have you stayed in a job before you were concerned about losing health insurance or retirement benefits? 800-433-8850, or you can send email to kojo@wamu.org. You were going to say, Howard?

ROSSYeah, I was just saying -- well, I just wanted to pick up what Bruce was saying. You know, in the '80s we saw the advent of what a lot of people called the new employee contract in those days. And this was really a shift away from the sort of historic relationship that people had with their employees, particularly large companies, where we were taught when I was younger that you got a job in a company, you made a career and you stayed there. And if you moved around too much it didn't look good on your resume, but more than that you could build security for your family.

ROSSAnd it was kind of standard for people to get into large companies like General Motors or GE or places like this where you would stay there for 10, 20, 30, 40 years, basically your whole career. And then a lot of things started to shift at that time and organizations started to pull back from some of those guarantees to create a great sense of insecurity on the part of employees. You couldn't be guaranteed necessarily, because you were somewhere for 15 years, that they guaranteed you a job.

ROSSWhereas prior to that, if you were doing a good enough job for 15 years, you basically could be there until retirement unless you wanted to leave, unless something egregious happened. That, of course, spawned a reaction on the part of the working class. And in the working class we saw that both from the standpoint of people starting to say, well I need to cover my tail a little bit. If I can't count on the employer giving me security, I'm going to have security myself, which really I believe has spawned a lot of what we're seeing in the millennial class now.

ROSSThis generational group that's growing up in that environment really looking out more for themselves saying, you know, I can't be guaranteed anything there. I'm going to create my own -- more movement, less standing in the same place, less patience on the job. On the employer's standpoint, more anti-unionism coming in because unions force us to hold onto things. And so as this occurs we've got this environment, this cycle of separation that we might say. Now to some degree it was held at bay in the earlier part of the 2000s by the fact that the job market was drying and -- going down and there was this whole question, are we going to get talent?

ROSSBut with the unemployment of the last few years, it's resurfaced again very strongly because now all of a sudden there are more workers out there. So, you know, we could look at the specific benefits that it affects but I think there's a large psychological phenomenon at play here as well.

NNAMDIWant to go to the telephones to Deidra in Reston, Va. Deidra, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

DEIDRAThanks for taking my call. I was calling -- maybe it's not completely germane, but I was calling because you were speaking about the Affordable Care Act before and how that gave people greater flexibility.

NNAMDIYes.

DEIDRAAnd I was laid off in January and my employer offered me COBRA, of course. And when I got the statement saying how much that was going to be a month, it was $1200 for my son and myself, so not really affordable. So I looked at HealthCare.gov and I ended up choosing a plan that I thought was pretty comprehensive and paying a pretty high premium for it, like $550 a month. But the first time I went to use it, it didn't cover anything I needed. So I'm not sure, how do you choose -- how does that really give you greater flexibility then? I guess I didn't feel like I went into it with my eyes open.

NNAMDIIt was funny because we got a Tweet from Peter who said, "By decoupling health insurance from one's employer, the Affordable Care Act frees up human capital." Deidra, you say that's not working out so well for you at this point.

DEIDRAMaybe I just didn't choose the right plan, but I felt like I chose one that was fairly expensive for someone who's unemployed. You know, Virginia unemployment is capped at I want to say it's somewhere in the neighborhood of $370 a week. Five hundred plus is a lot.

NNAMDIWhat can you say to someone like Deidra, Bruce Elliott?

ELLIOTTYeah, I mean, how often do you access medical? I mean, the first question I always ask when -- or always ask an employee who asks me, what plan should I choose, you know, how often do you go to the doctor? How much do you spend on medical care, you know, throughout the year in real money? You know, what's going out your pocket, you know? Do you need the $1,000 -- you know, do you need the plan with the $1,000 deductible if you're only going to the doctor, you know, two or three times a year? Maybe, you know a $5,000 -- you know, maybe a plan with a $5,000 deductible is a better one.

ELLIOTTThe nice thing about the ACA, you know, about the plans on healthcare.gov, you know, they do offer a core benefit. You know, wellness visit -- everybody gets a wellness visit paid at 100 percent, you know, not subject to deductible. You know, annual paps are covered at 100 percent, not subject to deductible. Birth control, as long as it's oral, is, you know, covered at 100 percent, not subject to deductible. Same thing with mammography or mammograms, sorry and, you know, other wellness types of -- wellness kinds of benefits. So, you know, without knowing what the particular situation is...

NNAMDIIt depends on what their particular needs are.

ELLIOTTYeah.

NNAMDIDeidre, thank you very much for your call. Good luck to you. Rob, however, in Chevy Chase, Md., seems to have had quite a different experience. Rob, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

ROBOh, good afternoon. Yeah, I agree 100 percent with what the gentleman was saying. I mean, this has been -- I think it's, you know, five, ten years down the road, we're going to be in a much better position as a country because people like myself are going to be able to feel the freedom to, you know, leave jobs. Because I had a job and it was great benefits and, you know, Lexus plans, and I felt, as the gentleman mentioned, tied to that job, partly because of some medical issues my family has, as well as just great benefits.

ROBAnd, now, I've actually went onto Blue Cross Blue Shield last week and applied for an individual plan for about -- I'm saving $350 a week -- excuse me, a month, approximately, with a better plan than what I had. And I had a Lexus or Cadillac or whatever plan, through my employer (word?) COBRA.

ROSSChanging of the times.

ELLIOTTYeah, exactly.

ROBWhat's that?

ROSSI said there's a changing of the times. You were calling it a Lexus plan.

ROBYeah, exactly. I was going to call it a Cadillac plan but, you know, that's -- unfortunately, that's not the case. Anyway, so I'm really excited about it. And I think that, as we move forward, I think, ten years down the road, most employers will stop providing benefits. And, again and remember, if we look historically, health insurance came into being in World War II because of wage and price controls.

NNAMDII'm glad you brought that up, because he said ten years down the road, Howard, Bruce, he thinks most employers will stop offering benefits. Is that the way some employers might be reacting to the Affordable Care Act?

ELLIOTTI don't know. I think the jury's still out on that. We are starting to see organizations move toward private exchanges. You know, like IBM, for instance, had moved their employees to a private exchange, as did CVS. You know, whether that's an -- you know, whether that's an emerging trend, I think we have to wait a couple years to see that. I will say what I do see is plan design. You're going to see plan design change quite a bit over the next five -- over the next four years or so, because the excise component of the ACA is due to kick in, you know, where employers or the insurers are going to be taxed at about 40 percent above certain thresholds.

ELLIOTTSo, you know, that's going to actually spur, again, the consumerist approach to health care, you know, as, you know, those -- as 2014, you know, gets closer and closer, we're going to see designs start -- not necessarily shrink, but become a -- probably a little bit more targeted and more consumer -- and a more consumerist approach.

NNAMDIGot to take a short break. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation on workplace benefits. But you can still call us at (800) 433-8850. Are you relying on an employer-provided pension? Do you have a private retirement account with an employer contribution? Which do you prefer? Give us a call. (800) 433-8850. Or you can send us a tweet, @kojoshow. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back. We're discussing workplace benefits with Howard Ross. He's a principal with Cook Ross and the author of "Reinventing Diversity: Transforming Organizational Community to Strengthen People, Purpose, and Performance." Bruce Elliott is manager of compensation and benefits at the Society for Human Resource Management. Bruce, you mentioned, when you were growing up in Westfield, a lot of people had what were defined-benefit pension plans. Retirement benefits were another area where people have been seeing a lot change. There was a time when, as we said, people expected a pension. How is that picture changing?

ELLIOTTQuite a bit. The defined-benefit plan is going the way of the do-do, quite frankly. I don't know that you're going to see -- you don't see a lot of them out there right now. There was a consulting company that surveyed this not too long ago...

NNAMDIAnd I should explain, a defined-benefit pension plan is where, at retirement, the individual gets a fixed, specific payment per month for as long as he or she lives.

ELLIOTTRight. Kind of like privatized Social Security, basically...

NNAMDICorrect.

ELLIOTT...is what it comes down to. You know, about 11 percent of employers right now are offering a defined-benefit plan. Most of them are on the union side. Honestly, you know, like I said, in 10 years, I don't know that we're going to see very many of them left. You know, it's the defined-contribution plans now, you know, the 401 (k) s and the, you know, 401 (b) s and, you know, other types of money purchase plans are probably -- you know, well, not probably...

NNAMDIBut even they have a wrinkled -- or wrinkles right now, because another benefits-related issue hit headlines recently when the chief executive of AOL changed the 401 (k) plan of employees there to what's known as an annual match.

ELLIOTTRight.

NNAMDICan you explain, first, what that means and why it matters?

ELLIOTTYeah. The annual match means just that. They will match one time a year at the end of the year. And I don't know that that's an emerging trend. AOL has done it this year. IBM did it a couple of years ago. But the majority of employers out there right now still match on a per-payroll basis, which is a good thing, because then they get the benefit of compound interest on a per-payroll basis, you know, versus, if you do it on an annualized basis, you know, you're going to miss out on, you know, the compounding throughout the year.

ELLIOTTAnd I think it was The New York Times a couple of weeks ago that did a quick analysis on what that cost would be, you know, when the AOL thing hit the media. And I think they calculated it out at, on average, of about $30,000 to $40,000 in lost retirement income over a 30-year period. So that's pretty significant. And, again, I don't know that it's an emerging trend. We've only seen two large companies do it. I think the jury's still out as to whether it's a...

NNAMDIBut, Howard, it would seem that this undercuts the main promise of the 401 (k), which is that it makes it easier for employees to switch companies and take their savings with them.

ROSSWell, exactly. And I think that this is one of the challenges, not only with underlying -- with the 401 (k) and our relationship with the 401 (k), but I think it's one of the challenges that people have with benefits in general today, which is that we've gone from an environment where we had basically a fixed expectation that our parents dealt with, which -- I know what I can count on when I retire. And so people who are now saying, I think this is what I can count on when I retire, but I'm not sure because, who, knows, the game may change again.

ROSSAnd you add on to that, how many people took hits in their retirement accounts because of the crash in the economy a few years ago, and you can see that it builds a sense of deep insecurity.

ELLIOTTRight.

ROSSAnd the impact of this, among other things, is that -- well, there are a number of factors. It begins to extend how long people are working, because people are working past what we might have called earlier retirement stages then, because they want to be sure they secure themselves. That gets added to, of course, additionally because people are healthier now. And so what 65 looked like for most people in their body a generation or two ago, looks different now. So people are working longer, which means that movement within organizations gets slowed down.

ROSSThere's not as much movement in terms of people moving into higher positions. And so all of this has a cascading effect throughout the entire system -- the entire employment system.

NNAMDIWhile defined-benefit pension plans are rare in the private sector now, in the public sector, where they used to be much more comment, those benefits are now at the center of some major debates in cities and states around the country.

ELLIOTTSure.

NNAMDICan you talk a little bit about why this has become such an issue in so many places like Detroit, I can think of.

ELLIOTTIt's a long-term liability. I mean, they're contributing to a, you know, into a pension fund for, say, 20, 25, 30 years, okay -- you know, the life of an employee, you know, within an organization, you know. Once they retire, because individuals are living longer and are healthier, you know, that liability, which, you know, maybe 20, 30 years ago might have been 15 years out, is pretty much doubled. You know, if you think about the fact that, you know, mortality rates in this country, you know, are mid-70s to late-70s, depending if, you know, you're male or female.

ELLIOTTAdd to that the low-interest rate environment that we've had over the last several years, you know, and it creates a long-term liability on the part of the company that can be, you know, that can be unsustainable. And that's the advantage to the defined-contribution plan. You make your contribution. You're done. You know? It's not a long-term liability that's going to sit on your books forever and ever and ever and ever, until, you know, the employee passes away.

NNAMDIHere is Mark in Glen Burnie, Md. Mark, you're on the air. Go ahead, please. Hi, Mark, are you there?

MARKYes, sir. I'm here.

NNAMDIGo right ahead, please.

NNAMDISir, I appreciate you taking my call. I wanted to ask briefly, that I don't have any concern with people going and being musicians, as you mentioned earlier in the show -- the guest did. But I guess my concern is is that, what the guest mentioned was specifically the subsidies that are paid. And those are paid through taxes. And I'm interested in the guest's opinion on why everyone else is obligated to pay the subsidies through taxes to people who want to be able to quit their job and go do whatever it is they want, when it's paid for by those who are paying taxes. And that's my question to the guest.

MARKAnd thank you very much, Kojo, for taking my call.

NNAMDIHoward?

ROSSYou know, I mean, look, it speaks to the very heart of what kind of a culture we have. I mean, you know, the same question could be asked, why it is that some people pay taxes for other children -- other people's children to go to school? Or why some people pay taxes for driving on a road that they never drive on? Or why we pay taxes when we don't agree for what the military's doing, yet we pay taxes that support that? I think that we live in a culture in which we've made a determination that the collective group funds the decisions that are made for our culture by our leadership.

ROSSAnd obviously it's a very different kind of democracy when we put it in the situation where it breaks down individually. And clearly there are deep philosophical and political issues that that brings up for people. But it's certainly not inconsistent with many of the other decisions that we make.

NNAMDIAnd it underscores the fact that we have become so used to this way of health delivery -- the business model of health delivery -- that we now come to think of it as the only way of health delivery, or the proper way of health delivery is to get a job and that will provide health services for you. But in other countries and in other cultures, health delivery systems vary.

ELLIOTTI lived in the U.K. for four years and lived under NI, you know, national insurance, you know. And, you know, when the ACA was being debated through Congress and the Senate and, you know, those other things, you know, I can remember, you know, the horror stories I heard out of NI or the Canadian insurance system. Now, I can't speak to the Canadians' system, but I can certainly speak to the U.K. system. And we got quality care. There weren't a lot of waits, you know? When my kids needed a vaccination, they got a vaccination.

ELLIOTTYou know? When they needed to go to the doctor for, you know, their colds or flus or whatever, they got -- they went to the doctor for their colds and flus an whatever. We're on a fee, you know, our system is fee for services, you know, which is one of the reasons why we have seen health care costs escalate the way that they have, you know. At the beginning of the aughts, you know, the 2000s, you know, it wasn't unusual to see renewal rates at 10, 15 percent, you know. Now that's calmed down a little bit over the last couple of years, where it's now at between 6 and 8 over the last two or three years.

ELLIOTTBut, you know, as the labor market recovers, we're going to start seeing those increases again, you know, approaching double digits. So the more that we can do now towards incenting healthy outcomes, a consumerist approach, you know, the better off we're going to be in the long run.

NNAMDIHoward, on the other hand, it's tough when people base their career choices, in part, on benefits they thought would be there when they needed them...

ROSSMm-hmm.

NNAMDI...like the pension plan. Have expectations changed as things have gotten tougher?

ROSSWell, that's year, and that's a little bit what I was referring to before, Kojo. I think what's beginning to happen is that people don't trust the system as much -- that people see a system that's moving so much and it's creating so much insecurity, that the kinds of things that you could literally take to the bank before, you can't do that with anymore. And I think that that creates challenges.

ROSSAnd then the other piece is -- and to some degree I think that this is where the incentivization of this new system can work in -- for people's benefit -- and that is that, if you really look at what's going on from the standpoint of health care costs, it behooves an employee to keep their employers -- an employer to keep their employees healthy. Creating an environment in which your people stay healthy and don't have to run up your health care costs is really helpful to you.

ROSSAnd so we are beginning to see more employers who are starting to do things: you know, yoga classes; mindfulness training or meditation teaching in organizations; encouraging wellness cultures; all of this. And I think that that's a good thing. Now, unfortunately, we're still at the very early stages of that. I mean, I was beginning to work in that back in the '80s, and it sort of died off for a long time. And now it's starting to rise again. But I do think that that's a real plus, is that the health care system is starting to recognize the benefit of wellness as an important part of the health care system.

ROSSAnd that employers who realize it, that's a way to help them manage their health care costs. And there are a lot of people, like my good friend Bob Duggan, who's out at the Traditional Acupuncture -- who started the Traditional Acupuncture Institute out in Columbia, for example, who's doing a lot of great work now in organizations around that. In fact, he was on a show with us, if you remember, Kojo, last year.

NNAMDIYeah. Bruce, we're running out of time very quickly. And I want to get back to the issue of retirement for a second though.

ELLIOTTSure.

NNAMDIThe federal government is also stepping in on this issue of retirement accounts. In a State of the Union Address in January, President Obama unveiled myRA. What's the idea behind it? How will it work? Who is it aimed at?

ELLIOTTI think it's primarily aimed at employer -- employees that do not have a retirement plan. They don't have access to a 401 (k). And basically what it would be is a, you know, a deferral, you know, into, you know, a fund, you know, that would return some amount of interest, you know, over a period of time, so that when the employee does retire, you know, there is a retirement -- or a retirement nest egg. You know, whether it's a large nest egg, a small nest egg or a medium-sized nest egg, you know, depends on, you know, how long the employees are participating in there.

ELLIOTTAnd I think that the -- based on what I've read about it, and I haven't read a lot about it, is that it is really geared more towards low-wage workers. And, you know, that is a big hole right now, in retirement.

NNAMDIBruce Elliott is manager of compensation and benefits of the Society for Human Resource Management, which I should mention is a WAMU underwriter. Howard Ross is a principal with Cook Ross. He's the author of "Reinventing Diversity: Transforming Organizational Community to Strengthen People, Purpose, and Performance." Howard, thank you for joining us.

ROSSGood to see you, Kojo.

NNAMDIBruce, thank you for joining us.

ELLIOTTThank you, Kojo.

NNAMDIAnd thank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.