As an HR Business Partner, I am often working with clients to ensure their benefits and 401(k) administration is both in compliance and following HR best practices. One key aspect of benefits and 401(k) administration is tracking your employee beneficiaries. Ensuring that your employees have designated and up-to-date beneficiary information is both a way to mitigate risk for your organization and help your employees be prepared to protect their plans and help their families in the event of an unexpected tragedy. Below are five common questions that I hear from clients and employees about beneficiaries:

As an senior HR leader, I have had the opportunity to work for organizations that went through Mergers and Acquisitions on multiple occasions. The biggest takeaway I have learned from all of these experiences was the value of communicating with the employees before, during, and after an acquisition to help manage their expectations. Of course if you are a publicly held company, any communication prior to the acquisition cannot be shared with your workforce. However, ensuring you have a communication strategy developed and ready to launch when the news is broadcasted will help pave the way for a smooth transition. Let’s start by constructing a communication plan.

Though international work experience has definite benefits for both employees and the businesses they support, the cost of a failed assignment cannot be ignored. Depending on the assignment package and location, some international assignments can cost a company three to four times the base salary. Failure can come in many forms:

We have all been there. A day that simply doesn’t turn out the way you expected leaving you tired and frustrated. As consultants, this is an all-too-familiar feeling as we juggle projects and different personalities. As people managers and project managers, this is also a very common feeling and often one that leads to a hesitation to delegate responsibility and the statement “I’ll just take care of it myself.”

We keep hearing that Millennials seem to be more liberal with time in that they come in and leave the office on their own schedule. That they quit every six months or have unreal expectations on promotions. They are often referred to as "Generation We", the "Boomerang Generation", and the "Peter Pan Generation". While some of that may be true, let's not forget, that every new generation entering the workforce has typically been seen by older generations as not being as dedicated to their careers. Each generation has unique life experiences that largely play into how they show up at work. Millennials grew up with technology which continues to evolve to become more and more sophisticated, which has largely attributed to characteristics like wanting instant gratification.

We all need time away to recharge our batteries and momentarily forget what we are currently working on. Ensuring that your employees are taking their personal time is important not only for their sanity, but for the betterment of the department and organization that they support. Organizations evolve positively when employees focus on the day-to-day tactical and operational tasks, and also when they provide creative and passionate solutions or ideas to the opportunities and challenges facing the organization. Without this creativity and passion for work, employees will start ignoring and resenting their responsibilities. As leaders in your organization, there is an important tool in your management tool belt for helping an employee retain their passion and creativity for their role – encouraging them to use their personal time.