Senate Finance Committee Holds Hearing on Paid Leave

On October 25, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on federal paid leave. This comes as congressional Democrats and Republicans have shown interest in finding bipartisan consensus for a federal paid leave program. The hearing also provided policymakers and witnesses the opportunity to discuss the promise and drawbacks of paid leave proposals. Increasing employee... View Article

Hybrid, Remote and Flexible Work: The Secret Sauce for Employee Retention?

Given the number of employees who successfully executed their work remotely at the height of the pandemic, it may come as no surprise that a substantial gap exists between the work arrangements that higher ed employees want and what institutions offer. According to the new CUPA-HR 2023 Higher Education Employee Retention Survey, although two-thirds of... View Article

House Passes Bipartisan Retirement Savings Bill

On March 29, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2954, the Securing a Strong Retirement Act of 2021, by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 414-5. The bill includes many provisions to boost individual retirement savings and expand coverage to better access retirement savings programs. The bill includes several provisions that would impact employer-sponsored retirement... View Article

HR and the Courts

Each month, CUPA-HR General Counsel Ira Shepard provides an overview of several labor and employment law cases and regulatory actions with implications for the higher ed workplace. Here’s the latest from Ira. EEOC Issues Guidance That Employers Can Offer Vaccine Incentives to Employees The EEOC issued guidance in late May of this year indicating that... View Article

Mental Health Month Focus: Flexibility

May is Mental Health Month, and we’re homing in on three facets of higher education that impact mental health: campus culture, resources and workplace flexibility. This blog post is Part III of the three-part series. Here, we’ll discuss how institutions can lean into flexible work arrangements and how flexible work can support more diverse, equitable... View Article

Mental Health Month Focus: Resources

May is Mental Health Month, and we’re homing in on three facets of higher education that impact mental health: campus culture, resources, and work flexibility. Here, in Part II of the three-part series, we’ll look at some of the barriers that prevent employees from utilizing resources, and how some approaches from the corporate world can... View Article

Mental Health Month Focus: Higher Ed Campus Culture

May is Mental Health Month, and we’re homing in on three facets of higher education that impact mental health: campus culture, resources and work flexibility. This blog post is Part I of the three-part series. First, we’ll discuss the importance of creating campus cultures that prioritize and promote the mental health of students, faculty and... View Article

The Impact of COVID-19 on Retirement Readiness for the Higher Ed Workforce

Editor’s note: Be sure to join Paul Yakoboski, senior economist at TIAA Institute, and Melissa Fuesting, survey researcher at CUPA-HR, on Wednesday, May 26 at 2:00 p.m. (ET) for the webinar, “Faculty Retirement Patterns and COVID-19: Impacts, Challenges and Opportunities.” In addition to their findings on changes to the expected retirement age for faculty, Paul... View Article

How COVID-19 Has Impacted Faculty Retirement Patterns — Highlights From the 2020 Higher Education Financial Wellness Survey

Editor’s note: Be sure to join Paul Yakoboski, senior economist at TIAA Institute, and Melissa Fuesting, survey researcher at CUPA-HR, on Wednesday, May 26 at 2:00 p.m. (ET) for the webinar, “Faculty Retirement Patterns and COVID-19: Impacts, Challenges and Opportunities.” In addition to their findings on changes to the expected retirement age for faculty, Paul... View Article

Great CUPA-HR Reads of 2020

Between pivoting with the COVID-19 pandemic, confronting racial issues, making strides toward more equitable workplaces, and managing already hectic workloads, higher ed HR has had its hands full this year. Yet in the middle of it all, resilient HR pros continue to find ways to positively impact the higher education landscape. As 2020 comes to... View Article

Will the Pandemic Accelerate or Postpone Retirement?

This blog post was contributed by Christina Cutlip, senior managing director of client engagement and national advocacy at TIAA. A crisis like the one we’re going through tends to leave an imprint both physically and mentally. Employees’ financial outlook have been especially affected as they’ve either experienced a worst case scenario or realized that bad... View Article

Returning to the Workplace: Employee Expectations

Teleworking arrangements necessitated by COVID-19 were an entirely new experience for many higher ed employees. While some may have initially struggled to adjust to a virtual workspace, shelter-in-place directives have given workers time to settle into this new way of work — just in time to shake things up again. Now, institutions are thinking about... View Article

Tips for Creating an Effective Early Retirement Plan for Employees

This blog post was contributed by Linda Harber, retired CHRO from George Mason University and active CUPA-HR contributor. Planning an early retirement program for your institution is a vital part of human resource strategy and operations and can help position HR as a strategic leadership partner, especially during times like these. That said, developing an... View Article

Student Eligibility for Unemployment Benefits

As the COVID-19 public health emergency continues, policymakers are providing new financial assistance to workers impacted by the outbreak. One form of assistance is additional unemployment compensation for both previously eligible individuals and new classes of workers. Questions remain, however, about which workers qualify to receive such benefits, including whether students who perform work for... View Article

U.S. Immigration Considerations for Colleges and Universities During the COVID-19 Crisis

This blog was contributed by Aaron Blumberg and Patrick Shen of Fragomen Government Strategies and Compliance Group. The COVID-19 public health crisis has compelled the United States and many countries to implement travel restrictions and quarantines. This raises severe immigration-related operational and regulatory compliance concerns, especially for colleges and universities who have highly diverse international... View Article

CARES Act Educational Stabilization Fund — Provisions for Higher Ed

The novel coronavirus is exacting tremendous strain on campuses across the country. Students are experiencing unprecedented disruption, and colleges and universities are confronting financial and operational upheaval. The resulting revenue losses could adversely impact institutional ability to sustain pay and benefits for faculty and staff. In light of this crisis, the American Council on Education... View Article

House Passes Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act

As COVID-19 inflicts unprecedented disruption across every sector of the economy, the unemployment insurance (UI) system is undergoing extraordinary strain. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) reported that 3.3 million people filed for unemployment insurance during the week that ended on March 21 — the biggest spike in unemployment filings in U.S. history. Analysts predict... View Article

Congress Passes Emergency Bill That Will Continue Providing GI Bill Educational Assistance Benefits to Student Veterans Transitioning to Online Learning Due to COVID-19

On March 19, the House of Representatives passed Senate bill S. 3503, an emergency bill that will continue providing GI bill educational assistance benefits to student veterans who have had to transition to online learning for emergencies and health-related situations such as COVID-19. CUPA-HR supported the American Council on Education (ACE) in sending a letter... View Article

Behind the Scenes: How Your HR Peers Are Managing the COVID-19 Crisis

Across the country, institutions are adapting to COVID-19 by exploring and implementing solutions for business continuity, as well as care of faculty, students and staff. CUPA-HR recently asked members to share what they’re doing in response to the outbreak, what workforce conversations and actions are taking place on campus, what campus communications plans have been... View Article

A Comprehensive Look Into the Well-Being of Higher Ed Employees

Well-being is made up of more than physical health. Mental, emotional, even financial health all play into well-being, and an imbalance in any one of these components among the higher ed workforce could cause a wrinkle in daily operations and interrupt productivity. So how are higher ed institutions providing employees with programs and resources to... View Article

Domestic-Partner Benefits Are on the Decline in Higher Ed

For the first time since 2005, the number of colleges and universities offering healthcare benefits for employees’ domestic partners has decreased. According to CUPA-HR’s 2019 Healthcare Benefits for Higher Education Employees Survey, in just the past two years, the number of higher education institutions offering healthcare benefits for same-sex domestic partners has fallen 10 percentage... View Article

Fight to Repeal the Cadillac Tax Continues

Congress has acted twice to delay the 40 percent excise tax on high-value employer-provided healthcare coverage, known as the “Cadillac tax,” yet the latest effective date of 2022 looms. The Cadillac tax was signed into law as part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and was originally scheduled to take effect in 2018, but was... View Article

4 Reasons to Consider Telework for Your Employees

Telework is growing increasingly popular in the United States. In fact, for more than 4 million American workers, “the office” can be anywhere they want it to be. According to data from Global Workplace Analytics, the number of people telecommuting in the U.S. has risen 140 percent since 2005, and 3.2 percent of the workforce... View Article

A Snapshot of the Workforce at Community and Technical Colleges

Community and technical colleges serve an important role in the U.S. higher education system. They are often an option for students who need skills development or training for specific jobs in their community; who need a more affordable college option; who want to test the waters of a college education before committing to a four-year... View Article

Survey Findings: Higher Ed Rethinking Its Approach to Retirement Plan Offerings

Colleges and universities across the country face increasingly complex reporting and recordkeeping requirements around retirement benefits, and this appears to have been a key driver as institutions have scaled back their retirement plan provider options over the past few years. According to findings from CUPA-HR’s 2018 Paid Time Off, Tuition, and Retirement Benefits for Higher... View Article

5 Findings From CUPA-HR’s 2017 Healthcare Benefits in Higher Ed Survey

What’s happening on the healthcare benefits front in higher education? What trends should we be watching? Which benefits are waning, and which ones are going strong? Is your college or university on par with other institutions when it comes to its benefits offerings? Data from CUPA-HR’s Survey of Higher Education Employee Healthcare Benefits provides a... View Article

Is Workplace Wellness on the Way Out?

Workplace wellness programs are on the decline in higher education. At least that’s what the findings from CUPA-HR’s 2016 Higher Education Employee Healthcare and Other Benefits Survey show. Data from this year’s survey indicate that 56.8 percent of responding institutions offer a formal wellness program, down from 70 percent in 2012. The number of institutions... View Article