• Flextime. Not long ago, Jackie O. was one of the few working women who could dictate her job schedule and keep the paychecks coming.  But so-called flextime, which lets workers forgo standard hours and put in ones best suited to them, became popular in the early ’90s when the number of working mothers zoomed 23% from a decade prior.  Because flexible schedules demand increased efficiency of employees, many firms actually view these arrangements as a boon to productivity.  If you have only a few years on the job, you probably won’t be permitted to work flextime, since management maybe skeptical of your ability to pull off such an arrangement.  Once you have five or more years under your belt, though, you may be able to strike a deal.

• Vacation and comp days. It’s common to start at a new company with two weeks of vacation, more for senior executives.  What do you do if you get just two weeks or so but put in dozens of unpaid overtime hours on weekends and holidays?  One way to get your due -and to potentially extend your vacation -is to keep a tally of those phantom hours and request time off for those hours worked.  You’ve got nothing to lose by asking.

• Referral services. Need a good lawyer?  Want help in sizing up college choices for your teen?  Believe it or not, your company may be able to help.  Roughly 55% of all Fortune 500 companies now boast referral services that assist employees with everything from finding a reliable baby-sitter to counseling you about spousal abuse.  Some firms even have the equivalent of a concierge on their premises, ready to help make your life outside of work a little easier.  Depending on where you work, these programs may be formal or informal, offered on or off site.  Ask your benefits counselor whether such programs are available.  Before spilling private secrets about your life to an employee assistance counselor, however, find out who could ultimately have access to that information.  You may find that getting a little help at work isn’t worth the invasion of your privacy.

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1st page - Other Goodies

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If your company offers a 401(k) plan, sign up as soon as you’re eligible.  This may sound about as obvious as “Eat your vegetables”, but only 65% of all eligible employees participate.  To help make your retirement comfortable, contribute as much as you can afford, as early as you can.  Recently, the allowable maximum was roughly $9,500.  Generally speaking, however, if your salary falls in the top 20% for all earners at your firm, you can probably contribute no more than 6% to 7% of your pretax salary to the plan.  Some plans also let you salt away after-tax dollars.

As you hopscotch from one job to the next, remember that unlike the assets of a traditional pension plan, the money in a 401(k) is fully portable as long as you follow a few rules.  In order to escape costly taxes and penalties when you leave company A for company B, you must “roll over” your 401(k) proceeds into an Individual Retirement Account or to your new company’s retirement plan.  Keep in mind, the clock is ticking.  You have just 60 days to do this before the tax man cometh.

To transfer funds properly, do not request a check from your old employer.  You’d be taking possession of your 401(k) assets, which is a sure way to get slapped with the dreaded 20% federal withholding tax.  Instead you’ll want to do a “trustee-to-trustee transfer”, in which funds go directly into the investment you’ve selected for your IRA 9typically a mutual fund) or from the plan administrator at one job to the next.  Before switching jobs, you’ll want to discuss these moves with your benefits department to ensure the transfer goes smoothly.  The process may take several months or even up to a year.

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Retirement Plans

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Is it wise to sign up for extra life and disability insurance, known as supplemental coverage, which are often available through your company?  Perhaps.  If you’ve determined that you do want to beef up your insurance, check the rates and coverage offered by insurers outside your employer, too.  Your company’s rates may not be the best.  For instance, if you are in good health, are a nonsmoker, and are under the age of 45, you can probably buy term life insurance more cheaply from an agent or a low-load like insurer than through your employer.

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Life and Disability Insurance

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Roughly 90% of large U.S. companies offer dental plans, picking up the bills for between 50% and 100% of all work.  As firms search for ways to trim the fat from their medical plans, however, dental plans seem a prim spot for drilling.  Increasingly, employers are axing their traditional dental plans and replacing them with managed-care options.  Often referred to as dental HMOs, these plans charge no deductible (versus $25 to $50 under traditional plans) and limit your choice of dentists to a pre-approved list.  Although you may have to switch dentists to use one in the plan, a dental HMO can be financially attractive.  This type of plan will pay the full cost of many routine services, such as tooth cleanings and fillings, as opposed to 50% to 80% reimbursement for traditional plans.  Should your employer offer you a choice between a standard plan and a dental HMO, you may be served best by an HMO if preventive services such as tooth cleanings are covered free; waits for emergency services are held to under four weeks; and its dentists are members of the American  Academy of General Dentistry.

Chances are, if you’re married, both you and your spouse have access to health plans at work.  Which one is best?  To find out, you’ll need to comb through the provisions of each to see how you can get the best features for the least amount of money.  When scrutinizing plans, consider each of these important factors:

• Deductibles. Count on shelling out anywhere between .3% of your annual salary and 5%.  Remember the general rule about these deductibles, however:  The higher the deductible, the higher your reimbursement.

• Out-of-pocket maximums. If you anticipate high medical bills, compare the maximum amount each plans requires you to pay before it picks up 100% of the tab.

• Choice of providers. Just because one plan may have more doctors doesn’t necessarily make it a better choice.  You’ll want to make sure that the doctor you’d use in any managed-care network is not oversubscribed.  You can find out how harried physicians are by calling the provider or the doctor directly and asking how many patients he or she has.  Don’t forget to see which hospitals, labs, and pharmacies are affiliated with each plan.  If your favorite pharmacy or the hospital you prefer isn’t in the group, you may not want to join the managed-care plan.

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Medical Coverage - continuation

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To cut costs in managed-care programs, insurers want you to use the pre-approved doctors in their networks.  You’ll start by selecting a primary-care physician:  a general practitioner who will see you for routine checkups.  If your doctor is not on the pre-approved list, you are going “out of network”.  Be prepared for limited reimbursement – as little as 50% in some cases.  Similarly, when you need a specialist, you generally must seek a formal referral from your primary-care physician.  Failing to do so will limit your reimbursement or wipe it out altogether.  One tip:  Managed-care plans require you to be a card-carrying member, so always carry your ID card.  That way, if you have to make an emergency trip to the doctor or the pharmacy, you’ll be charged only what the arrangement requires.  Without the card, you could be forced to pay in full, up front.

Almost half of large U.S. Companies now offer so-called flexible spending accounts (FSAs), which let you pay certain unreimbursable medical costs with pretax dollars.  Here’s how they work:  you decide how much you’d like to place in your FSA during the year (typically between $2,000 and $5,000), and the amount gets zapped from your paychecks in equal installments before taxes.  When you need access to the funds (for such costs as health deductibles, prescription eyeglasses, even cab rides to your doctor’s office), you simply fill out a claim form for reimbursement.  Best of all, with an FSA you can withdraw the maximum amount pledged even before you’ve paid in the cash for it.  Anyone with significant out-of-pocket medical bills -more than a few hundred dollars a year -definitely ought to consider enrolling in a tax-saving FSA, if one is available.  Need proof?  A married worker with a $50,000 salary who spends $1,000 on health care can expect to save about $350 in taxes by opening up an FSA.  Incidentally, If one spouse makes over $65,400 and both have access to an FSA, the one with the lower income should fund the FSA.  Aside from avoiding federal and local taxes, he or she will be able to shield some pay from the 6.2% Social Security tax on incomes up to $63,600.

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1st page - Medical Coverage

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It’s up to you to keep abreast of how your benefits measure up.  You ought to pore over the employer’s benefits handbook as soon as you accept a job or even while you’re interviewing for a position if you can get your hands on it.  If you’re a new hire, ask for a conference with your benefits counselor or personnel manager to ensure you understand everything you’re entitled to receive and when you’re eligible to start getting the benefits.  At many companies, for instance, health coverage doesn’t kick in until several months after you’ve started.

When your firm passes out new benefits books or memos, be sure to read and keep them.  Lucking in these publications may be news of costly changes (higher medical deductibles) or valuable features you may have previously overlooked (free legal counseling).  At the very least, you’ll want to have a copy of the most current benefits book in case you have questions about how the perks work.  A good example:  You may not care about how the firm’s 401(k) loan rules work today, but six months from now you may need to know them so that you can tap your account to help pay for a home remodeling job.

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Getting the Most from Your Benefits

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Whether or not you get a bonus, you may well want to persuade your boss to give you more money.  The subject is no longer taboo.  You need to raise the issue gingerly, however.  If you can demonstrate to your superior that you’re underpaid, simply ask for the money you think you deserve to receive.  Sometimes the answer will be “Sorry, everybody gets the same raise this year”.  In that case, if there’s a bonus pool where you work, ask your supervisor what it would take to either start swimming in it or get a larger bonus than you were promised.  You might want to set target goals with your boss and then update the list periodically.

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Getting More Money From Your Boss

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• Don’t get yourself into trouble. Sounds obvious, but you’d be amazed how many people sabotage their careers by saying or doing the wrong thing at the wrong time.  Be careful of what you zap over your e-mail.  Likewise, if your boss is the buttoned-up type, but your off-the-job lifestyle is anything but, keep that part of your life quiet at the office.  Alarmingly, workplace privacy rules are so scant that your boss can legally monitor your every on-the-job move.  This means everything from searching through your office file cabinets to browsing your “confidential” e-mail to tapping into your phone calls.  To be safe, don’t send anything over e-mail that you wouldn’t want to fall into the hands of your boss. And unless you have a physical disability that may affect your job duties, use discretion when discussing your medical history with your supervisor.  You never know what bias your boss may have against, say, someone seeking psychiatric help or relief from a substance abuse problem.

If all this sounds a bit scary, remember that you do have some rights, and keeping your job may, at some point, depend on your defending them.  To find out about the cornucopia of information that may be contained in your employment file (anything from salary history to suspected drug use to your political bent), call your state attorney general’s office and ask if your state is one of the 18 that has laws in giving you access to your employment files.  For more advice on exactly what types of issues your boss can raise on the job, phone the American Civil Liberty Union’s National Task Force on Civil Liberties in the Workplace at 212-944-9800.  The ACLU can also help you interpret state privacy laws and dispense on possible legal actions.

• Make the most of the job review process. Most medium-size and larger employers have formal review policies for their workers, appraising their deeds annually.  Yet in the fast-paced workplace of the ’90s, where situations change with the blink of a computer screen, a once-a-year report card may be inadequate. Your manager, in fact, may not have a handle on how valuable you’ve been over the past 12 months -unless you make a point to show him or her.  By asking for feedback (and this often means volunteering for extra work), you set yourself up for special notice.  You can take control by asking to get together with your boss, say, once every other month to informally discuss your progress, goals, and short-falls.  Consequently, the annual review will hold few surprises and will be far less daunting.

• Don’t disappoint your boss. Keep yourself from taking on more work or responsibilities that you can reasonably handle.  Otherwise you’ll have one unhappy boss.  Unfortunately, one bad break can stick in your boss’s mind for months or years and could be used against you if he or she needs to lay off staffers.

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Holding On to the Job That You Have - continuation

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• Learn to be a master of more than one trade. You can’t make yourself indispensable, but you can make yourself less expendable.  The surest method to keep things moving your way is to get comfortable juggling several tasks. Adaptable types -anti specialists, if you will -show employers that they are malleable to change.  Your best strategy:  Try your hand at several key functions that interest you.  A marketing executive, for example, who adds superior purchasing skills to his or her resume’ will open far more career doors over the long term.  True career champs excel in two or three complementary areas.

• Update your skills and stay flexible. When is the right time to hit the books to keep current?  The answer:  Don’t wait until your colleagues do.  Don’t delay until a plum position opens up, forcing you to scramble and acquire the skills needed to fit the bill.  Instead, scope out positions that pique your interest and assess what tools you’ll need to bolster your qualifications.  A tip:  If you’re aware of a course that you think would make you a better worker, tell your boss.  Even if tuition reimbursement isn’t a part of your benefits package, he or she may be impressed enough to find tuition fees in the department budget.

• Understand the corporate culture, and adapt. “No eating at your desk.  Stockings mandatory for women.  Docked pay for showing up late”.  These sorts of work rules may sound old-fashioned, but many companies, particularly small, family-run businesses, abide by them.  Whether you can is another issue -and one that you should consider before you accept a job where they are strictly enforced.

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1st page - Holding On to the Job That You Have

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• Ferret out sources for start-up cash. Franchisors often provide start-up capital for their franchisees.  Other owners of fledgling businesses will have a tougher time getting financing, though.  The most common source of money for entrepreneurs are friends and family members.  After you try tapping your circle, you may want to try your state’s economic development office, the Small Business Association, banks, or even venture capitalists -speculators whom you repay with money, equity in your business, or both.  Once you go to serious lenders asking for money, you’ll need to have a business plan that sings and the expertise to pull it all off.

• Finally, before signing on with a franchise company, check it out. A franchisor is a business that licenses its concept to many business owners to create a uniform chain of stores or outlets.  The most popular examples are food businesses, such as McDonald’s and Burger King.  These titans typically require a pile of start-up cash, in excess of $500,000.  Plenty of other franchisors ask far less, however -sometimes under $25,000.  they typically include franchisors of decorating, cleaning, travel, and auto services businesses.

Because they require less start-up capital and the concept is already proven, franchises generally pose less risk than a business started from scratch.  But never forget that a franchisor merely provides a foundation for your business; it’s no guarantee that your operation will succeed.    For a listing of more than 5,000 franchisors nationwide, plus information on how to check out the financial soundness of a franchisor, call the International Franchising Association in Washington, D.C. (800-543-1038) and ask for the Franchise Opportunities Guide.  For $21, they’ll send you a copy.

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Tips for Four Types of Job Seekers - continuation 3rd part

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