As we approach the end of the year, it appears the only topic more divisive than real versus faux Christmas trees is whether remote or in-person work is better.

Amid the discourse, 90% of employers have said they will return to the office by the end of next year, a ResumeBuilder survey found. Companies including Amazon, Meta, JPMorgan Chase, and Disney have implemented strict in-office attendance policies in recent months, with some even warning workers not in compliance that they may be fired. Neiman Marcus Group, meanwhile, is embracing remote work for the majority of its roughly 2,000 corporate employees. The retailer believes this strategy will be key to its long-term equity, recruitment, and retention success.

Not going out of style. After an engagement survey revealed employees wanted more flexibility, Eric Severson, Neiman Marcus Group’s chief people and belonging officer, told HR Brew that the company decided to move to a remote model. It was 2019, before Covid-19 hit, and while Severson had only recently joined the company, he had experience implementing remote-work arrangements.

Seeing results. Severson said the company’s work-from-anywhere strategy has had positive impacts on the company.

Keep reading here.—KP

And employees are feeling the chill. Employee support for organizational change has dropped dramatically—from 74% in 2016 to just 43% in 2022. Yikes.

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Burnout. Depression. Loneliness. Anxiety. Americans are feeling the weight of the world on their shoulders, and their mental health is suffering.

At least one in five Americans deal with some type of mental illness in any given year, and there was a record number of deaths by suicide in 2022.

As the mental health crisis continues to worsen and work environments continue to impact employee mental health, more companies, including CVS, Lululemon, and Cardinal Health, are offering mental health education and training to employees to help their colleagues in distress.

Modern first aid. Since 1910, US law has stipulated that employers must have basic medical supplies in the workplace. And for decades, employers have offered certifications and training to prepare employees to help in the case of a colleague’s medical emergency, before EMS or other trained professionals arrive. Now, employers are increasingly offering mental health first-aid training, Tramaine EL-Amin, VP of mental health first aid USA at the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, which offers various mental health first aid training courses, told HR Brew.

Keep reading here.—KP

Welcome to HR 101. Class is now in session. Today’s discussion will focus on the healthcare flexible spending account (FSA).

The history. FSAs are an employer-provided specialized pre-tax account designed to help employees pay for specific out-of-pocket medical expenses, according to healthcare.gov. They were created in response to the Revenue Act of 1978, a key piece of tax reform legislation that aimed to reduce income taxes, among other things.

Since 1983, FSAs have been subject to a use-it-or-lose-it rule, which the IRS implemented over concerns that employees were using them as a way to hide income, according to Slate. Under that rule, employees must deplete the funds by the end of the year, or forfeit them to their employer, CBS reported. This rule is often cited as the main reason employees don’t sign up for an FSA, according to SHRM. In 2014, however, a new rule gave employers the option to allow employees to roll over up to $500 in unused FSA funds at the end of the plan year.

Fast-forward. Nearly two-thirds of US employers offered a healthcare FSA in 2023, SHRM’s Employee Benefits Survey showed. Despite this, most employees don’t fully understand how FSAs work, particularly the use-it-or-lose-it aspect.

Keep reading here.—AS

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: Over one-half (52%) of North American employees say they feel daily stress due to their jobs, a record high. (Business Insider)

Quote: “When we were in that position again and the market was bad, we knew we could successfully refuse to cut corners and cut people…We leveraged our software and took the time to look at every dollar being spent to figure out how to optimize our budgets to avoid layoffs again.”—Aman Mann, CEO of spend-management software Procurify, on how he has avoided cutting staff (Employee Benefit News)

Read: Economic hardships are forcing a greater number of employees to borrow against their 401(k) and other retirement plans. (CNBC)

The biosimilars era: Approximately 100 biosimilars treating autoimmune diseases are in development. We teamed up with CVS Caremark to learn how that pipeline can lead to lower treatment costs for plan sponsors. Read on.*

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