Get Started: Location, size factor in benefits decisions

RETIREMENT PLAN, OR NOT?

Companies are more likely to offer employee retirement plans if they're in the Northeast, have more than 50 employees, and a high percentage of those staffers work full-time. Those are among the findings of a survey of more than 1,600 small and medium-sized businesses released last week by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Pew found that whether a company uses more full-timers or part-timers plays a role in whether workers are offered retirement benefits. The survey found there is a 66 percent likelihood that a company with only full-time workers will provide a retirement plan versus a 44 percent likelihood where staffers are divided evenly between full- and part-timers.

The survey also found that companies in the South and West are about half as likely to offer retirement plans as those in the Northeast. There is a high representation of companies in the leisure and lodging industries in the South and West, and those businesses tend to hire many part-timers.

Company size is another factor. Pew found a 34 percent likelihood that a company with five employees will offer retirement benefits, compared to 72 percent for a company with 55 staffers.

Companies classified as management and professional are more likely to offer plans, as well as businesses in the production, transportation and materials movement industries. Pew attributed that finding to the fact that some industries tend to have more full-time workers, and that some companies in certain industries are more likely to offer retirement benefits to be more competitive for top workers.

The survey questioned owners, top executives, and human resource managers at companies nationwide.

GETTING PUBLICITY

Companies that want to get publicity, whether it's via social or traditional media, should consider using an editorial calendar, a tool that can help them manage the stories they want to get out to customers, and when those stories should be published. SCORE, the organization that gives free advice to small businesses, is sponsoring an online seminar on editorial calendars on Thursday, July 6 at 1 p.m. Eastern time. You can learn more and register at http://bit.ly/2sbjIuS .

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Follow Joyce Rosenberg at www.twitter.com/JoyceMRosenberg . Her work can be found here: http://bigstory.ap.org/content/joyce-m-rosenberg