Equal Benefits

Research Question

Does age or seniority affect the coverage benefits of an employee in a workplace? In this research question, all possible information will be rendered as to come up with an answer if age affects coverage benefits in a workplace or if it does not.

Statement of Need

As people grow old, they still have to work to sustain their existence. At this point, the most important aspect in this aging process is that every citizen should be able to receive a benefit to compensate for his or her toil and hard work. Despite of age, one is entitled of equal benefits in a workplace. Pay and benefits are a huge part of having good people and in giving them a sense of belonging to something greater than themselves keep them for long.

Review of Literature

People are able to work for a company as long as they can derive benefit from it. Despite all the differences of people in a workplace, whether in color, race, or age, they all have a common purpose of performing their jobs up to their capabilities and being paid for what they had worked. Even though employees in their 40's are more experienced in work unlike the youngsters who just started their careers, they both have the ability of doing their work with their own talents and skills and as a result of these they should be able to benefit equally in the process.

Employees who are working for a company are most satisfied with their jobs because they have good benefits. According to Gresham (2006), "nearly two-thirds of employees (65%) who are highly satisfied with their benefits are highly satisfied with their jobs" (n.p.). People who are in search of jobs are also in search of benefits in choosing and getting a job. In Gresham's study (2006), "Benefits are particularly important among baby boomers (41%), pre-retirees (44%) and young families (45%)" (n.p.). Employees are depending on the workplace as the place to purchase protection, investment and advisory-related products-conveniently and cost-effectively. Not only are the employees the one depending on the workplace as a ground for protection but also the employers who are being forced to rethink about their approach to benefits.

One approach to benefits is that businesses could simply decide that, where once they offered benefits to specific groups of workers; it is now legal to remove employee benefits for all employees, irrespective of age.

Golding and Robertson (September 2006) states that:

Having been forced to make changes in response to the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations, IT recruitment firm Elan Computing will now offer both health screenings and dental care to all of the company's 400 employees through its flexible benefits package, which is based on grade (p. 7).

Furthermore, age regulations fail to recognize that an increase of costs were faced by employers in providing insured benefits, the availability of specific benefits to employees over 70, and the risk employers face in seeking to objectively justify the provision of different benefits to employees at different ages (Reed Business information UK, Ltd., November 2006, p. 4). However, because of these effects,