Hyatt Legal Plans
Hyatt Legal Plans, a MetLife company, announced that it has released a new resource designed to help employers understand the impact that employees’ personal legal matters have on the workplace.
Quantifying the Workplace Impact of Employees’ Personal Legal Matters: Five Issues Addressed with Group Legal Plans reveals how employees’ routine legal matters can affect workplace productivity and illustrates how group legal plans as a voluntary benefit may help mitigate the impact, while contributing toward achieving objectives of employee retention and cost control.
The guide outlines five ways employers can be impacted by their employees’ personal legal problems, including decreased productivity (distractions, duration of issues, and missed work days on the part of employees), as well as the emotional and physical toll. For example, nearly half (47 percent) of female employees and more than a third of male employees (37 percent) surveyed reported having their physical or emotional health negatively impacted when dealing with their personal legal issue, which can lead to an erosion in work performance.
The study highlighted in the guide found that just 30 percent of employees who used a group legal plan reported taking vacation days toward resolving their legal issue, versus 50 percent who do not have a legal plan. In addition, employees who used a group legal plan resolved their issue in 4.4 weeks on average, compared to 6.1 weeks for those who did not. Loyalty toward their employers is higher among those employees with access to group legal plans.
