Workplace Benefits
The money on the table beyond your salary
Reading an open-enrollment packet, the life and disability coverage people overlook, ESPP and equity, and the pre-tax accounts and perks that add up.
4 lessons · about 30 minutes total · 100% free
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1. Decoding your benefits package
A benefits packet is a wall of acronyms with a deadline attached, but underneath it is real money — often 20 to 30 percent on top of salary. Here's how to read an open-enrollment packet, the five categories every package splits into, what 'employer-paid' versus 'employee-paid' really means, and a worked example that totals the true dollar value of a sample package.
8 min read
2. Group life and disability coverage
Two of the cheapest benefits an employer offers are the ones people skim past fastest. Here's how employer group life coverage works, why short- and long-term disability is the benefit most workers overlook even though it protects the paycheck itself, and how group rates stack up against buying a policy on your own.
7 min read
3. ESPP and equity benefits
When a paycheck comes with a chance to own a piece of the company, the mechanics matter more than the hype. Here's how an Employee Stock Purchase Plan's discount and lookback work, a high-level look at vesting for RSUs and options, the concentration risk of holding too much employer stock, and the tax-timing basics in plain English — descriptive only, never individualized advice.
8 min read
4. Pre-tax accounts and perks
Some of the quietest value in a benefits package hides in pre-tax accounts and perks that workers forget to claim. Here's how the FSA and dependent-care FSA work (and the use-it-or-lose-it rule that sets them apart from the HSA), commuter benefits, the EAP, tuition reimbursement, and the HSA — plus a plain-English look at how pre-tax contributions lower taxable income, with a worked commuter example.
7 min read