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Wharton Business School: All you need to knowThe Wharton School falls under the University of Pennsylvania. It was founded in the year 1881. Its origin was marked by the charity that came in the form of the donation from Joseph Wharton; an American industrialist who was involved in manufacturing and mining. Hence, it was named after him. It is a given fact that Wharton is the US’ first collegiate school of business. In addition, it forms a part of the M7 group of elite MBA-programs. Under this very proud group, Booth, Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, MIT Sloan, and Stanford are mentioned. In addition, Wharton is hardly a studies-only school. This is because it provides students with several extracurricular activities. These activities include sports, clubs and other student-initiated events.LocationThe Wharton School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is about 160 km to the south-west of New York. Philadelphia is a heritage site and marks the history of the great American Revolution. Seven Fortune 1000 companies are located in Philadelphia. Therefore, there is no surprise in the fact that Philadelphia is now an economic and education hub combined with the growth of universities in the city. Wharton students will get to satiate on world cuisine at Philly’s eclectic restaurants. In addition, there are several recreation options such as running, cycling, and riding trails at Fairmount Park, and fields and courts at Penn Park. In terms of the weather, the summers are usually hot and humid, the fall and spring are mild, whereas the winters are cold with varied snowfall. It turns to freeze temperatures by the first weeks of November and April. In addition, it rains here almost throughout the year, about 12 days a month.CampusThe University of Pennsylvania is a private Ivy League university. It was established in 1740 as America’s first-ever university. The campus pans across 300-acre and is located in West Philadelphia. The Wharton campus falls on Locust Walk. Wharton’s Philadelphia campus contains four buildings—the Huntsman Hall (main building), Steinberg-Hall Dietrich Hall (academic departments), Vance Hall (graduate programs, administrative offices), and Lauder-Fischer Hall (international business teaching and research). Wharton’s San Francisco campus was established in 2001 for MBA students. On-campus housing facilities have a studio and two-bedroom apartments whereas the Off-campus housing is for the Center City as well as the University City. Wharton Students can commute on foot, by bike, and on public transportation network of buses, trolleys, and trains.RankingFT places Wharton MBA at the third rank and Business Insider places it on the top rank for the efficiency of its MBA programs. US News and World Report refer to Wharton’s MBA as the best MBA program in the US. In addition, QS rates it as the fifth best b-school in the world.FacultyThe Wharton faculty comprises of 225 members and lead 20 interdisciplinary research centers. Wharton’s professors have been Nobel Prize winners as well as researchers on industrial relations, marketing, insurance, pensions and retirement, finance, and administration.ProgramsWharton’s MBA programs are the full-time MBA, MBA for executives, joint degree programs (MBA/MA) in international management and arts and sciences, MBA/law program, and MBA/public administration. It also has pre-college programs, undergraduate programs in economics, and dual-degree programs in international studies and business, management and technology, and life sciences and management. Among doctoral programs are accounting, management, applied economics, ethics and legal studies, marketing, and statistics. Executive programs feature for both individual candidates and organizations. Wharton runs the Wharton-INSEAD Alliance and Advanced International Studies.CurriculumWharton’s MBA curriculum was revamped back in 2012, thereon its core curriculum comprises of six required core classes and a flexible core. The flexibility helps students to take up more electives in the first year in preparation for internship, and defer other electives to the second year. The fixed core includes leadership, marketing, microeconomics, economics, statistics, and management. Among the flexible core, topics are marketing, communications, macroeconomics, accounting, corporate finance, operations, and legal studies and business ethics.Application RequirementsThe application fee is $265 and the applications should comprise of two MBA essays. These are the candidate’s professional expectations from the course in about 500 words, and how they will contribute to the Wharton community, in about 400 words. Academic documents, GMAT or GRE and TOEFL or PTE scores, resume, and letters of recommendation from at least two people are needed.Fee, ExpensesThe first-year cost of attending the Wharton MBA rounds about to $110,000 (tuition and other fees $77,000, room and board $22,000; and miscellaneous $6,000 are included).Scholarship, AidFellowship programs are offered to the students who have exceptionally high academic achievements, qualities of leadership and other qualities, and professional development qualities. The fellowship programs offered are the Joseph Wharton Fellowships, Forte Fellowships (for women students), Social Impact Fellowships, Emerging Economy Fellowships, and Wharton Fellowships for Current Students. Loans for international students with or without a US consignor are also available.Admission statisticsYou would be glad to know that there are over 6,679 applications for the Wharton MBA Class of 2018. However, only 851 students were finally enrolled, with students from 71 countries. Out of these, forty-six percent are of the undergraduate background in the humanities, 28 percent STEM, and 26 percent in business. The work experience range is from zero to over 13 years (mean of about five years). In addition, the GMAT score range is 570-780 (mean comes to about 730).Career DevelopmentCareer Management helps students with education and guidance to assist them in securing the jobs they want and aid them in building their career. The students are connected with over 650 companies, from Fortune 500 organizations to startups by the career team. It also provides several resources such as workshops, career counseling, research tools, information banks on companies and industries, recruiting, and lifelong alumni support.Jobs after MBA/EmployersThe MBA Class of 2016 (of over 850 students) recorded mostly full-time job offers for 98.3 percent of students. The most popular function choices were, by far, consulting/strategy (31.2 percent). As a job destination, US has been the most popular so far with 86.9 percent. The employers for the Wharton graduates for the year of 2015-16 have ranged from Accenture to J. P. Morgan to Zinga.SalariesThe annual base salary range for Wharton graduates of the batch of 2016 was from $27,600 to $250,000; with a median of around $125,000. The sign-on bonus range was $4,000-$175,000 (median $25,000), and the other guaranteed compensation range was $3,600-$175,000 (median $20,400).Alumni NetworkWharton’s alumni member network is about 95,000-strong in over 150 countries. In addition, it links 80 clubs worldwide. Most interestingly, a Wharton reunion is held on the campus annually.Notable AlumniThere is a long list of notable alumni for Wharton’s which include Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Anil Ambani, Ruth Porat, Warren Buffett, Sundar Pichai, Aditya Mittal, William Wrigley Jr. II, etc.USPWharton’s MBA is even more special as compared to the others in the market because it has a flexible core. It is said that “the depth of 19 majors and the breadth of nearly 200 electives” which allow students the freedom to choose their course content as per choice. Wharton’s faculty has professors-cum-consultants to several businesses, government organizations, and nonprofits are also one of its main strengths.Wharton School of Business is considered as one of the best B-Schools in the USA. Apart from quality education, the institution promises numerous job opportunities for the students. A great GMAT score and a good overall profile are required for you to be accepted into Wharton.Courtesy - AdmitKardFor more articles like this, visit AdmitKard BlogHope it helps!Have a nice day!

Why did Zhou Enlai promote Mao Zedong to the apex of power in the Communist Party instead of taking such role himself?This piece is probably of little interest except to some Chinese, Asian or Western oriental readers.The history of modern China is in many ways a tapestry of the way the Chinese Communist party struggled through its early years in particular revolving around two of the most prominent leaders of China i.e Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. They were both revolutionaries and to many Chinese, heroes of their times 时代的英雄.To understand the question above concerning these two men, you would need some knowledge of their background.Born in 1898 Zhou was the first grandson of a scholar and when he was born his grandfather was very sick and dying, but he described the child with this ‘bagua’, a divination pronouncement upon the child as such- “Benevolent light shines down, Eastward the purple energy comes”; from whence his name was derived as恩 en (benevolence/grace) and来lai (comes). He was given to his youngest uncle as a surrogate son because the uncle was dying from tuberculosis but yet had no progeny and in those days, Chinese believed it was a failure to your ancestors if you had no children. Nevertheless his adoptive mother doted upon him as did his biological mother and they taught him to read and write from an early age. As a bright child he read voraciously and was rather impressed by the story of Han Xin 韩信 , one of the greatest generals of the Han dynasty under Liu Bang, who had a destitute childhood and was bullied by two hoodlums who forced him to crawl between their legs; but who managed to swallow his pride and learned the first step in the art of war which is to practise restraint. Han Xin described that to deny restraint would also mean your downfall, because as a man, if one is able to swallow insults then one can move on to greater things. And yet, Han Xin was magnanimous in that after his victories and he became Duke of Chu, he appointed one of the bullies to be chief police officer of Huai’an, in Jiangsu where Zhou was born. This reminds us of Richard Nixon, who remembered during his period as Vice president to Dwight Eisenhower how Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had ignored Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai by refusing to shake his hand at a Geneva conference in 1954. But this did not prevent Zhou from efforts at diplomatic engagement with the US and in 1972 when Nixon established ties with China, as they drove into Beijing he mentioned to Nixon: “Your handshake came over the vastest ocean in the world - twenty five years of no communication”.As a child, his two mothers died when he was nine and he had to grow up fast to help maintain the family, and this made him a cautious man. He had to handle debt collectors with tact and diplomacy. Moreover, when he moved in with his uncle in a county near Shenyang at the age of twelve, he was bullied by the Northern boys, and he had to devise means to defend himself. So he befriended new allies, created a united front and used them for his counterattacks… a tactic he called “divide the opposition and conquer them one by one”, a survival skill which served him well in the political maelstrom of the coming years, when he had to encounter many hostile confrontations. He studied English in Tianjin before gaining admission to American-sponsored Tsinghua Nankai Middle School where he did well, but the political crisis of the warlord years post October 1911 Revolution together with predatory foreign powers left deep imprints upon him and the agitated youth of China. Because Russia demanded much compensation and land in the north from China during the early 20th century, it triggered a nationalistic response in the youthful Zhou who declared “Every citizen must bear the burden of determining the life and death of the nation so that China can rise up”. He went to Japan, hoping to enrol in a university but did not do well in Japanese language and had to return to China but the failure was a crucible of fire and turned him into a matured young man.The May fourth Movement started in 1919, when the Great Powers ignored the Chinese delegates and transferred the former German occupied territories in Shandong province where Confucius was born to Japan striking a blow to China’s national pride. This made young Chinese like Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong, Li Dazhao 李大釗 , Zhang Shenfu 张申府, Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀 etc very annoyed and feeling betrayed, they ditched their pro –western outlook which had inclined toward Western-style democracy and scientific enlightenment and embraced Marxism. The latter three men, all University of Peking professors, started a communist cell in Beijing in October 1920 which ultimately led to the formal establishment of the CCP in July 1921 in Shanghai, which was attended by Mao with eleven others and a Comintern International communist directorate representative (based in Moscow). In 1919, he founded the Nankai Student Union Alliance News (Nankai xuesheng lianhehui bao), became its one man band, editing, raising money, negotiating with police, trade workers, printers etc and ended up as the leading figure in the Tianjin student movement. Often he wrote using his Awakening Society pen name, Wu Hao (Fifth Warrior). He was even jailed as a student leader, and the deplorable conditions in jail transformed him into a revolutionary. He took it upon himself the difficult task to overthrow the old society and replace it with a more humane social order.By June 1922, the European branch of the Communist Youth League of China was formed where Zhou was the leader whilst in France, enlisted by Zhang. By then, there were some two thousand Chinese students in France but because of the post WWI recession and the resentment of the French towards the young Chinese who often worked for half pay, they felt even more radicalised. Zhou met Deng Xiaoping 邓小平 in France, Zhu De 朱德 in Germany, and also Nie Rongzhen 聂荣臻 ( founder –Chinese Nuclear and Space program) as well as Cai Hesen 蔡和森 , Li Lisan 李立三 , Li Fuchun 李富春 and even Hu Zhiming (Ho Chi Minh) 胡志明 in Europe; developing the vast contacts essential to their continuing struggle. Many people do not realise that Deng Yingchao 邓颖超 aborted their first child in 1925 as a personal sacrifice to cause of the revolution, and after the neonatal death of a second child, never ever conceived again.In 1924, the Comintern arranged an alliance between the Nationalists and the Communists to work together to challenge the northern warlords, resulting in Zhou, whose organizational skills were well recognised, assuming the post of political instructor at Whampoa (Huangpu) Military Academy. Chiang Kaishek, protégé of Sun Yatsen was the principal, and he actually recognised Zhou’s talents. But inevitably friction arose in spite of Zhou’s effort in working with both sides to transform the Chinese nation. Mao and Zhou only met each other in Guangdong in 1926 around the time of the Zhongshan gunboat incident where Chiang Kai Shek - Jiang Jieshi 蒋介石 staged a coup against the Soviet led communists at Whampoa. The real power in the early years of the CCP did not belong to the Chinese founders but to the Comintern, the International communist directorate, based in Moscow. In the early 1920’s, the top Comintern operative in China was a Dutchman called Hendrikus Sneevliet (Mekka). Maring (马林) , who tried to fashion a partnership between the CCP and the Nationalist Party. He was then replaced by Gregori Voitinksy 吴廷康 , but these people had little background knowledge of conditions in China and another operative, Nicolai Bukharin尼古拉布哈林 suggested ideas which led to great casualties.After his military success against the warlord Chen Jiongming 陳炯明 in 1925, Zhou was in fact very high within the CCP organisational structure and still hoping that they could work with the Nationalists, he organised workers in Shanghai to seize the city by March 1927, thinking that the left wing alliance of the KMT would help them in their struggle when the Nationalist Army entered Shanghai on April 12th but Chiang slaughtered the workers and captured the communists as he entered the city and tried to capture Zhou, one of the greatest betrayals in modern history. Even in spite of this disaster, Zhou was elected Secretary general of the CCP at the 5th Congress in Wuhan in absentia because he was dodging capture all the way from Shanghai, and became the military director.The communist struggle had many setbacks but many disillusioned Nationalist commanders who were patriotic joined them in 1927 at Nanchang such as He Long 贺龙, Chen Yi 陈毅, Ye Jianying 叶剑英, Nie Rongzhen, Zhu De, Liu Bocheng 刘伯承 and Lin Biao 林彪. These men including Deng Xiaopeng formed the core of the CCP. They took over Nanchang on August 1st 1927, virtually the day the PLA was born, but had to abandon it after three days on the order of the Comintern who still believed they had to work with the Nationalists. Zhou moved to Shantou to await a shipment of arms from Soviet Union whilst Zhu De, Chen Yi and Lin Biao went to join Mao’s guerrilla army. In the event, the arms never arrived and Zhou’s forces lost at Chaoshan, and he developed malaria as he fled to Hong Kong which nearly cost his life.Mao Zedong.Born 1893 in Shaoshan village, Xiangtan County, Hunan, son of a wealthy landlord farmer who was somewhat dictatorial, Zedong was a very militant character who developed a combative and anti- establishment attitude which found expression in perpetual struggle. He fought his father relentlessly and hated authority, declaring “Boundless happiness in fighting Heaven, the Earth, and Men”. He would often jump into the pool in front of his home to escape his father’s beating, as his father did not know how to swim. He was not particularly gifted in Mathematics but was excellent in literature and prose. Even so, when he went back to Shaoshan after establishing the Peoples Republic of China, he treated his venerable teacher with the utmost respect. Shaoshan residents are actually very proud of Mao and it is said that when the KMT sought to desecrate his parents grave, the villagers built hundreds of similar graves, thwarting Chiang Kaisek’s design.When I visited Shaoshan in 2009, Mao Zedong’s ancestral home struck me as very interesting from a fengshui (geomancy) viewpoint. It is located on a slight slope with a mild left embankment shoulder and a steeper right shoulder going towards the hill at the back. There is a stream flowing from the hill filling in a pond in front of the house before it flows further downhill. It seems to fit in with the classical ‘qing long-bai hu shan’ formation-i.e Green dragon on the right flank with lower White tiger ridge on the left, with a hill (Black tortoise) as backdrop and water element (Red phoenix) in front. Maybe the grandfather was prescient—this was the house of the future leader of China!In Hunan, Mao edited and published the Xiang River Review, a weekly paper which set forth his vision of a great union of the popular masses, after the May 4th incident. In 1923, at the 3rd CCP Congress, Mao was actually made Secretary of the Central Bureau (forerunner of the Politburo) by Chen Duxiu, then leader of the CCP. However Mao was not a consensus kind of character, being rather inclined to throw his weight around, and this nearly careened his career. In September 1927, he tried to organise a rebellion in Hunan but this ended in disaster and he was roundly censured, so he withdrew to Ciping where he established his base at Jinggangshan. He believed that the revolution would be based on the peasants and not the urban worker and dared to challenge the Russian revolutionaries and their Chinese followers. For the next few years the CCP leadership, recognising Zhou’s organisational skills put him in charge of the secret service and kept him on the Politburo but they discharged Mao from the Politburo, and because Mao was still establishing his Red 4th Army in Jiangxi, he came up against party leaders who disagreed with his tactics and he was mad as hell.At the 6th CCP (1928) conference in Moscow, Nikolai Bukharin told Zhou to disperse the 4th Army on the basis of logistical difficulties to supply the army. When Zhou (1929) transmitted the instructions to Mao and Zhu De, (on the basis that the Party must command the gun) the results were disastrous as Mao was stripped of his operational command at the 4th Army Congress and his control of the Front committee was given to Chen Yi. The dispersed troops were being annihilated and the leadership had to implore Mao to come back. He refused! In the end, Zhou broke the deadlock using his expertise at compromise but this was the first of two confrontations between them.By 1932, at the NIngdu conference to handle the matter of the encirclement by Chiang’s troops of the guerrilla territory, opinion was divided. One faction under the Comintern and its CCP supporters such as Ren Bishi 任弼时 wanted a direct attack on the KMT forces but Mao and Zhu De wanted to use guerrilla tactics. Zhou sought a compromise – he would take the battlefront and use Mao as his deputy, because he wanted to use Mao’s expertise but the CCP Politburo did not trust Mao as they thought he was a loose cannon. Mao retreated as was his wont under various excuses, and waited (for two long years). He knew Zhou was not tough enough to confront the Shanghai boys as his compromising Confucianist upbringing did not allow him to break through the leadership vacuum. In retrospect Zhou believed that this was his biggest blunder, and the root of every major conflict between him and Mao.However by now, Mao was in his element, and managed to defeat Chiang’s three attempts at encircling Jiangxi. At Chiang’s fourth attempt, Zhou had to defeat this attack on Mao’s terms using guerrilla tactics instead of a forward offensive as dictated by the CCP central leadership. Chiang’s fifth campaign under the advice of the German Hans von Seeckt 汉斯·冯·塞克特 was much more effective using cement block houses to corral communist forces, and Otto Braun (Li De) 李德 and Qin Bangxian or Bo Gu (秦邦宪 or 博古), a Stalinist, by now the political commissar in charge of the army who had pushed Zhou aside were thoroughly mauled by Chiang’s force as they fled in 1934, losing 50,000 soldiers out of 80 thousand at the battle of Xiang River and all through Hunan and Guangxi as they withdrew. At the Zunyi conference, the CCP decided Bo Gu and Li De had to go, but because of Zhou’s past merits, he was retained. Mao’s star started to shine now and he was elected to the politburo, and aligned himself with Zhang Wentian 张闻天, another Bolshevik who broke with the Comintern who later assumed the top job.During the Long March, Mao demonstrated both enormous political as well as military cunning. Taking on the KMT whose army was a hundred thousand troops with his outnumbered stragglers, he managed to outmanoeuvre them in the upper reaches of the Yangzi at the River of Golden Sand and freed the communists to make their way to Ya’nan in Shaanxi, where they would regroup and consolidate for the next twelve years. In this campaign he played his cards right. He managed to wrangle Zhang Wentian to replace Bo Gu as the CCP Party leader, outplayed another Red Army chieftain Zhang Guotao 张国焘 (one of the original founders of the CCP in 1921 who was a contender for the Chief of the army) by suggesting that he replace Zhou as the army chief political commissar (equivalent to Chief of Staff) which did not arouse suspicion on the part of Zhang. Unfortunately for Zhou, he now developed a liver abscess and was fighting for his life, and using the convenient absence of Zhou, Mao himself took over the Political Commissar’s post and controlled the army! Zhang Guotao was completely foxed out.In 1935 at Ejie, Sichuan, the enlarged Politburo decided to amalgamate the Shaanxi-Gansu Branch of the CCP Army and made Peng Dehuai 彭德怀 its official commander with Mao as its political Commissar. They also created a five member group to oversee military matters comprising Peng, Lin Biao, Mao, Wang Jiaxang 王稼祥and Zhou. By this time the Long March was almost over and Mao and Zhang Wentian arranged for Zhu De, Chairman of Military affairs to meet up with Zhang Guotao’s army in the south which would confront military disaster in due course. Having got Zhu out of the way, they wanted to get Zhou out of the military commission and to oversee party affairs but this met with opposition from Wang Jiaxang and others, and Zhou was still elected to be with the military leadership. But Zhou knew that Mao was a brilliant tactician and refusing to contest head –on, he acquiesced to nominate Zedong as Chair of the Military Commission as well as continue to be the top military leader, both of which which made Mao extremely powerful.The next move in Mao’s weiqi chess piece was to displace Wang Ming 王明, another contender for the top post of Chairman of the CCP. Wang was a Stalinist who had returned in 1937, being entrusted by Stalin to work with the Nationalists to fight the Japanese and in the ensuing debate, Zhou took Wang’s side because Enlai felt that the communists ought to show an example to the nation. Mao realised that Zhou’s considerable support within the CCP was key to whoever would win out in the political struggle for the top job, so he separated Zhou from Wang by sending him to Wuhan after the Xian incident(1936) in which Chiang was held hostage by Zhang Xueliang 張學良 and Yang Hucheng 杨虎城; and forced to prepare for war against Japan in 1937. Then Mao managed to isolate Wang’s faction within two years by launching the Ya’nan Rectification Movement which blew hot air all over the mistakes the Comintern and the Russian Returned students (Bo Gu, Zhang Wentian and Wang Jiaxing ) and even Zhou Enlai had made in the past. Now Mao became the Chairman and Liu Shaoqi 刘少奇 was his second and Ren Bishi was the third in the triumvirate of power.By July 1943 , the Comintern was formally dissolved and Wang Ming was powerless but Zhou still had considerable support from Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, Chen Yi and others but he knew he was the next target of Mao when he was summoned back from Chongqing, so his political sixth sense told him that in order to survive he had to virtually display undying support for the Chairman or else he would be cannon fodder for those aligned with Mao such as Liu Shaoqi, Secret Police chief 康生 Kang Sheng, Peng Zhen 彭真, Gao Gang 高岗, Lin Biao and DengXiaopeng. The Chairman made sure that Zhou knew his place by making him run a series of self-criticisms during the fall of 1943. And they continued the struggle against the Nationalists even after WWII from 1946 to 1949, before declaring the formal establishment of the Peoples Republic of China on 1st October , 1949.When I visited Xuzhou there is a museum which has this plaque which is a song of the peasant revolutionaries:一 条 扁 担 两 头 弯千 里 遥 远 来 支 前一 头 挑 的 是 白 面一 头 挑 的 是 炮 弹白 面 送 给 同 志 吃送 上 炮 弹 打 坏 蛋A flat strip burdened with the two ends bent..Shaking for A thousand li distance to the frontOne end has some white noodlesThe other end has explosivesThe noodles are for our compatriots to eatThe explosives are to bomb the lousy eggheads!In summary, Zhou was the ultimate diplomat, a smooth operator, handled people appropriately, organisationally immaculate with an eye on detail, and flexible in approach whereas Mao was a person with immense talent, militarily a genius, politically a maestro like puppet master and possessed of incredible guile. He was not interested in quotidian details of running an organisation and knew he had to rely on Zhou. Yet he always knew he had to look over the shoulder at Zhou because as the other CCP leaders told Zhou, Zhou was the only person ever who could take over from Mao. It was like a kind of love hate relationship between two brothers entrusted with the task of establishing and managing a country.

Once you have great employees on board, how do you keep them from jumping ship? One way is by offering a good benefits package.Many small-business owners mistakenly believe they cannot afford to offer benefits. But while going without benefits may boost your bottom line in the short run, than penny-wise philosophy could strangle your business's chances for long-term prosperity. "There are certain benefits good employees feel they must have," says Ray Silverstein, founder of PRO, President's Resource Organization, a small-business advisory network.Heading the list of must-have benefits is medical insurance, but many job applicants also demand a retirement plan, disability insurance and more. Tell these applicants no benefits are offered, and often top-flight candidates will head for the door.The positive side to this coin: Offer the right benefit, and your business may just jump-start its growth. "Give employees the benefits they value, and they'll be more satisfied, miss fewer workdays, be less likely to quit, and have higher commitment to meeting the company's goals," says Joe Lineberry, a senior vice president at Aon Consulting, a human resources consulting firm. "The research shows that when employees feel their benefits needs are satisfied, they're more productive."Benefit BasicsThe law requires employers to provide employees with certain benefits. You must:Give employees time off to vote, serve on a jury and perform military service.Comply with all workers' compensation requirements.Withhold FICA taxes from employees' paychecks and pay your own portion of FICA taxes, providing employees with retirement and disability benefits.Pay state and federal unemployment taxes, thus providing benefits for unemployed workers.Contribute to state short-term disability programs in states where such programs exist.Comply with the Federal Family and Medical Leave (FMLA).You are not required to provide:Retirement plansHealth plans (except in Hawaii)Dental or vision plansLife insurance plansPaid vacations, holidays or sick leaveIn reality, however, most companies offer some or all of these benefits to stay competitive.Most employers provide paid holidays for New Year's, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day and Thanksgiving day and Christmas day. Many employers also either allow their employees to take time off without pay or let them use vacation days for religious holidays. (See more on time off in "The Low-Cost Benefits of Offering Time Off").Most full-time employees will expect one to two weeks paid vacation time per year. In explaining your vacation policy to employees, specify how far in advance requests for vacation time should be made, and whether in writing or verbally. There are no laws that require employers to provide funeral leave, but most do allow two to four days' leave for deaths of close family members.The federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) requires employers to give workers up to 12 weeks off to attend to the birth or adoption of a baby, or the serious health condition of the employee or an immediate family member. After 12 weeks of unpaid leave, you must reinstate the employee in the same job or an equivalent one. The 12 weeks of leave does not have to be taken all at once; in some cases, employees can take it a day at a time.In most states, only employers with 50 or more employees are subject to the Family and Medical Leave Act. However, some states have family leave laws that place family leave requirements on businesses with as few as five employees. To find out your state's requirements, contact you state labor department.Legal MattersComplications quickly arise as soon as business begins offering benefits, however. That's because key benefits such as Health Insurance and retirement plans fall under government scrutiny, and "it is very easy to make mistakes in setting up a benefits plan," says Kathleen Meagher, an attorney specializing in benefits at Kirkpatrick Lockhart LLP.And don't think nobody will notice. The IRS can discover in an audit what you are doing doesn't comply with regulations. So can the U.S. Department of Labor, which has been beefing up its audit activities of late. Either way, a goof can be very expensive. "You can lose any tax benefits you have enjoyed, retroactively, and penalties can also be imposed," Meagher says.The biggest mistake? Leaving employees out of the plan. Examples range from exclusions of part-timers to failing to extend benefits to clerical and custodial staff. A rule of thumb is that if one employee gets a tax-advantaged benefit--meaning one paid for with pretax dollars--the same benefit must be extended to everyone. There are loopholes that may allow you to exclude some workers, but don't even think about trying this without expert advice.Such complexities mean its good advice never to go this route alone. You can cut costs by doing preliminary research yourself, but before setting up any benefits plan, consult a lawyer or a benefits consultant. An upfront investment of perhaps $1,000 could save you far more money down the road by helping you sidestep expensive potholes.Expensive ErrorsProviding benefits that meet employee needs and mesh with all the laws isn't cheap--benefits probably add 30 to 40 percent to base pay for most employees--and that makes it crucial to get the most from these dollars. But this is exactly where many small businesses fall short because often their approach to benefits is riddled with costly errors that can get them in financial trouble with their insurers or even with their own employees. The most common mistakes:Absorbing the entire cost of employee benefits. Fewer companies are footing the whole benefits bill these days. According to a survey of California companies by human resources management consulting firm William M. Mercer, 91 percent of employers require employee contributions toward health insurance, while 92 percent require employees to contribute toward the cost of insuring dependants. The size of employee contributions varies from a few dollars per pay period to several hundred dollars monthly, but one plus of any co-payment plan is it eliminates employees who don't need coverage. Many employees are covered under other policies--a parent's or spouses, for instance--and if you offer insurance for free, they'll take it. But even small co-pay requirements will persuade many to skip it, saving you money.Covering nonemployers. Who would do this? Lots of business owners want to buy group-rate coverage for their relatives or friends. The trouble: If there is a large claim, the insurer may want to investigate. And that investigation could result in disallowance of the claims, even cancellation of the whole policy. Whenever you want to cover somebody who might not qualify for the plan, tell the insurer or your benefits consultant the truth.Sloppy paperwork. In small businesses, administering benefits is often assigned to an employee who wears 12 other hats. This employee really isn't familiar with the technicalities and misses a lot of important details. A common goof: Not enrolling new employees in plans during the open enrollment period. Most plans provide a fixed time period for open enrollment. Bringing an employee in later requires proof of insurability. Expensive litigation is sometimes the result. Make sure the employees overseeing this task stays current with the paperwork and knows that doing so is a top priority.Not telling employees what their benefits cost. "Most employees don't appreciate their benefits, but that's because nobody ever tells them what the costs are," says PRO's Silverstein. Many experts suggest you annually provide employees with a benefits statement that spells out what they're getting and at what cost. A simple rundown of the employee's individual benefits and what they cost the business is very powerful.Giving unwanted benefits. A workforce composed largely of young, single people doesn't need life insurance. How to know what benefits employee's value? You can survey employees and have them rank benefits in terms of desirability. Typically, medical and financial benefits, such as retirement plans, appeal to the broadest cross-section of workers.If workers needs vary widely, consider the increasingly popular " cafeteria plans ," which give workers lengthy lists of possible benefits plus a fixed amount to spend.Health InsuranceHealth insurance is one of the most desirable benefits you can offer employees. There are several basic options for setting up a plan:A traditional indemnity plan, or fee for service. Employees choose their medical care provider; the insurance company either pays the provider directly or reimburses employees for covered amounts.Managed care. The two most common forms of managed care are the Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) and the Preferred Provider Organization (PPO). An HMO is essentially a prepaid health-care arrangement, where employees must use doctors employed by or under contract to the HMO and hospitals approved by the HMO. Under a PPO, the insurance company negotiates discounts with the physicians and the hospitals. Employees choose doctors from an approved list, then usually pay a set amount per office visit (typically $10 to $25); the insurance company pays the rest.Self insurance. When you absorb all or a significant portion of a risk, you are essentially self-insuring. An outside company usually handles the paperwork, you pay the claims and sometimes employees help pay premiums. The benefits include greater control of the plan design, customized reporting procedures and cash-flow advantages. The drawback is that you are liable for claims, but you can limit liability with "stop loss" insurance--if a claim exceeds a certain dollar amount, the insurance company pays it.Archer Medical Savings Account. : Under this program, an employee of a small employer (50 or fewer employees) or a self-employed person can set up an Archer MSA to help pay health-care expenses. The accounts are set up with a U.S. financial institution and allow you to save money exclusively for medical expenses. When used in conjunction with a high-deductible insurance policy, accounts are funded with employee's pretax dollars. Under the Archer MSA program, disbursements are tax-free if used for approved medical expenses. Unused funds in the account can accumulate indefinitely and earn tax-free interest. Health-savings accounts (HSAs), available as of January 2004, are similar to MSAs but are not restricted to small employers.Cost ContainmentThe rising costs of health insurance have forced some small businesses to cut back on the benefits they offer. Carriers that write policies for small businesses tend to charge very high premiums. Often, they demand extensive medical information about each employee. If anyone in the group has a pre-existing condition, the carrier may refuse to write a policy. Or, if someone in the company becomes seriously ill, the carrier may cancel the policy the next time it comes up for renewal.Further complicating manners, some states are mandating certain health-care benefits so that if an employer offers a plan at all, it has to include certain types of coverage. Employers who can't afford to comply often have to cut out insurance altogether. The good news: Many states are tying to ease the burden by passing laws that make it easier for small businesses to get health insurance and that prohibit insurance carriers from discriminating against small firms. (MSAs, described above, are in part a response to the problems small businesses face.) The following states make some special provision concerning small employers and health insurance: California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Wyoming.Until more laws are passed, what can a small business do? There are ways to cut costs without cutting into your employees' insurance plan. A growing number of small businesses band together with other entrepreneurs to enjoy economies of scale and gain more clout with insurance carriers.Many trade associations offer health insurance plans for small-business owners and their employees at lower rates. Your business may have only five employees, but united with the other, say, 9,000 association members and their 65,000 employees, you have substantial clout. The carrier issues a policy to the whole association; your business's coverage cannot be terminated unless the carrier cancels the entire association.Associations are able to negotiate lower rates and improved coverage because the carrier doesn't want to lose such a big chunk of business. This way, even the smallest one-person company can choose from the same menu of health-care options that big companies enjoy.Associations aren't the only route to take. In some states, business owners or groups have set up health-insurance networks among businesses that have nothing in common but their size and their location. Check with your local chamber of commerce to find out about such programs in your area.Some people have been ripped off by unscrupulous organizations supposedly peddling "group" insurance plans at prices 20 to 40 percent below the going rate. The problem: These plans don't pay all policyholders' claims because they're not backed by sufficient cash reserves. Such plans often have lofty-sounding names that suggest a larger association of smaller employees.How to protect yourself from a scam? Here are some tips:Compare prices. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Ask for references from other companies that have bought from the plan. How quick was the insurer in paying claims? How long has the reference dealt with the insurer? If it's less than a few months, that's not a good sign.Check the plan's underwriter. The underwriter is the actual insurer. Many scam plans claim to be administrators for underwriters that really have nothing to do with them. Call the underwriter's headquarters and the insurance department of the state in which it's registered to see if it' really affiliated with the plan. To check the underwriter's integrity, ask you state's department for its "A.M. Best" rating, which grades companies according to their ability to pay claims. Also ask for its "claim-paying ability rating", which is monitored by services like Standard and Poor's. If the company is too new to be rated, be wary.Make sure the company follows state regulations. Does the company claim it's exempt? Check with your state's insurance department .Ask the agent or administrator to show you what his or her commission, advance or administrative cost structure is. Overly generous commissions can be a tip-off; some scam operations pay agents up to 500 percent commission.Get help. Ask other business owners if they've dealt with the company. Contact the Better Business Bureau to see if there are any outstanding complaints. If you think you're dealing with a questionable company, contact your state insurance department or your nearest Labor Department Office of Investigations.Above and BeyondWhat does COBRA mean to you? No, it's not a poisonous snake coming back to bite you in the butt. The Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act (COBRA) extends health-insurance coverage to employees and dependents beyond the point at which such coverage traditionally ceases.COBRA allows a former employee after he or she has quit or been terminated (except for gross misconduct) the right to continued coverage under you group health for up to 18 months. Employee's spouses can obtain COBRA coverage for up to 36 months after divorce or death of the employee, and children can receive up to 36 months of coverage when they reach the age at which they are no longer classified as dependents under the group health plan.The good news: Giving COBRA benefits shouldn't cost you company a penny. Employers are permitted by law to charge recipients 102 percent of the cost of extending the benefits (the extra two percent covers administrative costs).The federal COBRA plan applies to all companies with more than 20 employees. However, many states have similar laws that pertain to much smaller companies, so even if your company is exempt for federal insurance laws, you may still have to extend benefits under certain circumstances. Contact the U.S. Department of Labor to determine whether your company must offer COBRA or similar benefits, and the rules for doing so.Retirement PlansA big mistake some business owners make is thinking they can't afford to fund a retirement plan in lieu of putting profits back into the business. But less than half of the employees at small companies participate in retirement plans. And companies that do offer this benefit report increased employee retention and happier, more efficient workers. Also, don't forget about yourself: Many business owners are at risk of having insufficient funds saved for retirement.To encourage more businesses to launch retirement plans, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 provides a tax credit for costs associated with starting a retirement plan, including a 401(k) plan, SIMPLE plan or Simplified Employee Pension (SEP). The credit equals 50 percent of the first $1,000 of qualified startup costs, including expenses to set up and administer the plan and educate employees about it. For more information, see IRS Form 8881, Credit for Small Employers Pension Plan Start-up Costs(PDF).Don't ignore the value of investing early. If, starting at age 35, you invested $3,000 each year with a 14-percent annual return; you would have an annual retirement income of nearly $60,000 at age 65. But $5,000 invested at the same rate of return beginning at age 45 only results in $30,700 in annual retirement income. The benefit of retirement plans is that savings from tax-free until you withdraw the funds--typically age 59. If you withdraw funds before that age, the withdrawn amount is fully taxable and also subject to a 10-percent penalty. The value of tax-free investing over time means it's best to start right away, even if you start with small increments.Besides the long-term benefit of providing for your future, setting up a retirement plan also has the immediate gratification of cutting taxesHere is a closer look at a range of retirement plans for yourself and your employees.Individual Retirement Account (IRA)An IRA is a tax-qualified retirement savings plan available to anyone who works and/or their spouse, whether the individual is an employee or a self-employed person. One of the biggest advantages of these plans is that the earnings on your IRA grow on a tax-deferred basis until you start withdrawing the funds. Whether your contribution to an IRA is deductible will depend on your income level and whether you're covered by another retirement plan at work.You also may want to consider a Roth IRA. While contributions are not tax deductible, withdrawals you make at retirement will not be taxed. The maximum annual contribution individuals can put in either a Roth or a traditional IRA is $3,000 for 2004, assuming they meet the eligibility requirements.To qualify for Roth IRA contributions, a single person's adjusted gross income (AGI) must be less than $95,000, with benefits phasing out completely at $110,000. For married couples filing jointly, the AGI must be less than $150,000. The contribution amount is decreased by 30 percent (35 percent if 50 or older) until it is eliminated completely at $160,000 for joint filers. For 2005 to 2007, the contribution limit for both single and joint filers climbs to $4,000 per person and to $5,000 per person in 2008. After that, contributions and indexed to inflation.Regardless of income level, you can qualify for a deductible IRA as long as you do not participate in an employer-sponsored retirement plan, such as a 401 (k). If you are in an employer plan, you can qualify for a deductible IRA if you meet the income requirements. Keep in mind that it's possible to set up or make annual contributions to an IRA any time you want up to the date your federal income tax return is due for that year, not including extensions. The contribution amounts for deductible IRA's are the same as for Roth IRA's.For joint filers, even if one spouse is covered by a retirement plan, the spouse who is not covered by a plan may make a deductible IRA contribution if the couple's adjusted gross income is $150,000 or less. Like the Roth IRA, the amount you can deduct is decreased in stages above that income level and is eliminated entirely for couples with incomes over 160,000. Nonworking spouses and their working partners can contribute up to $6,000 to IRAs ($3,000 each), provided the working spouse earns at least $6,000. It's possible to contribute an additional $500 for each spouse who is at least 50 years old at the end of the year, as long as there is the necessary earned income. For example, two spouses over 50 could contribute a total of $7,000 if there is at least $7,000 of earned income.Saving Incentive Match Plan For Employees (SIMPLE)SIMPLE plans are one of the most attractive options available for small-business owners. With these plans, you can choose to use a 401(k) or an IRA as your retirement plan.A SIMPLE plan is just that--simple to administer. This type of retirement plan doesn't come with a lot of paperwork and reporting requirements.You can set up a SIMPLE IRA only if you have 100 or fewer employees who have received $5,000 or more in compensation from you in the preceding year. The employer must make contributions the plan by either matching each participating employee's contribution, dollar for dollar, up to 3 percent of each employee's pay, or by making an across-the-board 2-percent contribution for all employees, even if they don't participate in the plan, which can be expensive.The maximum amount each employee can contribute to the plan can't be more than $9,000 for 2004; the amount increases to $10,000 in 2005. After that, the amount will be indexed for inflation. Participants in a SIMPLE IRA who are age 50 or over at the end of the calendar year can also make a catch-up contribution of an additional $1,500 in 2004, $2,000 in 2005 and $2,500 in 2006.Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) PlanAs its name implies, this is the simplest type of retirement plan available. Essentially, a SEP is a glorified IRA that allows you to contribute a set percentage up to a maximum amount each year. Paperwork is minimal, and you don't have to contribute every year. And regardless of the name, you don't need employees to set one up.If you do have employees(well, that's the catch. Employees do not make any contributions to SEPS. Employers must pay the full cost of the plan, and whatever percentage you contribute for yourself must be applied to al eligible employees. The maximum contribution is 25 percent of an employee's compensation (up to a maximum of $200,000) or $40,000, whichever is less.KOEGH PlanA KEOGH retirement plan can be set up by self-employed individuals and doesn't require advanced IRS approval. There are two types of KEOGH plans available. One is defined-benefit, which allows participants to contribute a maximum of the lesser of either 100 percent of their average compensation for the three consecutive years of highest compensation as an active participant, or $170,000. Then there's defined contribution, which allows for contributions of up to $42,000 for either a profit-sharing defined contribution plan or a money-purchase plan. The deadline for setting up a KEOGH plan is the end of the tax year (December 31), and the deadline for making contributions to the KEOGH plan is the same as the SEP--the due date for your Form 1040 individual tax return (including extensions). 401(k) Plans401(k) plans take their name from the section of the federal tax code that provides for them. These plans let you and your employees set aside a percentage of salary tax-free every year. As a kicker, the funds grow tax-free until they're withdrawn. 401(k) plans are very popular benefits with employees because they allow you--the employer--to essentially pay workers more without that income being taxed. Compared to SEPs, 401(k) plans are more popular with employers because most of the contribution comes from the employees.The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) governs the way 401(k) plans are set up and managed. There are many responsibilities that go with setting up a 401(k) program. For instance, you or someone you select has to determine the investment options employees will get to choose from. You have to monitor the investment's performance as well as the service provided by whomever is administering your plan. ERISA exists to make sure any fees that are charged are "reasonable." Setting up a 401(k) is a complicated procedure governed by many arcane rules. You should never do it without consulting with a qualified tax advisor.Where to GoWith so many choices available, it's good idea to talk to your accountant about which type of plan is best for you. Once you know what you want, where do you go to set up a retirement plan?Savings certificates (often at higher yields than at banks or savings and loans)Personal and auto loansLines of creditChecking accountsChristmas club accountsOnly state-chartered credit unions are allowed to add new companies to their membership rosters. To find a credit union that will accept your company, call your state's league of credit unions .When comparing credit unions, get references and check them. Find out how communicative and flexible the credit union is. Examine the accessibility. Are there ATMs? Is there a location near your business? Consider the end users--your employees.Once your company is approved, designate one person to be the primary liaison with the credit union. That person will maintain information about memberships as well as enrollment forms and loan applications. Kick things off by asking accredit union representative to conduct on-site enrollment and perhaps return periodically for follow-up or new sign-ups.This how-to was excerpted from Start Your Own Business, Grow Your Business and "Selecting the Right Retirement Plan" by David Meier.