Comparision of Retirement Plans for employees working in the private Essay

Comparision of Retirement Plans for employees working in the private sector vs employees working in the public sector - Essay Example The similarities and differences in the retirement benefit plans, including taxation of pension as well as the profit sharing plans, between the private and the public sector are critically analyzed and explored in detail. According to Gucciardi (2009), the pension plans of the public sector workers are stable and offer the workers certainty during their retirement period. The public sector recently made changes in its plan to improve the benefits the personnel receive. The public sector employers are responsible for almost all the contributions made to the pension system on behalf of their employees. Generally, the public sector workers are responsible for less than one percent of the contribution costs with their employers responsible for in excess of 99 % (Gucciardi, 2009). The private sector pension plan is different from the public one in that it is mainly based on defined contributions, unlike the defined benefit employed by public sector. Majority of private sector employers provide their personnel with the defined contribution plans. On the other hand, the majority of the public sector employers provide their workers with defined benefit plans (Gucciardi, 2009). The public sector provides its employees with both the defined contribution as well as the defined benefit plan. Conversely, the current trend indicates that the private sector is shifting away from the defined benefit to defined contribution plan. Further, the public sector employees receive subsidized health insurance benefits upon retirement, whereas the private sector employers do not offer such benefits to their retirees (Falk, Acs, Carrington, Dahl, & Jimmy, 2012). The number of private sector employers providing medical benefits to the retiree has declined considerably in the past decade. Over this period, the public sector employers have increased their medical benefits to the retirees despite the challenge of getting adequate funds to meet the

Serious Reflection and Critical Thinking Through Understanding the Use Essay - 1

Serious Reflection and Critical Thinking Through Understanding the Use of Social Media - Essay Example Initially, students used to meet and discuss issues in an attempt to come up with a conclusion. Personal interactions encouraged students to tackle challenging issues through intensive research. In addition, through one-on-one interactions, it was easy to divide the roles and support each other in a specific task. This encouraged the students to think critically in order to support the rest of the group members. However, this is not the case. The students are currently using social media and other instant communication methods to communicate with each other while completing a task. This has made it very hard for them to think critically as a group and reflect on the issues at hand. College students can practice serious reflection in our always connected and instantaneous world through regulating their own time. Time management has become a major issue with the modern communication methods. Therefore, in order to ensure that there no frequent interruptions which affect the studentâ₠¬â„¢s reflection and critical thinking, they need to come up with a strict plan on when and how to use the social media and other instantaneous communication methods (Biagi 2012). For instance, they need to switch off some of the gadgets they use in communication while in group discussions or conducting research. This would make it possible for them to reflect and re-imagine the issue at hand. The students should embrace group work rather than individual assignments. Group discussions are very significant in enabling the students to brainstorm ideas.