ACA Update: Trump Signs Executive Order
January 24, 2017Section 6055 and 6056 Reporting Due February 28
January 26, 2017
PRESS RELEASE
New Hartford, NY (January 24, 2017) “It’s grounded in respect for the employee, nurtured by a culture of accountability and fuels superior performance for customers.”
That’s how Larry Gilroy, president of Gilroy Kernan & Gilroy (GKG) of New Hartford, New York, sums up the expanded employee benefits program his firm has adopted. At its heart are unlimited paid time off for employees and an increase in fully paid leave for maternity, paternity and adoption to up to 12 weeks.
The unlimited paid time off encompasses both vacation and sick time. It also embraces flexible time and time for community service.
Gilroy said development of the program began over a year ago when a committee of employees was formed to review GKG’s existing benefits and explore ways of taking them from ordinary to extraordinary — commensurate with the agency’s operating mantra of providing its insurance clients with a “far from ordinary approach to risk.”
“The committee looked at our traditional benefits—like vacation and sick leave, continuing education and retirement—weighed them against GKG’s defining values of work excellence, fulfilling family lives, making a difference in the community and embracing change, and arrived at a new approach to benefits that makes our team experience for employees as far from ordinary as our business approach is to serving customers.”
He pointed out that the concept of unlimited paid time off was first introduced by progressive companies like The Virgin Group, Netflix and a handful of other companies primarily in the technology field. Fewer than two percent of all employers have adopted the practice.
“The ‘unlimited’ and ‘flexible’ qualities of our new program do not mean that it won’t be managed or that the team will be any less responsive to business needs. Quite the contrary. It’s our team’s proven ability to be accountable individually and collectively in all aspects of our operations that has made such a dynamic change possible,” Gilroy emphasized.
“One of GKG’s goals has always been to attract, reward and retain the very best men and women in our field. That starts with making life on and off the job better for them. Our new benefits program alongside our extraordinary culture does that.”
Announcement Comes as GKG Marks 113th Anniversary
Announcement of the program comes as GKG prepares to mark its 113th anniversary on February 2. It was on that date in 1904 that the brothers Edward Francis Kernan and James Sedgewick Kernan opened the E.F. & J.S. Kernan Agency in the Devereux Block in downtown Utica. In 1985 that firm merged with the Gilroy Insurance Agency, creating Gilroy Kernan & Gilroy, Inc.
“Thirteen has always been a lucky number for the Gilroy family,” Gilroy noted, “so it’s appropriate to be unveiling our expanded benefits program — which we believe adds to the good fortune of our employees — as we celebrate our 113th birthday.”
Today one of Central New York’s oldest and largest independent insurance agencies, Gilroy Kernan & Gilroy blends innovative insurance solutions with leading-edge strategies to help individuals and businesses of all types and sizes manage risk. The firm is headquartered at 210 Clinton Road in New Hartford, from which it serves clients across New York State and around the nation and globe. GKG employs a professional staff of over 40 and represents more than 80 insurance carriers.