Ask the Experts: Enrollment, Phishing, Remote Work

On Nov 10, 2025

In the latest installment of New Jersey Business Magazine’s Ask the Experts column, HR professionals working with the New Jersey Business & Industry Association respond to executives’ inquiries on three interesting workplace issues:

How do we handle open enrollment for an employee who’s out on leave?

You should ensure the employee on leave gets the same chance to review their enrollment options and make selections as everyone else. Here are our recommended steps:

• Make sure you have updated contact information for the employee on leave so you can alert them when it’s time for open enrollment.
• Send the materials or link to the enrollment platform with clear instructions and deadlines. If the leave they’re on is unpaid, highlight how their premium will be collected during that leave.
• Follow up with reminders as needed, trying different contact methods if you’ve received no response.
• If the employee doesn’t complete their enrollment on time, treat them as you would employees not on leave who didn’t finish the process – sending the appropriate notices and explaining what happens next.
• When in doubt, confirm specifics with your carrier or broker and follow your plan documents.

What is a phishing scam and how can we protect our organization and employees?

Phishing is a scam in which the attacker pretends to be a trusted person or company and uses electronic means such as emails, texts, or phone calls to steal information. Specifically, the attacker tries to trick you into handing over sensitive information like passwords, payroll data, banking information, and customer data. 

They often encourage you to click a link, download an attachment, or provide information – sometimes by mimicking legitimate emails you would expect to receive. Your IT department will likely want to take a multi-pronged approach for protection, which includes installing and updating software, training employees to recognize and report phishing attempts, creating a recovery plan, alerting the organization when there’s an active phishing attack, and possibly simulating phishing attempts to test employees.

You can also protect your organization by establishing and enforcing strict processes for requesting and sending personal, sensitive, or confidential information. For instance, employees should know not to send you payroll information or login credentials over text or email.

Do you have any tips for managing remote employees?

Here are some of the practices that we recommend:

• Set measurable goals around quantity or quality of work, or both. Whether employees get their work done to your satisfaction is more important to your bottom line than whether they’re always at their workstation.
• Ensure all the resources necessary for employees to do their jobs remotely are easily available. 
• Create and communicate a work-from-home policy so everyone knows what’s expected of them.
• Talk regularly with employees about what’s working well and not so well.
• Hold all meetings virtually, even if some people are in the workplace, so everyone is equally able to participate.

Promote a good work-life balance by making sure remote employees know that when their workday ends, they’re free to truly walk away for the day. It’s easy for employees working at home to spend more time working than they would in an office environment.

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