George Mason University

Winning Years:  2011, 2009, 2008, 2007
Industry: Education
Location: Fairfax, Va.
Website: www.gmu.edu

George Mason University's mature employees benefit from participating in a Life Planning Seminar Series. These seminars target a range of issues of interest to those who are caring for an elderly loved one, would like to begin planning for the transition to their own life post-retirement or would like to better prepare for aging well.

See also: How the 2011 Best Employers winners were selected.

The Pre-Retirement Seminar and Retirement Investment Education program invites employees within five years of retirement to a day of pre-retirement planning with George Mason's retirement vendors who conduct presentations, and personal financial counseling is also available.

Additional Policies and Practices:

Workplace Culture/Continued Opportunities: Full- and part-time employees are offered the following learning and development programs: tuition reimbursement, certification classes, in-house classroom training and online training.  

Mason Links is an educational program offered to all faculty, staff and contract workers and provides English classes, tutoring and a language lab.

The Osher Life Long Learning Institute provides opportunities for mature adults to explore intellectual and cultural subjects as well as share their experiences and talents.  

Long-service anniversaries are celebrated with announcements, parties, awards and gifts for those with 25 or more years of service.  

Employees have opportunities to gain new experiences by working on team projects, and through mentoring and leadership development programs. Two mentoring programs offered at George Mason — Mason Footsteps (for administrative and professional faculty and staff) and Mason Horizons (for tenured faculty members)  — give employees the opportunity to job shadow a senior administrator.  

George Mason's Office of Equity and Diversity Services has a dedicated staff member to address employee's' physical needs. Accommodations that have been made include assistive technologies such as screen readers, screen magnification and voice recognition software; sign language interpreters are also available.  
 
Benefits/Health: Employees working 20 or more hours per week receive individual and family medical and prescription drug coverage, individual and family vision and dental insurance, individual and family long-term care insurance, as well as short- and long-term disability.  

Health benefits for retirees include individual and spouse medical and drug coverage, individual and spouse vision and dental coverage, individual and spouse long term care insurance, employee assistance program (EAP) services, as well as individual and spouse life insurance or other death benefit coverage. All of the above benefits are available to new hires upon retirement.  

Flexible spending accounts (FSAs) are available to assist in covering out-of-pocket health care costs. In addition, employees with a minimum of 15 years of creditable service at retirement are eligible for a health insurance credit to assist in covering insurance premiums.

Next: Financial benefits and phased retirement program. >>