myHR: June 7, 2023

Recognized Holidays for Fiscal Year 2024

The following holidays will be observed by the University in the upcoming fiscal year (July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024) on the dates listed below:

• Independence Day, Tuesday, July 4, 2023
• Labor Day, Monday, September 4, 2023
• Thanksgiving, Thursday and Friday, November 23 & 24, 2023
• Christmas Day, Monday, December 25, 2023
• New Year’s Day, Monday, January 1, 2024
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Monday, January 15, 2024
• Memorial Day, Monday, May 27, 2024
• Juneteenth, Wednesday, June 19, 2024

Each year, the President, Provost, and Senior Executive Vice President assess the feasibility of observing Penn’s traditional Special Winter Vacation. Thus, the Special Winter Vacation granted to faculty and staff will be on December 26, 27, 28, and 29, 2023. If an employee is required to work to continue departmental operations for part or all of this period, the Special Winter Vacation can be rescheduled for some other time.

Staff members who are absent from work either the workday before a holiday, the workday after a holiday, or both days, will receive holiday pay if that absence is charged to pre-approved paid time off or to sick time substantiated by a written note from the staff member’s health care provider.

Vacations and holidays for hospital employees or those staff members in collective bargaining units are governed by the terms of hospital policies or their respective collective bargaining agreements.

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Be in the Know 2022-2023 Ends Soon

Penn’s Be in the Know 2022-2023 campaign year is quickly coming to a close, so don’t miss your opportunity to support your well-being and earn rewards of up to $300, plus special recognition as a VIP. Be in the Know is open to all benefits-eligible staff and faculty. The campaign deadline is June 30, 2023. 

There are many activities you can still do before the campaign year ends, including: 

• Biometric screenings – This is the first step towards earning rewards in the Be in the Know Steps for Success design, and the only activity required to receive Pulse Cash rewards this year. Missed the on-campus screenings, home test kit, or LabCorp voucher screening options? You still have time to submit screening results from your healthcare provider obtained between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023. Download the Consent to Release Results Form, then follow the instructions to submit your confidential results to Health Advocate as quickly as possible to ensure sufficient processing time. The final deadline to submit for this remaining option to earn screening credit is June 30, 2023.
• Qualifying Activities – Once the biometric screening has been completed, you are eligible to receive earned rewards up to an additional $250 by completing a range of qualifying activities. As you complete qualifying activities, your points accumulate on the Virgin Pulse platform. Your goal is to reach the next designated points total to earn your next-level reward:
• Reach 5,000 total points to earn another $50 (Level 1 reward)
• Reach 15,000 total points to earn another $75 (Level 2 reward)
• Reach 30,000 total points to earn another $125 (Level 3 reward)
• Reach 50,000 total points to earn VIP special recognition (Level 4 reward)
• You must also complete a biometric screening to earn VIP status.
• All confirmed Be in the Know VIPs for the 2022-2023 campaign year will be notified by Virgin Pulse email in early-mid-August.

This campaign year there are over 90 “Ways to Earn” activities you can do for additional points. A few popular activities include preventative health exams, a COVID-19 vaccine, ongoing wellness and work-life events such as wellness walks, group fitness classes, and well-being workshops, and a multitude of online Virgin Pulse offerings. To review the complete list of qualifying activities, download the 2022-2023 “Ways to Earn” chart or visit the Virgin Pulse platform and select My Rewards.  

Redeem Your Rewards

With Virgin Pulse’s rewards program, you can redeem (i.e., “spend”) your earned rewards right on the platform, choosing from gift cards, fitness items, and charitable donations. To redeem your rewards*, sign in at https://join.virginpulse.com/penn. Click the Home button on the main page then select Rewards from the drop-down menu. On the Rewards page, click the Spend tab to bring up three categories of reward options:

• Shop the Store (buy select fitness items)
• Get a Gift Card (buy a VISA gift card or a card from available retailers)
• Donate it (make a charitable contribution)

Follow the prompts to choose the amount you wish to spend from your available rewards.  Be sure to click Submit to confirm your purchase. A confirmation email will be sent to the address you used to register on the Virgin Pulse platform. You will need this confirmation email for gift card purchases and charitable donations. 

Get Ready for Be in the Know 2023-2024

Penn will launch the 2023–2024 Be in the Know campaign year on July 1, 2023. Watch for upcoming communications for more information. Here are a couple of reminders about how points and rewards in the current campaign year are handled in the new campaign year.

• Pulse Cash rewards earned this year (July 1, 2022-June 30, 2023) – but not yet redeemed – will roll over and continue to be available next campaign year.
• Points earned this year (July 1, 2022-June 30, 2023) will not roll over. Your points balance will reset to zero on July 1, 2023.

If you have questions, please contact the Virgin Pulse Member Services Team by using the Support button found at the top right of the platform. You can also call Member Services at 1-855-920-2290, Monday-Friday, 8am-9pm ET.

For complete Be in the Know details, visit www.hr.upenn.edu/beintheknow.

We Want to Hear from You

As we close out the Be in the Know 2022-2023 campaign year, we’d like to hear from you about your wellness journey. Take the Employee Health and Wellness Month Survey on the Virgin Pulse platform and enter to win a wellness prize bag. The one-question survey is available on the platform’s home page from June 5 through June 19. Don’t forget to include your name and email address, if you’d like to enter the prize drawing!   

Also, Employee Health and Wellness Month continues, so be sure to check out the wellness activities in the Events Calendar on the HR website.  


*Per IRS guidelines, all Be in the Know rewards are subject to applicable payroll taxes at the time they are earned and rewarded to participants - even if rewards have not yet been redeemed (i.e., spent). While the rewards are provided through Virgin Pulse's Rewards Program, mandatory payroll taxes on the value of earned rewards will be processed through participants' paychecks. For the 2022-2023 campaign year, taxes will be processed in October 2022, and January, April, and July 2023 paychecks. Participants will see applicable rewards taxes deducted from their paychecks in these months, if rewards were earned during the prior time period. Paystubs will note "Imputed Income: Wellness" plus the amount of earned rewards for that particular tax cycle.

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Walk the Walk and Talk the Talk with Pride

Human Resources has partnered with the LGBT Center to offer Pride Month wellness and work-life events where faculty and staff can proudly celebrate and support the LGBTQ+ community. Before you walk the walk at the annual Celebrate Pride Month Wellness walk on June 20, you can talk the talk in the Becoming a More Informed and Supportive LGBTQ Ally workshop on June 13 from 12 pm to 1 p.m. Registration is open for both events on the HR website.

The virtual Becoming a More Informed and Supportive LGBTQ Ally program will be facilitated by Jake Muscato, Associate Director at the Penn LGBT Center. 

Originally from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Muscato began working in LGBTQA+ advocacy when he started his high school’s first Gay Straight Alliance club shortly after discovering his own queer identity. In his role at Penn, he focuses on programming for trans and non-binary communities on campus. 

Muscato shares details about the June 13 workshop in this edited Q&A.

myHR: Is there a difference between being an ally and just being a respectful friend or a respectful coworker? 

Jake Muscato: I always say an ally is not who you are, but it's what you do. Obviously, respect is important. But to be an ally, you have to be somebody who's willing to take action intentionally on a regular basis. Instead of only saying, “I understand and I accept. I'm okay with folks in the LGBTQ+ community,” what are you doing in your life to create more inclusive spaces actively for LGBTQ+ folks? And that can be a variety of things.

In the workshop We’ll talk about some of the effective ways to be an ally, starting with disrupting homophobia and transphobia when you see it. 

myHR: Your workshop is open to all Penn faculty and staff, but is it mainly for people outside of the LGBTQ+ community?

Jake Muscato: Folks in the LGBTQ+ community are more than welcome to attend, because usually, when you're someone in the community, you have at least a couple of identities. You can always increase your understanding of other identities and increase your allyship to other identities. So, for myself, I'm trans, but I can support my lesbian colleagues and my lesbian friends. 

myHR: How does the June 13 workshop help us understand what colleagues, friends, neighbors, and family members in the LGBTQ+ community actually want and need?

Jake Muscato: I think centering the voices of LGBTQ+ folks… is vital. It's vital to hear what the actual concerns are and approach it from there.

The workshop is an opportunity for folks to hear the trends that we see as a center in terms of the issues that are facing students, staff, and faculty here at Penn. I will talk about my personal experience as someone who's a part of the community, but also, I hope it's an opportunity for folks to feel comfortable to share their own personal experiences understanding that they are experts on their own lives.

myHR: What activities will be part of this short program?

Jake Muscato: An hour is not a long time to dive into some of these topics. However, we’ll begin with an overview of some basic terminology and concepts because we want to be mindful that we're all using similar language in our discussion. 

I will encourage folks to share ways in which they have navigated supporting someone in the LGBTQ+ community in their work or in their personal lives. 

For folks who might be nervous about having these conversations, we understand that mistakes are going to happen. It's a learning environment. And so, the opportunity is really just for folks to come in open-minded. It's some heavy stuff, but I try to keep it as light as we can. I make a few jokes here and there. 

Then we'll move on to some strategies that we at the center recommend. For example, we’ll talk about how to use pronouns, and how to navigate some of these language conversations. We’ll also address some of the challenges that we see trans and non-binary folks facing in our country right now, and what can we do in our daily lives to create a more inclusive space. 

We’ll share LGBT center resources that are always here for folks who work at Penn, whether it's for themselves personally, a student, or someone else they're supporting. 

If participants can take away one thing new that they've learned, I will feel happy.

myHR: For those who can’t attend the workshop, are there any general allyship dos and don'ts? 

Jake Muscato: If you can't come, please know that we at the LGBT center are still here as a resource. If you want a workshop like this, we will bring it to you. This is not a one-time conversation.

That said, here are a few dos and don’ts:

• Do include your pronouns where you can: in your email signature, in your syllabus, and when you introduce yourself in group settings.
• Don't assume a person's gender, a person's pronouns, a person's sexual orientation. None of it.
• Do try your best. You might make mistakes with pronouns. That's part of the process. Don't make a huge deal about it. People are like, “I messed up and I don't know what to do.” It’s okay. You are a human. Recorrect and keep moving.
• Do continue to educate yourself.
• Don't become complacent.

myHR: How do you see this Penn workshop in the context of what's going on nationally?

Jake Muscato: We are situated in a very privileged space right now…at an institution that does support the LGBTQ+ community and allows for workshops like this. We have access to education; we have access to various points of view. But folks are struggling everywhere, even here at Penn. That's just to say that we're all in a period of growth. Penn is in a period of growth in terms of trying to understand these things and support folks the best way that we know how. 

On a national level it's confusing because we have a lot of mainstream support for the trans and non-binary communities, but there's a lot of backlash politically and a lot of anti-trans legislation that is facing many states right now. If folks are hearing about anti-trans legislation and they're feeling distraught and they want to do something, coming to a training like this is one small, but positive action you can take.

myHR: As staff and faculty members, is there a tradeoff between being fair to everyone and supporting the LGBTQ+ community in particular? 

Jake Muscato: I really think the core issues facing the LGBTQ+ community are issues that are facing a lot of other communities. Folks who are trans or non-binary or in the LGBTQ+ community are not asking for more than what their straight and cisgender counterparts already have access to.

The systems and resources that we have available to us in the workplace, in our country, weren't originally created with a lot of us in mind. That's just the historical truth. For that reason as we are becoming more accessible, as we are becoming more understanding of people's humanities, we're going to have to change the way that we approach work and I see it as a good thing. I see us shifting in a way that is centering the humanity of people.

Learn more about Penn’s year round community resources, such as LEAP (LGBT Employees At Penn), visit the LGBT Center web pages. You can also check the Human Resources LGBTQ+ Resources and Support page. 

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Planning a Vacation?

It’s that time of year again – vacation season. Many people are gearing up to hit the roads, rails, and air this summer for spots near and far. How do you travel and get the most out of your vacation time without breaking the bank? Read TIAA’s Money-saving travel trips. The article is reprinted with permission from TIAA. 

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You can always count on TIAA for strategies and tools to help you save for short­ term goals like travel as well as longer-term priorities like retirement. When you're planning for a trip, it's important to save money for travel, but it's also valuable to think about how to manage money when traveling.

Careful planning and being smart about how to save money for travel will help turn your dream adventure into a reality. We've got some tips to help you manage money when traveling so you can have the best experience without financial stress.

Select An Affordable Destination

For many, saving for a vacation is as valuable an investment as saving for retirement because exploring the world pays dividends to your personal growth. But simply throwing darts at a map is a great way to ensure your trip never gets off the ground. Before you take flight, it's important to do some deeper research into a destination's cost, your travel budget, and the best way to travel with money when you get there.

You might want to start by choosing a region known for its affordability­ including a strong exchange rate. The best way to exchange money is typically at an ATM when you arrive, but it's best to check rates with a currency exchange tool and then find out what the typical fees are where you're going. It's a good idea to do this for all the places you'd like to visit.

As you evaluate your destinations and travel budget, be sure you look into the average cost of travel basics, like where to sleep (you could start with hostels or homestays), what to eat (try street markets or food trucks for quick, authentic bites), and how to get around (trains or buses could save you money and connect you with the locals). These are the most critical things to understand before you determine your travel budget.

Create A Realistic Travel Budget

Now that you understand how much things cost, the next step is saving up travel money so you can avoid any financial stress when deciding how to afford to travel. To come up with your vacation fund goal, multiply your estimated daily costs in the places you'll visit by how long you hope to stay there. For example, if you want to spend three months somewhere where it would cost you about $800 a month, you would need $2,400. Next, break this monthly total into a daily amount:

• [$800per month/ 30 days - $25 a day. While you're traveling, it's much easier to track against a daily budget than a monthly one.]

Your Phone is Your Friend for Managing Money When Traveling

The first rule for how to manage money when traveling is to create a simple system for tracking everything you're purchasing, but you probably don't want to be updating spreadsheets every day of your trip. After all, that feels like the opposite of a vacation. Luckily, all you really need to do is create a daily note on your phone and input everything you spend money on that day-including travel costs, food, lodging, trips, gifts and everything (yes, everything) else. If you can make this a habit during vacation, you can easily keep it up once you get home, and that'll lead to even better spending habits for life.

The 15-minute Rule

Here's one of the most useful money-saving travel tips: Take 15 (or fewer) minutes each day to track your spending. Consider making it part of your vacation routine, maybe during your morning coffee or that sunrise bus ride to an exotic temple. During this downtime, review your previous day's spending and look for categories where you may have overspent (or even underspent). Also check your online bank and credit card accounts to make sure everything looks accurate.

Adjust on the Fly

Staying consistent about tracking your spending will help you understand it better and use your travel money more wisely, increasing your financial confidence.

Once you arrive in a new place, the things you thought would be important may change. Maybe you realize that you just can't pass up an opportunity to explore the untouched beauty of a hidden waterfall even though you hadn't budgeted for a three-day kayak excursion. All is not lost! By looking at your daily travel budget notes, you can easily adjust for that leg of your journey by increasing your sightseeing allotment and decreasing in other areas, like food or museum entrance fees. A good rule of thumb is to figure out what excites you and redirect your travel money toward those experiences.

Waste Happens

If you're traveling to another country, there's almost a 100% chance you'll overspend on something during your trip. Don't beat yourself up about it. Remember, you're on vacation. Instead, recognize those moments and learn from them.

Here are three great traveling abroad money tips:

1. Understand tipping etiquette - Many countries don't tip. If you come from a country where tipping is the norm, you may be spending your travel money when it isn't expected.
2. Chat with other travelers - Strike up a conversation to find out how to save money on food and how to avoid overpaying for goods from shops.
3. Practice your haggling skills - In many countries, haggling is the norm-and you'll find vendors quickly negotiating prices to try to sell you something. Be prepared with a price you think is fair (possibly by asking experienced travelers what they paid), negotiate confidently to get the best price, and don't be afraid to walk away from a purchase that feels too expensive.

You'll find that no two days are the same when you're traveling. Your spending will go up and down and that will provide a great learning experience for balancing your travel budget. Remember, if your spending feels too high one day, you can pull back on another day. By saving ahead and tracking your expenses, you should feel more confident that you don't have to miss out on an amazing opportunity because you're worried about money.

Bonus: Consider a Trip That Could be Tax Deductible

One of the hottest travel trends right now is combining tourism and volunteer work abroad into a single trip-turning your vacation into an opportunity to enrich your life and someone else's at the same time. With the right research and some attention to detail, the travel money needed for your volunteer vacation could be tax deductible.

You can start by volunteering with a qualified group. Just make sure to choose a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that's approved by the IRS so your trip can be considered tax deductible.

This is important: If your trip includes excursions or recreation in addition to volunteer work abroad, the IRS may not allow your deductions when tax time rolls around. Get to know the guidelines set before you go so that once you're there, you can maximize the good you'll do and the total amount of your deductions.

You'll also need to know how to write off travel expenses, exactly what you can deduct and what you need to keep track of before leaving for your trip. Keep track of those receipts!

Finally, once your trip is over, if you need any additional helpful advice for saving and investing for retirement back at home, TIAA is here to help. Happy travels and smart spending!

Connect with TIAA online at TIAA.org.

You can also get help from the TIAA Retirement Call Center at 877-736-6738.


The TIAA group of companies does not provide legal or tax advice. Consult your personal tax and legal advisors concerning your estate planning needs. 

Investment, insurance, and annuity products are not FDIC insured, are not bank guaranteed, are not deposits, are not insured by any federal government agency, are not a condition to any banking service or activity and may lose value.

This material is for informational or educational purposes only and does not constitute fiduciary investment advice under ERISA, a securities recommendation under all securities laws, or an insurance product recommendation under state insurance laws or regulations. This material does not take into account any specific objectives or circumstances of any particular investor or suggest any specific course of action. Investment decisions should be made based on the investor’s own objectives and circumstances.

©2023 Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America-College Retirement Equities Fund, 730 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017                  

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Healthy Meals: No-cook Blueberry-Almond Oatmeal

Enjoy wholesome oatmeal without turning on the stove. The overnight oatmeal technique from www.foodnetwork.com lets you start your day with an energizing, grab-and-go breakfast. For a more leisurely, warm meal, simply microwave your bowl for 1 minute. The recipe calls for blueberries and almonds, but you can easily use your favorite fresh, dried, or frozen fruit instead.

Click here to send us your healthy recipes and tips.

Ingredients:

¾ cup nonfat milk
1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/3 cup blueberries
1 teaspoon packed light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1/8 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 drops pure almond extract
Kosher salt (optional)
1 tablespoon toasted sliced almonds
2 teaspoons honey or agave nectar

Instructions:

The night before, combine the milk, oats, blueberries, brown sugar, lemon zest, vanilla, almond extract and a pinch of salt in a glass pint jar or other container with a lid. Secure the lid and shake. Refrigerate at least 6 hours up to overnight. In the morning, top with the almonds and drizzle with honey.

Meet With a Registered Dietitian Today!

• One-on-One, virtual sessions you can schedule at any time that works for you
• 100% covered under many insurance plans
• Available to spouses and dependents&
• Fill out the Nutrition Counseling Sign Up Form or call 800-484-7720.

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Did You Know: Penn Backup Care Benefit for Kids Virtual Camps

Are you looking for fun-filled options for your children when they're on summer break? Penn’s partnership with Bright Horizons Back-up Care provides staff and faculty with access to in-person camps and online activities. Register for an on-demand webinar or login to Penn’s Bright Horizons Portal to learn more about Steve & Kate's Camp and other care options available through your Penn benefit.