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myHR: April 9, 2025

Get Ready for Penn’s Benefits Open Enrollment

Penn’s Benefits Open Enrollment is fast approaching. This year’s Open Enrollment will be Monday, April 21 through Friday, May 9.

Open Enrollment is your annual opportunity to make changes to your health plans, life insurance, and flexible spending accounts. While Open Enrollment is still a few weeks away, we want to give faculty, staff, and postdocs plenty of time to learn about the upcoming 2025-2026 plan changes, on-campus Open Enrollment Benefits Fair, virtual and on-campus benefits presentations, and other available resources.

The Division of Human Resources will host an on-campus Open Enrollment Benefits Fair and virtual and on-campus benefits presentations. For more information about your benefits, visit www.hr.upenn.edu/openenrollment. You’ll have access to benefit comparison charts, contribution charts, and more.

What’s New for the 2025-2026 Plan Year

  • Re-elect to Continue Participating in Flexible Spending Accounts – Effective July 1, 2025, you will need to re-elect your Health Care and/or Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) to continue coverage in the new plan year.
    • Unlike your medical, dental, vision, and life insurance, which rolls over to the next plan year if you don’t make changes, you must re-elect your Flexible Spending Account this year if you wish to continue participation in the plan.
    • If you do not re-elect the coverage for the upcoming plan year, your goal amount from the current plan year will not roll over to the new plan year. You will be defaulted with a $0 annual goal amount, and you will not be able to enroll in the plan until the next Open Enrollment period unless you have a qualifying life event.
    • Please log in to Workday to review and re-elect your FSA. If you need assistance, please contact Health Advocate at 1-866-799-2329.
    • Note: NRSA Fellows are not eligible to participate in the Flexible Spending Accounts.
  • Contribution and Rollover Amounts Increase for Health Care Flexible Spending Accounts – The maximum contribution you can make to your Health Care FSA is increasing from $3,200 to $3,300. The rollover amount will also increase from $640 to $660. You have until June 30, 2026 (end of the plan year) to incur expenses and until September 30, 2026, to submit eligible claims for services you received before June 30. Any remaining balance you have over $660 will be forfeited. Note: NRSA Fellows are not eligible to participate in the Flexible Spending Accounts.
  • Revisions to Prescription Drug Coverage – The prescription drug plan, administered by CVS/caremark for all medical plans, will provide a preferred formulary to help manage costs and keep coverage affordable. A preferred formulary is an updated list of generic, brand, and specialty medications, covered by your prescription plan. The drugs in the formulary are determined by judgment of physicians and pharmacists, based on existing medical evidence. Drugs not included in the preferred formulary will be replaced with a clinical equivalent alternative under the preferred formulary. Participants using medications impacted by this change, as well as providers prescribing medications impacted, will be contacted 60 days prior to their next fill, so they can work with CVS/caremark to avoid any interruptions. Work with your provider to ensure that the medication being prescribed is on the approved formulary list.
    • If you are clinically unable to use one of the alternatives selected your provider can request an exception.
    • If you and your provider do not select an alternative, or an exception is not approved, the medication will not be covered.
  • New Voluntary Benefits Offering with Corestream – Penn will offer a new voluntary benefits program called Penn Benefit Extras, administered by Corestream. The benefits include critical illness, accident insurance, hospital indemnity insurance, pet health care options, and identity theft protection. When you purchase one of the plans, and experience an accident, illness, or hospitalization, the plan will pay a lump sum to assist with out-of-pocket costs.
    • You can choose multiple products and have just one payroll deduction.
    • You must elect critical illness, accident insurance, and hospital indemnity insurance during Open Enrollment, but you can sign up for pet health care options and identity theft protection anytime throughout the year.
  • New Wellness Platform Partner, WebMD – Effective July 1, 2025, Penn and Be in the Know welcome a new wellness platform partner, WebMD. Kickoff Be in the Know 2025-2026 with fresh programs and resources to engage in your health and enhance your overall well-being. WebMD brings wellness brand recognition and an easy-to-use platform and mobile app, plus an abundance of learning content in various formats and health-enhancing tools like Daily Habits, challenges, coaching, and more. Continue to enjoy Penn’s current platform partner, Personify Health (formerly Virgin Pulse) and their programs, through June 30, 2025, earning you points for Be in the Know 2024-2025, and be sure to spend all earned Rewards Cash by June 30, 2025.
  • Medical Plan Rates, Dental Rates, and Copays – For medical, dental, and vision rates, review the Medical, Dental, and Vision rates for 2025-2026 chart in the Benefits Enrollment Guide or visit the Open Enrollment webpage.                              
    • PennCare/Personal Choice PPO, Aetna Choice POS II, and Keystone/AmeriHealth HMO will have a $5 increase in copays for primary care and specialty care. For a list of new copays, check the individual health plan charts in the Benefits Enrollment Guide.
    • Copays for Behavioral Health and Substance Abuse will remain the same.
  • Aetna High Deductible Health Plan Raises Deductibles – Due to IRS guidelines, the Aetna High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) with a Health Savings Account (HSA) will increase its deductible for individuals from $1,600 $1,650 and for families from $3,200 to $3,300.

All changes are effective July 1, 2025.

Open Enrollment Benefits Fairs and Presentations

The Open Enrollment Benefits Fair will be held on campus on Tuesday, April 22 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Bodek Lounge, Houston Hall. Penn HR staff, representatives from Penn’s healthcare providers and wellness partners will be there to answer your questions. A benefits fair will also be held at New Bolton Center on April 21, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Alumni Hall.

Virtual and on-campus Open Enrollment presentations will be held on the following dates.

Presentation DateTimeLocation
April 1411 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.Virtual
April 1612 p.m. to 1 p.m.Virtual (Rx Changes)
April 21 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.Virtual
April 2411 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.Houston Hall, Golkin Room
May 111 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.Virtual
May 6 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. Virtual
May 8 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.Virtual (Rx Changes)

Visit www.hr.upenn.edu/openenrollment for log in links for the virtual sessions and other information session details.

Workday@Penn Features

During Open Enrollment, you can make changes to your benefits coverage 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in the Benefits, Comp and Pay Hub via Workday@Penn at http://www.myworkday.com/upenn/login.html.

To access the hub, click on “View All Apps” or “Menu” from your homepage, then select “Benefits, Comp and Pay Hub” from the Apps menu. Please remember to print a confirmation statement for your records. Read the Self-Service: Manage, View and Change Your Benefits Workday tip sheet for instructions.

While in Workday, you can also check out the Model My Pay feature. This tool can help you see how making hypothetical changes to your pre-tax and post-tax deductions and federal and state tax elections may impact your net, or take home, pay. Read the Self-Service: Model My Pay tip sheet for step-by-step instructions as well as information on performing self-service changes to your actual pay. Model My Pay should be used for informational purposes only.

Update Your Beneficiary

Please review and update your life insurance beneficiary information in the Benefits, Comp and Pay Hub in Workday@Penn. To update your retirement plan beneficiaries, log in to your retirement planning account through Penn’s TIAA.org SSO link.

Additional Resources

To find out more about Benefits Open Enrollment:

Take Charge of Your Student Loan Debt

Since Penn launched its free student loan forgiveness service administered by PeopleJoy, many staff and faculty have been able to take charge of their student loan debt. If you have outstanding student loans and have not yet explored what the program can offer, there’s still time.

Attend the Student Loan 101 webinar on April 16, from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. and learn about the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program and how you can use the service to navigate the application process and how PeopleJoy can advocate on your behalf with loan providers. The webinar will cover these key topics:

  • Who is PeopleJoy? – Learn how this service, paid for by Penn, can support your student loan management.
  • Federal Loan Updates – Stay up to date on changes to federal student loan policies.
  • PSLF – Understand how to qualify for and apply for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
  • Income-Driven Repayment Plans – Explore options for income-based repayment solutions that can reduce your monthly payment.
  • Default & Deferment – Learn how to handle loans in default or explore deferment options.

Register today for the Student Loan 101 webinar.

For more information about the free service and for staff testimonials, visit the Student Loan Forgiveness Assistance webpage.

Campus Cup Season Finale

Since the fall 2024 term, 14 teams of University faculty, staff, and postdocs, as well as Penn Medicine and CHOP employees, have been competing for this year’s Campus Cup. They’ve displayed their athleticism and skill in a range of contests, such as Dodgeball & Donuts, Hot Shot basketball, and Cornhole & Trivia. Soon it will all come down to the Campus Cup Relay Finale on Thursday, April 17 from 4 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Franklin Field.

Be there to cheer on your fellow Penn community members at this family friendly sports spectacle. Whet your appetite for Penn Relays and wet your whistle with beverages and refreshments while coworkers from across schools and centers demonstrate their speed, endurance, and hidden talents in different relay races, tug-of-war, and other feats of strength, coordination, and team spirit.

Who will be this year’s champions? With team names like DOM CTU Kangaroos, You Netter Watch Out, Genomic Giants, Straight Out of HR, Donor Relation Nation, Bowel Brigade, and the Department of Neurosurgery, the action promises to be unpredictable.

No matter who claims this year’s 2024-2025 Campus Cup after the Relay Finale, everyone can bring home fun memories. This friendly competition is all about connecting with your colleagues.

If you have Campus Cup questions, please contact Penn Athletics Assistant Director of Business Development and Special Events, Lauren Gerlin, at lgerlin@upenn.edu.

Financial Literacy Month

While economic conditions change over time, there’s one thing you can be sure of. Investing in your own financial literacy pays off. April is Financial Literacy Month, a time to take advantage of Penn’s ongoing financial wellness and literacy programs available to faculty, staff, and postdocs.

These online, practical programs cover personal finance and retirement planning basics.

TIAA Quarterly Economic and Market Update, available now

Preparing for a Financial Emergency with PNC Bank, April 10, 2025,12 p.m.-1 p.m.

Planning for Life Milestones TIAA Live Webinar, April 16, 2025, 12 p.m.-1 p.m.

Navigating the Sandwich Generation TIAA Live Webinar, April 24, 2025, 3 p.m.-4 p.m.

Money Matters: Moving Forward in a Changing World with MetLife, April 29, 2025, 12 p.m.-1 p.m.         

Penn’s financial wellness and retirement planning seminars and information sessions are available throughout the year. Please see our events calendar for the latest programs.

You can also refer to TIAA’s Get the Essentials articles and digital learning series, as well as TIAA’s online retirement calculators and financial tools.

TIAA Retirement Plan Consultations

You can schedule a meeting with a TIAA retirement plan consultant at no cost to help you with your investment choices. To earn more about consultations, download this flyer.

To schedule a consultation, log into TIAA's website or call 800-732-8353.

Building Resilience

“When we learn how to become resilient, we learn how to embrace the beautifully broad spectrum of the human experience,” says Jaeda Dewalt, author and poet. In life’s most challenging moments, it’s essential to give ourselves ‘permission to be human,’ allowing space for difficult emotions as we build resilience. On May 23, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., Human Resources' popular virtual workshop, Radical Resilience: Ideas for Sustainable Life Balance, offers you other tools to help you adapt. 

In this interactive workshop, facilitator Sam Lunney will discuss the term “anti-fragile,” coined by New York University professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Anti-fragile takes the idea of resilience to the next level by asserting that there are conditions whereby we are not only able to bounce back from adversity, but we become even stronger as a result.

“Strength in resilience comes from recognizing that stress itself is not the problem--it's how we recover from it that matters,” says Lunney, Talent and Organizational Development Consultant, Talent Development.

“Resilient individuals focus on what they can change while accepting what they cannot, allowing them to navigate challenges with clarity and purpose. Strength is also about maintaining perspective, tuning into the good without diminishing the reality of hardship,” he adds.

In the workshop participants will discover ways to be super-resilient and learn the three areas that help create conditions for anti-fragility:

  1. Permission to Be Human. This refers to the need to recognize emotions, ranging from anxiety to gratitude. We must embrace difficult emotions to be open to the pleasant ones. When we attempt to reject negative emotions, they grow stronger and we block the positive ones. We can deal with the entire spectrum of our emotions by crying, if needed, writing about them, or talking to someone about them.
  2. Dealing with Stress. What allows us to continue to be energized in the face of stress is time to recover from it. This applies to both physical and emotional stress and its effect on our mental and physical health. You can become energized through recovery by doing basic things such as taking a walk to get away from a stressful situation, getting a good night’s sleep, or taking a day off.
  3. Relationships. A Harvard study that followed 700 individuals for 75 years found that the number one predictor of happiness and the number one predictor of health is relationships. These relationships can be with a partner, friend, extended family member, colleague, or someone else. The most beneficial relationships are close, intimate, supportive, and healthy. Forming and maintaining relationships virtually works, too, as long as the connections are deep, allowing each party to really talk about things that are important.

Participants will also learn the 3Rs of change that will help you become anti-fragile: Reminders, Repetition, and Rituals.

Register today for Radical Resilience: Ideas for Sustainable Life Balance and come out of difficult times empowered and ready to move forward.

For more professional development programs, visit the Learn & Grow section of the Human Resources website.  

Shine a Light

The year-end performance review process has begun, so staff can now complete a self-evaluation in Workday. The self-evaluation step lets you shine a light on your job performance, strengths, and development areas. Taking time to gather and express your thoughts about your work can help you complete an effective self-evaluation and prepare you for a meaningful conversation with your manager.

The self-evaluation step in the Workday year-end performance review process has four parts that require your input. They are:

  • Goals
  • Feedback Questions
  • Competency Proficiency Ratings
  • Overall Performance Rating

Gather the Background Information

Take these actions to make the self-evaluation reflect the impact and quality of your work:

  • Review the details of the fall mid-year performance review or other past conversations with your manager recorded in Workday Check-Ins or elsewhere.
  • Outline your progress in meeting goals and professional development activities.
  • Describe how you set, met, and exceeded goals and expectations.
  • Collect data such as results and measurements, reports, and feedback from internal and external customers.
  • Explain how you demonstrated the University-required competencies and the competencies of your job family.

Remember, your contribution to Penn is valuable. Be prepared to present it clearly and concisely to your manager.

Make a Plan

Here are some activities to help you complete your upcoming reviews.

Ratings

The spring year-end process requires you to provide proficiency ratings for each of the 10 competencies and an overall performance rating. You give these ratings in the self-evaluation, and then your manager provides ratings during the manager evaluation.

Each staff member has 10 competencies: five are University-wide, and five are related to an individual’s job family. Competencies are observable and measurable skills and behaviors contributing to workplace effectiveness and career success. Each competency is rated on a three-point scale:

  • Needs Improvement
  • Meets Expectations
  • Exceeds Expectations

The rating for overall performance has four options:

  1. Does not meet expectations—Did not meet most goals and/or often fell short of timeliness, quality, and/or resource utilization standards.
  2. Meets some but not all expectations—Acceptable performance overall, though did not meet some goals or sometimes fell short of standards for timeliness, quality, and/or resource utilization.
  3. Fulfills expectations—Successfully met all goals, consistently meeting timeliness, quality, and/or resource utilization standards.
  4. Exceeds expectations—Successfully met all goals and regularly surpassed standards for timeliness, quality, and/or resource utilization.

Contact your local HR representative if you have questions or want more information on the content. For process questions, please contact the Penn Employee Solution Center online, by email at solutioncenter@upenn.edu or by phone at 215-898-7372.

Healthy Meals: Homemade Kimchi

Kimchi (김치) is a traditional Korean side dish and superfood made from fermented vegetables like cabbage, radish, or cucumber. Created thousands of years ago as a method of preserving vegetables, this slightly spicy and flavorful dish is packed with probiotics, vitamin K, and antioxidants that may help reduce inflammation. Its versatility makes it a perfect pairing with Korean BBQ or virtually any other dish.

Click here to send us your healthy recipes and tips.

Ingredients:

  • 1 medium head napa cabbage
  • 1/4 cup kosher salt
  • 1 tablespoon grated garlic
  • 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 2 tablespoons fish sauce
  • 1-5 tablespoons Korean red pepper flakes
  • 4 medium scallions, trimmed and cut into-1-inch pieces
  • 8 ounces Korean radish or daikon radish, peeled and cut into match sticks (optional)

Directions:

  1. Cut the cabbage into quarters lengthwise, removing the cores. Then, cut each quarter crosswise into 2-inch-wide strips.
  2. Place the cabbage in a large bowl and sprinkle with salt. Massage the salt into the cabbage until it softens. Add enough water to cover the cabbage, then place a plate on top of the cabbage and weigh it down with something heavy, like a can of beans. Let stand for 1 to 2 hours.
  3. Rinse the cabbage under cold water 3 times. Set aside to drain in a colander for 15 to 20 minutes. Meanwhile, make the spice paste.
  4. In a large bowl, combine the garlic, ginger, sugar, and fish sauce, stirring into a smooth paste. Add the Korean red pepper flakes, using 1 tablespoon for mild and up to 5 tablespoons for spicy. Set aside until the cabbage is ready.
  5. Gently squeeze any remaining water from the cabbage and add it to the spice paste. Add the radish (optional) and scallions.
  6. Using gloves, mix thoroughly with your hands to work the paste into the vegetables until evenly coated.
  7. Pack the kimchi into a 1-quart jar, pressing it down until the brine covers the vegetables, leaving 1 inch of space at the top. Seal the jar.
  8. Let the jar ferment at cool room temperature, out of direct sunlight, for 1 to 5 days. Place a bowl or plate underneath to catch any overflow. You may see bubbles, and brine might seep out of the lid.
  9. Check the kimchi daily, opening the jar and pressing the vegetables down with a spoon to keep them submerged under the brine. It is ready when the Kimchi tastes ripe enough for your liking. For best results ferment for 1-2 weeks.

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 Ramp Health Nutrition Counseling Sign Up Form or call 800-484-7720.

Did You Know: Penn Relays at Franklin Field April 24-26

The Penn Relays will be held April 24-26 at Franklin Field. Faculty, staff, and postdocs can receive one free adult ticket and one free children’s ticket with a valid PennCard at the Franklin Field ticket office on the Thursday of the Penn Relays or by ordering online. You can purchase discounted tickets for April 24 and 25. For more information about the Penn Relays, including the Penn Relay Carnival and schedule of events, visit https://pennrelays.com.