Kathleen Koster

During carb-laden lunches in the IBM cafeteria over 10 years ago, a master inventor and his colleagues decided they were eating too much. From this Pavlovian inspiration, Mike Paolini submitted a patent for a technology that coordinates an automatic wellness rebate program.

It may seem like science fiction, but telehealth technology is making real-life strides in curbing consumer health care costs while ensuring convenience and efficiency for patients.

Economic pressures have pushed third-party administrators to proactively market to potential employer-clients. With an increasingly complicated regulatory environment, TPAs are demonstrating their worth with enhanced marketing techniques.

In the harsh realities of today's economy, employees are expected to do more with less. While controlling workloads may be beyond an HR/benefit manager's control, there are tools for helping employees cope with the increased stress that may result. However, experts disagree about which tactics to alleviate stress are most successful. Stress management programs, stress resilience programs and even performance programs all aim to turn negative employee stress into positive motivation, but each model features conflicting philosophies and tools.

"House" - the TV series following a brilliant, but curmudgeonly and troubled doctor - is of course a Hollywood production, but this fiction may be based in fact. At least one-third of all physicians will experience a time during which they have a physical, mental or behavioral condition that impairs their ability to practice medicine safely, according to The Annals of Internal Medicine.

Many companies have restructured their executive pay-for-performance programs to prepare for the first “say on pay" vote in the 2011 proxy season. Experts from consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers detail concrete preparations and advice for companies to reform their executive compensation practices in anticipation of what promises to be an even tougher shareholder vote in 2012.

Anticipating the increase in age of covered dependents to 26 starting in 2011, as required by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the benefits team at Dick's Sporting Goods decided to clean the company's benefit rolls data with a dependent eligibility audit before this provision went into effect and before annual enrollment in the fall of 2010.

Predicting an employee's future success at a company has traditionally stumped experts, and relying on metrics, such as IQ level, only tells 25% of the story. What makes up the other 75%, according to Shawn Achor, Harvard researcher and positive psychology expert, is the belief that your behavior matters, a positive social support system, and whether you view a challenge as a stress or an impetus to improve.

Since the Women's Liberation Movement of the 1960s, women may have pushed open the front door of corporate America's workforce, but as a gender, they have yet to fully represent their talent pool in upstairs board rooms and high leadership positions.

As flexible work options become more commonplace - research from WorldatWork shows that flexibility programs including part-time schedules, flextime and telework are offered to some or all employees in more than 80% of companies, with more than two-thirds of organizations, and 68% offer all three - it can be difficult to remember that not every employee has the option to work at home when her child is sick, or flex his hours to go to a mid-day doctor's appointment.

Predicting an employee’s future success at a company has traditionally stumped experts, and relying on metrics such as IQ level, only tells 25% of the story. What makes up the other 75%, according to Shawn Achor, Harvard researcher and positive psychology expert, is the optimism that your behavior matters, a positive social support system, and whether you view a challenge as a stress or an impetus to improve.

Predicting an employee’s future success at a company has traditionally stumped experts, and relying on metrics such as IQ level, only tells 25% of the story. Read what makes up the other 75%, according to Shawn Achor, Harvard researcher and positive psychology expert.

The Kansas City Collaborative (KC2), a three-year long value based benefit project, succeeded in helping the 15 participating employers share best practices for overcoming health care challenges. Nine of these companies reported that they have saved almost $11 million in direct health care costs by implementing a value-based benefits initiative.

After the Twin Towers fell, the Pentagon stood burning and Flight 93 left a gaping hole in the Pennsylvania countryside on Sept. 11, 2001, Americans depended on human contact to revive our nation's spirit. Many companies consoled employees and their family members with grief counselors, supported them when financial uncertainty arose and - when there was nothing else they could do - just listened to their fears and worries. As our nation marks the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy, EBN examines the success of employee assistance programs, which gained even greater acceptance and utilization after the terrorist attacks. Employers and experts close to the tragedy share how EAPs helped employees in the immediate aftermath and continue to aid them today in a shaky economic environment.

At Draper Laboratory, Allen Hymovitz, the senior manager of benefits and quality of life, takes both facets of his title seriously. Retirement is not just about financial planning, he says. It's about planning for an extended vacation.

With 81% of its population either Millenials or Generation Xers, the American Institute of Toxicology had to overcome the challenge of promoting promising talent that had practically no leadership experience.

Sir Richard Branson, founder and president of Virgin Group, believes in making the customer and employee experience a little magical.

Before joining Zappos, chief executive officer Tony Hsieh dreaded coming to work at his own company. It wasn't fun to work there anymore because the company culture went completely down the drain, he told the audience in his keynote address the annual Society for Human Resource Management conference in Las Vegas.

The majority of employers want to prepare employees for a financially secure retirement, but have found educational campaigns unlikely to result in substantial changes in behavior. Employers walk a fine line when they implement automatic features; some argue that they enable lax saving habits and investment ignorance by funneling participants into plans automatically.

In a recent news briefing, a former Department of Labor official hinted that employers still struggling to comply with 415 rules outlined for 403(b) plans under the Pension Protection Act of 2006 may have played out the last of the agency's leniency regarding enforcement.