Lisa V. Gillespie

Just as HR/benefits professionals have evolved over the last 20 years from personnel to HR to strategic partner, diversity and inclusion also has experienced an evolution over the last two decades.

About two weeks ago, Huffington Post blogger (and former EBN contributor) Jane White sparked a bit of controversy when she called retirement plan annuities "the biggest financial rip off on the planet."

It's not surprising that the youngest generation of workers has saved the least toward retirement. But what is startling-and worrisome-is the fact that the savings rate for this group has fallen significantly in the past decade.

Nationwide Better Health, part of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, closed its doors Sept. 1 after five years in the wellness and productivity business. The company announced on May 25 that Nationwide would sell its productivity services to Sedgwick Claims Management Services Inc. and wind down disease management and wellness programs.

At its peak in the early 1990s, there were over 2,000 recordkeepers serving retirement plans - today there are fewer than 60. In light of service-provider profit pressures from declining margins, sponsor fee sensitivity caused by litigation and Department of Labor's fee-disclosure regulations, finding the right plan vendor for the right price can be a challenge.

Imagine, in the 21st century - with all of the medical, scientific and technological advances and accomplishments our country has seen - a generation of children that is at risk of not outliving their parents. Not because of a national plague or famine. Quite the contrary, the current generation is at risk of dying prematurely because so many of them are overweight or obese.

Benefits matter more than ever to employees. The third annual study of employees’ views by Unum toward their benefits and enrollment was conducted online in December following the 2010 benefits enrollment period among more than 1,700 working adults. The research finds the perceived importance of many employee benefits notably increased from 2008 to 2010 across all age groups.

Last week, Meritain Health, a provider of self-funded health and wellness plans, found that 89% of participants had improved blood pressure and 77% had reduced LDL cholesterol.

Patricia Sowell Harris is very into McDonald’s. Understandably so. She started as a "fry girl" but moved on after two weeks to administrative assistant.

New research released Thursday from Guardian Life shows that 62% of workers now enroll online for their employee benefits, compared to only 29% in 2005. In the past year alone, the use of online benefits enrollment increased by 8 percentage points, which represents a significant shift in how employees learn about, evaluate and interact with their benefits programs.

The funded status for most pension plans is anticipated to drop significantly and plan sponsors face sharply higher contributions for 2011, according to an analysis by Mercer actuaries. Mercer estimates that among the private-sector plans it studied, more than two-thirds will see required contributions jump from last year by at least 50%, and at least one quarter will likely see contributions more than double.

What does it mean when your boss tells you, "Do diversity?" Deborah Dagit, vice president and chief diversity officer at pharmaceutical company Merck, was given this amorphous directive and thinks she's found the solution, at least at her company.

Universities struggle with diversity just as much as the corporate world, admitted Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, president of The University of Maryland, Baltimore County, speaking Tuesday at the 2011 SHRM Diversity and Inclusion Conference in Washington, D.C. However, the two universes have a common link — education — and that link can help both worlds overcome diversity obstacles.

Budget woes are hitting public sector employers hard — and the effects are going to be felt in their employee benefits programs, reveal recent survey results from Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company. Eighty percent of HR managers responding to the survey say their organization is looking at ways to reduce the cost of employee benefits plans. In fact, more than half (58%) report controlling costs is the benefits program’s top priority. The ability to retain…

American workers' trust in their future retirement has reached a four-year low, according to a release of the Unretirement Index, a poll of nearly 1,500 working Americans by Sun Life Financial Inc. After remaining stable for three years, retirement confidence dropped nearly 20% this September compared to a year earlier, according to the survey.

As financial markets continue to fluctuate and place retirement portfolios at risk, non-retired Americans are showing a clear desire for guaranteed income in retirement according to a survey by Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America.

Recent findings from the 2011 MetLife Retirement Income IQ, a 15-question quiz on retirement issues conducted by the MetLife Mature Market Institute, shows Americans have quite a way to go to learn what they need for a financially secure retirement. Of the 1,213 pre-retirees aged 56 to 65 who took the quiz, the majority answered only five of the 15 questions correctly, leaving a persistent misperception and misunderstanding in a number of core areas, such as life expectancy, inflation, retirement income/savings, long-term care insurance and, to some extent, Social Security.

What good are company wellness programs if employees don't know about them and the services offered? Just like other employee benefits, wellness programs can be under-appreciated and under-used if they're not properly communicated.

With the U.S. economy still unsteady, many companies are finding it relatively easy to attract or retain workers, with one major exception: critical-skill employees. A new survey from Towers Watson and WorldatWork shows that for the second consecutive year, the number of U.S. companies having difficulty finding and keeping critical-skill workers has increased.

Sponsors will fund rising contributions to private pension plans that are still recovering from the investment nosedives of 2008, according to a report released yesterday by the Society of Actuaries and American Academy of Actuaries.