Benefits Think

I like it when benefits news gets covered by the mainstream press. It re-confirms that your work, our work, is important and a necessary part of our national discourse.

Just a quickie fun post today. As I was doing my daily scan of the news and not-so-news, I came across a wonderful gem.

Earth Day is next week (April 22) and recent survey results from Guardian show that Mother Nature has reason to be very happy with employers.

Although many tea-leaf readers predicted that health care reform would spur employers to drop health benefits, a new poll of nearly 3,700 executives by Crain Communications shows such forecasts may have been based more on fear than fact.

Rising health care costs are driving more employers to take up the “sticks painted orange” approach to wellness, with 47% saying they either already use or plan to use financial penalties over the next three to five years for employees who do not participate in certain health improvement programs, according to new Hewitt numbers.

Here’s a story guaranteed to warm your heart and perhaps think twice about how your company has treated laid-off employees.

After recently launching a new campaign aimed at cracking down on wage and hour violations and educating employees about their rights, the Department of Labor officials now appear to be talking out of both sides of their mouths.

I hear a lot of joking (and I confess, I’ve made a few cracks myself) about what’s been called a, shall we say, relaxed, work ethic among Gen Y/Millenials.

A new legal alert from Boston-based law firm Tarlow Breed Hart & Rodgers, P.C. warns that even something as seemingly innocent as offering a former employee an online recommendation on LinkedIn or some other social media thumbs up potentially could make your company vulnerable to a possible wrongful termination or discrimination suit.

With all the chatter around health care reform, you may have missed (like I did) last week’s White House forum on workplace flexibility.