Benefits Think

As if runaway health care costs aren’t enough – now, statistics show U.S. companies annually lose an estimated $2 billion because of employees’ inadequate language skills and poor cultural competence.

Just further proving that I’m a bit of a nerd, I read Fortune magazine’s Q&A with Dr. Delos Cosgrove — renowned cardiac surgeon and CEO of the cost-defying Cleveland Clinic — like someone else might read a celeb interview in Us Weekly.

I’m still high on girl power from watching Kathryn Bigelow’s historic Oscar win on Sunday, so today’s post will focus on the pay gap and how you can and should help shrink it.

While we all start to sit down, our broker tries to put us at ease by cracking a few jokes. No matter how funny the humor, it doesn’t overshadow reinsurance renewal time for our self-insured plan.

So, with an unemployment rate still hovering close to 10% and a growing number of employees feeling detached from their jobs, I’d suspect Digital Insurance is getting a lot of interested applicants these days.

You’ve likely seen the game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” Perhaps you’ve even played along at home, chucking to yourself and thinking, “Sure, it would be nice to have, but I’m glad I don’t need a million dollars.”

Here’s another tidbit about me: my reality TV-watching habits generally trend toward whatever life change I’m undertaking at the moment.

Sure, chuckle if you want (because, obviously, I’m not serious about the lullabies) — but the truth remains that your employees are sleepy and it’s costing your company dearly.

Short post today, because I’m working full-steam ahead to bring you a whiz-bang April EBN. (Small trade pub trade secret: We work as many as 12 weeks in advance of publication. So send me your ideas now for EBN May!)

If you made it through the headline without bile rising in your throat, you’ve already done better than me.