Benefits Think

In addition to great skiing, Utah now has a new attraction: a four-day workweek. Known as the "Working 4 Utah" initiative, about 17,000 of state´s 24,000 government workers will work only Monday through Thursday, effective the first week in August. Although government hours will be extended from...

It won´t affect your day-to-day business, but it´s interesting nonetheless to note that despite layoffs numbering in the thousands, Citigroup plans to hire a new HR executive to focus on training for the company´s 38,000 workers in its North American consumer banking division. In an economy that...

Are pensions going like gangbusters or headed down the drain? It seems every day brings different news. Today, apparently it´s somewhere in the middle, at least for public plans. A new report from the Government Accountability Office finds that overall the nation´s state and local DB plans are "reasonably...

News You Can Use: Small business owners are dissatisfied with the current state of the federal government, finds a poll released this morning by American Management Services. 81% feel we are in an economic recession78% feel economic stimulus checks are useless86% say the federal government is doing...

I just returned from Blue Cross Blue Shield's press briefing "How America's Employers are Promoting Health and Wellness Programs in the Workplace," and it's really sparked some thinking.

One thing that came up in the podcast with the PWC folks was that other countries seem to be going for the stick. I think CNN did a piece recently on how Japanese companies are measuring waistlines and making life miserable and costly for folks that have too much pudge. The employer community has gotten...

I'm always shocked at the low numbers when it comes to wellness participation. Does anyone have thoughts about the old carrot v. stick idea to get people to participate? It sounds like you're advocating that this is something people do to save costs in the long run -- which sounds like a good idea in...

You can get a job via your social network and you can lose a job because of it. But can social networking really drive benefits participation, better health and retirement understanding or any of the rest of the "to do" items benefit brokers and employers are struggling to accomplish.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has come out with some research on larger employer wellness programs. The study shows that just about half of the folks surveyed think the programs aren't doing what they're supposed to -- driving down costs and boosting productivity. Putting that aside, another half of those surveyed...

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