Employer Strategies

The emergence of public and private health insurance exchanges, as well as the ongoing shift toward placing more responsibility on workers for health plan decisions, is creating a new normal for employers and employees alike.

People managers should not underestimate the impact of coaching their people to success around individual and shared goals. It’s one of the rare benefits that accrues to the organization as much as its employees.

Potentially a result of complaints from consumers and increased competition on the ACA exchanges, benefit brokers may be pleased to find more options on the 2015 plans.

Automatic 401(k) features – including auto-enrollment, as well as plans that also automatically increase participant contributions each year – are beginning to have a significant impact on the success of employer-sponsored savings plans, and the balances of participants who’ve stayed in the game.

Employers in Southeast Michigan have projected an increase in health care costs this year. Still, to retain talent, businesses say they intend to continue offering health benefits to full-time employees, despite price increases resulting from the ACA.

When Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey froze its cash balance retirement plan in 2009, the organization knew it had to make its new benefit model work for current employees. And as a company charged with making health care work for both its clients and its employees, it realized that the only way to do so was through more education.

Each year Brightscope, a company that aggregates retirement plan data, releases a list of what it believes are the best large 401(k) plans. Here are the six plan features Brightscope says result in a 401(k) plan receiving a high ranking on its list.

Commentary: One of America’s most enduring mysteries is why the organizations that pay for most health care don’t work together to force better value from the health care industry.

Why it’s important to prepare your employer clients now for this ACA filing due in early 2016.

Employees just aren’t using their vacation days and it’s taking a toll...on their health, their work-life balance and, ultimately, affecting the company’s bottom line. Using vacation or paid-time off allows workers to recharge both physically and mentally.