Employer Strategies

The culmination of years of consolidation among health insurers is restricting competition in four out of five metropolitan areas in the United States, new analysis from the American Medical Association finds.

The Hertz car rental company said last week that 26 Muslim drivers at Seattle's airport who sent termination letters in a dispute over prayer breaks could still return to work if they signed an agreement over break rules by the end of the day.

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…

Budget woes are hitting public sector employers hard — and the effects are going to be felt in their employee benefits programs. That's according to a new survey conducted by Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company with members of the International Public Management Association for Human Resources last month.

A new poll from the Society for Human Resource Management shows that only two in 10 organizations have an internal group focused on diversity within the organization.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc will no longer offer health insurance to new part-time U.S. employees who work fewer than 24 hours a week and will charge workers who use tobacco more for coverage as health care costs rise, the company said on Friday.

Social Security retirement benefits for about 55 million people will go up by 3.6% next year, the first cost-of-living increase since 2009, the U.S. Social Security Administration said last week.

The longer you work, the better, retirement experts will tell you. Plow on until you're 70 and you'll make more, have fewer years of retirement to fund, and collect a fatter Social Security check. But that's not always desirable, or possible.

In Tomlinson v. El Paso Corporation, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit recently held that El Paso Corporation’s transition to a cash balance pension plan did not violate federal anti-age discrimination and pension laws. In doing so, the court offered important guidance to employers that provide pension benefits to their employees. …