Employer Strategies

Nearly two-thirds (63.8%) of plan sponsors have changed the investment lineup in their 401(k) plan in the past year, up markedly from a mere 20% in 2008, according to the Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America.

Last month, a statement from McKinsey Consulting declared that "social innovators are bringing bold new approaches to the difficult problems that plague the world. The next disruptive force in social innovation will involve a new, more rigorous approach that funnels resources to where they can do the most good."

As HR/benefits outsourcing becomes a larger part of employers' overall business strategy, industry professionals' primary job no longer is putting out small fires. Rather, practitioners are blazing trails toward workforce and organizational development.

Employers that grant generous leaves for disability or maternity can run afoul of insurance contracts for medical, disability or life coverage. Here are two tips for employers to avoid leave-related lawsuits.

In 2009, the Civil Service Employees Association Employee Benefit Fund was at a crossroads. The benefit fund, which provides dental and vision benefits for more than 300,000 public employee union members and their dependents in New York State, was facing a double-digit spike in its health insurance costs and seemed resigned to renewing a policy with an insurer that was not meeting the needs of the fund's 60 employees.

Prior to 2006, employers were required to submit determination letter requests to the IRS during certain periods. These periods - during which plans were required to be amended for various tax acts, such as the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 - are referred to as the remedial amendment periods. In Revenue Procedure 2005-66, as modified by Revenue Procedure 2007-44, the IRS created a staggered determination letter program. This process was established to spread the IRS' work over a period of years, thus freeing up resources to perform retirement plan audits. The periods to submit qualified retirement plans for determination letters are based upon a plan sponsor's employer identification number.

Anticipating the increase in age of covered dependents to 26 starting in 2011, as required by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the benefits team at Dick's Sporting Goods decided to clean the company's benefit rolls data with a dependent eligibility audit before this provision went into effect and before annual enrollment in the fall of 2010.

Athletic trainers may have had their roots on the playing field, but the profession has branched out. Large employers such as Toyota, General Motors, Delta Airlines and Boeing have used athletic trainers for years to prevent and treat injuries on the production line and manufacturing floor. While athletic trainers traditionally have worked in an athletic environment, a sprained ankle on an pro athlete is no different than a sprained ankle on a baggage handler at an airport, says Tom Bair, an athletic trainer with ProgressiveHealth Aviation Services in Atlanta.

EBN's annual Benefits Barometer is a comprehensive and convenient benchmarking guide to everything from average annual premiums for health coverage to the number of investment options in 401(k) plans.

Electronic medical records are being hailed as a way to save money, but they're also making it easier to commit fraud; text analytics and sophisticated data mining software can help stop it.