Employer Strategies

Small-business employment continued to show growth in December with hours worked up and wages flat, according to the latest update of the Intuit Inc.’s "Small Business Employment Index."

New research on workplace clinics observes that the clinics may have a limited impact on direct health costs, but their presence offers employers more control over how health care is delivered.

Business owners who employ between two and 500 workers recently told pollsters they have reshuffled business priorities where now business and income protection have taken center stage.

A combination of regulatory, political and economic factors are set to create an uncertain environment for U.S. health care insurers, Moody's Investors Service reports, leading to a continuation of the negative outlook for the industry.

For some workers, it’s hard to get back in the swing of things after the highs and lows of the last two weeks of 2010. But the good news for employers is that there are inexpensive ways to ensure the post-holiday blues don’t interfere with employees’ engagement.

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield is now offering its new Dental Prime and Complete programs on both a voluntary and employer-paid basis with three core plan designs to 40,000 small businesses and 79 chambers of commerce throughout Connecticut.

In a sign of the times, the 38 independent provider law firms associated with Pre-Paid Legal Services responded to more than 79,000 requests to handle debt-collection issues in the first half of 2010 – accounting for 7% of the 1.1 million overall requests for assistance during that timeframe.

Health care providers, attorneys and other service providers can breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Several leading service providers across the worksite-market landscape, hoping the economy heads northbound, are poised to reach higher ground in 2011. Consider a few of the most recent developments:

Over the last three decades, the job tenure for American women who work full time increased, while the length of time men workers stayed with an employer dropped, report researchers at the Employee Benefit Research Institute.