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If anybody who had something to do with employee retirement plans needed a dose of reality regarding the level of understanding and knowledge participants had about their money, how it was being invested and what the outcomes were, a recent poll provided it.

"Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: The Results-Only Revolution," by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson, is an easy read that outlines the concept of ROWE (Results-Only Work Environment) and how implementing ROWE can revolutionize work as we know it.

Employers who fail to remit timely participant contributions to a 401(k) plan on their Form 5500 are likely to receive a letter from the Employee Benefits Security Administration regarding the potential use of the Department of Labor's Voluntary Fiduciary Correction program. The letter informs employers that the failure to remit participant contributions, or the untimely remittance of participant contributions, violates ERISA. Such failure can result in significant civil penalties for the employer.

Employers nationwide - big and small, retail and high-tech - are watching and waiting keenly to see whether the public state exchanges created under health care reform will succeed when they open for business in 2014. Small employers and those with low-paid or part-time employees are especially interested in finding out whether funneling their employees into, or finding coverage for them through, an exchange would be beneficial.

Having spent about 30 years in health care benefits consulting, health plan management and health services delivery, I've witnessed many products, services, strategies and platforms introduced to the employer market, climb to the top of the solutions menu and eventually fade away as more effective alternatives emerge. One very popular solution today is the onsite health clinic.

Orthokeratology, also known as overnight Ortho-K, is a treatment in which an individual wears special contact lenses while he sleeps at night. The lenses correct the shape of the cornea, so when the patient wakes up his vision is good for the day.

With millions of baby boomers on the brink of retirement, and the economic meltdown in 2008 that left many employees with depleted 401(k) account balances, helping employees manage their money into retirement is a growing concern for employers. Once employees move from accumulating to drawing down their assets, the focus shifts from maximizing the growth rate of those assets to maximizing the ability to sustain income from those assets over long periods of time.

In today's digitized and mobile culture, most people rarely leave home without their cellphone, and "crackberry" is a commonplace term in the national lexicon. Indeed, with more than 300 million smartphone units sold in the last two years alone and accompanying mobile applications surging in use, it's no surprise benefits providers are getting in on the action, creating smartphone apps to help employers encourage healthy behaviors and sound savings techniques among their workers.

As the saying goes, "April showers bring May flowers." This month, as EBN opens nominations for the 2011 i-COMM Awards, I'd like the April showers to be showers of praise for your best employee communications efforts so that you May receive bouquets of benefits achievement.

The economy and health reform may have prompted the youngest workers at U.S. companies to take a deeper interest in workplace benefits, according to online research conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Unum.