Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

Retirement plan sponsors can do their due diligence on the good (and bad) of the financial advisers they work with by using tools such as FINRA's BrokerCheck.

While you can’t improve the health of your workforce without baseline measures and programs, a myopic health-risk-only strategy is a recipe for employee rejection, cultural conflict and poor results.

Most workers know that they have rights that entitle them to be free of illegal discrimination and from retaliation for reporting concerns of illegal discrimination in the workplace. However, many workers do not realize that they have rights to be free from discrimination even prior to being hired.

Wondering if your wellness program is delivering the goods or just delivering good profits to your vendor? Intel and GE’s joint venture Validation Institute will tell you. Think of it as a new sheriff in the wild west of wellness ROI, armed with science and a calculator.

Many employees who change jobs choose to roll their 401(k) accounts into IRAs rather than leaving them in place or rolling them into their new employers 401(k) plan. Rolling a 401(k) account into an IRA is generally a really bad idea, for the following reasons.

Recently, the Internal Revenue Service has focused enforcement activity on examining the implementation of a strong internal control system. The IRS has publicly stated that if a plan is selected for audit the agent will use their evaluation of the plan’s internal controls to determine whether the scope of the examination will be focused or expanded.

Will virtual currencies supplant the dollar as the currency of choice for international transactions? Probably not any time soon. Recently the Securities and Exchange Commission, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the Internal Revenue Service issued statements designed to strongly discourage the use of virtual currencies.

The IRS has launched a compliance check program to better understand how plan sponsors are complying with Roth deferral provisions in 401(k) plans. If asked to participate, failure to to respond could trigger an audit.

Virtually all large employers are committed to conventional wellness programs. Because of this market saturation, wellness vendors and their commercial partners, benefits consultants, are now setting their sights on smaller employers. These groups would do well to learn what hasn’t worked in wellness and avoid wellness programs built around health risk appraisals, biometrics, and preventive medical care.

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.