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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.

Commentary: Columnist Jack Kwicien tells you to take a step back and evaluate each client from a sales management consultant approach.

Potentially a result of complaints from consumers and increased competition on the ACA exchanges, benefit brokers may be pleased to find more options on the 2015 plans.

With some state-run exchanges struggling, brokers and agents contemplate whether a national Healthcare.gov is possible and whether that would be a good or a bad thing for the insurance community.

Automatic 401(k) features – including auto-enrollment, as well as plans that also automatically increase participant contributions each year – are beginning to have a significant impact on the success of employer-sponsored savings plans, and the balances of participants who’ve stayed in the game.

Employers in Southeast Michigan have projected an increase in health care costs this year. Still, to retain talent, businesses say they intend to continue offering health benefits to full-time employees, despite price increases resulting from the ACA.

Employees living paycheck to paycheck need solutions from their employers to meet financial emergencies, yet most employers aren’t aware financial wellness programs and lending solutions exist or that they’re credible.

Commentary: As part of columnist Mel Schlesinger’s sales system that cannot fail series, he discusses how to have a sales value proposition that is different from competitors and opens doors at all times of the year.

When Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey froze its cash balance retirement plan in 2009, the organization knew it had to make its new benefit model work for current employees. And as a company charged with making health care work for both its clients and its employees, it realized that the only way to do so was through more education.

Commentary: Blogger John Graham helps benefit brokers and advisers unlearn some of the worst sayings business people tend to tell themselves.

Each year Brightscope, a company that aggregates retirement plan data, releases a list of what it believes are the best large 401(k) plans. Here are the six plan features Brightscope says result in a 401(k) plan receiving a high ranking on its list.

Benefit brokers should be turning their sights to the capabilities of health care data to improve employer clients’ employees’ health. There are doctors asking for even more potential from computer algorithms to interpret such data and could provide a glimpse into the future.

Despite all the technical glitches with Healthcare.gov and state-run exchanges during open enrollment, a large majority of Americans researching health plan options relied on websites for information, but supplemented their research with other outlets for answers, including brokers and advisers.

A major increase in the amount spent on HR tech is leading many employers to reexamine the ways they handle their entire HR workflow, and allowing many benefits managers a greatly expanded range of tools for personnel management.

Commentary: One of America’s most enduring mysteries is why the organizations that pay for most health care don’t work together to force better value from the health care industry.

Why it’s important to prepare your employer clients now for this ACA filing due in early 2016.

While one of the most talked about rising employee benefits, brokers vary in their approach to offering this trend because of the realities of use, cost and profit.

Employees just aren’t using their vacation days and it’s taking a toll...on their health, their work-life balance and, ultimately, affecting the company’s bottom line. Using vacation or paid-time off allows workers to recharge both physically and mentally.

Instead of looking outside to increase workforce diversity, companies should first look inside and develop an internal labor map of their own workforce. But, experts caution, analytics alone won’t create greater diversity and should be used in conjunction with other tools.

Industry experts provide an overview of three new voluntary products — that employers might not know about yet — so benefit advisers and brokers can get a leg up before a competitor does.