Benefit management

The correlation between benefits policies and enterprise financial performance has been thoroughly studied, and the correlation is positive. The problem is that many investors have yet to grasp the significance of that correlation, and lack basic tools to assess the quality of the company from an HR and benefits perspective.

Enrollment goals fall short when key points get lost or the message itself fails to connect with the employee.

Commentary: Self-policing, self-reporting and self-correcting before there is an investigation gives plan sponsors and administrators a better opportunity to control the costs and mechanisms of the corrective process.

Recent guidance from the National Labor Relations Board includes details about the types of employer policies and rules likely to be considered to unlawfully interfere with employees’ rights.

Much has been written about how millennials learn differently, suggesting companies should change the way they manage and train this digital generation. While it’s true millennials have grown up without ever having used a pay phone or typewriter, read a newspaper or waited for a scheduled TV program, does this mean they learn differently?

There are several important aspects of Obama's immigration Executive Order that potentially can impact employers in a wide range of industries.

In the last quarter of 2014, the hiring picture changed very little, a calm that belies an important story.

Anthem Inc., the second-biggest U.S. health insurer, said it’s going to take about 10 to 14 days to figure out who was affected by a data breach and begin notifying those people.

The most common vector of cyberattack is still poor habits by associates, says Joseph Smith, former CIO of Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

Good recordkeeping is important to avoid paying for benefits for ineligible recipients.

It’s hard enough for working parents to balance the ever-increasing demands of home and work life, but for parents of children living with autism, it’s an entirely different struggle.

The National Labor Relations Board held recently that employers must allow use of company emails for union organizing purposes during non-work periods, a decision that many employment and labor advisers say will be a nuisance for workplace communication policies.

Smartphone-enabled transportation vendor Uber, in partnership with Vaccine Finder, has expanded its pilots of home-delivered flu prevention packets and free flu vaccinations, to Chicago after an "overwhelming" response to similar pilots in New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C.

Depending on plan design, some employers may need to adopt year-end amendments to comply with recent federal changes that recognize same-sex marriages as a legal union for benefit purposes.

Engaging your Gen Y audience — also known as the millennials — can be difficult, but it’s key to implementing strategies on wellness and retirement programs that they might not be thinking about now, but will wish they had in the future.

The light is shining on 3M, Cisco, Kimberly-Clark and the National Geographical Society as the companies take steps to provide employees a first-of-its kind employee benefit: discounts on home solar power installation.

Both the Third and Sixth Circuit Courts of Appeal issued decisions last month reminding employers that providing proper notices to employees is key to administering the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Despite this past summer’s Supreme Court decision in Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer, which found that fiduciaries of employee stock ownership plans are subject to the same duty of prudence that applies to ERISA fiduciaries in general, companies with ESOPs and stock purchase plans are seeing an increase in plan assets and are using the plans as a retention tool.

They promised they would be coming and now they have. The Internal Revenue Service has issued draft instructions to help employers and plan sponsors comply with the Affordable Care Act’s 2015 reporting requirements.

Last week, the Department of Labor updated its prior guidance on locating missing participants. As before, the guidance technically only applies in the context of terminating defined contribution plans, though it can be instructive for retirement plan fiduciaries trying to locate missing or unresponsive participants.