Benefit management

According to a new survey from Symantc Corp., the negative consequences from a social media misstep cost a typical employer $4 million per year. For a 140-character message on Twitter, that’s more than $28,000 per character — an eye-popping sum that will make HR/benefits professionals want to literally watch employees’ Ps and Qs on social media sites.

President Ronald Reagan was famously known as the “Great Communicator.” In a commentary for the New York Daily News to mark what would have been Reagan’s 100th birthday, Fred Thompson said Reagan’s reputation as The Great Communicator “boils down to three basic traits: he was simple; he was clear; he was sincere.” …

Employers address challenges of retaining employees across generations and gender.

Determining accurate employee compensation may be difficult, but settling on the wrong figures can hamper employee productivity or spike turnover. So, when employers take the time to create fair bonus systems, paid time off policies and base compensation pay practices, it certainly is worth the effort.

Despite state and federal mandates that require employers track data on when employees are out of the office, companies fail to use the data to manage the associated cost implications, according to a new survey.

Before joining Zappos Chief Executive Tony Hsieh dreaded coming to work at his own company. It wasn’t fun to work there anymore because the company culture went completely down the drain, he told the keynote audience at the annual Society for Human Resource Management conference in Las Vegas.

Organizations that integrate workforce and business performance data into their analytics tools are nearly three times as likely to achieve best-in-class performance results as those who don’t, says a new report on workforce analytics from Aberdeen.

This article is the third and final in EBN's annual Preparing for Open Enrollment series, and presents benefits professionals' advice on when and how to rollout a wellness program. The first two articles are available at ebn.benefitnews.com/openenrollment.

In high school, I remember sitting for hours typing documents on printing shells for my school's Ditto machine. While my peers rushed to class in the afternoons, I sat silently typing quizzes, handouts and tests. Other students called me "little miss goody two-shoes," but I didn't mind. I knew working in the school office would teach me the necessary skills to succeed.

When government officials in Orange County, Fla. decided to move to a consumer-driven health plan last fall, they knew they would have to approach communications in a new way. While the county has 6,500 employees, its health plan covers approximately 19,000 lives, including dependents and employees at a few other government agencies.

For the year ending in September 2010, 26.3% of Americans (or 62.8 million people) volunteered through or for an organization at least once, according to the Current Population Survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among working Americans, 29.2% volunteered, compared to 23.8% of unemployed persons and 22% of those not in the labor force.

U.S. employees are not strongly invested in their benefits, and 63% of companies agree that workers need to be more engaged, finds a new Aflac survey. In addition, only half feel their employees take full advantage of the benefits offered. Regardless of whether it’s a failing in communication or actual offerings, 54% of employees would transition jobs for better benefits, despite lower pay.

This is the second article in our Open Enrollment Boot Camp series, in which we are featuring readers' advice for improving this perennial event. The first article focused on OE communications, and is available on our website at ebn.benefitnews.com. Here, we present some of the advice we received from brokers and providers on increasing enrollment in and satisfaction with voluntary benefits.

Last October, President Obama signed into law the Plain Writing Act, which calls for communications from the federal government that are clear, concise and well-organized. An associate professor of English recently talked to EBN about how employers can incorporate plain language principles into their benefits communications.

Recently, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials audited the popular burrito chain, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc., which fired hundreds of illegal workers as a result. Using Chipotle as a cautionary tale, employers cannot turn a blind eye to illegal workers, as Chipotle allegedly did - one woman claims she gave the company two false social security numbers when applying for positions within the company.

The adoption of guaranteed living benefits fell in the first quarter of 2011 to their lowest rate since the third quarter of 2008—and improved confidence in the stock market may be the reason.

Several group benefits providers, including Sun Life Financial, Aetna, UnitedHealthcare and Cigna, have won plain language awards from the Center for Plain Language.

We’ve developed online benefit portals and with only a few keystrokes, a complete file is sent on an electronic data interface (EDI). My simple view is it’s like happy hour for a bunch of computers — one system talks to another, then another, and hopefully they’ll all have cheerful dispositions. When happy hour prices go sour, so do the error messages I receive.

Looking for a way to promote his latest venture, a website where consumers can select an agent at the same time they buy their policy online, Alan Katz decided to start his own blog both as a hobby and in hopes that linking to it would increase the search engine optimization of the insurance website.

For this year's Preparing for Open Enrollment series, EBN asked you, our readers, to give us your advice for improving this perennial event. Here is the first of three articles featuring your responses, which deals with enrollment communications.