Employee benefits

It’s a mistake for corporate leaders – benefit managers included – to confuse perks with culture, said Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, in a keynote address during the annual Great Place to Work conference in Dallas this week.

The reality is that monitoring your service providers is an essential component to fulfilling your fiduciary duty as an employer. The tangible tasks that you must take on, such as, reviewing performance and educating participants, are easily executed. The confusion lies in the intangibles.

Congress members weigh in on the ACA and the current system that regulates the insurance industry at the Big I legislative conference.

The EEOC released its highly anticipated, proposed regulations setting forth the EEOC’s interpretation of the term “voluntary” as to the disability-related inquiries and medical examination provisions of the American with Disabilities Act.

In a sign of increasing employer urgency for results, the percentage of wellness program sponsors offering incentives for various forms of employee engagement with those efforts rose to 87% last year, up from 77% two years ago.

Although consumer-directed health plans are on the rise, few Americans report comparing the quality and price of plans, hospitals or doctors.

The excise tax remains a primary focus for employers as they plan their health care coverage strategy for 2016 and 2017, and many will be looking for assistance from their benefit adviser to address their concerns.

Financial wellness is the new norm, and employers are more and more jumping on the bandwagon of getting employees better prepared for retirement.

Michael C. Bush says that positive workplace culture can be a more positive benefit than any wellness offering, suggesting that trust is also fundamental to the success of any progressive company.

Rep. Joe Crowley, D-NY, vice chair of the Democratic Caucus, unveiled a plan this week that would address the savings and retirement security crisis in America by giving families better ways to save for the future and retire with dignity.

Employers must focus on the right objectives if they want a long-term ROI on their wellness plan. That includes engaging in four pillars of lifelong well-being.

One of the largest causes for lost workdays in America is back pain. It’s such an issue that plan sponsors and employers of all sizes have been looking at how best to help employees with these problems.

With the Affordable Care Act hitting its five year birthday and the second open enrollment period nearly finished, Americans are turning their attention and wishes for Congress and the Obama administration to a focus on prescription drugs.

The right employee benefits consultant partners with you to remove obstacles and help simplify today’s complex benefit issues so that you can focus your core business objectives. The time you invest up front can pay off enormously if you find a consultant who understands your needs and can help you build a strategy around them.

Employee retirement confidences levels have risen to their highest since the recession. And although confidence levels have jumped in recent years, many are still expecting to work further into their retirement years to make up for any unpreparedness.

Generations X and Y prefer an adviser to give retirement information face-to-face rather than searching online, survey finds.

Voya Financial, Inc. has hired a new CEO of retirement. Charles Nelson will join the company on May 1, overseeing tax-exempt and corporate markets and retail wealth management.

In human resources and insurance circles, we’ve been talking about wellness for quite some time. And most employers have dived in and now offer a wellness program. So, how are these wellness programs performing? Too often, the answer is “not well.”

Financial experts say that people should try to replace 70%-80% of their current income in retirement, but current statistics suggest that employees need to make the right arrangements to do so.

Recently BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world, announced that it would follow Fidelity and Federated in making changes to its money market fund offerings. These changes are in response to SEC reform rules announced during the summer of 2014, which will permit floating NAVs, redemption fees and liquidation windows in prime money market funds.