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We always knew the benefits industry could be brutal at times (any of you who have made major benefits changes at your companies know what Im talking about), and The Hartfords Tom Westman has taken his survival skills and put them to use on television.
The streets are talking: Theres a new consultant in town (kind of). Six months after announcing their intent to merge, global consulting giants Towers Perrin and Watson Wyatt have completed the union, my friends down the hall at EBA reported this morning.
A lot of working Americans are channeling the Stones these days, telling The Conference Board that they cant get no satisfaction. According to the orgs latest survey, 55% of Americans across all incomes and age brackets are unsatisfied with their jobs.
For two lovely years, Jane White, the founder and president of Retirement Solutions LLC, wrote an insightful and incisive column for EBN. I enjoyed and admired her passion for the other top tier benefit, which even with a full-blaze retirement crisis before our eyes still doesnt get the first-string play that health care receives.
It's been great writing to you this year in a venue that (I hope) has helped you shake off some of the tension and seriousness that can weigh down the matters we follow in this industry.
With retirement savings accounts taking as much as a 50% hit due to the financial market collapse and ensuing recession, everyone is looking for a way to recoup those losses.
Looks like Congress is trying to make Santas nice list. The Senate, in particular, was quite busy over the weekend, not only clearing one of the last procedural hurdles in the way of a final vote on health care reform legislation, but also voting 88-10 on Saturday to extend the COBRA subsidy originally implemented in the stimulus package earlier this year.
I admit, Im just not going to read the more than 2,000 pages that are the House and Senate health care reform bills. Maybe its the environmentalist in me, or maybe its the knowledge that much of what I read would make me mad.
Maybe its because I have miles to go until I can actually collect Social Security not to mention the fact that Im not wholly convinced it will be available to me even when Im eligible but I tend to gloss over the annual SSA statements that tell me how much of a benefit I could collect once my working days are at last behind me.
Pennsylvania has been held up as a model for health care reform at the national level with regard to collecting and reporting quality and cost data, with employers in the Keystone State steering care to the best-performing hospitals.
Tucked inside one of the massive health care reform bills in the U.S. Senate is a provision that would raise financial incentives in corporate wellness programs based on health factors from 20% to 50% of the combined annual health insurance premium paid by the employer and employee.
We know that for all the cutbacks youve had to make this year, one thing has not lessened: employee stress levels. In addition to other survey findings earlier this year on burgeoning employee burnout, new numbers from Watson Wyatt indicate stress levels still are heightened even as the economy shows some renewed signs of life.
Here's a question just in time for Thanksgiving: Does your organization encourage a culture of gratitude? Not in a 2009 way: “In this economy, you'd better be grateful just to have a job!" Rather, in a genuine, pre-recession way: “I appreciate my coworkers, I let them know it, and the feeling is mutual."
Over the weekend, I read a funny news item about a woman from Canada, who was on medical leave from her job at IBM. Shed been away from work for about a year and receiving monthly sick-leave payments to get help with major depression.
Although Id of course prefer that you read the Daily Diversion exclusively, I have no problem recommending other blogs. One of my new favorites is HR Morning, which posts news and opinion for pros.
At EBNs annual conference in September, keynoter Dave Ramsey said the recession was helping to make credit cards the cigarettes of the financial world. New survey stats from Country Financial seem to back him up, as more consumers say they plan to go cold turkey on credit.
The holidays will be even happier for some 80,000 current and former participants in Caterpillars 401(k) plan.
Did the stimulus package drop $19 billion down the rabbit hole? The law, which contained $19 billion worth of incentives designed to nudge doctors and hospitals to switch to electronic medical records.
As a woman with a history of cancer in my family, new recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an influential panel of independent experts on mammogram frequency makes me very nervous.
This Thursday (Nov. 19) marks the annual Great American Smokeout, promoted by the American Cancer Society as a challenge to the nations 46 million smokers to give up the habit for 24 hours.