Archive for the 'for Employers' Category

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Mercer: Benefits Communication Foremost Solution in Turnover

Benefits communication used to engage and retain employees as economy improves

Mercer recently announced the results of their Attraction and Retention Survey, covering over 320 employers this year. These are their most valuable findings:

Better economy means higher employee turnover. As the economy and job market continue to improve, 62% of companies think employee turnover will increase as well. When employees have more options, they are less likely to be loyal unless their company puts effort into keeping them.

Published by Sophie Asmar on July 19, 2010

Benefits Education for Optimal Benefits ROI

A new study by UNUM demonstrates the power of effective benefits education. Employers with highly rated benefits education had job satisfaction rates of 88% vs. 45% for those employers with fair or poor benefits education – a difference of 43 points! Employers with effective benefits education programs enjoyed increased employee engagement, loyalty, morale and productivity – ultimately driving up the ROI of significant investments in the benefits themselves.

Here are some highlights from the study:

Published by Sophie Asmar on June 23, 2010

Open Enrollment: How Will You Communicate Medical Care Cost Increases?

While this likely won’t come as a shock to many reading this post, it appears

Benefits Communications for Delicate News

that medical care costs will once again rise at near double-digit rates in 2011. According to PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute, medical care costs are expected to increase by 9% in 2011, a slight deceleration from the 9.5% rise posted in 2010.

Cost sharing has become a critical tool to help keep medical care costs affordable for both employer and employee. 2011 will be no different. Here are the key findings of the PwC report:

Published by Joe Larocque on June 17, 2010

Gallup Study Highlights Financial Wellness as a Key Determinant of Overall Wellbeing

For many employers, the term “Wellness” is used to encapsulate a philosophy or an approach to employee benefits. In other words, the goal of a benefits program is to improve the overall well-being of employees and their families.

Achieving Well-being

But what does that term wellness really mean? What are the determinants? How do you measure employee well-being and what sort of programs can you put in place to improve it?

Published by Joe Larocque on June 1, 2010

Snoopy Weighs in on Financial Wellness

MetLife released its 8^th installment of its Annual Study of Benefits Trends on Monday. In comparison to prior

Employee financial issues a central theme in this year's survey

years, the themes of employee financial security and benefits communications played a more prominent role than ever before. This was a natural emphasis given the backdrop of economic volatility and a renewed employer focus on benefits cost control.

We wanted to highlight and provide my perspective on three key points that came out of this year’s study:

Published by Joe Larocque on April 14, 2010

Financial Wellness. Why Employees Turn to their Employers.

In 2007, for the first time since MetLife began running their Annual MetLife Study of Employee Benefits Trends, more than half of employees surveyed indicated that they receive a majority of their financial products from their employer.

For most HR professionals this may seem somewhat intuitive. Prior to 2008, many employers had built out their benefits, retirement and equity programs to compete in what was considered an all out war for talent. So, it may not be surprising that the large investments that employers have made to offer a compelling total compensation package have made employers the number one source of financial products for their employees.

Published by Joe Larocque on March 29, 2010

April is Financial Literacy Month

Back in 2000, April was declared “Financial Literacy for Youth Month.” Now, it’s just “Financial Literacy Month.” Over the course of the last decade, it seems that us grown ups have shown that we really don’t know much more about money than our kids do – and therefore the Senate decided to drop the “youth” bit and include us adults in their call for better financial education.

Published by Joe Larocque on March 22, 2010

GuideSpark Financial Wellness Webinar

On December 8, GuideSpark presented a webinar called “The Need for Financial Wellness”. In this webinar we discussed how poor financial health is affecting companies and their employees. The webinar was well attended and definitely shows that financial wellness is becoming an important issue at corporations across America. In fact, the following poll shows that most attendees believed that 26-50% of employees are being negatively affected by financial issues.

Financial Wellness Poll Results

Published by Joe Larocque on December 10, 2009

Financial Wellness in 2010 – Open Enrollment Tips

As November fast approaches, you are likely beginning to receive important communications about Open Enrollment. If you’re like many employees, you may have already decided to just stick with your current elections – after all, they seem to have worked out well enough. This year, more than others in the past, taking a passive approach to Open Enrollment may be an expensive decision.

Published by Joe Larocque on October 25, 2009

The Health Wellness – Financial Wellness Connection

It’s been well documented that effective corporate health wellness programs have produced positive results for employees and employers over the past twenty years. Probably the most studied, extensive and longest running program is Johnson and Johnson’s “Live for Life”(now called the “J&J Health Wellness Program”) which was rolled out in 1979. Incredibly, due to both financial incentives and a corporate culture that actively promotes healthy behavior, 90% of J&J’s US employees have participated. And considering this includes a pool of 45,000+ employees, the statistics derived from the study are significant.

Published by JS Wolff on September 1, 2009

Financial Wellness Blog