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Dump Your Health Insurer for Good!

You may be able to do it by self-insuring. It’s not just for “big business” anymore, says BLR’s Best Practices in Compensation & Benefits newsletter. Self-Insurance Doesn’t this phrase have a siren song, especially when it comes to healthcare coverage? Just think about it. You take the premiums paid to your current health carrier and […]

It’s Not About You

Fifteen years ago, country singer Toby Keith had a number one hit with his song “I Wanna Talk About Me.” The chorus of the song goes like this:

Ensuring the Ongoing Strength of Canada’s Retirement Income System

By Lyne Duhaime There are lots of recent activities in the pension field at the federal level in Canada. The government’s actions in the past 12 months constitute the most important reform of federal pension laws since the 1980s. Here’s a quick overview. It started on January 9, 2009, when the government of Canada released […]

Do You Need a Twitter/Facebook/YouTube Policy?

Social Media—The bane of management or the next best marketing tool? Should you control it or encourage it? Of course, the answers depend on your business and your culture, but here’s a sample policy to get you going. This policy is one of several sample social media policies we found at HR.BLR.com®. This policy is […]

More Investment Advice from Fiduciaries Deemed Trustworthy by DOL

Retirement plan investors will save between $5 billion and $13 billion annually, thanks to new exceptions to DOL’s prohibited transaction rules, DOL estimates. The DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) opened the door to allowing fiduciaries to offer investment advice in a final rule published to become effective Dec. 27, 2011. DOL estimates this new rule […]

Workplace Lessons from Baseball’s Cal Ripkin Jr.

By BLR Editor, Elaine V. QuayleJust My E-pinion With the World Series starting next week, your workers will be watching baseball. But a BLR editor says they can also learn from baseball. As a human resources editor—and baseball fan—I wanted to write about the valuable lessons that HR professionals can glean from Cal Ripken Jr.’s […]

Playing hooky from work

Curb Summertime Blues with Good Absence Policies, Effective Rewards

Holy Ferris Bueller! Is it possible that some of your employees are calling in sick to have fun in the sun? It’s hard to quantify how many people play hooky from work just to enjoy beautiful, warm weather, but according to a recent CareerBuilder’s annual survey on absenteeism, 29 percent of workers took a faux […]

Delaware businesses get new recordkeeping obligations

by Molly DiBianca and Lauren Russell Delaware’s new law related to the safe destruction of documents containing personal identifying information will take effect on January 1. The law requires commercial entities to take all reasonable steps to destroy a consumer’s personal identifying information within the business’s custody and control when the information is no longer […]

Senate Finance Committee Maps Routes to Health Care Reform

Health care industry leaders — including some who opposed the Clinton administration’s 1993 health care reform efforts — are now pledging to rein in the rate at which costs increase. President Barack Obama did a one-hour interview and town-hall style discussion about health care reform on prime time network TV this week. Lawmakers promise quick […]

Supreme Court to Decide Timing of Actuarial Assumptions in Withdrawal Liability Calculations 

The United States Supreme Court has agreed to review Trustees of the IAM National Pension Fund v. M&K Employee Solutions, LLC, a case that could significantly reshape how multiemployer pension plans calculate withdrawal liability under the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act (MPPAA). The central question is whether ERISA requires plans to use actuarial assumptions in effect […]