stephen.miller

Only a quarter of organizations use their workplace benefits program to help recruit employees, according to survey findings released by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) in December 2013.

For the third year in a row, chief financial officers (CFOs) in the U.S. cited rising health care costs as their No. 1 concern, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2014 CFO Outlook survey.

Of the financial executives who participated in the annual survey of middle-market companies, nine out of 10 also said they expect their organization to increase or maintain the size of its workforce in 2014.

On the day before Thanksgiving, the Obama administration quietly announced plans to delay another part of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Small Business Health Options Program, or SHOP, in states with a federally run health insurance marketplace.

As U.S. employers continue to grapple with the surge in wage and hour lawsuits, class-actions charging exempt-status misclassification—often brought by former employees—are a growing concern, finds a survey report by labor law firm Littler Mendelson P.C.

Three national health organizations have published guidance for worksite wellness programs that use risk assessments and biometric screenings to collect health information from employees.

U.S. employers expect their health benefit cost per employee to rise by 4.8 percent, on average, in 2014, according to a survey by consultancy Mercer. Cost growth slowed to 4.1 percent in 2012, a 15-year low. The projected increase for 2014, while still relatively low, represents a slight uptick.

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U.S. employers were again surprised by another unexpected suspension of a provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA or ACA) when, on Sept. 11, 2013, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced there will be no penalty imposed on employers that fail to distribute to workers a notice about available coverage under state- and federal-government-run health insurance exchanges (collectively referred to by the government as the "health insurance marketplace"), scheduled to launch in October 2013.

A large number of American workers remain unaware of, confused about and unprepared for looming changes to their benefits coverage, according to the 2013 Open Enrollment Survey of 2,001 U.S. consumers, conducted in August 2013 for Aflac, a provider of voluntary insurance benefits.

As more American employers turn to high-deductible health plans to reign in escalating health care expenses, many are offering health savings accounts (HSAs) in an effort to encourage workers to make cost-conscious health care decisions. But according to a recent survey by financial services firm Fidelity Investments, two-thirds (65 percent) of Americans who make household health-benefit decisions simply do not understand how an HSA works.