What You Should Know for Your First Open Enrollment

By Jenn Kischell, Vice President, Group Benefits, MetLife.   Open enrollment is taking place across the United States, and like millions of workers, you must submit your choices by a certain deadline. Many younger employees, however, are unsure about what types of coverage to select and how much and are tempted to wait until the…

Are You Attracting the Right Candidates? How to Make Your Job Descriptions More Inclusive

With unemployment continuing to hover at record lows, HR is often in a bind—how do they attract not only qualified candidates, but also an inclusive slate of candidates? The answer might lie in your job descriptions. If you are just recycling existing boilerplate copy—a common practice in today’s busy world—you might want to rethink your…

Seven Things Even The Smartest College Grad Might Not Know About The Workplace

It’s hard to remember back to your first job, but the learning curve can be steep—even for young adults who did very well in college. In fact, today’s newest professionals, Gen Z, tend to feel hesitant about the work environment, with a quarter believing that they will not meet employers’ expectations.   Of course, sometimes…

For Employers, Vendors are Key to Strategic Absence Management

By Marjory Robertson, AVP & Senior Counsel and Abigail O’Connell, Senior Counsel, Sun Life Financial When employees need to step away from work — whether to welcome a new child, care for a family member, or another life event — protecting their jobs and benefits, understanding their rights, knowing whether their employers will pay part…

Why Disability Insurance Matters

This article originally appeared in Human Resource Executive.  Responding to Risk Whether working in healthcare, for an insurance company, consulting with employers or running a nonprofit, the basic and vexing problem I’m trying to solve is behavior change and how, ultimately, human beings evaluate and respond to risk. The longer I work in and around employee…

Paid and Unpaid Leave: What You Need to Know (And How You Can Be Protected Without It)

Benefit packages can be confusing to understand, and – it’s sad but true – many times are forgotten the minute the onboarding paperwork is signed. Unfortunately that leaves many employees not fully understanding their benefits package, and one area of frequent confusion is what their “paid” and “unpaid” leave options are. Not being clear on…