- Top Earners Spurn 401(k) Participation Too
Companies struggling to boost 401(k) voluntary participation past the 70 percent sticking point can’t fault young and lower-wage workers alone for lagging sign-ups. [more]
- The Next Junction for IT and Finance: The IT CFO?
Information technology (IT) budgeting is such a critical activity for businesses today that a new, hybrid discipline is beginning to emerge, according to ComputerWorld. [more]
- Goodyear To Freeze Pension Plan
Effective December 31 of next year, Goodyear Tire & Rubber will freeze its pension plans for salaried workers. [more]
- Employers and Insurers Set to Embrace Medical Tourism
Medical travel, which has been on the rise as a means of coping with the high cost of medical care in the United States, is about to enter its third phase. [more]
- CEOs' Stock Option Values Zoom
A good year in the equity markets was all it took to nearly double the median in-the-money value of CEOs' unexercised stock options to $28 million in 2006. [more]
- Health-Care Cost Increases Stabilizing
Health benefit cost increases will settle at around 8 percent for this year and next. [more]
- New Performance Metrics Account for Employee Value
Twenty-first-century companies need to start incorporating evaluations of one of their greatest assets — valued employees — into their slate of financial performance measurements. [more]
- Employers Switch Gears, Offer Free Medications
At some companies, consumer-directed health care doesn't seem to be driving down costs — especially for employees suffering from chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, asthma and depression. [more]
- Highest-Paid Execs Rack Up 29 Percent Compensation Increase
When Congressional legislators begin to debate passing a law that requires shareholder approval of executive compensation plans, the 42 percent jump in highest-paid executives' average annual cash bonus over a year ago might come up. [more]
- Aflac Takes the Plunge Into "Say on Pay"
Supplemental health insurance provider Aflac will allow its shareholders an advisory vote on its corporate pay practices starting in 2009. [more]
- BPM Software Increases Employee Satisfaction
One sure way to boost employee satisfaction is to improve your budgeting and planning processes. [more]
- How Presenteeism Impacts the Bottom Line
Medical plan sponsors who obsess over medical and pharmacy claims may be missing an even bigger threat to medical cost containment in the form of employee presenteeism — reduced productivity on the job due to illness or underlying acute or chronic medical conditions. [more]
- Lean 401(k) Plans Replacing Traditional High-Cost Vehicles
Stung by charges that exorbitant undisclosed expenses are taking a huge bite out of workers' 401(k) returns — and wary of possible outcomes from imminent Congressional hearings, Department of Labor guidelines and pending lawsuits — employers are investigating alternative plain-vanilla plans. [more]
- A Guide to the 2007 Proxy Season
Executive compensation and majority voting in director elections will be front and center among this year's proxy season issues. [more]
- CFOs' Investor-Relations Role Grows
Investor relations (IR) has traditionally occupied a position at the perimeter of CFOs' responsibilities as a discrete function, staffed outside of finance, that requires the finance chief's attention from time to time. [more]
- Albuquerque Named Best US City for Business and Careers
Buoyed by the lowest business costs in the country (24 percent beneath the national average), climbing incomes and a highly educated population, Albuquerque claimed the top spot in Forbes magazine's annual list of the 10 best places for business and careers. [more]
- Options Expensing Alert: Evaluate the Quality of Disclosures
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) has responded to FAS 123R's requirement to report stock option grants as expenses by developing an Options Expensing Alert. [more]
- 2007's Promising Positions in Accounting and Finance
"Those who combine functional expertise with strong strategic decision-making, communication and technology skills are in the greatest demand and often can command higher compensation," says Max Messmer, chairman and CEO of the accounting and finance staffing services firm Robert Half International. [more]
- Talent War Heats Up
Call it an economic recovery or a gradual dumbing down of the workforce, but companies are experiencing increasing competition for talent. [more]
- Wellness Programs Key to Halting Productivity Slide
The bad news: We're older, we weigh more and we're less active, so we're contracting chronic diseases at an alarming rate and triggering a serious decline in global corporate profits and productivity. [more]
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