Employee Benefits
October 6, 2026
How to Announce Open Enrollment to Employees
Open enrollment allows your workforce to make decisions about their health plans and benefits for the upcoming year. How and when you inform employees about this period can determine whether they fully engage with this opportunity, passively enroll or let it pass them by entirely. A rushed or vague announcement can lead to confusion, missed...
October 1, 2026
Managing Benefits Coverage Across Multiple Renewal Dates
A benefits package often functions as a coordinated program, with each line of coverage moving through renewal and enrollment on the same timeline. Over time, however, carrier changes, new benefit offerings and organizational transitions can place individual plans on different renewal schedules. While differing effective dates may seem like a minor administrative detail, they can...
September 24, 2026
Why Healthcare Costs Will Rise Significantly in 2027
Healthcare costs, and consequently employee benefit costs, have been growing at an alarming rate in recent years, and they’re not slowing down. Mercer projects that the total health benefit cost per employee will rise 8.2% on average in 2027, after accounting for cost-cutting measures, the highest increase in 15 years. To put it in perspective,...
September 10, 2026
Open Enrollment Changes to Watch For
Open enrollment often appears unchanged from one year to the next, but you may be surprised by what is new when you enroll this cycle. Carriers adjust plan pricing, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) updates contribution limits, and employers revise their benefits offerings based on utilization and employee feedback from the prior year. As a...
August 31, 2026
2027 Open Enrollment Trends to Monitor
Open enrollment season is arriving with a different feel this year. Costs are climbing faster than they have in over a decade, employees are asking for benefits that reflect the realities of their lives rather than a one-size-fits-all package, and new technology is changing how people choose their coverage. For employers, that means open enrollment...
August 25, 2026
How to Reduce the Cost of Alternative Care
If you’ve considered acupuncture, specialized chiropractic care, functional medicine or integrative mental health counseling, you may have found that insurance coverage does not always work the same way it does for traditional medical care. Even when a provider does not accept insurance, you may still have options to help reduce your out-of-pocket costs. Alternative and...
August 18, 2026
Upskilling Employees on AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) is continuing to reshape how work gets done, but for small businesses, keeping pace can feel daunting. Without large training budgets or dedicated learning and development teams, many small employers assume AI upskilling is out of reach, which isn’t necessarily the case. With a focused approach, small businesses can close the AI...
August 13, 2026
Addressing Silent Burnout in the Workplace
Burnout is the state of chronic physical and emotional exhaustion from prolonged stress. According to Spring Health’s 2026 Workplace Mental Health Annual Report, 74% of employees have experienced burnout, while 61% of HR professionals say employee burnout has increased in the past year. Traditional burnout is generally easy to spot with missed deadlines, behavioral issues,...
August 10, 2026
8 Tips for Effective 2027 Open Enrollment Communication
Now more than ever, employees are looking to their employers for guidance on navigating their available benefits and how to stretch their dollars further. Many of today’s workers want help understanding how much money to put aside for retirement, emergency savings and health care expenses. That means employers have an opportunity to shine by effectively...
July 30, 2026
4 Midyear HR Trends to Monitor
As 2026 moves into its second half, HR leaders are navigating a workforce that is being reshaped on several fronts at once. Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing hiring patterns, gig work is becoming a mainstream labor arrangement, burnout is reaching a measurable tipping point and employee confidence in the labor market remains historically weak. This...