1. Navigating Enrollment - Leveraging Technology To Engage Employees [February 2008], By Watson Wyatt

Summary: Employers are using their benefits enrollment systems to encourage employees to adopt healthier behaviors, a new survey by Watson Wyatt Worldwide, has found. The survey of 117 U.S. companies conducted in December 2007, at the end of the annual enrollment process, found that more than half (53 percent) have incorporated health risk assessments into their enrollment systems or will incorporate these programs by 2009. More than one- third (36 percent) use enrollment systems to encourage employees to sign up for disease management programs or will do so by 2009.

2. Maternity Leave and Employment Patterns of First-Time Mothers Database [February 2008], By U.S. Census Bureau

Summary: Two-thirds of women who had their first child between 2001 and 2003 worked during their pregnancy compared with just 44 percent who gave birth for the first time between 1961 and 1965, according to a report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. The report analyzes trends in women's work experience before their first child, identifies their maternity leave arrangements before and after the birth and examines how rapidly they returned to work. Women are more likely to work while pregnant than they were in the 1960s, and they are working later into their pregnancies. Eighty percent who worked while pregnant from 2001 to 2003 worked one month or less before their child's birth compared with 35 percent who did so in 1961-1965. Women are also returning to work more rapidly after having their first child. In the early 1960s, 14 percent of all mothers with newborns were working six months later, increasing to 17 percent within a year. By 2000-2002, the corresponding percentages had risen to 55 percent and 64 percent.

3. Wellness Program Analysis [February 2008], By The U.S. Department of Labor

Summary: What types of health promotion or disease prevention programs offered by a group health plan must comply with the Department's final wellness program regulations and how does a plan determine whether such a program is in compliance with the regulations? Use the questions listed in the report to help determine whether your plan offers a program of health promotion or disease prevention that is required to comply with the Department's final wellness program regulations and, if so, whether the program is in compliance with the regulations.

4. Engaging employees to drive global business success: Insights from Mercer's What's Working (TM) research [February 2008], By Mercer

Summary: Mercer's What's Working studies provide insight into workers' attitudes and the factors that drive their engagement. The results are based on data collected from a statistically valid sample from a broad cross-section of industries, weighted to represent the characteristics of different countries and industry sectors. The survey's 130 questions elicit views in the areas defined by Mercer's Human Capital Strategy Model.

5. Wages and Benefits: A Long-Term View [February 2008], By The Kaiser Family Foundation

Summary: While recent increases have been particularly acute, health benefit costs have risen quite rapidly over many years, measured absolutely and as a percentage of total economic activity, or gross domestic product (GDP). Using the same data used by the government to track changes in the U.S. economy over time, the analysis in the report shows the growth in employer costs for private group health

6. Unit labour cost growth slows for most major OECD economies in the third quarter of 2007 [January 2008], By OECD

Summary: Unit labour costs (ULC) in industry fell for most major OECD economies in the third quarter of 2007. In France, Germany, Japan and the United States they declined more than in the second quarter. Italy is the only G7 economy where ULC grew appreciably in the third quarter of 2007 (0.8%), although there as well they slowed, from the 1.1% increase recorded in the previous quarter.

7. Technological Change and the Growth of Health Care Spending [December 2008], By The Congressional Budget Office

Summary: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), on the basis of a review of the economic literature, concludes that about half of all growth in health care spending in the past several decades was associated with changes in medical care made possible by advances in technology. The factors that account for most of the rest of the growth include rising income and changes in insurance coverage,

8. Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) for Workers: Current Issues and Legislation [February 2008], by The Congressional Research Service (CRS)

Summary: Trade Adjustment Assistance consists of several programs: Trade Adjustment Assistance for Workers (TAA), Alternative Trade Adjustment Assistance (ATAA), Trade Adjustment Assistance for Firms, Trade Adjustment Assistance for Farmers, and a Health Coverage Tax Credit (HCTC). This report addresses the TAA and ATAA programs, as well as the HCTC. TAA and ATAA

9. The Future of Employment-Based Health Benefits: Have Employers Reached a Tipping Point? [February 2008], by EBRI (Employee Benefit Research Institute) Resource Executive Online.

Summary: This article summarizes discussion at the Employee Benefit Research Institute's December 2007 policy forum, which sought to assess reports that the U.S. employment-based health benefits system has reached a "tipping point" because of ever-rising costs, with employers entering a period of fundamental change in providing health benefits to workers. EBRI analysis shows that,

10. Corporate social responsibility in multinational companies: Management initiatives or negotiated agreements? [February 2008], by Tony Edwards, Paul; Marginson, Paul; Edwards, Anthony; Ferner, Olga Tregaskis of The International Institute for Labour Studies (IILS) at the ILO

Summary: Using new data from a 2005 telephone survey of 665 senior respondents (Human Resources (HR) Personnel Directors, Senior Managers or Senior Officers) in foreign-owned, UK- owned and joint-owned multinational companies operating in the UK, the paper assesses: i) the incidence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) among the respondents, and ii) whether these codes

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