Benefits

Can a homegrown model for pension management change the course of retirement funding and HR administration?

By Joel Kranc

Many of Canada’s largest pension funds have gained much success and adoration on the global financial stage. Not so far in the past, Canadian public pensions were relatively conservative investment vehicles focusing mainly on investments such as government bonds, and were funded on a “pay-as-you-go” basis.

The next class action?

By Kathleen Chevalier and Alex Lemoine

Historically, class actions have proven to be a challenge in employment law. Employees are thought to be a poor target for class action lawyers as they are notoriously difficult to access and organize, and individual claims tend to be of relatively low value. Most problematic, however, is that the claims tend to lack the required “common issues” between employees to permit a court to certify a class action. By their nature, the claims advanced are often inherently

Employer-sponsored benefit plans at risk

By Anthea Gomez

The employee landscape continues to change, and because of our vastly improved health care, people are living longer lives. Companies are experiencing the period of the aging worker, and this time of social change is forcing employers to restructure and rethink the cost implications of providing wellbeing support and benefit plans to workers so that they can stay healthy and fit while on the job.

Medium-term disability could solve significant issues around LTD

By Liz R. Scott, Ph.D.

In 2015, the Wellesey Institute carried out a series of interviews to record the feelings of a sample of employees moving from short-term disability (STD) to long-term disability (LTD) leave. Most participants told the researcher that going onto LTD leave caused them a lot of stress and anxiety. As one interviewee said, “The LTD [process] says that I am not worthy, that I cannot go back to work again.”

Why HR needs to pay attention

By Patrick Culhane, B.Comm., CAE, FCPA, FCMA

In June 2016, after years of discussions, the federal government reached an agreement, in principle, with provincial and territorial finance ministers to strengthen the Canada Pension Plan (CPP).

By Matt Houghton

We all know that offering great benefits is an important part of attracting the best employees.