Business

• Employee benefits: The hidden paycheck — A robust benefits package can add about 30% to the value of an employee's paycheck. Examine how employer contributions of vacation time, health insurance, retirement benefits, disability coverage, life insurance and more can add up into an impressive package that would be difficult, if not impossible, to match on the open market.
   
• Benefits as magnetic force — In 2006, employers participating in an annual survey of benefit trends ranked employee hiring and retention as their No. 1 concern. How can a benefits package help attract and retain key employees? What are the must-have benefits and features? What are the oft-overlooked benefit gems that could make or break a decision to accept a job?
   
• Balancing risk v. coverage — Today's business executives are concerned about the welfare of their employees, nervously watching the rising cost of health care, and ever-conscious about the bottom line. Today's insurers are responding with coverage and funding solutions that provide excellent benefits to employees while balancing the funding risks of the business.

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Personal Finance

• Scattered, smothered or covered? — Do employees know and understand the benefits they receive at work? Do they think they are scattered (wrong/not enough coverage), smothered (insurance poor) or covered (the right balance)? This story can discuss the most popular benefits offered at work and additional options that are available for the asking.
   
• A la carte benefits — Generations of American workers have, in the past, received a rather generous benefits package as a standard-issue reward for working. Today, health care cost pressures, changing demographics, increasing workplace diversity, global economic pressures, and other factors are changing the benefits landscape rather dramatically. Benefit packages of the future will be more a la carte — with decisions for coverage resting with the employee, rather than being wrapped up and delivered as a one-for-all package by the employer. Do today's workers understand the implications of this? Are they prepared to make their own benefits decisions?
   
• Just sign here, please — If it's fall, it must be enrollment time. This annual rite of business passage presents an ideal time for workers to evaluate their total package of compensation, savings and insurance. Where are the gaps in the financial safety net? Have coverage needs changed over the past year through marriage, divorce, birth of a child? How do you adjust coverage? How can your employer help?

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