– how Spieker Point’s platform, DECK DecisionWare, helped MSH International innovate in the global mobility industry with the Aviator product.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, came closer to repeal as the U.S.Senate and House on January 12, 2017 passed a “budget reconciliation” order to launch a formal legislative process that may lead to substantial repeal. Or maybe not.

It is hardly unusual for Cabinet nominees to leave more questions than answers after their confirmation hearings. Yet for the millions whose lives hang in the balance depending on the future of the Affordable Care Act, Rep. Tom Price’s (R-Ga.) answers were surprisingly vague on January 18, 2017 – especially coming from a man who has authored a detailed, 242-page replacement for the ACA, more commonly called Obamacare.

Interest in using captive programs as risk-management tools has been slowly growing within the Employee Benefits (EB) community for some time. But recently it has been gaining momentum, as multinational corporations have begun to realize the potential the concept holds.

Nepalis, Indians, Americans, Syrians and Pakistanis all have something in common: they were the top five migrant groups who received family-related visas to the UK in the year to March 2016. But while US citizens coming to join a family member who is already in Britain are often called “expatriates” or “expats”, the others are often portrayed as “migrants” – mainly because of the country of their birth.

Chris Bruce, Managing Director of Thomsons Online Benefits, discusses the Global Employee Benefits Watch 2016/17 report, shining a light on the relationship among benefits strategy and technology, employee engagement, and business success.

The management of employee benefit plans through captives continues to gain traction with multinational corporations in all sectors of industry. Captives are rarely the beginning but generally the end point of a risk management journey. Every journey has a starting point, of course. This year’s European Captive Forum (ECF) in Luxembourg included several employee benefit related breakout sessions. One was called “Getting Started – What Do You Need to Consider and What Is the Role of HR?”

Having a dependant’s income continue when an employee dies is, to my mind, a massively valuable benefit. But is the product and market understood by both purchasers and employees?

The 2016 IGP Regional Americas Seminar, held on September 15, 2016 at the Renaissance Hotel in São Paulo, Brazil, attracted over 100 registrants and offered a choice of 12 country-specific presentations focused on the Americas region that explained both the basics and the latest developments on social security, plan design, funding requirements, trends and legislative updates in those areas.

In his first all-Conservative budget, the U.K.’s Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that from April 6, 2017, applicants for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) who are assessed as unfit for work but capable of work-related activity will receive a lower level of State Benefit, equivalent to Job Seekers Allowance. This means that the annualized value of benefits will fall from £5,312 to £3,801.

The British economy loses £40 billion a year due to sleep deprivation, per a new study¹ . Beyond the loss of economic output, sleep-deprived Britons are shortening their lives. The study shows that people who sleep less than six hours a night have a 13% higher mortality rate than those sleeping at least seven hours.

All over the world, people are living longer. A large part of this is due to improved treatment for illness; we can see this in the reduction in death rates from cardiovascular disease and the 32% reduction in mortality from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease worldwide in the past 20 years.

As we mentioned in the last article, innovation is the key to success in this fast-moving global market, and companies need to create cultures that allow people to bring their best brains to the table. Whether it is coming up with new ideas or dealing with day-to-day problems in new ways, interpersonal interactions play a very important role in creating innovative and successful global company cultures.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to “repeal and replace Obamacare.” A logical question is: With what? The announcement of member of the U.S. House of Representatives Tom Price (Republican-Georgia) as Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services provides some answers.

Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates is the founder and co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It has committed more than US$3 billion in HIV grants to organizations around the world and more than US$1.6 billion to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Gates answers questions from several African academics about HIV/AIDS on the continent.

At a recent global economic conference entitled Leading in Uncertain Times, Isabelle Kocher, CEO of ENGIE, said that for a global organization, the key to being nimble and profitable is for leadership at the top to be connected to what is happening on the ground.

Gerald was head of HR for an international company and he was good at what he did; he knew the company and the industry well. He was trusted in the executive team as a provider of sound advice, and as much as any HR person could he considered himself to be “at the table.”

Flu season is coming, and while many employers are deploying on-site vaccination programs for their employees, uptake and impact vary across countries and business sectors. Through a review of messages from public health institutions worldwide, we discuss below the pros and cons, trends so far, and expectations for the new season.

Today more than ever, businesses are reliant on the constant flow of people, goods and ideas to drive the global economy. As organizations continue to leverage global assignments as a key component of their growth strategies, they must give careful consideration to the ways in which they manage their global mobility programs.

Global Benefits Vision: Could you please tell GBV a little about yourself, how you chose your career path and your journey to Zurich? Hanno Mijer: I am a trained actuary, but I have never actually worked in an actuarial position. For the first fourteen years of my career I worked with AEGON Insurance, where I held a number of marketing, sales and executive roles in the Netherlands, Eastern Europe and Asia.

When it comes to shining a spotlight on the difference between male and female pay, many companies are sceptical, hesitant, and even fearful. The discourse often focuses on risk—the threat of being named and shamed.

Every year in April and July, the two most important surveys for UK Group Risk Insurers come out. Swiss Re’s Group Watch shows how the Group Risk market is doing, while ORC International’s Group Risk Survey shows how the industry is performing from an adviser and customer perspective.

Today’s interconnected world and global economy means that increasing numbers of employees are required to travel extensively abroad, often for longer periods, to multiple destinations and often in very unfamiliar environments.

As we mentioned in our previous article¹ on how to mitigate corruption risks, in order for businesses to grow, companies and individuals need relationships with key influencers both within and outside the company. However, building relationships with influential individuals is very tricky.

Chris Mayo – Head of Global Services & Solutions, Non-North America,Willis Towers Watson Global Benefits Vision: Tell us about your career in Global Employee Benefits. Christopher Mayo: I have been involved with international employee benefits since 1990, when I was one of four people who set up the international practice at R. Watson & Sons. In 1995 I had the opportunity to work in Milan.

Thomas Piketty, in his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, partly attributes the rise in inequality during the latter part of the 20th and early part of the 21st centuries to “the rise of the super-manager”.

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