HR Happy Hour 269 - Health and Benefits Trends for 2017

Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane

Guest: Jonathan Rende, Chief Research & Development Officer, Castlight Health

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve Boese and Trish McFarlane are joined by Jonathan Rende, Chief Research & Development Officer at Castlight Health, a leading provider of benefits technology solutions to talk about important benefits issues, trends, and opportunities for 2017. With inevitable but hard to predict change facing HR and benefits leaders with the ACA regulations, the potential for different regulations emerging with a new administration, and the continuing need to provide effective, transparent, and engaging benefits programs - 2017 is shaping up to be a challenging year for HR and benefits leaders.

Jonathan also shared his insights on the importance of guidance, i.e., technology and programs to help employees make better decisions about their benefits elections. New approaches, many of them borrowed from the consumer marketing and commerce space are being applied to employer benefits for the first time, and the results for employees are positive and exciting. Almost 3/4 of employees don't fully understand their benefits, and in 2017 HR and Benefits leaders are challenged to bridge this understanding gap for their workforces, and provider better decision support, content, and access to their benefits programs and offerings. 

We also had an important Orlando Magic update, and Steve admitted to liking Benefits almost as much as he likes basketball.

This was a fun and interesting show, thanks to Jonathan and the folks at Castlight Health.

And thanks to our sponsor Virgin Pulse - learn more about them at www.virginpulse.com.