The guest this time is Julie Stich, Vice President, Content at the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.

In her role, Julie oversees the International Foundation educational programs, including online learning courses, webinars, and 100+ annual in-person educational events.

As an employee benefits expert, Julie closely follows emerging employee benefits issues and trends, ensuring that the International Foundation’s 32,000 members, who represent more than 25 million lives, are informed and empowered.

Julie regularly speaks on health care, retirement, and other employee benefits topics and has been quoted by numerous media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Forbes, CNBC, and Yahoo! Finance Canada.

Questions for Julie include:

• Tell us about the mission of the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans and how it helps employers and employees
• You're a co-host of the Talking Benefits Podcast with Justin Held and Anne Patterson. We always like to acknowledge the work of fellow podcasters. Tell us about the show and can you highlight any guests/topics that left a big impact on you? 
• The Foundation recently announced a strategic alliance with the Wellness Council of America. How will the new partnership expand benefits and wellness education opportunities and impact the lives of millions of employees?
• How did the pandemic and its aftermath shake up the employee benefits space and, as we continue to return to 'normalcy', have more traditional benefits like health cover and retirement plans come back to the foreground?
• What are the current key issues regarding mental health/suicide prevention in the workplace and what can employees do to help prevent them? What are the challenges associated with the issues? (stigma, etc)
• What are solutions to help employers (telehealth, apps, etc because of lack of providers for example)
• The 69th Annual Employee Benefits Conference features keynote Dr. Sanjay Gupta. It's happening in Oct in beautiful Boston. Tell us more about the event.  

More About Julie

Julie is a member of the International Society of Certified Employee Benefit Specialists (ISCEBS), the Employee Benefit Research Institute, and the Pension Research Council. Stich holds the Certified Employee Benefit Specialist® (CEBS®) professional designation, a master’s degree in library and information science, and a bachelor of arts degree in English and history from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.

Julie also co-hosts the podcast Talking Benefits. She is involved with the Society of Actuaries Committee on Post-Retirement Needs and Risks.


We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared by our guests and sponsors are entirely independent of The HR Gazette, HRchat Podcast and Iceni Media Inc.   

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