Employers increasingly use the open enrollment process as a means not only to communicate new benefit plan offerings and changes, but also to satisfy the myriad benefit communication mandates (such as Medicare Part D, HIPAA, COBRA and ERISA notices). This is the right time to communicate 2007 planned initiatives and actions that participants must take related to their enrollment (such as consumer-directed health plans options and verification of dependent eligibility).

This presentation will include a discussion of a global approach to asset management strategies to enhance returns and reduce risks of multi-country retirement programs by leveraging your global governance and investment policies wherever your company is located. Multinationals face unique challenges in managing retirement plans globally because they must develop the appropriate level of decision making based upon global vs. local objectives and constraints. What are the latest ideas and techniques for managing pension assets across boundaries to enhance returns, reduce costs and optimize risk?

Please join us on Wednesday, 19 July, at 12 noon (ET) for a free one-hour discussion on how to bring your local retirement plans into alignment with your global retirement objectives. This web briefing will help you better understand what financial and governance tools your company should have in place to enhance returns, reduce costs and optimize risk for its retirement programs.
 

• “Culture is the primary cause of the high rate of failure of M&A transactions – myth or reality?”
• “What is ‘culture’ anyway?”
• “What is really relevant in a cultural integration?”
• “Isn’t there a less ‘academic’ way of looking at culture – a more practical approach?”
• “Culture is the soft stuff – can I really do anything about it?”

These and similar questions are repeatedly asked about culture without necessarily always getting good answers. There seems to be very little consensus on what culture is, how to categorize it and how to deal with it. Much of the work presented on culture has a research-based, academic slant to it – and necessarily so, because of the challenge of taking a “soft” subject and trying to quantify it.

But the reality is that an examination of culture is a necessary component of any organizational change – especially the type of cataclysmic change that often accompanies business transactions like mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and divestitures. Quite simply, ignoring culture can threaten the objectives of the deal. In our role as strategists, advisors, implementers and technicians, Mercer takes a pragmatic view of “culture” and its role in contributing to or inhibiting the ability of an organization to derive value from its business transactions.

In our upcoming webcast, we will focus on:

• defining culture in the context of business transactions,
• moving the subject of culture from theory to practical application and
• determining the degree and priority of cultural integration.

Assessments, surveys and communications are important tools for understanding and changing organizational culture. But an effective process for understanding the impact of behavior on business outcomes, the drivers of behaviors and, in turn, managing behavioral change is essential.

Please join us for an enlightening presentation on the subject of culture in M&A.
 

A growing number of employers are verifying dependent eligibility more rigorously as a means of enforcing eligibility provisions and identifying ineligible claims that otherwise would have been paid.

Please join Mercer’s leading authorities on Wednesday, 26 July, at 12:00 noon (ET) for a free one-hour discussion of Mercer’s dependent eligibility verification process. This web briefing will help you better understand the strategic opportunities associated with the eligibility audit process, including design, communication, call center capabilities, audit execution and ongoing monitoring.