Here are a few stats that really drive home just how critical benefits communication is for HR pros.

With rising health-benefit costs and relatively flat wage increases deflating employees' perceptions of their work environment, there appears to be a strong relationship between employees' perceptions of their total rewards package and their overall engagement levels.

Both employers and workers decreased their contributions to health savings accounts (HSAs) last year according to research from the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).

Employers should be on the watch for five clear signs to see if their employees are undergoing financial stress, a known risk factor for distractions at work and lower productivity, according to Purchasing Power, an employee benefits company. 

Many people who are now retired would have quit work four years earlier if they had had the opportunity to do so as they were approaching retirement.

Not much of this year’s tax refunds are expected to go to 401(k) or other workplace retirement savings plans. 

Baby Boomer confidence in having enough income for a secure retirement has dropped to an all-time low of 27 percent, down from 37 percent in 2011. That’s the dismal news that Cathy Weatherford, president of the Insured Retirement Institute delivered to kick off National Retirement Savings Week, citing IRI’s newest study, Boomer Expectations For Retirement 2015.

Retirement is one of those important milestones that proves perennially challenging for generation after generation of Americans, and unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be getting any easier. According to the 2014 Retirement Confidence Survey conducted by the Employee Benefits Institute, more than half of American workers have not calculated how much money they will need in retirement, meaning that millions may never achieve their retirement goals.

Women outnumber men in the nursing profession by more than 10 to one. But men still earn more, a new study finds.

Can financial planning serve as a stress-reducer? Yes, absolutely, according to a survey from the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards. 

I recently spoke at a Boomer Summit conference about caregiving in the workplace. I started by showing the logo from Mad Men – Don Draper in silhouette, cigarette smoldering – with the headline "The end of an era."

It seems easy: Why doesn’t every company offer employee volunteer programs? More and more companies are offering paid volunteer time off (VTO), with the CECP 2014 Giving in Numbers Report showing 59 percent in 2013, an 8 percent increase from 2010. And the business case for employee volunteerism is beyond well-documented.

Considering age and gender when strategizing how to communicate benefits is an important way to increase employee engagement as well as enhance workers’ overall understanding of total rewards.

Each year, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics launches a nutrition and education campaign to encourage you to make informed food choices and develop healthy eating and physical activity habits. The theme for 2015 is "Bite into a Healthy Lifestyle." TRICARE offers tips on living your healthiest life, including benefit information on the "Live Well" section of the TRICARE website. Operation Live Well, the Department of Defense wide initiative, also offers tools and resources to help you.

April 2 was National Employee Benefits Day. Because the focus of this year’s day is Wellness 2.0, it seems appropriate to ask: Is cost-cutting the top reason employers offer wellness programs – or is there a more magnanimous reason behind the healthy living push? 

The success of any wellness program rests on getting maximum employee buy-in. And the best way to get that buy-in is with the help of a diverse group of workers.

With 97 percent of senior-level executives saying that healthier employees are more productive than unhealthy employees and 93 percent agreeing that a healthy lifestyle can prevent employees from feeling burnt out, there is clear understanding among executives that healthy living is key.

While some would expect challenging circumstances, such as a heavy workload or demanding professional goals, to cause the most stress at work, the most stressful situations are actually caused by human factors.

Employers are expanding their corporate health improvement and wellness programs to improve employee health and create a more positive workplace culture, but many employees don't take full advantage of the programs or earn all of their incentives.

Employers are increasingly launching wellness initiatives aimed at creating a healthier workforce and lowering their own health care costs. But many employees roll their eyes at these efforts or are even actively alienated by programs that push them to make lifestyle changes such as losing weight or changing their eating habits; they find the initiatives invasive and paternalistic.

To get employees to focus on healthy lifestyle behaviors, you have to have convenient and fun programs, says Carrie Camin at Methodist Health Systems.

Is your job killing you? According to death statistics from 2011 compiled by the CDC, the top three killers in the United States are heart disease, cancer and chronic lower respiratory diseases like emphysema. Collectively these diseases killed 1,316,211 Americans that year.

McDonald’s always seems to have its logo plastered where it doesn’t belong. Every four years, for example, millions watch in disgust as elite athletes smile into a camera, take a bite of a Big Mac, and swear their undying allegiance to the McFlag – all because the multibillion-dollar corporation shelled out a small fraction of its massive profits to become the "Official Restaurant of the Olympic Games."

Is your company promoting a healthy workplace? Most people can get behind the idea that health, happiness and productivity at work are related concepts and that companies have an opportunity to foster all three – to everybody’s benefit – with a corporate wellness program.

How do you stop a mentally ill person from sitting down at the controls of a jetliner or a nuclear power plant or from holstering a gun for a night on the beat?

Building your own workplace wellness program takes work – and time – but it's worth it. "It's an investment we need to make," Jennifer Bartlett, HR director at Griffin Communication, told a group of benefits managers during a session at the Human Resource Executive Health and Benefits Leadership Conference. "We want [employees] to be healthy and happy, and if they're healthy and happy, they'll be more productive."

Your employee wellness program probably includes all the latest bells and whistles: flu shots, health fairs, an on-site fitness center and maybe even team challenges with company-issued FitBits the boss is very proud of. Yet, something is still missing – and that something is employee participation.