It has been a busy period for changes to public drug programs in Ontario, as the provincial government has been working on policies with the potential to offer savings to private benefits plans: pharmacare coverage for people under the age of 25 and upgrades to the Trillium drug program for people with high drug costs. What are the possible impacts on plan sponsors?

Employers reap many benefits from employee vacations, says Lisa Taylor, president of Challenge Factory Inc., a human resources consultancy firm in Toronto. “Having a break and being able to change routine encourages creativity. It gives people the opportunity to see what’s happening from a distance and get a different perspective.”

The irony of pensions and benefits is that employees tend to ignore them until they need them or until their employer changes them. And whether it’s good news or bad news, there are almost always trade-offs.

Changing pensions or benefits can be a tough sell to employees. When employers say “change,” employees often hear “change for the worse” and are likely to react defensively. So what can plan sponsors do to ease employees’ anxiety and help ensure the change goes smoothly?

Canadian employers that decide to set up shop in the United States will notice a big difference when it comes to benefits costs. In the United States, the average premium for family coverage for employer-sponsored health-care benefits was US$17,545 in 2015, according to an annual survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. For single coverage, the average premium was US$6,251. Conversely, in Canada, the average cost of providing benefits for employees was $8,330 (in Canadian dollars) per full-time equivalent that same year, according to a study by the Conference Board of Canada.

While the federal government’s plan to extend parental benefits under the employment insurance program to 18 months is a welcome move for some working parents, it could create a number of issues for employers that provide top-up programs to their staff.

A lot of employees are on holiday right now, but should they have to delineate the time they’re taking specifically as vacation?

As pointed out in a recent story by The Associated Press and posted on benefitscanada.com, a growing number of employers are combining sick leave and vacation into a single category called paid time off.

Cancer is not just a life-threatening disease ― but a financial disaster. Even in Canada

The issue: Cancer patients can face crippling financial hardship, forcing some into bankruptcy. Solutions: All provinces should cover the cost of expensive out-of-hospital cancer drugs; government benefit programs should better respond to cancer patients’ needs.

In May 2015, the Ontario government appointed two Special Advisors (Michael Mitchell and The Honourable John C. Murray) to review the modern-day workplace and to consider whether the Ontario Labour Relations Act, 1995 (“OLRA”) and the Ontario Employment Standards Act, 2000 (“ESA”) require amendments to reflect workplaces as we know them today (the so-called “Changing Workplaces Review”). The Review was initiated to deal with the government’s primary concerns with key workplace-related issues, including non-standard working relationships, the expanding service sector, workplace diversity, technological change and globalization, and trade liberalization.

The 20th anniversary of The Sanofi Canada Healthcare Survey, Canada’s premier survey on health benefit plans, brings to light that there is still much opportunity to learn from and improve employee health benefit plans. This year’s survey highlights that barely half (53%) of employees say their health benefit plan meets their needs extremely or very well, down from 73% in 1999 when the question was first asked.