The global human resources and employee-benefits firm Mercer recently announced that it has launched “Mercer Benefits U” (www.MercerBenefitsU.com). It says the initiative is a new “total wellness” education campaign for employees whose retirement and health plans it administers. Mercer, which serves the upstate New York market through its office near Rochester, defines total wellness as […]
The global human resources and employee-benefits firm Mercer recently announced that it has launched “Mercer Benefits U” (www.MercerBenefitsU.com). It says the initiative is a new “total wellness” education campaign for employees whose retirement and health plans it administers.
Mercer, which serves the upstate New York market through its office near Rochester, defines total wellness as a “holistic approach” to managing one’s health, wealth, and wellbeing.
Featuring a college-campus visual theme and app-like functionality developed especially for mobile devices, Mercer Benefits U offers interactive “courses” in three different schools: The School of Retirement, School of Health, and School of Total Wellness, according to a Mercer news release. By engaging with educational “courses” such as “Diversification 101,” “Saving for Health Care,” and “Intro to Flexible Spending Accounts,” employee “graduates” learn strategies for taking greater control of their overall well-being, including their physical and financial health, Mercer contends.
Employees are increasingly seeing the importance of planning for health-care costs in retirement as a key part of getting ready for their post-work years. The most-recent Mercer Workplace Survey found that 86 percent of employees say they need to save more for retirement because of rising health-care costs, while 34 percent consider doing so a “major” savings objective. That has doubled since 2007, according to Mercer. At the same time, a substantial majority of employees believe they bear primary responsibility for both their retirement income (84 percent) and their retiree health expenses not covered by Medicare (71 percent).
“Mercer Benefits U is our latest in a series of interactive tools and educational programs that help employers better ensure that their employees are able to live, work and retire well,” Rich VanThournout, partner in Mercer’s benefits administration business, said in the news release. “It also directly addresses … the undeniable shift of accountability from employer to employee self- sufficiency. As employees are asked to plan and direct their careers, retirement, and overall wellbeing, employers need to ensure that they have access to help and guidance through resources…”
Mercer has 20,000 employees based in more than 43 countries and the firm operates in over 130 nations. Mercer is a wholly owned subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies (NYSE: MMC), which has 55,000 employees worldwide, and annual revenue exceeding $12 billion.