Ride-hailing services want to make sure Grandma Betty can get to bridge club just as easily as her 22-year-old grandson travels to and from ... whatever it is young folks are doing these days.
Once the domain of 20-somethings who might have a drink or two and need a safe ride home, companies like Lyft and Uber have set their sights on a different age range entirely: senior citizens.
Lyft announced Tuesday it has partnered with GreatCall, a mobile phone company that specializes in providing cell phones to seniors, to extend its ride-hailing services to those who ― like the elderly ― may not have a smartphone, much less want to learn how to use an app on one to hail a ride.
Instead of an app, GreatCall customers dial “0” to talk to an operator, who can provide a cost estimate and book a ride. The fare is tacked onto the customer’s monthly cell phone bill.
The L.A. Times notes Uber struck up a similar arrangement with a company called 24Hr HomeCare last week.
Several third-party ride-hailing services also specialize in giving lifts to older adults who don’t have smartphones, including GoGoGrandparent, a newer entrant that adds additional features like meal and grocery delivery options.
As people age, one thing to go is the ability to drive. That means losing your freedom to get to doctor’s appointments and to stay social with friends.
This is far from either company’s first foray into the senior market, which, judging by recent moves from both Uber and Lyft, seems ripe for disruption.
And it couldn’t come at a better time. The first wave of the so-called “baby boomer” generation turned 65 in 2011, with the number of Americans aged 65 and older projected to keep growing until 2030, when it’s expected to peak at around 71 million people.
Earlier this year, both Uber and Lyft began offering non-emergency medical transport services, specifically targeting customers whose rides would be reimbursed by Medicaid.
And in the Denver suburb of Centennial, where 15 years from now at least 30 percent of the population is projected to be over the age of 65, city officials are exploring replacing current dial-a-ride services with less expensive, more efficient rides via Lyft.
Starting Aug. 17, the city has embarked on a first-of-its-kind, six-month long pilot project, paying for Lyft rides to and from the area’s major light-rail station in a bid to increase mobility.
“We call Centennial the Silver Tsunami,” Centennial Mayor Cathy Noon told The Atlantic blog CityLab. “As people age, one thing to go is the ability to drive. That means losing your freedom to get to doctor’s appointments and to stay social with friends. We really want to help keep the people who started Centennial engaged in it.”
Note: The Huffington Post’s editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington is a member of Uber’s board of directors and has recused herself from any involvement in the site’s coverage of the company.
Starbucks said Thursday it will accelerate plans to give all its stores’ unsold ready-to-eat meals to food banks.
The chain launched a pilot program six months ago for select Starbucks stores to donate extra food at the end of each day and said it would expand the effort over the next five years across its 7,600 company-operated locations. Now, it says the rollout of the Starbucks FoodShare program will be complete by 2019, two years ahead of schedule.
Since March, the $84 billion company has contributed 300,000 meals to charity. The chain partnered with nonprofits Feeding America and Food Donation Connection to scale FoodShare nationally.
Restaurants are among the biggest sources of food waste in the United States, where up to 40 percent of food goes uneaten. Much of that food ends up in landfills, where it rots and spews about 3.3 billion tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. At the same time, nearly 15.3 million children in the U.S. lack regular access to nutritious meals.
While some chains, such as Pret-A-Manger and Whole Foods, bake donations into their business models, other food companies have been slow to catch on, due in part to concerns about liability if someone gets sick eating their food.
Starbucks credited its staff ― “partners” in its corporate lingo ― for pushing the company to widen the FoodShare program’s reach more quickly.
“Partners take great pride in being the catalyst for this program, they know food that couldn’t be sold in our stores the next day, yet was still safe to consume, could serve a higher purpose,” Alyssa Edelen, a Starbucks district manager in San Diego, California, said in a press release. “They are reminded of their impact every time they work a closing shift and put salads and sandwiches in the refrigerator instead of the trash for people who are hungry.”
Staffers working those closing shifts may need more co-workers just to manage end-of-day donations, however. For months, Starbucks employees across the country have complained that apparent cutbacks in hours have left stores understaffed. Workers say the situation is responsible for long lines at many locations.
Starbucks vowed two years ago to overhaul its scheduling policies in hopes of easing the burden on workers struggling to balance their lives with the chain’s erratic hours and shifts. Labor advocates at the time told The Huffington Post the change was insufficient, noting that workers needed enough hours to guarantee a livable income, too.
The company denied slashing the number of hours its staff work, but a two-month-old petition arguing otherwise had garnered more than 17,000 signatures by Friday morning.
“The labor situation has gone from tight to infuriating,” Jaime Prater, the employee who started the petition, wrote on its Coworker.org page. “Labor has been cut so much in corporate stores, that one call-off (an employee calling in sick) impacts the entire day, as managers are directed to cut shifts to save on labor costs.”
More stories like this:
Restaurants Officially Have No Excuse Not To Donate Leftover Food
A Whole New Kind Of Grocery Store Is Coming To The U.S.
This Guy Spends $2.75 A Year On Food And Eats Like A King
Genius Solid Shampoos Use No Plastic Packaging By Leaving Out Water
Meat Eaters Should Have Been Listening To Vegetarians All Along
Farmer Forced To Dump Insane Amount Of Gorgeous Cherries
Al Capone’s Brother May Have Invented Date Labels For Milk
Image Source Having worked with several clients on developing and executing content marketing strategies for their business, one of the questions most business owners want answers to is why it isn't working for their business. This often leads to content marketers spending on content marketing without seeing any significant results in their bottom line.
If your content marketing efforts haven't been yielding the desired results for your business, you might need to look deep into the structure of your strategy and to discover why content marketing isn't working for you.
The following are reasons most marketers don't see results with content marketing.
You're Ignoring Documentation
Documentation is critical to content marketing, and this very essential strategy has been neglected by many content marketers. Your marketing documentation is what will help you identify the missing link between what is working and what you're doing.
In a CMI research that studied B2B marketers, 53 percent who reported that their content marketing was highly effective had a documentation strategy, while the 40 percent with the least result had no strategy at all. If you're not paying attention to content marketing documentation, you might be finding it hard to validate your content marketing strategy.
Targeting Customers with Irrelevant Content
Targeting your customers with highly relevant content is necessary for content marketing effectiveness. A lot of content marketers confuse meeting content demands with actually meeting the needs of their readers. For your customers to engage with your content, it's very necessary that the content you're pushing to them carries a message that will be valuable to them.
To effectively create content that connects with your customers, you need to evaluate your content marketing plan and come up with your audience persona. This means you have to evaluate your different audiences, identify their pain points and create content that will meet their needs in their journey through your purchase cycle.
Inefficient Distribution Strategy
Overcoming the content distribution hurdle is where a lot of content marketers are usually held back. Without the right distribution strategy, your content marketing is bound to fail. To tackle your content distribution challenges and reach your customers with your content, an effective approach would be to combine the three distribution channels.
There are three forms of distribution: owned media, earned media and paid media. While focusing on a single channel can help you take advantage of concentration, leading digital marketers advise to exploit the potentials of combined channels by getting more creative with your outreach and distribution strategy.
"An efficient distribution strategy combines available distribution channels, helping the target asset acquire more attention through a streamlined effort," says Ali Pourvasei, the founder of a Los Angeles SEO Company.
Your Content Strategy Lacks Credibility
Credibility is a valuable currency in content marketing, and indeed in the entire digital sphere. Brands have learned that their content can help establish credibility and are pushing to see that their content marketing efforts portray their best image to consumers.
If your content marketing lacks credibility, your customers will not trust your brand. There are a lot of factors that can help strengthen the credibility of your content marketing efforts. The following are some:
Addressing real concerns
Discuss a fresh message
Easily solves customer issues
Carries brand signals
By utilizing these factors in your content, consumers will engage with your content and you'll find that content marketing easily works for you.
You're Measuring the Wrong Signals
To understand the impact of content marketing efforts, it's necessary to take measurement into consideration. However, content marketers are still struggling with identifying the right signals to measure.
Measuring the wrong signals will give a false representation of your content marketing results -- which will eventually lead to implementing inefficient strategies.
Three years ago, Fishkill Farms owner and operator Joshua Morgenthau found himself facing a situation that is every farmer’s nightmare.
It was time to prepare his 100-acre fruit and vegetable farm’s cherries and strawberries for harvest, but the workers he’d hired for the job weren’t there to help. His employees were many miles away in Jamaica, waiting for the green light to enter the U.S. and get to work.
Without enough hands to weed and prune the delicate crop, Morgenthau’s berries were at risk of rotting on the vine. Worse, he knew there was little he could do but wait and hope he didn’t lose his whole crop in the meantime.
Each year, Morgenthau employs eight seasonal migrant workers who travel to his farm in New York’s Hudson Valley through the labor department’s H-2A temporary agricultural worker program. The process of obtaining their H-2A visas had been relatively painless for the previous five years. But this time, he says the department changed the file number of his application without any warning.
That meant he had to refile all the applications, creating “hours and hours and hours of more paperwork and hassle for us” and delaying the workers’ arrival by more than a month.
As a result, the farm’s cherry and strawberry production took a hit that season. His team of migrant and domestic workers were unable to make up for the decreased harvest preparation time.
“We managed to get it picked, but it was still kind of a mess,” he told The Huffington Post.
Despite setbacks like this one, the visa program is essential to Morgenthau’s farm. He works with the same employees each year and described them as “part of the farm family.” He credits them with being experts at operating the machinery specific to the crops he grows.
The H-2A program was created in the 1990s to help agricultural employers bring temporary foreign workers into the U.S. to do seasonal work that domestic workers cannot or are not willing to do. As part of the program, employers are required to offer certain wages, plus transportation and housing when necessary. The H-2A visa holders live and work in the U.S. for several months at a time but are not considered immigrants, and the program is not seen as a pathway to citizenship.
This so-called guest farm worker program is far from perfect. It has been criticized for being easy to abuse, with some employers neglecting worker safety and stealing wages while facing little recourse. However, those familiar with the visa program describe it as the industry’s sole legal option for getting temporary farm work done.
The farming industry still relies heavily on undocumented workers, who are estimated to make up about half of the country’s 2.5 million hired farm hands, according to the Labor Department. The temporary visa program is responsible for just a fraction of the overall agricultural workforce.
Yet the program is growing increasingly popular ― due to the domestic labor shortages ― forcing more farmers to contend with a chaotic and heavily bureaucratic system that puts their crops in jeopardy. At the same time, calls to improve the program are being sounded by farmers and immigration reform advocates alike.
Credit: Gosia Wozniacka/APIn this Oct. 12, 2011, file photo, a crew of farmworkers harvest and package cantaloupes near Firebaugh, California.
The U.S. has cracked down on the use of undocumented laborers coming into the country, resulting in a widespread labor shortage in agriculture and ballooning demand for H-2A visas. This has also meant more administrative delays in processing visa applications.
Delays of even a week can result in major crop losses for farmers. Delays of a month or more can be devastating.
Morgenthau was able to save his harvest in 2013, the year his workers were delayed, but he knows just how easily things can fall apart. “We’re lucky to have never lost an entire crop,” he said.
Others aren’t so fortunate.
A number of farmers in Georgia reported six-digit losses this year due to delays in visa processing. Another farmer, in California, watched as one-third of his Napa cabbage rotted in the field while he waited for the H-2A workers to arrive.
Last year, a State Department computer glitch delayed workers on the West Coast, causing millions of dollars of lost revenue. Elise Bauman, executive director at Salem Harvest, a food recovery group that partners with dozens of farms in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, saw the fallout of this glitch firsthand. She and her team worked with just three strawberry farms in 2015, but she estimated seeing some 100 acres of the wasted berries with her own eyes.
“They have to be handled and harvested at exactly the right time, otherwise you get a pile of mush,” Bauman said. “Very delicious-tasting mush, but it’s not attractive.”
These issues will only compound as the visa program continues to grow. Visa applications increased by 40 percent over the past five years, according to NPR. Last year, 140,000 H-2A visas were granted. In the first half of this year, visa issuance is up another 17 percent over 2015.
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The H-2A program’s issues have sent the farming industry into crisis mode, vocally criticizing the program’s backlog of visa applications and emerging as a somewhat surprising proponent of immigration reform.
In an April news release, the American Farm Bureau Federation warned of rotting fields of crops resulting from H-2A delays. Those delays, the organization says, could be avoided if the program were revamped.
So far, there hasn’t been much action on that advice.
In June, a bipartisan group of Congress members calling for H-2A reform sent a letter to the Labor Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services leaders, asking them to streamline the guest worker visa process. Their effort has yet to gain traction.
In a media call organized by the pro-immigration reform Partnership for a New American Economy earlier this month, AFB president Zippy Duvall called for a more flexible and efficient visa program for migrant farmworkers. One solution Duvall has offered would be filing paperwork for the program electronically. Currently, paperwork must be processed through standard mail.
Failure to act, Duvall warned, would threaten the nation’s food supply.
“We’re coming to a point where the American people need to make up their mind if they want to import their food or import their labor,” Duvall said.
Other voices are calling for bigger changes.
Tom Nassif, president and CEO of Western Growers, which represents farmers in California, Arizona and Colorado, took his call for reform a step further. Beyond streamlining the H-2A program, he would like to find a way to keep some of these temporary farm workers in the U.S., instead of sending them back to their home countries when their visas expire.
“We want to take care of the workers who are with us,” Nassif said. “They have experience, families and roots here. We want to keep those people [here] and protect them. We want some sort of legal status for them.”
In 2013, Nassif backed legislation sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that proposed a new “blue card” program that would make temporary workers in good legal standing eligible for a legal status, allowing them to stay in the country and granting them a path to citizenship. The bill passed in the Senate but did not come up for a vote in the House after being blocked by Speaker John Boehner.
In the absence of action in Washington, some believe employers in the industry should be doing more to offer better wages and conditions to their farmworkers, Bruce Goldstein, president of the Farmworker Justice advocacy group, argues.
“If employers want to retain their workforce and attract workers to their jobs, they collectively need to improve their reputation,” Goldstein told HuffPost.
Due to many farmworkers’ undocumented status, Goldstein argues, they silently endure subpar working conditions and pay, fearing that they’ll be reported or fired if they complain.
The average seasonal migrant farmworker is paid between $12,500 and $14,999 a year. Most lack health insurance and many work far more than 40 hours a week. (By contrast, someone working full time for the federal minimum wage earns $15,080 a year.)
Guest farm workers are supposed to earn more under the temporary work program. H-2A wages are set by the Labor Department and vary from state to state ― between $10.59 and $13.80 an hour ― based on state minimums and typical wages for domestic farm workers in the region. In Washington state, for example, the minimum wage for H-2A workers is $12.69 an hour. That’s significantly more than the state’s minimum wage of $9.47.
Some research has raised questions about whether visa-holding guest workers fare much better than unauthorized workers, however. An Economic Policy Institute study released last year found no significant difference in pay or conditions between the two groups.
As of now, farmers are able to get away with this. While advocates like Goldstein believe some employers are treating their workers fairly, the ones who aren’t continue to hinder their progress. And they need to be held accountable.
“There are many employers that comply with the law, but they are being undermined by the companies that want to reduce their cost and increase their profitability by cheating workers,” Goldstein said. “We need to create a law-abiding agricultural sector to benefit both the farmworkers and the employers that comply with the law.”
BuzzFeed has reported that the H-2A visa program and its sister program for short-term non-farm workers (H-2B) suffer from a host of other abuse problems. The Labor Department found that between 2010 and 2014 almost 1,000 companies had violated H-2 laws; however, fewer than 150 employers were banned from hiring guest workers through the program.
Still, some farmers believe the H-2A program is overburdened with regulations and expenses.
Dan Fazio, president of the Washington Farm Labor Association, connects farmers with migrant workers. He, too, described the H-2A program as flawed, but said he’s seen its popularity with participating farmworkers firsthand.
“Is it ideal to take a person from one country and bring them to another country to work? I don’t know,” Fazio said. “But I do know that the people coming to Washington state love the program and when their six months here are done and they go back, they make sure they’re on the list to come back next year.”
A lack of alternatives might have something to do with this popularity — and there’s no sign of that changing anytime soon.
But the lack of progress doesn’t mean the industry has to start from scratch to arrive at a solution, said Luawanna Halstrom, an agriculture consultant who previously served as president of the National Council of Agricultural Employers and has worked with a number of national and state organizations.
She’s hopeful that a fix is on the horizon — and it may not be as complex as it might initially seem.
“People are working with this old horse because it’s all they’ve got,” Halstrom said. “It can be a good program if we could reformulate it and figure out how to make it work.”
A revamped program would be welcomed by Morgenthau, too. Another delay like 2013’s might not turn out as well next time.
“The system should be streamlined,” he said. “When you have the whims of a bureaucracy and a heated political debate that could determine pretty quickly a positive or negative outcome in terms of being able to work with the qualified employees you have been working with, it’s just one too many variables to stomach.”
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Joseph Erbentraut covers promising innovations and challenges in the areas of food and water. In addition, Erbentraut explores the evolving ways Americans are identifying and defining themselves. Follow Erbentraut on Twitter at @robojojo. Tips? Email joseph.erbentraut@huffingtonpost.com.
More stories like this:
Restaurants Officially Have No Excuse Not To Donate Leftover Food
A Whole New Kind Of Grocery Store Is Coming To The U.S.
This Guy Spends $2.75 A Year On Food And Eats Like A King
Genius Solid Shampoos Use No Plastic Packaging By Leaving Out Water
Meat Eaters Should Have Been Listening To Vegetarians All Along
Farmer Forced To Dump Insane Amount Of Gorgeous Cherries
Al Capone’s Brother May Have Invented Date Labels For Milk
CLARIFICATION: The headline on this story has been amended to better reflect the systemic problems with the H-2A program.
It was one year ago, August 25, 2015, when my one-year-old daughter Cecelia almost died of anaphylaxis. She had asked for a banana but we wanted her to eat more than just fruit. My wife served her a peanut butter substitute and jam on bread. We were cooking dinner for ourselves when we first saw the tell-tale red blotches and hives.
In thirty seconds, a rash of angry red hives had covered her body. She was uncomfortable but unaware of what was happening. There was a look of extreme fear in her eyes. Another minute passed and her airway began to close as her body fought the allergic reaction. I quickly laid my daughter down and plunged an EpiPen into her left thigh as my wife called 911. The symptoms continued to get worse as she struggled to breathe in my arms, before the epinephrine kicked in and she finally was able to open her throat enough to draw in air. Within ten minutes of the first signs of anaphylaxis, she was shaken but excited to see the emergency vehicles and the firemen who had come to save her.
A trip to the hospital confirmed that she had a near-fatal anaphylactic reaction. To what? We suspect it might have been sesame or sunflower ingredients in either the bread or the “safe” peanut butter substitute. We’ll never know for sure what almost took our daughter’s life.
This is the reality for the fifteen million people living with food allergies and their families. Cecelia has life threatening food allergies to milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish, garlic, sesame, sunflower, coconut, and kiwi. She is two years old.
Mylan’s EpiPen saved her life just one year ago. I will forever be grateful for the people who have developed the life-saving drug and accompanying technology that are the reason that my daughter is alive and well today.
The EpiPen’s only legitimate U.S. competitor, Sanofi’s Auvi-Q, was voluntarily recalled nationwide in October 2015 after dangerous issues of inaccurate dosage delivery arose that could include a failure to administer the life-saving epinephrine. Immediately, millions of families with life threatening allergies turned to Mylan to secure EpiPens.
The result was a de facto monopoly for Mylan. Since Mylan secured the rights to the EpiPen in 2007, they have steadily raised prices over 460 percent (from an average wholesale of $56.64 to $317.82). CEO Heather Bresch – daughter of U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia – increased her own compensation by more than 670 percent from $2.5M to $18.9M during the same time.
With no other competitors in the United States, families are forced to pay extortionate rates for what amounts to $1.00 worth of epinephrine per EpiPen.
I cringe every time I go to pick up Cecelia’s EpiPens at the pharmacy. To say this medicine is expensive is an understatement. Yet, we are lucky to have great insurance and have never had to think twice about paying whatever it costs to keep our daughter safe. This is our privilege.
Jim Bourg / ReutersEpiPen auto-injection epinephrine pens manufactured by Mylan NV pharmaceutical company for use by severe allergy sufferers are seen in Washington, U.S. August 24, 2016.
I cannot stop thinking about the families of other children with food allergies – who love their children just as much as we love Cecelia – who are forced to go without this life-saving drug. Putting aside Mylan’s massive price hikes, there are families that go hungry and skip monthly bills just so they can provide safe food for their children with food allergies. These families cannot begin to consider paying for an EpiPen. Their children deserve to be just as safe as my children. They deserve to live healthy lives just as much as Heather Bresch’s four children do.
Heather Bresch has cut corners before. She received her first job at Mylan when her father, a West Virginia state senator at the time, personally reached out to Mylan’s then-CEO in 1992. In 2008, West Virginia University’s president – a family friend and former business associate of Bresch – resigned in disgrace after granting the Mylan CEO an MBA, despite the fact that she had only achieved half of the required credits.
I know that the world is not fair. I understand that rich children with powerful politicians for parents will continue to be born on second base thinking that they hit a double. I hold no illusions that large pharmaceutical companies will shift their primary focus from profits to public good. While all of this is true, Mylan’s reckless and selfish price hikes under CEO Heather Bresch have crossed a line that she cannot return from.
Heather Bresch has enriched herself and her fellow Mylan executives at the risk of hard-working American families who are already saddled with great economic and health concerns. They don’t need or deserve a rich narcissist kicking them while they are down.
On behalf of these families and all families living with life-threatening allergies, I ask that Mylan CEO Heather Bresch immediately reduce the price of Mylan’s EpiPen and then resign as CEO. While Bresch may not worry about my family or the millions of others like us in this country, I hope she will consider her own family and the example that she is setting for her children.
The educational community was rocked by the recent filing of class action complaints against Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, Yale University, Duke University, Vanderbilt University and Johns Hopkins University. These suits generally allege the retirement plans sponsored by these institutions paid unreasonable and excessive fees for record keeping, administrative and investment services. They also allege the investment options offered to plan participants underperformed benchmarks and charged excessive fees. All of these allegations remain to be proven at trial.
I'm going to focus on the allegations in the complaint against Yale University (which I obtained from Pacer), because of the prominence of David Swensen, who is the Chief Investment Officer of Yale's $22 billion in Endowment assets. I could find no indication that Mr. Swensen is involved in any way with the retirement plan that is the subject of the lawsuit.
Mr. Swensen's achievements in managing Yale's endowment are the stuff of legend. During the past 30 years under his stewardship, the Yale Endowment generated returns of 14.1 percent per annum.
Swensen's investing advice
Swensen is a strong advocate for index-based investing. His advice to individual investors is unequivocal: "There are two sensible approaches to investing -- either 100 percent active or 100 percent passive, he noted. Unless an investor has access to "incredibly high-qualified professionals," they "should be 100 percent passive -- that includes almost all individual investors and most institutional investors," he stated.
Swensen takes a dim view of actively managed mutual funds. He has observed that most active mutual funds are more interested in collecting fees than in boosting returns for investors.
According to the Complaint, Swensen's sage advice has not been followed, to the detriment of the 16,487 participants in its $3.6 billion retirement plan.
Allegations of breach of fiduciary duty
It wouldn't be difficult for the sponsors of Yale's retirement plan to follow the recommendations of its Chief Investment Officer. All it would have to do is limit the investment options in its Plan (other than annuities that must be included in the Plan) to risk-adjusted portfolios of low management fee index funds. The portfolios would range in risk from conservative to aggressive. It would take no more that five portfolios, each consisting of three to five index funds, to give participants all the options they require. These funds are readily available from prominent fund families like Vanguard and Fidelity, among others.
According to the complaint, the Plan has 115 investment options, including retail and institutional share class mutual funds, insurance separate accounts, variable annuity options and fixed annuity options. It would be hard to defend the inclusion of retail share classes in the investment options of a plan this size, since it would qualify for lower cost institutional shares that are identical in all other respects.
All these choices are overwhelming to participants. The complaint alleges: "Numerous studies have demonstrated that when people are given too many choices of anything, they lose confidence or make no decision."
The complaint notes that the Plan continues to offer higher cost share classes of identical mutual funds available at a much lower cost. It alleges this conduct "demonstrates that Defendants failed to consider the size and purchasing power of this Plan when selecting share classes."
The combination of duplicative index funds and the inclusion of actively managed funds, allegedly serve to prejudice Plan participants. The complaint states: "As generally understood in the investment community, passively managed investment options should be used or, at a minimum, thoroughly analyzed and considered in efficient markets such as large capitalization U.S. stocks. This is because it is unheard of, or extremely unlikely, to find actively managed mutual funds that outperform a passive index, net of fees, particularly on a persistent basis..."
The takeaway
Retirement plans will continue to face scrutiny as the number of class action complaints increase. It's surprisingly easy to protect a plan from these lawsuits. Here are my suggestions:
1. Retain an advisor who accepts " ERISA 3(38)" fiduciary responsibility for selection and monitoring of investment options in the Plan. Such an advisor has full legal responsibility to select and monitor investments in the Plan.
2. Limit plan investment options (if permitted to do so) to globally diversified portfolios of low management fee index funds, passively managed funds or exchange-traded-funds, at different levels of risk. Don't include any actively managed funds as investment options.
3. Monitor plan expenses to insure they are as low as possible based on current market data.
4. Never include more expensive institutional share classes of a fund when lower cost share classes are available;
5. Don't permit "revenue sharing" payments by providers of investment options in the plan.
6. Engage in a continuous monitoring process to insure that investment options are the best available for plan participants.
If you are a participant in a plan, you have the right to insist your plan is operated solely in your best interest. A plan that deviates from these recommendations is arguably not doing so.
Dan Solin is a New York Times bestselling author of the Smartest series of books, including The Smartest Investment Book You'll Ever Read, The Smartest Retirement Book You'll Ever Read and his latest, The Smartest Sales Book You'll Ever Read.
The views of the author are his alone. He is not affiliated with any broker or advisory firm. Any data, information and content on this blog is for information purposes only and should not be construed as an offer of advisory services.
Allan Wright is country economist for The Bahamas at the Inter-American Development Bank, and an associate researcher for the Caribbean Centre for Money and Finance. He formerly was a senior economist for the Central Bank of Barbados, and responsible for coordinating the Caribbean Regional Taskforce on Derisking Impact.
Allan Wright, country economist for The Bahamas at the Inter-American Development Bank, discusses the impact of derisking strategies on the Caribbean:
Q: What is derisking?
A: Derisking is the termination of or the restriction of business relationships to avert risk related to money laundering and terrorist financing, according to a definition by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an independent inter-governmental body that develops and promotes policies to protect the global financial system against these threats.
Q: Why should the Caribbean pay attention to derisking?
A: International financial institutions have been the subject of regulatory censures as a result of deficiencies identified within their frameworks for anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CFT). Penalties and fines have increased and, as a result, financial institutions have looked for ways to address these deficiencies. One of these ways is to terminate business relationships with certain businesses and regions considered to be high risk.
A 2015 World Bank study revealed that the Caribbean appeared to be the region most severely affected by this derisking strategy. International "correspondent" banks have either ceased to offer their services or have restricted the type of services offered to a number of domestic "respondent" banks in the region in the last four years. This has happened to at least eight financial institutions in Barbados, seven in Jamaica, five in Belize and others in Antigua and Barbuda, Montserrat, and other states, according to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). While the derisking may not have resulted directly from AML/CFT issues, many large international banks consider their business with the region as either high risk or unprofitable.
iStock
Q: How much of an impact does derisking have on people and businesses in the Caribbean?
A: Globalization and technology allow countries to conduct business, despite the distances between them. International correspondent banks facilitate international transactions by providing access to the global payment and financial systems. These transactions--including remittances, credit card payments, foreign direct investments, and international trade in goods and services--contribute significantly to the Caribbean's growth and development. Therefore, the loss of these relationships could threaten the region's banking sector, as local respondent banks would no longer be able to conduct international transactions on behalf of their customers.
Furthermore, trade facilitation would be stymied, with the result that countries would be unable to import essential basic goods such as food and medicine, which could ultimately destabilize regional economies.
Derisking has already affected certain classes of business, customers, and jurisdictions throughout the Caribbean. One correspondent bank has ceased to conduct business with currency exchange businesses and businesses that handle money transfers. Some regional branches of international banks have also started derisking in the jurisdictions where they operate. These branches no longer offer services to credit unions or building associations, or third-party transactions on behalf of lawyers and other service providers.
Q: Do people in the Caribbean understand what's happening?
A: Derisking has generated much discussion among international and regional financial institutions, including Caribbean central banks, the Financial Stability Board (FSB), World Bank, International Monetary Fund, as well as CARICOM, to reach an understanding of the complexity and multidimensional nature of derisking. The FSB has proposed the following four-point plan: »a further examination of the issue; »clarification of regulatory expectations; »capacity building in jurisdictions where respondent banks are affected; and »the strengthening of tools for correspondent banks to perform due-diligence checks.
Q: What are Caribbean governments doing about derisking?
A: CARICOM is fully committed to international financial reforms and has embraced the FSB's four-point plan for addressing derisking. At its most recent meeting in July 2016, the CARICOM heads of government agreed on a new approach for addressing the problem: the CARICOM Committee of Finance Ministers proposed the establishment of a global forum in the Caribbean to bring the various stakeholders together, including correspondent banks, respondent banks, regulators, policymakers, and non-government organizations that have been adversely affected by derisking.
Furthermore, the committee has communicated with the U.S. Treasury Department and other U.S. government officials, seeking clarification about the issues giving rise to the heightened risk aversion by U.S. regulatory authorities towards Caribbean financial transactions. Also, banks, regulators, and others affected by derisking in the Caribbean have raised the issue at high-level forums, including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, FSB, and meetings of CARICOM heads of government and central bank governors.
Q: What are Caribbean regulators doing about derisking?
A: Regional regulators have participated in high-level discussions with international financial institutions, as well as with international regulators. Caribbean regulators have also implemented strategies that are specific to their respective jurisdictions, such as allowing local banks that are cut off from international transactions to reroute transactions through a regional financial institution that still has access to correspondent banks.
A CARICOM central bank governors' technical working group was established to document and analyze the impact of derisking strategies on regional financial systems. The group prepared a background paper on the issue of derisking, which was recently published by the Caribbean Centre for Money and Finance.
Q: Is it too late for the Caribbean?
A: While some regional banks have already received official notification of the imminent termination of their relationships with correspondent banks, most of the affected banks have already begun establishing new relationships with other international banks. However, more international banks may eventually choose to derisk rather than expose themselves to the possibility of being fined or otherwise penalized.
A version of this post appeared originally in the Caribbean DEVTrends blog.
I recently attended ColorComm Conference in Miami, which Ogilvy proudly sponsors. ColorComm, created by Lauren Wesley Wilson, convenes and supports women of color in communications.
I have only lived in the United States since 2015, and although talent, HR and issues around diversity have been top of my agenda for years, I know that the diversity and inclusion debate varies strongly from country to country. When I bought my ticket to ColorComm I had a couple of goals in mind: to educate myself on the issues from a US perspective, to listen to the concerns of attendees, to debate the issues with colleagues and finally to come back to New York with some ideas that I could help implement at Ogilvy. So what did I learn?
At ColorComm, I spent 48 hours with 400+ of some of the most talented, inspiring and engaging individuals I have met in my time in the industry. These were people I wanted to pitch with and work with - people I wanted at my side going into battle.
At the conference, I asked our own Chief Talent Officer of North America, Jean-Rene Zetrenne, why is the communications industry only slowly addressing its diversity issues? In his mind, our industry has inadvertently limited its efforts to recruit a more diverse workforce by relegating diversity to a concern that is nearly exclusively important to the HR department - when in reality, diversity is crucial for all aspects of the business.
Our industry needs to do better. More C-suite leaders need to be actively involved in promoting diversity on an all-agency level. The fact remains, diversity and inclusion is not just a moral imperative. It is not just the right thing to do, it is the right thing to do for our people, for our clients and for our business. Period.
Our staff must be as diverse as the audiences our clients and their brands are trying to reach. We cannot claim to know an audience if we are not representative of it ourselves.
We must lead by example -- both with our clients and across the industry. We must be representative of our clients, the people we sit with at the table designing campaigns. Within our company, we must show our employees that we understand why it is important to build a diverse and inclusive workforce and prove to them we are taking action.
Creativity is more vital to great modern PR than ever before, and creativity itself depends upon a collision of ideas. The more diverse the group generating those ideas, the more likely they will come up with one that's a game changer for a brand. Without diverse talent, we almost certainly limit the potential of our work.
And what solutions do we need? We need to think far beyond and before the next hire. We need to plan and start early -- by reaching out to students at both the high school and college levels. We need outreach programs that engage more diverse audiences and to create a pipeline of talent for the industry. Once hired, we need to make sure that we retain and foster our diverse talent. And finally, it's not about percentages of the overall workforce: we must look to the future and define success in terms of the percentages of people in senior management and leadership positions.
As Lauren kindly said to me in Miami: "It means a great deal to have a CEO like you join the conference. It sends a message to the industry that Ogilvy is leading the way towards change and understanding. This conference is not just for women of color as we understand diversity. This conference is for all races and demographics to learn how to better move the industry forward with diverse teams and a diverse workforce."
Well to Lauren, and all the wonderful women I met at ColorComm, thank you for welcoming and educating this Englishman in New York. Your time doing so will not have been wasted.
Retail giant Target committed on Wednesday to installing single-stall bathrooms in all of its stores, in what appears to be an attempt to address objections to its policy of accommodating transgender customers.
While many Target locations already have single-stall bathrooms, the Washington Post reported that Cathy Smith, chief financial officer of the Minneapolis-based superstore, told reporters on a conference call that it would be investing $20 million to install them in the stores that don’t have them.
All but 20 of Target’s 1,800 locations will have the single-stall bathrooms by November and the remaining stores will have them installed in early 2017, Katie Boylan, a Target spokeswoman, told The Huffington Post.
Target CEO Brian Cornell announced the company’s intention to ensure that all its stores had the bathrooms as far back as May, but it revealed its $20 million investment on Wednesday.
Target drew praise from LGBT rights advocates in April when it announced it would allow customers to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify. The new single-stall bathrooms, which are by definition gender-neutral, seem meant to assuage the concerns of customers uncomfortable with this policy and will provide a third option for all customers.
But Boylan confirmed that Target continues to welcome transgender individuals to use a bathroom of their choosing.
As a result, the new move can be seen as a deft effort to calm critics without fundamentally altering its policy. In fact, it may even be seen as an expansion of the policy, given that customers who identify as genderqueer may feel most comfortable in a bathroom that allows them to eschew identification with either gender.
After Target announced its policy change in April, other major food and retail chains, such as Starbucks, Barnes & Noble and the parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor, followed suit.
But social conservatives soon launched a campaign to boycott Target over the policy. More than 700,000 people signed a pledge sponsored by the American Family Association, a hardline Christian group, to boycott the store, USA Today reported in April.
These critics argue that, among other things, the policy would enable transgender women to assault young girls in women’s bathrooms. There is no evidence to support this claim, which echoes antigay fear-mongering from several decades ago.
Smith, the Target CFO, mentioned the discontent of customers on the conference call, without explicitly admitting that it was the motive for the company’s new investment, according to The Washington Post.
“Some of our guests clearly are uncomfortable with our policy, and some are really supportive,” she said.
Target also announced disappointing sales figures for the second quarter of 2016 on Thursday. Sales are down 11.6 percent relative to what they were in the second quarter of 2015.
Smith denied that customer dissatisfaction was a contributing factor in the company’s lackluster performance, claiming on the conference call that it has “really not been material,” according to the Washington Post.
This story has been updated to include comment from a Target spokesperson.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - An ex-Wall Street investment banker was convicted on Wednesday of engaging in insider trading by tipping his father off to unannounced healthcare mergers, a victory for prosecutors after an appellate ruling made it harder to pursue such cases harder.
Sean Stewart, who previously worked at Perella Weinberg Partners and JPMorgan Chase & Co <JPM.N>, was found guilty by a federal jury in Manhattan on all nine counts he faced, including securities fraud.
Stewart, 35, a Yale University graduate, displayed no emotion as the forewoman read the verdict, which came on the sixth day of deliberations following prior signs the jury was struggling to reach a consensus.
“I think it’s fair to say this is a family tragedy,” said Carmela Raiti, one of the jurors.
Martin Cohen, a lawyer for Stewart, said: “We’re obviously very disappointed. We think the jury got it wrong.”
Stewart had testified in his own defense. He was one of 107 people accused of insider trading since 2009 by prosecutors under Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. His trial was Bharara’s first since a 2014 appellate ruling narrowed the scope of insider trading laws.
Prosecutors said that from 2011 to 2014, Stewart provided his father Robert tips about five mergers, including INC Research’s acquisition of Kendle International Inc, so his father could make lucrative trades before the deals were announced.
Robert Stewart, 61, in some instances had a friend he met working at a real estate firm, Richard Cunniffe, conduct trades in his own accounts, because of concern he was too close to the source, prosecutors said.
The trading enabled the elder Stewart and Cunniffe, 62, to make $1.16 million, prosecutors said.
Robert Stewart, an accountant in Long Island, was sentenced in May to a year of home detention after pleading guilty in August 2015.
Cunniffe pleaded guilty in May 2015. Previously, prosecutors said, he secretly recorded Robert Stewart saying his son criticized him for not trading on a tip he handed him on a “silver platter.”
Lawyers for Sean Stewart acknowledged he spoke with his father about companies involved in mergers, but said he did so while discussing his work, and that Robert Stewart betrayed him by trading on the information.
“I never gave my father information so he could trade on it,” Stewart testified.
While jurors heard recordings of Robert Stewart, he did not testify at trial, after he invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination following a subpoena from his son.
The case is U.S. v. Stewart, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 15-cr-00287.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Bill Trott and David Gregorio)
I sat in a windowless conference room and could not believe what I was hearing. My director continued on. His words bounced off the indifferent walls, punching me in both cheeks on their way to the floor. A perfectionist and a top performer, I felt shock, disbelief, panic, resolve, and at last, relief.
Here is why.
I worked at a top notch company: aggressive, fast-moving, staffed with Harvard graduates and future McKinsey consultants. Fear-based management was the norm at the behemoth workplace. I witnessed―and experienced―anxiety attacks on a frequent basis. Work-life balance was at best ignored and at worst discouraged. We were constantly glued to our iPhones, available 24/7, always competing with colleagues on who would answer emails the fastest, who was “driving results” and getting “cross-functional alignment.” At this company, as in most of corporate America, macho culture still thrived and the numbers were what had mattered. This environment was starting to crush me.
So I was fired. The kick that we most sorely need often comes from an unexpected direction. The truth is, I never completely believed into what I was doing. I could never properly show excitement in endless meetings, conference calls, emails, sales performance reviews, ad campaign presentations, and field trips to research consumer needs. After four years in brand management, I had reached the dream of corporate America with good salary, increasing responsibilities, looming profit goals, and mounting pressures. But I could no longer remember why I was there and care enough to sell one additional widget to the consumer. Indeed, I revolted against the very notion of calling someone a “consumer” and lamented over my contributions to the increase of over-indulgence in our society. I wanted with all of my being to become a creator of humane stories, not an exploiter of human weaknesses, and had an on-going struggle between getting a comfortable paycheck and wanting to quit my job.
This was my second run in corporate America. My immediate impulse was to call all the recruiters I knew to start searching for my next gig. But I never picked up the phone. Instead, I decided to finally move in the direction of my dream. I’ve dreamt it for so many nights, doodled it on sheets of paper, and experienced glimpses of it during travels to faraway places. I’ve thought it, visualized it, doubted it, killed it, buried it, and resurrected it every time because it simply would not stay dead as it burst through the cracks of my being.
Why? You may ask. Why leave the security of corporate employment behind as I venture into the unknown?
Because life is short. Life is so short that to not attempt to do something with the fire that burns within us is a crime we inflict on ourselves. Because the world does not need another brand manager who will help a corporation make millions of dollars to satisfy shareholder needs. Because what the world sorely needs is more understanding, empathy, and connections between people from different places. And at its core, connecting people through stories is what my heart desires as well.
It would not be true to say that this is an easy choice. In fact, I am terrified as I’m writing these very lines. The thought of not having predictable income is still giving me the oh-so-predictable anxiety attacks. But beneath all that fear and anxiety, there is also hope. Hope that this perfectionist and top performer will figure it out. That the universe will notice me taking a small first step in the direction of the extraordinary life I know I am capable of living and will turn toward me as well.
Hope that in the end, I will get as close to living my version of truth as I can, or at the very least, will go down trying.
***
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I’m a travel writer, photographer, and a wanderpreneur. My work appears in Lonely Planet 2016 Literary Anthology, Upward Magazine, Matador Network & others. Learn more about me here and follow my journey on Instagram @insearchofperfect.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Volkswagen AG and the U.S. Justice Department have held preliminary settlement talks about resolving a criminal probe into the automaker’s diesel emissions scandal, two sources briefed on the matter said.
Reuters reported in June that a criminal settlement could include a consent decree, an independent monitor overseeing the German automaker’s conduct and significant yet-to-be determined fines for emissions violations.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the fines could top $1.2 billion.
The pace of VW’s internal investigation together with complications from separate civil suits filed in July by three U.S. states have slowed progress on reaching a settlement of the criminal investigation, according to people familiar with the probe.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
In June, VW agreed to pay as $15.3 billion after admitting it cheated on U.S. diesel emissions tests for years. The company agreed to buy back vehicles from consumers and provide funding that could benefit makers of cleaner technologies.
VW agreed to set aside $10.033 billion to cover buybacks or fixes for 475,000 2.0 liter diesel cars and sport utility vehicles that used illegal software to defeat government emissions tests.
Under the Justice Department deal, VW will spend $2 billion over 10 years to fund programs directed by California and EPA to promote construction of infrastructure to charge electric vehicles, development of zero-emission ride-sharing fleets and other efforts to boost sales of cars that do not burn petroleum.
VW also agreed to put up $2.7 billion over three years to enable government and tribal agencies to replace old buses or to fund infrastructure to reduce diesel emissions.
VW could face billions of dollars more in costs in the United States if it is forced to buy back 85,000 3.0 liter Audi, Porsche and VW cars and SUVs sold since 2009.
Last month, three U.S. states led by New York filed suits seeking at least hundreds of millions of dollars and said senior executives at Volkswagen including its former chief executive covered up evidence that the German automaker had cheated on U.S. diesel emissions tests for years.
A VW spokesman said the company “is committed to earning back the trust of our customers, dealers, regulators and the American public. As we have said previously, Volkswagen is cooperating with federal and state regulators in the United States, including the Department of Justice, and our discussions are continuing toward a resolution of remaining issues.”
The fine to resolve the U.S. criminal investigation could be the largest ever imposed on an automaker, surpassing the $1.2 billion paid by Toyota Motor Corp in 2014 to resolve a Justice Department investigation into its handling of sudden unintended acceleration incidents.
In September, General Motors Co paid $900 million and signed a deferred-prosecution agreement to end a Justice Department investigation into its handling of an ignition-switch defect linked to 124 deaths. Both automakers agreed to three years of oversight by an outside monitor.
(Reporting by David Shepardson and Joel Schectman; Editing by Sandra Maler and David Gregorio)
Setting goals tends to be at least an annual event in our professional lives. Generally, this involves sitting down with our supervisors to identify the things we want to achieve in the coming year and make an action plan for success. An important question that is either implicitly or explicitly embedded in this exercise is the degree to which we should stretch ourselves.
An intriguing study conducted by Leadership IQ sheds some light on that question. They surveyed over 4000 employees about how their supervisor managed the goals they were assigned. Specifically, they were asked to respond to the following questions using a 7-point scale (from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree):
My boss pushes me harder than I would push myself
I will have to exert extra effort to achieve my assigned goals for this year
I will have to learn new skills to achieve my assigned goals for this year
Interestingly, people who scored higher on the above three questions were also significantly more likely to:
Consider themselves to be high performers
Feel that the work that they do makes a difference
Recommend the company to other people as a great place to work
Perhaps the most revealing and powerful result was that individuals who scored higher on the first three questions were also significantly more likely to recommend the person they work for as a great boss. Essentially, supervisors who expected more from their employees and pushed them were seen as more desirable.
Although this finding may be surprising to some, several reasons were postulated to explain this relationship. First and foremost, a powerful by-product of setting stretch goals is that it instills confidence in employees. Why would a supervisor agree to such a goal if he or she did not feel that the employee had the skill or aptitude to achieve it? This type of acknowledgement inspires a higher level of commitment and performance as a result.
Another benefit of stretch goals is that it can convey the importance of the work. Rather than being mundane or routine, it requires employees to be at their best and to explore new territories and opportunities. This can enhance the level of meaning and purpose employees extract from their work, reinforcing the message that their work matters.
Translating Research to Practice
The above research provides some intriguing lessons for both individuals and leaders alike.
For individuals This research clearly highlights the importance of setting stretch goals for ourselves. If and when you set personal goals, make sure you are appropriately stretching yourself. Committing to move beyond our comfort zone can be incredibly rewarding and maximize our personal and professional growth and development.
If you really want to stretch yourself, ask someone you know and trust to be your 'goal coach.' Just like a personal trainer, this person can push you to achieve your goals and make sure you stay on track. They can also challenge you to continue to strive for excellence.
For leaders Although some leaders may be concerned about overburdening their employees, the above research suggests this may limit them from reaching their potential. While it is not wise to continue adding responsibilities and pressure until the person cannot take it anymore, an effective strategy based on the above is to have an open conversation about how you, as their leader, can appropriately stretch them during the upcoming year or quarter.
Before the goal-setting meeting, ask your employees to think about how they can stretch themselves in these areas. What would be effective stretching areas for them to explore?
You can also ask your team how you can best support them in this process, both individually and collectively. Stimulate open group discussions around the importance of stretching ourselves. Challenge your team to think about how they can support each other moving forward.
Each of the above strategies can yield tremendous dividends by tapping into our desire to grow and develop.
Conclusion Setting goals is a universal activity, which continues to take prominence within organizations. It appears that "getting out of our comfort zone" is crucial to maximizing the benefits from this process. Taking the time to reflect, as individuals or as people leaders, on how we can incorporate this perspective into our professional lives can maximize our performance and allow us to fully explore and realize our potential.
**Image courtesy of www.freeimages.com (source: Aaron Neifer)**
