SURVEY – Promoting Healthy Family Relationships: Making the Business Case

Across corporate America, workplace wellness efforts are increasingly recognized as smart business investments.  And for some companies, health and wellness includes helping employees nurture healthy family relationships at home.

Is your company among them?  Corporate Voices is leading a research project on the role businesses can play in promoting healthy relationships and the potential benefits associated with these efforts in the workplace.  We would love to know more about your company’s practices.  Please assist us by answering a few brief questions by clicking the link below.

http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e6x8e1iehc10swk2/start

Your responses are strictly confidential, and will help advance new research in this field. Thank you for your valuable input.

 

As Clock Ticks, Advocates Urge Extension of Federal Employer Tuition Assistance Program

The Coalition to Preserve Employer Provided Education Assistance has recently launched a letter to Congress asking for members to support a tax extenders package that includes Section 127.

Currently, Section 127 of the Internal Revenue Code allows an employee to exclude from income up to $5,250 per year in employer-provided tuition reimbursement for their continuing education. It also encourages employers to invest in their people, attract and retain talented workers, and compete more successfully in the global marketplace. Since being enacted in 1978, Sec. 127 has become such an important benefit that Congress has renewed it nine times.

Without Congressional action, Section 127, along with many other tax benefits, will expire in just a few short weeks – on December 31, 2012.  The extension of all of these benefits is caught up in proposals to avert the pending fiscal cliff.  Both parties agree on extending many of these tax cuts but Congressional Republicans and President Obama disagree on whether and what level of income tax breaks should apply. While Sec. 127 currently has no income limitation, our research shows that individuals who benefit from Sec. 127 earn a median income of $40,000 annually.  An income limit at the current proposed amounts would likely not impact most employees who rely on the tuition rebate.

Corporate Voices continues to work with businesses, policy makers, and non-governmental organizations to help create a better understanding about the public and private sector resources that increase job opportunities, improve financial stability, build assets and enhance productivity. As a member of the Coalition to Preserve Employer Provided Education Assistance, Corporate Voices will continue to advocate for the inclusion of Section 127 in any final negotiation.

To write your member of Congress about Section 127, visit: http://capwiz.com/cpepea/home and let your voice be heard on this important issue. In the coming weeks we will provide updates on how Sec. 127 fares in any final deal, if a deal is reached, later this month.

 

Powerful Coalition Calls for More Strategic Focus on Career Readiness

WASHINGTON (October 18, 2012)–A remarkably broad coalition of national education, business, philanthropic and policy groups has come together to create a clear, unified and focused vision for what it means to be career ready.

The goal of the Career Readiness Partner Council is to enhance reform efforts around college and career readiness to include a more comprehensive understanding of what it means to be career ready. The Council’s statement, “Building Blocks For Change: What it Means to be Career Ready,” makes clear that career readiness is a process of connecting “education and employment to achieve a fulfilling, financially-secure and successful career.” The document establishes that career readiness must foster “adaptability and a commitment to lifelong learning, along with a mastery of key knowledge, skills and dispositions that vary from one career to another and change over time.”

“This bold, clear and comprehensive vision crystallizes what it means to be career ready and advances earlier policy debates that too often focused almost exclusively on college entrance and completion,” said Kimberly Green, Executive Director of the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium, the group that coordinated the effort. “We realized that what is needed is a broader approach that combines education and workforce preparation under one umbrella. With this document, the Career Readiness Partner Council has taken an important step toward that goal.”

This comprehensive definition, supported by an unusually broad alliance of groups, will help inform policy in states and communities across the country. It offers clear guidance, and lays out next steps for:

•    Policymakers
•    High school teachers, leaders and counselors
•    Business and industry
•    Higher education
•    Parents and students, and
•    Communities.

Some 27 influential groups representing a wide swath of the education and workforce-development spectrum spent months outlining the vision. The coalition consulted leading researchers and practitioners during the development, and drew heavily from the rich body of work from many of the participating organizations.

“Having such a diverse group at the table gave us the opportunity to consider a wide range of perspectives on what it means to be career ready throughout a person’s lifetime,” said Green.

“We hope,” the document says, “this definition spurs conversation and action in communities across the nation. The inextricable link between education and the economy has never been more apparent, the urgency for change unparalleled. We have a window of opportunity for bold change, and the future of our nation, and each and every citizen depends on it.”

The full report and a complete list of the participating organizations can be found at CareerReadyNow.org.

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The Career Readiness Partner Council is a broad-based coalition of education, policy, business and philanthropic organizations that strives to forward a more comprehensive vision for what it means to be career ready. For more information, visit CareerReadyNow.org.

Contact: Lori Meyer                        For Immediate Release
Cell Phone: 202-215-6349
lorimeyer@mail.com