【正文】 staffs. Employee benefits managers and specialists administer a pany’s employee benefits program, notably its health insurance and retirement plans. Expertise in designing, negotiating, and administering benefits programs continues to take on importance as employerprovided benefits account for a growing proportion of overall pensation costs, and as benefit plans increase in number and plexity. For example, retirement benefits might include defined benefit pension plans, defined contribution plans, such as 401(k) or thrift savings plans and profitsharing or stock ownership plans. Health benefits might include medical, dental, and vision insurance and protection against catastrophic illness. Familiarity with health benefits is a top priority for employee benefits managers and specialists, because of the rising cost of providing healthcare benefits to employees and retirees. In addition to health insurance and retirement coverage, many firms offer employees life and accidental death and dismemberment insurance, disability insurance, and benefits designed to meet the needs of a changing workforce, such as parental leave, longterm nursing or home care insurance, wellness programs, and flexible benefits plans. Benefits managers must keep abreast of changing Federal and State regulations and legislation that may affect employee benefits. Working with employee assistance plan managers or worklife coordinators, many benefits managers work to integrate the growing number of programs that deal with mental and physical health, such as employee assistance, obesity, and smoking cessation, into their health benefits programs. Employee assistance plan managers, also called employee welfare managers or worklife managers, are responsible for a wide array of programs to enhance employee safety and wellness and improve worklife balance. These may include occupational safety and health standards and practices, health promotion and physical fitness, medical examinations and minor health treatment, such as first aid, flexible work schedules, food service and recreation activities, carpooling and transportation programs such as transit subsidies, employee suggestion systems, child care and elder care, and counseling services. Child care and elder care are increasingly significant because of growth in the number of dualine households and the older population. Counseling may help employees deal with emotional disorders, alcoholism, or marital, family, consumer, legal, and financial problems. Some employers offer career counseling and outplacement services. In some panies, certain programs, such as those dealing with physical security or information technology, may be coordinated in separate departments by other managers. (See administrative services managers elsewhere in the Handbook.) Training and development. Training and development managers and specialists create, procure, and conduct training and development programs for employees. Managers typically supervise specialists and make budgetimpacting decisions in exchange for a reduced training portfolio. Increasingly, executives recognize that training offers a way of developing skills, enhancing productivity and quality of work, and building worker loyalty. Enhancing employee skills can increase individual and anizational performance and help to achieve business results. Increasingly, executives realize that developing the skills and knowledge of its workforce is a business imperative that can give them a petitive edge in recruiting and retaining high quality employees and can lead to business growth. Other factors involved in determining whether training is needed include the plexity of the work environment, the rapid pace of anizational and technological change, and the growing number of jobs in fields that constantly generate new knowledge and, thus, require new skills. In addition, advances in learning theory have provided insights into how peo