Products April 12, 2000

Merrill Adds Speech-recognition to 401k

December 4, 2000 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Merrill Lynch has added Speech-recognition to its 401(k) Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, allowing participants to access information and initiate transactions by speaking their requests.
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Through spoken commands, participants can now:

  • access account balances
  • access real-time quotes
  • change their rate of deferral
  • change their future investment direction
  • reallocate their current portfolio allocation
  • model account-value growth
  • check fund performance.

Merrill Lynch Benefits and Investment Solutions Group serves 2.4 million employees participating in large and middle-market company employee benefit plans.

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– Nevin Adams        editors@plansponsor.com

Benefits April 11, 2000

Greenspan: high tech boosts job anxiety, requires more on-the-job training

April 11, 2000 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Tuesday said that he expects job anxiety to stay high, with the rapid pace of technological change requiring more workers to receive continued job training.
Reported by

Job fears

The central banker said that despite a strong economy and low unemployment, more employees fear they could lose their jobs than was the case in 1991, at the bottom of the last recession. Greenspan spoke at the National Skills Summit in Washington.

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‘The rapidly evolving work environment in which the skill demands of their jobs are changing can lead to very real anxiety and insecurity about losing their jobs,” Greenspan said. “Those pressures are likely to remain intense.”

Greenspan noted a continued “need for considerable investment in human capital. Workers must be equipped not simply with technical know-how but also with the ability to create, analyze, and transform information and to interact effectively with others,” according to Greenspan.

editors@plansponsor.com

For the full text of Greenspan’s speech, go to: http://www.bog.frb.fed.us/BoardDocs/Speeches/2000/20000411.htm

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