The LGBTQ experience with family building

The latest episode of EBN's award-winning podcast Perk Up! focuses on how employers can better support their LGBTQ workers who are looking to expand their families. About half of LGBTQ individuals between the ages of 18 and 35 are planning to become parents or add another child to their families. But these employees can face challenges when embarking on this journey. EBN explores this important issue.

"There's a lot of LGBT folks that do want to grow their families, and people think about it a lot and they have their friends that they have kids younger, and then they get older and then they're like, you know what? I really do want that for myself and my family to have kids and have that life," says Tanner Brunsdale, the director of benefits and mobility at Lyft . "And it is tough and it is expensive as we know."

For the complete episode: Giving birth, then back to work: The LGBTQ experience

Join us at Employee Benefit News’ BENEFITS AT WORK on September 17-18 in San Diego to explore mental health, building the modern family, and employee retention and workplace culture.

HOLISTIC HEALTHCARE: Undergoing surgery is stressful — dealing with treatment costs, administrative work and follow-up care shouldn't be. But with a single point solution, employers can procure a more streamlined experience for themselves and their workforce.

Healthcare navigation and care coordination platform Quantum Health has expanded its partnership with Centers of Excellence platform Carrum Health, bringing holistic surgery support to its 3 million members. Employers can now choose to add this option to their existing Quantum offerings, putting Carrum's bundled surgical care alongside the rest of their employees' healthcare benefits. Consolidating everything workers need for their surgical process can lead to lower costs, improved communication among all of their care providers and better overall health outcomes , says Dan Shur , Quantum 's chief product officer.??

"There's also going to be a better experience for their employees and their dependents," says Shur. "But that's only one piece of the puzzle; surgical episodes happen amidst a whole bunch of other things, and that's why if you marry the navigation with the surgical pieces, you actually have a complete solution."

Read more: Holistic healthcare benefits can cut down surgery spend

AN IMPORTANT SKILL: As the workforce continues to evolve, employees have been made aware that the skills they've traditionally relied on may not cut it anymore and they'll need to grow their toolbox . But are they prepared to become amateur coders??

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that there will be a 25% increase in jobs for software developers, testers and quality assurance analysts between 2021 and 2031. This translates to over 400,000 jobs being added to the market in the next five to 10 years. This also means that investing in coding skills will only become more important for employees regardless of their chosen field.?

"Rewind even 10 years ago and coding seemed like such a niche pathway," says Ed Kim, vice president of education and training at educational platform Code Ninjas. "But I think as technology has continually evolved, the need for people who understand how technology merges with other business uses has grown. And I think as a result, the barriers of entry to coding have lowered."

Read more: Why everyone should learn how to code