In this conversation, Elise Labott sits down for a one-on-one conversation with Amy Friedrich from Principal®. Amy leads Principal®’s U.S. Insurance Solutions team, serving more than 150K small- to medium-sized businesses. They’ll discuss the importance of benefits among SMBs to retain employees in a tight labor market, and offer actionable advice for SMBs to fully understand the unique benefits needs of their specific, diverse workforces to create a more inclusive environment for employees. 

While the vaccines are a great next step in fighting the pandemic, we can’t lower our guard. Not all countries have broad access to vaccination. In the U.S. people that have access to vaccines may not have been  vaccinated, and children may not be vaccinated until much later in the year. Variants of concern will inevitably continue to appear, and we are seeing areas of the world where infections are at their peak and continue to trend up. As we consider travel and move about the world again, how can we remain safe while traveling? The U.S. State Department  warned against travel to about 80% of the world only last month, as many countries continue to contend with surges of the virus. Setting up a testing protocol that is flexible and timely, and keep travelers safe, will be key. Some countries, airports and airlines are already implementing testing measures systematically with success. What does the future of travel look like? We will discuss in this segment.