American Express will offer its US full-time and part-time employees 20 weeks of paid parental leave starting next year. That's a significant increase from its past policy of offering six weeks to primary caregivers and two weeks to secondary caregivers.

Dominion Resources wants to begin construction on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in 2017, and the company held a fair to find contractors and subcontractors for the 600-mile natural gas pipeline, which would run from West Virginia to North Carolina. If approved, the $5 billion project is expected to employ 7,200 construction workers.

The use of design thinking, which offers a better way of meeting human needs, can help talent leaders attract and keep good employees, writes Steven MacGregor, CEO of The Leadership Academy of Barcelona. Factors that make a workplace more human include the design of the workplace environment, empathy in leadership, and experimentation and acceptance of failure.

Retailers and other employers that typically get busier during the holidays should offer training to help employees manage the added work, writes Matt Bingham, an executive at an enterprise technology company. He recommends mobile-learning training programs with interactive elements, such as quizzes and videos.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has extended the city's employee wellness program for a year and will continue to require participating employees to have a biometric screening, well-being assessment and health adviser call. One change is that only employees identified as high risk will be required to work with a health coach, attend classes, read about health topics, participate in disease management or use the wellness portal to track activities.

Unsolicited feedback in employee performance evaluations often is ineffective and can make workers feel threatened, writes Jan Hills. Companies instead should be clear about job standards and encourage workers to ask for feedback to help them meet goals.