In all actuality, idea of multiple streams of income is not a new concept. Those who have been successful in business (in life for that matter) have long understood that you simply aren’t acting wisely if you place all your trust in one wealth-generating company, idea, or tool. Those in offline business refer to "multiple streams of income" as "diversification."

Take a look at stock market for a moment. This is a prime example of diversification or "multiple streams of income" (MSI). For as long as it has been in existence, stock market has thrived on diversification. Stockbrokers encourage (almost insist) that you keep your funds split between multiple companies. Why? Because if one company goes under, you’ll have additional sources of revenue through dividends of other companies.

How about business purchasing? Professionals in business procurement will advise you to line up and use several vendors for same products/services. Why? Again, to protect yourself should one or more of your vendors close their doors at same time. If this happens, and you have other vendors lined up and ready to go, you won’t lose any time in getting supplies you need to continue conducting your business.

I understand that, having been on both sides of issue, both as a consumer of benefits and in communicating about them on behalf of corporate clients. Benefits can be slippery eels of internal communication.

But, to put issue into context, this is another case of complex communication. In this case, a large volume of information that's not easy to understand.

Descriptions of benefits typically involve a high level of density: in other words, they contain a lot of information in a small amount of 'space'. Many of them resemble insurance policies -- long on legal language and short on examples and anecdotes. As a result, information is accessible to only a small proportion of whole group.

How do you deal with this kind of communication challenge? Multiple channels, multiple times. That means repeating message many times, and sending it through as many different channels as possible.

For example, when one of my clients changed its benefits package to offer more choices, it used this strategy. Collectively, overall value of benefits would work out same for company. But, individual employees would have to make choices, and in many cases value of individual benefits they received would depend on how wisely they made their decisions. In turn, that could lead to equivalent of 'buyer's remorse' and complaints.