As a teacher, the pension crisis is the one that affects me the most and I have little control over the situation.  I live in a state where the state government did not make the mandatory payments to the pension plan and therefore, it is woefully underfunded.  The teachers have become "public enemy #1."  My net pay is being adversely impacted by this...the state is taking more and more money each year to put into the pension plan and my benefits are at risk.  I realize if there is no money, there is no money.  However, teachers in my state have always paid into the system.  It is most distressing, however, that the government did not and now, public employees are paying for it - literally.

I would suggest that "work-place balance" is the most important on the list.  Many of these items appear to be negative things that we wouldn't want to occur.  When I think of something I value, I tend to think of things I want to hold onto.  If there is a balance in the work-place, many of these negative things would not occur.  I think when a work-place is balanced there is no occurrence of bullying or discrimination.  There would also be no need to change management in a balanced work place.  Changing management can be beneficial when there is a problem.  However, such major changes tend to create their own set of problems.  New managers slow production because they will have a new way of doing things and it will take time for employees to trust/work with the new management.

For myself, the work-life balance concept is the most challenging today. As a small business owner still working to fully establish my business, there is a nearly endless amount of work that I could do everyday. However, finding the line between could and should has been quite difficult. 

Small business owners expect to be called upon to do work that goes well beyond that of a "regular work week", but this expectation doesn't tell you where the necessary line is drawn, where work ends and life begins. 

I find all of these topics both important and pertinent to me personally. While I have rarely experienced workplace bullying by fellow workers, I have witnessed student bullying for years. Being in my mid-50s, I face the possiblility--and likelihood--of age discrimination when applying for employment. As a teacher, I have always worked to find a balance between the long hours of teaching and my social life.

I think the previous posts have just about covered work-life balance, so I'll comment on the pension crisis. The cause of this at the state level is well-known- changing demographics, including longer life spans and lower birth rates, have led to fewer workers contributing relative to pensioners benefitting. To make matters worse, many 401Ks, 403Bs and other retirement funds were hurt by the financial crisis. So many people who thought their retirement would be paid for are finding out otherwise.

I'm assuming the question is meant to be personal to you. Your question heading is business, so here is my attempt. I think in the current workplace and situation of society work-life balance and pension crisis are hot issues that would be valuable to have further knowledge on. The changing face of the workforce tells us that families are two income families. How do women balance being wives, mothers, sisters, friends, etc with being successful professionals, when in decades past they were only expected to be the first set? How do men balance being successful in business and being the family provider with being more hands on as husbands and fathers, especially when in past decades they were only expected to do the first? As for the pension crisis, I don't think most people coming up in the work force or in colleges and universities realize what the repercussions of the current crisis will be on them later. As for the current generation of retirees or those close to retirement, what do we do to help them, if anything? And is there anything we can do for current employees to prevent this in the future? What role do we as employees have in changing this situation.

Both very to the moment important issues that would be valuable for a business student to pursue.

Your question is very unclear, so it's hard to know how to respond in a way that might be helpful to you.

While all of the topics you list are important, as a recent retiree, I am personally most concerned on a day-to-day basis with "work-life balance" in the sense of trying to learn new patterns for organizing my time and activities. Obviously, "pension crisis" is also a topic of considerable interest to me at this point in my life!

Can you tell us what the context is -- what we are supposed to find these things valuable for?  For example, the first three seem like things that would be valuable for a human resources department.  They would need to make sure that the first two don't occur so they can't get sued.  They would want to prevent bullying and promote work-life balance so their employees could have better morale.  

Please clarify this for us if that would be helpful to you.