A new type of defined benefit pension plan is gaining some traction in both the public and private sectors that could reverse the trend of companies and governments dumping their defined benefit plans in favor of defined contribution plans.

The adjustable pension plan is the brain child of executives at Cheiron Inc., an actuarial and financial consultancy with offices across the country. The idea is to merge some of the best features of a traditional defined benefit plan with features from the defined contribution plan market to get a hybrid that provides employees with a lifetime income stream. The big upside is that the employer and the employees split the investment risk between them so neither side shoulders all of it.

Bill O’Meara, president of the Newspaper Guild of New York, a union for news professionals, including those who work at The New York Times and Consumer Reports magazine, said that both publications moved to an adjustable pension plan within the past year. Both are still waiting for the Internal Revenue Service to make a determination about the adjustable pension plan and whether it meets all of the necessary criteria to be considered a defined benefit plan, but verbal responses from the U.S. Treasury and IRS have been positive, he said.