Andie Burjek – Page 25

November 5, 2018June 29, 2023

Employees Put the Bullseye on Target-date Funds

Target-date funds had been in the 401(k) lineup for more than a decade at Zurich American Insurance Co., but it wasn’t until 2014 that the company started using the investment to automatically enroll workers.

After doing an evaluation at that time, target-date funds were the best option for the company to automatically put workers into a professionally managed investment account at a reasonable and low cost, said Dawn Carthan, benefits consultant at Zurich.

“Target-date funds went hand-in-hand with auto-enrollment,” Carthan said.

Today, the commercial insurer’s reasoning is similar to many companies using target-date funds when automatically enrolling workers into 401(k) plans. In its “How America Saves 2018” report, investment management giant Vanguard found that 51 percent of participants were invested in a target-date fund. For plans automatically enrolling participants, 96 percent were enrolled directly into a target-date fund.

Because of the rapid growth of target-date funds, Vanguard expects 70 percent of participants will be invested in them by 2022.

At Zurich, 94 percent of plan participants are using target-date funds, with 68 percent invested entirely in one. That second number is largely because of a re-enrollment project that took place in the first quarter this year. Prior to the initiative, less than half of participants were invested entirely in one target-date fund, a Zurich spokeswoman said.

“Target-date funds have definitely taken off,” said Jean Young, author of the Vanguard report and senior research analyst for the Vanguard Center for Investor Research. “These professionally managed options are so much easier today.”

Young said target-date funds are popular for three reasons: first, they are professionally managed investments that start at a higher rate of risk when a participant is younger, and continually rebalance, moving to a more conservative asset allocation as that person reaches retirement age. Second, costs have come down considerably over the past few years and are certainly well below what it would cost to have all these investments managed individually.

Finally, the Pension Protection Act of 2006 allowed plan sponsors to automatically enroll workers into what is called a qualified default investment alternative, or QDIA, a type of investment that would meet a participant’s retirement needs. Target-date funds fall under that umbrella.

The QDIA qualification catapulted target-date fund growth. Last year, target-date mutual funds pushed over the $1 trillion mark compared to $158 billion in 2008, according to Morningstar’s Target-Date Fund Landscape Report. Net inflows surged to $70 billion in 2017, compared to the $40 billion in net flows every year since 2008.

Three providers, Vanguard, Fidelity and T. Rowe Price, have dominated the field, holding a combined $774.6 billion in total assets in 2017. Within the space, 95 percent of all inflows last year built on the longstanding trend in going to low-cost funds. The average expense ratio for target-date funds was 0.66 percent in 2017, compared to 1.03 in 2009.

Low cost doesn’t necessarily mean best fit, said Jeff Holt, director of multi-asset and alternative strategies for Morningstar Research Services.

“There has been this huge move to low cost,” Holt said in a recent webinar. “But plan sponsors and investors should be aware that it’s not a guarantee that they are going to get the better results despite having the fee advantage.”

Plan sponsors should be wary of having a false sense of security with this QDIA, said Ron Surz, president of Target Date Solutions, an investment management firm based in San Clemente, California.

Also read: Retirement’s Gray Area: Health Care Costs

Surz said many plan sponsors offering target-date funds assume that any available ones will work as the QDIA for their 401(k) plan. Plan sponsors often choose funds out of convenience for themselves rather than the best fit for participants, Surz said.

It’s no coincidence, he added, that two of the three largest target-date fund providers are also the largest record keepers in the retirement benefits industry.

“Many plan sponsors think they are safe,” Surz said. “As fiduciaries, they need to be aware of their duty of care to find the best target-date fund for the beneficiaries and not the most convenient one.”

November 1, 2018June 29, 2023

The 5 Paths of Falling Into HR

Raise your hand if you grew up dreaming of a career in HR. No one? Of course not.

The dirty little secret of HR is that most of us didn’t have a master plan to end up managing people functions and maximizing human capital ROI inside the modern workplace. We grew up with bigger dreams, which is cool because no one grows up dreaming of being a director of account management, financial analyst or marketing manager, either.

Those dreams all stink when you’re 16.

Instead, our teenage selves dreamed of being movie stars, recording artists or professional athletes. The freaks among us were entrepreneurial from the time they were 5 and likely knew they’d own their own business. The rest of us float, usually until the time we pick a major in college, at which time our career paths and ambitions solidify.

But the choice of HR as a career path happens later than most on average. For all the undergraduate programs in HR, the ubiquitous nature of the Society for Human Resource Management and the increasing importance of the human capital function, many HR pros don’t solidify a path into HR until they’re in the workforce doing other things.

Translation: Many HR pros will tell you they “fell” in to HR.

Falling into things can be a blessing and a curse. It’s all relative to the outcome. From my experience talking to the talented high performers who make up the world of HR, here’s some common ways people “fall” into HR without a real plan to enter it.

I started at the bottom, now I’m here. You are a bootstrapper! Right out of college, these people took entry-level roles in our function, usually doing transactions as an HR coordinator, payroll specialist or similar role. They enjoyed the function and in many cases rose to run the whole thing.
I’m a people person. These HR pros were generally present in a company and were identified as someone who was “good with people,” subsequently flipping into HR from another department. When looking at this group, “good with people” is a broad designation that can mean they are extroverted, a good listener or willing to take large amounts of abuse without exploding. It can also mean skill in solving other people’s problems and maximizing their performance inside the organization.
I got dropped into HR on an interim basis and never left. Big companies have rotational programs for high potential employees as part of succession strategies, and HR is generally part of that rotation. From time to time, HIPOs are rotated into HR, love it, are highly effective and never leave or come back to HR after their rotations are complete. In other circumstances, high performers are parachuted into HR on an interim basis to put out a Dumpster fire, find their perfect match and stay for the good times.
I was good at a specialty related to HR and ended up running the whole HR show. Feeder groups for HR include some specialties that are considered a distant or related cousin to the HR function like training or recruiting. This close proximity to the HR function provides a natural exposure and transition point to HR for the professionals in those functions with the chops to handle the chaos that awaits them in the big show.
I failed in another job at our company and they moved me into HR so they didn’t have to fire me. I didn’t want to include this one, but no rundown of all the ways people fall into a HR career would be complete without it. HR has a reputation in some company cultures as a backwater, a way station for average people doing average things. This leads to the perception that good people struggling in other areas can be dumped in HR. This seems to be decreasing in frequency, but it’s a historic reality of our lives together in HR.

You can probably add to the list of ways that people fall into HR. If you’re an HR pro who has an HR degree and has always possessed the clarity that comes with knowing you’d be in HR since you were 12, Godspeed to you. Don’t mess up your dream.

The rest of us woke up one day in HR with the Talking Heads song “Once In A Lifetime” playing in the background. I’m glad I’m here; I bet you are as well.

October 30, 2018June 29, 2023

Helping Veterans Find Jobs With Purpose

Most employees want a meaningful job, but for returning military veterans finding private-sector work that offers a sense of purpose can be a big challenge, and that can lead to job dissatisfaction and high turnover for employers.

“In service you wake up every morning and the mission is defined and clear,” said former Marine Corps intelligence officer Elliot Parks, a cybersecurity consultant at PwC based in Philadelphia. “You have a clarity of purpose, but in the private sector it’s not always clear.”

While more companies are hiring veterans — 40 percent planned to recruit them in 2018, up from 37 percent the previous year, according to a 2017 survey by CareerBuilder — nearly half of U.S. veterans leave their first post-military job within a year. Many large employers have turned to veterans groups such as Hiring Our Heroes and Veterans Employment Initiative for help, resulting in a marked decrease in the unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans from 12.1 percent in 2011 to 3.8 percent as of August 2018, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yet, turnover remains high.

To help turn this trend around, PwC, Google, Citigroup, T-Mobile and other large employers are partnering with FourBlock, a nonprofit that provides professional development and networking opportunities to veterans who joined the military after 9/11. The New York-based organization, which was founded in 2012, offers a semester-long, university-accredited program that features classes taught by top corporate executives. Veterans learn how to translate their military skills and experiences into career opportunities, creating a pipeline to leading companies through its Career Readiness Program, a semester-long course developed with Columbia University.

Self-promotion is difficult for military veterans, especially when civilians don’t understand the nuances of military life.

“I was in the military with seven years active duty and promoted twice and not once did I have to sell myself or rely on personal branding,” said Chris Crace, veterans advocacy leader at PwC. “Your body of work speaks for itself. We come out and it’s a brand new industry where everything is foreign and we’re just not comfortable selling ourselves. It’s always about the team, the ‘we,’ not the ‘me.’ That’s a big challenge.”

Crace, a former Marine captain, works with recruiters and hiring managers at PwC to educate them on the skills and talents that veterans bring and oversees the firm’s recruiting efforts.

“At a minimum, the hiring manager needs to know the different branches of military and the pay scales,” he said. “They need to also be prepared for the fact that résumés won’t jump off the page as meeting job requirements. They need to be open to having conversations with vets about what they do.”

At PwC, newly hired veterans go through an onboarding program that pairs them with a mentor who is also a veteran and can join an affinity group that supports veterans and their families.

“It’s important to identify mentors with military experience,” said Parks. “Having somebody who can speak both languages is really helpful. And having a forum or advocacy network where we can connect with each other is also important.”

So far, FourBlock has served more than 1,700 veterans with 70 percent staying with their first employer for at least one year, according to Eric Ahn, the organization’s director of marketing. Ahn experienced the program in 2014 after retiring from the military due to an injury.

Also read: Fighting a Different War: Employment in the U.S.

Also read: How to Find, Support Veteran Talent

“I joined the Marines in 2004 and spent 10 years in infantry,” he said. “I was in Iraq and Afghanistan and bases in Greece and Germany. I had combat experience but also worked with coalition forces and that gave me a broad sense of what people in other countries experience. But I think people looked at my résumé and said he did XYZ in the military so he can do XYZ job. People only saw my infantry code and saw me as a law-enforcement candidate or a security company candidate, which was fine but I was injured and needed to find something more suited to my injury and my education. FourBlock helped me connect the dots.”

Also read: Why Veterans Struggle Transitioning into the Workforce — And How Professional Career Coaches Seldom Help

October 24, 2018September 5, 2023

How 401(k)s Can Help Recruit and Retain Employees

Four in five employees indicate they want benefits and perks more than a pay raise, and a 401(k) ranks in the top five requested benefits, according to a recent Glassdoor survey. On top of that, when it comes to millennials, benefits are particularly appealing – 90 percent of employees 18 to 34 years old say they would prefer benefits over pay.

While offering “fun” perks such as ping pong tables, happy hours, and stocked snack corners can be gratifying in the short-term, top candidates are focused on long-term benefits. Many are evaluating a company’s 401(k) offering when choosing which companies to apply to or deciding between multiple job offers.

With a tight labor market and recent trends surrounding retirement concerns, offering a high-quality 401(k) plan is an essential tool to add to your HR toolbox.

Attracting, recruiting and retaining employees is a costly and time-consuming process. That’s why it’s imperative to bring in top candidates and hire them with the intent of keeping them at your company as long as possible.

Here are three ways a high-quality 401(k) can help your recruiting and retention efforts:

1. Attract top talent and build high-performing teams

Fifty-one percent of employees joined their current employer largely because it offered a retirement plan, according to a survey by Willis Towers Watson. Offering a 401(k) shows potential candidates that you care about your employees’ financial well-being – even into retirement.

Companies can appeal to job seekers by demonstrating they are committed for the long-term with meaningful benefits like a 401(k) plan, which enforce a level of seriousness and credibility on the part of the employer.

2. Tip the balance in your company’s favor

Top candidates will have multiple offers with fairly equivalent salaries. A top-notch 401(k) benefit can be a “tie-breaker” for these candidates and will enforce a strong company culture around taking care of employees.

Competing on salary is a battle that is hard to win – there will always be another company that’s willing to pay more. However, thoughtful, long-term benefits that are financially beneficial, like an employer-sponsored 401(k), can really set you apart.

3. Increase employee retention

As top employees get recruited by other firms, 401(k)s are a great safeguard – if your company’s 401(k) or 401(k) match program is strong, it will be something they would lose out on if they switch jobs. In fact, 75 percent of new hires at a company offering a 401(k) say the retirement plan provides a compelling reason to stay, according to Willis Tower Watson’s survey.

While individual raises, bonuses, and promotions may benefit some, a 401(k) plan may be easier and more equitable to apply to your whole company. Employees who feel their employer is invested in them are more likely to be engaged in their workplace and stay with the company longer, reducing the high cost of employee turnover.

Top 401(k)s for Top Talent: How to Ensure You’re Providing the Best 401(k)

retain talent with 401(k) — Fifty-one percent of employees joined their current employer largely because it offered a retirement plan. To attract and retain employees, think about offering a high-quality 401(k) plan.

Not all 401(k) plans are created equally, and plans can vary drastically. To help you find the best 401(k) plan for candidates and current employees, these are the options your 401(k) plan should offer:

Immediate eligibility: With immediate eligibility, employees have the option to sign up and contribute to their account right away. This is extremely important for employees, since they’ll be receiving the full value of their benefit right away, as opposed to waiting a set amount of time. It can also improve participation, since employees are more likely to sign up when they first join the company and are onboarding.

Low-cost index funds: By offering low-fee options, employees can keep more of their earnings and not have fees eat away at their retirement savings. To put it into perspective, even a 1% difference in fees can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost retirement savings.

Employer match or contribution. By offering a generous employer match or contribution, you will most likely boost employee participation and increase your employees’ retirement savings, giving your plan an even more competitive edge. 401(k) matches are essentially financial compensation – with the added benefit of being tax-deferred – and many employees would consider this similar to a salary bump or bonus.

What is considered a good 401(k) match? According to the National Compensation Survey, 41 percent of employers match a percentage of employee contributions between 0 to 6 percent, while 10 percent match a percentage of employee contributions at 6 percent or more. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average 401(k) match is 3.5 percent of compensation.

The bottom line is that your company’s success is tied directly to the quality of its workforce. Giving your employees top-notch, thoughtful benefits, like a 401(k), is a great way to ensure they’re happy, remain loyal to your company, and are engaged in the company’s success.

Now is a great time to reevaluate your 401(k) as we approach business planning and budgeting for next year. Connect with your teams and 401(k) vendor to explore improvements to your plan or start a conversation about getting a new plan launched at the beginning of the next year.

October 22, 2018August 3, 2023

2018 Optimas Award Winners for Benefits

The Benefits award recognizes organizations that designed, developed or implemented innovative benefit programs that achieved organizational goals. Here are the winners for 2018:

Gold: Cherokee County, Georgia, Board of Commissioners

Cherokee County, the seventh largest county in Georgia, wanted to revamp its employee benefits program.

Such a lofty goal — reducing the cost of the health plan without reducing coverage or increasing employee premiums — would be daunting for any organization, and the county had the special challenge of needing to do just that for 1,600 public employees in 30 separate agencies.

Coinciding with the hiring of a new chief people officer in February 2016, the county began designing its health management strategy. In May, it also hired a new benefits consultant. With this new team and new strategy in place, the county assessed the health plan areas where there was room for improvement. The components of the new health management strategy included addressing pharmacy costs, telemedicine and preferred networks.

Rising costs and lack of transparency for pharmacy costs was a major concern of Cherokee County, which addressed this by choosing a new, fiduciary pharmacy benefits manager whose incentives are aligned to its own. At this PBM, there’s no spread pricing and all rebates and manufacturer’s incentives are returned to the county.

Plan members also have no deductibles or copays for telemedicine, which has helped lower overall spend by reducing urgent and emergency care spending.

Other components of this improved health management strategy included unbundling certain services for the carrier and implementing six new vendors who could improve spend, for example an imaging vendor at which members can get CAT scans, mammograms and MRIs at no cost. Also, Cherokee County needed to make a significant education and communication effort to let plan members know about these major changes.

The county officially launched the new health management strategy Jan. 1, 2017, and has seen positive results so far. Pharmacy spend decreased by 38 percent, or $1.3 million year-over-year; inpatient hospital costs decreased by 50.8 percent; and the adoption of telemedicine led to savings of $144,243. In addition, compared to 24 large claims costing $4,790,879 last plan year, the current plan year has only seen nine large claims totaling $1,554,785.

For its efforts to develop and implement a health management strategy for the 2017 plan year, Cherokee County, Georgia, Board of Commissioners is the Optimas Award Gold winner for Benefits.

Silver: Banfield Pet Hospital

The veterinary profession is going through a dramatic demographic shift, and as the workforce becomes younger and more female, workforce concerns like high student loan debt and common mental health issues that often plague young doctors impact organizations like Washington-based veterinary practice Banfield Pet Hospital.

To address the wellness challenges — such as cyberbullying, poor work-life balance and increased risk for suicide — that exist in the profession, whose industry turnover is 20 percent, Banfield launched a new health and well-being initiative in 2017. The initiative focuses on five areas of well-being including mind, body, finances, career and community.

Some components of this holistic approach were discounted gym memberships, the veterinary student debt relief pilot program, continuing education reimbursement programs and a hurricane relief program for pets and owners after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico.

Though the program is new, it has still had some measurable results, with 46 percent of the doctor population participating in the student debt relief program and a 30 percent reduction in the dropout rate of candidates.

For its efforts to gradually increase employee well-being on a holistic level, Banfield Pet Hospital is the Optimas Award Silver winner for Benefits.

Bronze: Panda Restaurant Group

For its efforts to use the Panda Associate Assistance Fund to financially assist employees going through crises including death, illness and natural disasters, Panda Restaurant Group is the Optimas Award Bronze winner for Benefits.

Go here to read about the rest of the Optimas winners for 2018.

October 22, 2018August 3, 2023

2018 Optimas Award Winners for Recruiting

The Recruiting award recognizes organizations that developed and implemented an innovative and effective recruitment initiative that helped the organization source, attract and recruit job candidates. Here are the winners for 2018:

Gold: SSM Health

Amid a health care worker shortage, SSM Health needed to improve its recruiting practices. The St. Louis-based Catholic, not-for-profit health care system includes 24 hospitals, more than 300 physician offices and many other services that require an influx of nurses. Despite great need to hire quality graduate nurses, SSM struggled to do so, sparking its graduate nurse recruitment program.

“It’s a scarce talent market, and the needs of our communities need to be met and filled,” said Tom Ahr, vice president of talent at SSM Health. “We have to continue to get better every day to attract the best talent for us.”

To do so, Ahr’s team interacted with schools and identified goals and metrics to plan ahead of hiring needs and move candidates through the hiring process efficiently. A team of educators, operations leaders and new graduate nurses met in spring 2016 to review programs to best explore the needs of an improved recruitment plan.

By June 2018, SSM implemented a variety of solutions, particularly around the candidate experience. To make the process efficient, the team enhanced communications, using texting, email and phone while also pre-screening via video interview to best fit the busy schedules of nursing students. These and other efforts helped SSM to share the job decision within two business days, as well as share detailed feedback with the candidate.

In addition to the recruiting process improvements, SSM revamped its residency program to better retain talent.

Results include identifying internal demands earlier, thus going to market with the positions more than 30 days sooner than last year. SSM then filled all open nursing positions in June 2018; in June 2017, 33 positions went unfilled. In the same time frame, operation costs were reduced to save $90,000.

“Any time that our business can tell us what they need and we’re able to deliver and do it in a really timely way and in a way that is really efficient with our resources, then we consider that a successful initiative,” Ahr said.

For the organization’s efforts to improve graduate nurse recruitment, SSM Health is the 2018 Optimas Award Gold winner for Recruiting.

Silver: Choptank Transport Inc.

Choptank Transport Inc. needed to grow its hiring strategy in conjunction with its increasing headcount.

To meet aggressive hiring goals for 2018, the third-party logistics company created #ChooseChoptank, a hiring and recruiting initiative that focuses on employer branding, candidate experience, employee referrals and digital optimization.

Branding efforts include pushing a fresh brand logo in all photos and videos to “ensure a consistent, well-branded presence that candidates will see and remember,” according to its award application. To get more eyes on job postings, the company added digital advertising for jobs and increased the referral program’s payouts. Through advanced training for new employees and outlining potential career paths, retention efforts also improved.

Results include a 16 percent increase in employee referrals and 70 percent increase in candidates who reach the first in-person interview.

For its creation and use of #ChooseChoptank, Choptank Transport Inc. is the 2018 Optimas Award Silver winner for Recruiting.

Bronze: ReedTMS Logistics

For ReedTMS Logistics’ creation and implementation of its 212 initiative, the third-party logistics provider is the 2018 Optimas Award Bronze winner for Recruiting.

Go here to read about the rest of the Optimas winners for 2018.

October 22, 2018August 3, 2023

2018 Optimas Award Winners for Innovation

The Innovation award recognizes organizations that have developed an innovative workforce management strategy that addresses a fundamental business issue. Here are the winners for 2018:

Gold: SmartSimple Software Inc.

As SmartSimple Software Inc. found its team growing, they realized an innovative solution was needed to ensure ongoing employee engagement.

Inspired by the time machine from the movie “Back to the Future,” the cloud software provider built its model to manage the flow of incoming issues, ideas and comments, allow discussion and collaboration and finally output the solution, according to the application. It also provides a structure and concrete road map for fostering and developing innovative thought.

Growth in a company can be good, but it also comes with its challenges. SmartSimple began to gain interest from organizations outside of its traditional clients, causing them to move into unexplored territory and causing the company to face a steep learning curve. Because of this, additional talent was recruited to help provide insight into the unknown fields.

“The Flux Capacitor of Innovation is a concentrated dose of the processes and activities that were part of our everyday when we were a smaller organization and innovative thought flourished organically. It has enabled us to carry on our test-and-learn, curiosity-driven, start-up mentality that has brought us to where we are now,” said Alex Wong, director of marketing at SmartSimple.

Before the Flux Capacitor of Innovation was implemented, communication and ideas weren’t being developed past each team or department. The company realized that communication is key and now encourages every person in the company to share their opinions.

“The Flux Capacitor of Innovation changed this entirely because it introduced an element that every department had common ground in working with — our clients,” said Wong. “The feedback mechanisms that inherently feed the top end of the Flux Capacitor funnel foster inter-team collaboration and communication because every department has a stake in managing the client relationship.”

For its efforts to use the Flux Capacitor of Innovation as a structured road map for communication within the company, SmartSimple Software Inc. is the 2018 Optimas Award winner for Innovation.

Silver: NCSoft

Why not start the first day on the job with a game? NCSoft executives realized they needed to up their game where employee onboarding and retention was concerned.

Their onboarding program, NC Launch Onboarding, is a way to make the process more effective and increase employee retention. The site is filled with characters from the company’s games and takes new hires on “quests” to finish items like payroll, playfully referred to as “loot.”

The gaming business knew it needed a change when departments such as IT complained equipment wasn’t being set up on the first day and there wasn’t enough communication between managers and new employees.

The program has succeeded since launching in 2017. Future plans include incorporating more of an employee’s journey into the program, such as leaves of absence and training.

For its efforts to improve its onboarding process with a new platform, NCSoft is the 2018 Optimas Award Silver winner for Innovation.

Bronze: Riverside Healthcare

For its efforts to use its Well in Mind Employee Support Program to provide strong mental wellness to its employees, Riverside Healthcare is the 2018 Optimas Award Bronze winner for Innovation.

Go here to read about the rest of the Optimas winners for 2018.

October 22, 2018August 3, 2023

AMB Group: Optimas 2018 General Excellence Winner

Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium opened Aug. 26, 2017, with a preseason football game between the hometown Falcons and the Arizona Cardinals.

The clock for hiring, training and prepping some 4,000 employees to open the $1.5 billion domed palace started ticking just four months prior. In short, there was no time for a fumble.

The stadium needed to staff virtually every function — ticketing, food and beverage services, security, leadership, finance and beyond. More importantly, the 4,000 workers had to embody the organization’s core values, and culture building efforts had to be highly impactful.

The AMB Group — the stadium ownership organization in charge of hiring and training — knew the importance of finding quality staff in a short amount of time. But they also strived to do so in a way that benefited Atlanta’s nearby Westside neighborhood, according to Karen Walters, director, training and associate engagement at AMB Group.

AMB Group is the 2018 Optimas Awards winner for General Excellence, an award given to the organization that has excelled in at least six out of 10 Optimas categories. AMB’s efforts to hire and train its Mercedes-Benz Stadium workforce showed excellence in corporate citizenship, innovation, managing change, partnership, recruiting, training and vision and place it among this elite group of organizations.

AMB Group: Optimas — Karen Walters, director, training and associate engagement at AMB Group, LLC, and Kali Franklin, director of human resources operations at AMB Sports and Entertainment at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

“Arthur believes the stadium project will be a failure if the transformation of the Westside communities around the stadium is not a success. The team was challenged to proactively collaborate with community partners to weave Westside residents into the stadium family,” Walters said in her Optimas application, referring to Arthur M. Blank, chairman of the Blank Family of Businesses. Blank, 75, the co-founder of Home Depot, leads this family of businesses made up of the AMB Group, the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta United FC of Major League Soccer and PGA Tour Superstore, among others.

The Westside community partners include Westside Works, a neighborhood program focused on creating employment opportunities and job training for Westside residents, and the Center for Working Families, an organization whose mission is to ensure economic success for Atlanta’s families and which provides job training, work support and financial literacy.

The stadium is a catalyst for transformative change, said Alison Sawyer, director of foundation communications at the Arthur M. Blank Family of Businesses. “For us, what that has meant is the power of the many and the collective in creating long-term, positive change in the Westside communities,” she said.

Blank leads his businesses by six core values: give back to others; lead by example; innovate continuously; put people first; listen and respond; and include everyone. Although financial success is important to the company, equally important is following these six values to attain that success.

These six core values were present in the recruiting process for the stadium from the start. The AMB Group HR team partnered with Utah-based software company Hirevue, which uses video interviews and artificial intelligence to help companies make hiring decisions. Blank was involved, asking values-based interview questions, as was Falcons head coach Dan Quinn and running back Devonta Freeman.

Also read: Webasto, Optimas 2017 General Excellence Winner

Also read: AbbVie, Optimas 2016 General Excellence Winner

Candidates who passed the video interview attended a Draft Day Hiring Fair at Mercedes-Benz Stadium where they participated in a group interview with more values-based questions. In these group interviews, candidates got the opportunity to show their “smile on the face and smile in the heart,” according to Walters.

“The interviews are fairly light-hearted because we want to see who lights up the room with their energy, care and warmth,” she said. “We ask candidates to get to know each other, introduce each other to the group in a fun way, and seek to understand times in the past when they have positively impacted the lives of others.”

After AMB made its hiring decisions, it invited the new associates to an onboarding event in which they were warmly greeted by the HR staff and then got the chance to take an “I’ve Been Drafted!” picture with the Falcons NFC Championship trophy. This experience also included a personal, one-on-one onboarding process between an HR associate and the new hire, which was enabled through a partnership with Workday.

After onboarding, the 4,000 new employees participated in an eight-hour training program called Welcome Home. HR designed this training in partnership with professional training and coaching company LDR Worldwide, and much of the training involved building trust and family bonds, as well as instilling the six core values in trainees.

New staff watched a video detailing Blank’s career, then met in small groups to have more intimate and personal discussions.

During the training, “trust-based connections formed, and the organization continues to benefit from these early, positive interactions,” Walters said. “We are reaping the benefits of this strong start through daily accolades given to Mercedes-Benz Stadium associates.”

Meanwhile, stadium supervisors had their own two-day Welcome Home training program in which they also learned more about the core values and the importance of building that culture among their employees.

“The energy in the building from the staff and fans was palpable,” Walters said of that first preseason game. “The guest-services associates were electric as they welcomed guests to their new home and the fans seemed to be in awe.”

Fans were enthusiastic to experience the game in the new stadium, she added, saying that there was an aura of excitement as they engaged with stadium staff and explored the concourses and concessions.

Beyond that first game, the hiring and training initiative has sparked positive feedback from NFL fans, according to the fan surveys conducted by the NFL. In the 2017 survey, the Falcons earned “Most Improved” club. The team also ranked in the first quartile among all NFL clubs for fan satisfaction.

Meanwhile, thanks to its community outreach efforts, the Mercedes-Benz Stadium has hired more than 150 Westside residents, and through the youth-centric Westside Ambassadors Program, more than 100 internship positions were filled by Westside neighborhood youths.

Also, each of founding sponsors of the Mercedes-Benz Stadium has committed to transforming the Westside in some way, “whether it is time, talent or treasure,” said the Arthur M. Blank Family of Businesses’ Sawyer. Financially, that has resulted in more than $15 million committed by sponsors, she added.

The supervisors’ Core Leader training continues, and HR has selected 30 of these core leaders to act as culture builders, Walters said. In this role, they continuously and strategically try to instill the Welcome Home spirit from the initial training. This could be by including that spirit in event-day huddles or by rewarding employees with a Values in Action award when they exhibit that Welcome Home spirit.

For its workplace initiative, which demonstrates excellence in the Optimas categories of corporate citizenship, innovation, managing change, partnership, recruiting, training and vision, AMB Group is the 2018 Optimas Award General Excellence winner.

Go here to read about the rest of the Optimas winners for 2018.

Go here to learn more about the Optimas Award program.

October 18, 2018June 29, 2023

Boutique Fitness: The Holy Grail for Wellness Programs?

EDM Cycling. Surf Set Fitness. Punk Rock Dance Class Aerobic Kickboxing (yes, really!). Hot Yoga. Class Rowing. Barre. Boutique fitness studios and newly fashioned fitness crazes held in small group settings are growing in popularity and helping millions of people get active. Creative instructor-led group classes cater to multiple generations of consumers and are highly effective at engaging members to live an active, healthy and fun lifestyle.

boutique fitness wellness program — Nick Park, benefits consultant at Corporate Synergies

Access to boutique fitness studios is also becoming an appealing voluntary benefit. Now, some employers are sponsoring access to both small studios and big box gyms with the help of tech-forward companies that aggregate multiple fitness facilities into single-point networks.

The trend toward coached fitness has injected adrenaline into employer-sponsored health and wellness initiatives. That’s because boutique fitness classes appear to engage employees in healthy long-term behaviors. Some progressive HR pros are wondering if they’ve finally found the holy grail of employer-sponsored fitness programs. The answer: maybe.

Wellness programs have changed drastically from the days when employers handed out pedometers at wellness fairs. Today, many businesses provide discounts to traditional, big box gyms. Employees track each visit (often through a gym’s app or their membership system, but sometimes still by hand) and receive monetary reimbursement after visiting a specified number of times in a year — say $150 for 150 visits.

While traditional gym reimbursement is a stride forward, it can still limit engagement to a specific type of self-motivated employee and family member. Big box gyms often offer a limited number of classes that are appealing to the masses.

Boutique fitness studios are becoming increasingly popular because of small class sizes that allow instructors to focus more attention on participants and creative approaches to fitness that engage participants.

Beyond of what most Americans remember from ninth grade Phys Ed class, the vast majority of adults don’t know how to exercise outside of basic running and calisthenics. High-impact exercise on an untrained body can lead to injury, which means that employees need more personal guidance at the start of an exercise regimen that boutique studios can deliver.

Those who are motivated may also miss out on the benefits of a health and wellness program. Employees who would rather cycle for 45 minutes or take part in hot yoga may not get credit from their employer’s wellness program just because they choose to work out at a boutique fitness studio or other instructor-led classes outside of a traditional gym.

Tech-forward fitness companies like ClassPass, Peerfit and Gympass enable employees to pay a monthly subscription fee to attend classes at different boutique fitness studios, as well as traditional gyms. Here’s how it works: An app shows users nearby studios. Employees can register for individual classes, whether it’s cycling, boot camp, yoga or kickboxing. Some apps also use algorithms to recommend new or different fitness classes or fitness trends depending on user behavior.

As more people use the service, the apps compile feedback from users and suggest highly rated classes based on positive experience and popularity.

Boutique fitness studio apps can help make a difference with instruction, coaching, motivation and flexibility:

The apps encourage users to exercise regularly; some also incorporate peer motivation so employees can sign up for classes and encourage their colleagues and friends to join them.
They can help users set goals and stay on track with push notifications and messages (a benefit particularly useful for those just starting their wellness journey).
Some apps include audio coaching for interval running on a treadmill, weight lifting, aerobics and meditation.
When employees travel, they can easily find a participating boutique fitness studio in their area or work out alongside a streaming on-demand video.

Employers that wish to offer this service can often do so at a discount to their employees. The specific pricing structure depends on the app or service chosen; however, they are typically competitively priced.

A boutique fitness studio benefit could be offered as a sole gym membership benefit, or it could be added to a more traditional gym membership reimbursement program to give employees more flexibility in getting and staying fit.

Employers that have established health and wellness programs can also incorporate boutique studio subscriptions into their programs, or build a wellness program around them. The fitness apps provide data to track participation and encourage use. Some vendors will go as so far as to build an application programming interface (API) that will work with a pre-existing wellness technology platform used by an employer. APIs feed participation data to an employer’s wellness platform so employees get credit for it.

Providing boutique fitness studio subscriptions can address two focuses for employers — keeping employees healthy and catering to an increasingly diverse workforce. This type of benefit provides more flexibility to employees, gives them better access to fitness classes (which is a big advantage for teams spread across multiple locations) and has the potential to increase engagement in health and wellness programs.

October 11, 2018June 29, 2023

Assessing the Impact of the Aetna-CVS Merger on Employer Benefits

The Justice Department announced on Oct. 10 its approval of the $69 billion Aetna-CVS Health merger, the latest blockbuster deal between health care companies in recent years, according to the New York Times.

The Justice Department last month also approved Cigna’s takeover of Express Scripts, while Amazon purchased online prescription company PillPack in June 2018 as its entry into the prescription drug-health care business.

CVS is the nation’s largest retail pharmacy chain, and Aetna is the third largest health care company. CVS Health Corp. first announced its intention to acquire Aetna in December 2017.

Tucker Sharp, global chief broking officer at Aon Health Solutions, said the merger fits into a general trend in health care. Over the last five years, health care companies have been focusing on vertical mergers whereas in the previous 20 years they were aiming for horizontal mergers, which helped gain scale and leverage to build membership or seek better discounts. Vertical mergers, meanwhile, help change the delivery of care and gain growth and leverage in new areas, Sharp said.

An ecosystem transformation is happening in health care, he added. And employers seem to believe that this matters to them and the health care they offer to employees.

“In the short term, it’s too early to guess if employers will truly like this deal or not and whether it will have a significant impact on them,” Sharp said. “But they actually do think that this [Aetna-CVS] deal matters.”

Aon conducted a survey on Dec. 14, 2017 regarding employers’ attitudes toward activity in the health care merger and acquisitions. Of the 450 employers surveyed, 61 percent said that as a result of the vertical mergers, they will need to change their health care strategy; and 85 percent believe that these deals will have a moderate to significant change in how people

Although a consolidation gives reason to be concerned, the CVS-Aetna merger also poses interesting opportunities, said Rob Andrews, CEO of the Health Transformation Alliance, a nonprofit group made of 47 companies whose goal is to fundamentally transform the corporate health care benefits marketplace.

A supporter of fee-for-value over fee-for-service, Andrews believes the deal could potentially be a step in the right direction to achieve that transformation. With a fee-for-service system, health care providers are motivated to sell more drugs or provide more care, regardless of its value to the patient, he said. With fee-for-value, providers make more money if the patient gets healthier and are motivated to do what’s best for the patient’s health.

“Because you will now have Aetna, which has fee-for-value medical products, aligning with CVS, which is very good at identifying and distributing high-quality pharmaceutical products, we think that opportunity exists in a way it didn’t before,” Andrews said.

Employers’ health care strategies are unlikely to budge — at least not for the 2019 plan year.

Although the merger is unlikely to have an impact on 2019 benefit plan designs, employers could make changes for the 2020 plan year, according to Kim Buckey, health compliance expert and vice president of client services at DirectPath, a Birmingham, Alabama-based health care consultancy. For example, an employer might have medical through UnitedHealthcare but drug coverage through CVS/Caremark.

“Employers’ ability to get the best deal for coverage may be hampered by these prepackaged entities,” Buckey said.

Also read: Anthem Inc.’s New PBM Predicted to Bring Cost Savings to Employers

Jaja Okigwe President and CEO, First Choice Health

Jaja Okigwe, president and CEO of First Choice Health, a Seattle-based national health care provider network, seemed skeptical of the merger’s potential to create innovation in health care. The biggest opportunity for better care and better costs is “practical, lean solutions that can be offered at your workplace,” he said.

“More than ever, we’re seeing an increase in unexpected alliances and outside industries taking a stab at health care improvement,” he said. “The fact is, health care is complex and needs to change; however, consolidation of two large, traditional companies does not automatically generate innovation.”

According to a CVS statement, the deal is subject to state regulatory approvals, but many of those have already been granted. The merger is set to close early in the fourth quarter, Bloomberg reported. Bloomberg also described the merger as “among the most significant health care mergers of the past decade.”

CVS and Aetna are targeting the retail-consumer aspect being important rather than owning hospitals, physician groups and surgery groups like UnitedHealthcare’s strategy, Aon’s Sharp said.

“Employers are saying, ‘I don’t know which one is going to win, but we’re gonna’ sit and watch and not change our strategy yet. But we’ll be poised to do it [and] see what which has the [impact] on changing behavior,’” he said.