Author: Andie Burjek

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My Second HR Conference: Finally Getting the Hang of It

Andie Burjek, Working Well blog

I attended HR Tech this year in Chicago, and to a certain degree it was overwhelming — that is, there were so many companies and solutions it was hard to keep track until I’d had my morning coffee and then some. But throughout the meetings, interviews and lectures, I noticed a few key themes that just kept on coming up.

First of all: women in tech. The conference kicked off on Tuesday morning with four hours and four lectures on women in HR tech. The speakers mentioned unconscious bias in the workplace, expectation differences for men and women, and how when women are assertive it’s seen much differently than when men are assertive. Based on the reactions by women in the room and the whisper-comments people made to each other, this is obviously a reality for a lot of working women, especially in the tech sector.

Workforce‘s Rick Bell also commented on the theme of women in tech in his HR Tech blog: But I want to focus on one totally different angle. Rewind a few days: My friend calls me on the phone to give me very exciting news. Her company is sending her abroad for two weeks to work on a project. She made it clear this had nothing to do with that “lean in crap.”

(Note: I still don’t understand “lean in.” A dozen people have described it to me in very, very different ways. Media outlets either tout it as an effective strategy or as some classist dribble. I have too little interest in reading self-help books to read and interpret it myself. Anyway, this obviously came from a person who has one of those negative perceptions of leaning in.)

She could attribute it to something else, though: she asked. She emailed the team leader a while back. She said she was interested and would be willing to go even though it wasn’t technically her project. Out of the blue they contacted her a month later telling her she was going across the ocean.

At the HR Tech conference, the female leaders also echoed the importance of asking. If you don’t ask for something, you won’t get it. Good advice for women, of course, looking for opportunities to grow at work, but it can also be applied to anybody looking for an opportunity.

I also spoke with Caroline Turner, chief revenue officer of PowerToFly, a company launched in 2014 which connects talented women in tech to companies that value gender diversity and inclusion. She attended college as an athlete under Title IX, appreciated the equal opportunity this gave her and has that same passion for gender equality now in the workplace.

This conversation around diversity was very valuable, and one of the key points of interest for me was the importance of getting diverse talent in the door at the very beginning, when recruiting. Hiring people just because they’re diverse isn’t the best business move, but bringing in a pool of candidates who look different from each other can go a long way.

Second of all: rethinking recruiting. I noticed a lot of companies working in recruiting, and they’re looking to solve the same problem: how to hire the right people. But I liked the way Bob Schultz, general manager of the smarter workforce at IBM, described it in our interview. He mentioned the importance of taking a “holistic” approach to recruiting — that is, going beyond just past experience and the usual considerations. How about considering behavior and problem solving skills? IBM Watson has the capabilities to take the whole person into account in the recruiting process.

I liked the use of this word. Holistic. Just like companies are more often now taking a holistic approach to wellness (considering aspects like physical health, mental health, financial health, and beyond), apparently the same thing can be said about other business processes.

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Technology Making an Impact on Mental Health

The costs associated with mental health treatment have skyrocketed.

Some 7.6 percent of America’s full-time workforce is estimated to have major depressive disorder, and its economic costs nationally were about $210 billion annually in 2015, up from $173.3 billion annually in 2005, according to the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

AdobeStock_116896525_302x170Such staggering numbers remain a primary reason why prevention is an appealing concept to employers. For example, resiliency training aims to give employees the skills to face change more positively and manage crises effectively. Its goal is to reduce the impact of stress, and potentially, anxiety or depression.

In fact, 42 percent of large employers (companies with more than 500 employees) offer resiliency or stress management programs, according to the Mercer 2015 National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans.

“What we’ve talked about to our clients is the idea of prevention,” said Sandra Kuhn, a principal at Mercer and a senior consultant whose focus is health management strategies. “It’s taking a person’s ability to manage through a crisis and have it be more positive.”

There’s been an increase of vendors focused on those sets of skills, she added. Traditionally, companies have relied on in-house training for areas like resiliency or mindfulness, but vendors are offering technology-based solutions as well.

There isn’t much research yet about the effectiveness of these technology-based solutions, but most of the vendors rely on a proven framework like positive psychology or cognitive therapy, said Kuhn.

MoodKit is one app that uses the principles and techniques of cognitive behavior therapy, a popular, evidence-based practice for treating mental disorders. Based on cognitive behavior therapy, the app is designed to identify cycles of unhealthy thinking or behaviors, bolster people’s coping capabilities and improve their mood.

Dr. Edrick Dorian, a board certified clinical and police psychologist, and Dr. Drew Erhardt, clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, released the app in 2011. Technology-based solutions provide the opportunity to cast a wide net, they said.

“Apps have remarkable potential to democratize many of the tools and principles [of psychology],” said Dorian. “Particularly in the workplace, because they’re relatively affordable and because employers could potentially make them available to employees on a wide scale and at a low cost.”

Similarly, the online platform Happify was developed in 2011 based off scientific literature accumulated across the past 30 years, said co-founder and president Ofer Leidner. About 18 months ago, Happify Health was released for the use of employers, health plans and enterprise organizations.

With Happify and its enterprise equivalent, people are encouraged to improve emotional well-being by working on areas like self-awareness, kindness and gratitude. Then they report the results on the platform. In another exercise, they may be encouraged to be in nature and take a walk outside and share an image online later.

Preventative care works, Leidner noted, because it caters to mental health, an area that has traditionally been neglected or only addressed in times of crisis.

“In the past couple of years, companies have been tackling this solution for employers and employees [and] providing preventative solutions for people before they slide into a level of stress and anxiety that drives up health care costs,” he said.

Denise Heybrock, senior health and well-being consultant at Aon Hewitt, commented on the surge of mental health apps and their effectiveness from an outsider’s point of view. These preventative online platforms don’t work for everyone, and not everyone will be interested in them, she said. But they’re a good way to increase accessibility for people.

“Whenever you give more options,” Heybrock said. “You open up the ability to touch more people and get more people the help they need.”

The MoodKit founders also mentioned that these solutions aren’t for everyone. People with serious mental health problems should get medical help.

“It’s not the equal of therapy, but [it works] for many with earlier stage symptoms,” said Dorian. “Apps, websites and digital tools that thoughtfully and appropriately package these principles and tools [of psychology] really do have great potential for improving the health and well-being of individuals and [improving] productivity in the workplace.”

Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor. Comment below, or email at aburjek@humancapitalmedia.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.

 

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Paternalistic View of Benefits Shifting

There’s a lot of fuss nowadays about creating a benefits plan that works across multiple generations. What may be even more complicated, though, is creating a benefits strategy across multiple nations.

Eighty percent of business executives believe the U.S. companies should expand globally, according to Rutgers’ “Globalization: Challenges of Corporations During Expansion” infographic from May, 2016. And an estimated 39 percent of American CEOs plan to complete a merger and acquisition in a different country.

In an increasingly global workforce, managing the diverse needs of multinational employees may be a challenge. The way benefits work in each country is driven by local culture, legislation and providers, said Chris Bruce, managing director at Thomsons Online Benefits, a global benefits management company.

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Chris Bruce

In the United States, employees generally place more value on offered medical and retirement plans than in European countries where the state typically provides health care and pensions.

In Asia, employees value cash over a structured benefits plan, he added. Employees can spend it on what applies directly to their life. This flexible “cash is king” approach is spreading to Europe.

Perks and flex accounts — including company car allowances, bicycle allowances or discounts on buying items — are valuable benefits to employees beyond the U.S. border, said Ken Poletti, senior vice president, ecosystem partner solutions at Benefitfocus, a cloud-based benefits management platform.

“The biggest issue companies have when they’re looking at a global benefits plan is, typically, the benefit function is quite operational and more of a governance function,” said Bruce. “So it’s difficult for them to be strategic about benefits because they don’t have the infrastructure to understand what the plans are and how successful they are.”

Organizations need to plan to get the most possible value from the benefits budget. This can only be accomplished, noted Bruce, if the organization has insights into the cost, benefits and effectiveness of its benefits plans.

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Ken Poletti

Employers are faced with the challenge to stay relevant to a diverse global workforce. But there are certain elements that are trending to employees around the globe, said Bruce: for example, the “cash is king” approach in Asia.

Traditionally, in the United States and Europe, most benefits plans have been designed for middle-class white males with families, he added. This thinking has been around for decades. In reality, there’s no reason a company should be providing high levels of certain traditional benefits like life insurance to a young, single college graduate with no family.

“The old, paternalistic view of benefits is going away, and now it’s much more, ‘How can we appeal to people? How can we use the money we have to the best effect and be relevant?’ ” said Bruce.

One example of this “reimbursement benefit,” said Bruce, is a Thomson employee who, having recently married a Brazilian man, took the money she would have spent on life insurance coverage and used it for Portuguese lessons instead. Bruce has found this flexible type of benefit as a modern way to show employees

Chris Mumford. Aethos Group.
Chris Mumford

that his company cares.

Poletti also noted that more often employers are offering employees more choice in how they use their flex accounts, allowing them to choose what works best for their family or life situation.

Another rising trend is shifting the economic responsibility of paying for benefits from the company to the employee, according to Chris Mumford, managing director of AETHOS Consulting Group in London. For example, one of the world’s largest global hotel groups has reduced the company pension contribution to 1% of the salary.

“[This puts] the onus on the employee to fund the rest,” wrote Mumford in an email interview. “We expect this trend to continue to spread.”

Bruce saw a similar trend internationally, noting that this shifting responsibility from the employer to the employee is happening across several different benefits, like in U.S. medical plans. As health care costs rise in the United States, employees are required to pay more.

Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor. Comment below, or email at aburjek@humancapitalmedia.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.

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4 Steps to Maintain a Healthy Self-Insurance Plan

More employers are self-insuring their medical plans than ever before. Whether your organization is new to self-insuring or an experienced expert, an annual self-insurance check-up is crucial to your workforce’s health and well-being.

AdobeStock_72528607_300x200Here are some important questions as organizations head into the annual benefits renewal season: Have there been unexpected high-dollar claims this year? Is the organization’s data pointing us in the right direction? Are we tapping into all of the cost-containment resources that are available?

Taking the time to evaluate a self-funded plan can help an organization get the most out of it. Here are four steps for a healthy self-insured plan.

  1. Review and update your medical plan. Start with a thorough assessment of the plan document so you know exactly what is covered, what cost-containment programs are in place, whether the plan complies with federal laws, and whether the plan has clear discretionary authority language and appropriate definitions and exclusions. A variety of factors, from federal and state regulations to changes in your business and new benefits, can create a need for a plan review each year.

Do your medical plans have an active utilization management program that steers your members toward the right in-network providers to maximize discount opportunities? Often patients who have (or know they will) hit their out-of-pocket maximum can wind up visiting  physicians or specialists that are out of network without realizing the impact, particularly when it comes to tests like MRIs. Make sure your plan addresses authorization for certain out-of-network procedures or testing, and request reporting to show your plan utilization trends.

Also, review your plan for provisions that encourage and reward wellness programs and maximize those benefits wherever you can.

  1. Analyze your high-cost claims and take action. Have you tracked your high-cost claims for specific trends and are you using your data to its full potential? Consider who your employees are, where they are based, the type of work they do, and other employee and dependent demographics to anticipate future risks.

Ask your claims administrator to monitor the costliest claims codes according to the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition, also known as ICD-10, trigger diagnoses codes. Take a look at which conditions on the list you see in your workforce so you can monitor and develop a systematic cost-containment approach toward high-dollar claims.

It’s helpful to have this information as high-cost claims begin to emerge, but before you reach the 50 percent deductible mark on your specific stop-loss coverage. The high-cost trend could be indicated by a diagnosis, or actual dollar amount. From case management to dialysis vendors and specialty prescription vendors, your administrators and stop-loss provider can provide resources for added cost-containment opportunities. For example, intravenous medications, which are used to treat a range of diseases from cancer to hemophilia, can result in millions in claims necessitating stop-loss reimbursements. According to Sun Life’s 2016 Catastrophic Claims Report (Editor’s note: the author is employed by Sun Life), intravenous medications represented $54.5 million, or 7.6 percent, of the total reimbursements for 2012-15. And if diabetes is a prevalent condition in your workforce, as it is in the greater U.S. population, where nearly 30 million people have the disease, access to dialysis vendors and Centers of Excellence facilities for kidney transplants can help curtail costs and support improved patient outcomes.

If you examine and implement case management and cost-containment programs at the case level early, you could not only positively impact that individual’s path of treatment and clinical outcome but also reduce subsequent claims costs, and you may potentially see this reflected in your premiums upon renewal.

  1. Be proactive with your partners. Develop proactive plans with your various health partners — broker, claims administrator, stop-loss provider, and independent vendors — to address all aspects of cost containment. To get the conversations started, ask if you’re utilizing all the resources available, if there are network gaps, if better discounts are available, and if your health plan costs are competitive in your geographic area.

Remember that you can utilize one of your health partners to take negotiation actions on your behalf. These actions include:

  • Performing a medical bill review (paying attention to billing and coding accuracy).
  • Performing a diagnosis-related review (if the diagnosis is in question).
  • Determining if Usual, Customary, Reasonable (UCR) language about treatment costs applies.
  • Comparing price to both the average wholesale price (which usually applies only to medications and durable medical equipment) and to Medicare Plus pricing.
  • Ensuring that out-of-network providers that accept a negotiated charge don’t “balance bill” the claimant with the difference.
  1. Review your stop-loss plan. Analyze the group demographics along with your risk tolerance, claims experience, and industry benchmarks and trends to decide if you want to change your stop-loss deductible, modify your policy, or add/remove certain features. Look into options for buy downs in deductibles or coverage of access fees, which could be added benefits provided by your stop-loss partner.

Your stop-loss carrier can be a dedicated partner in helping you verify that your medical and stop-loss plans complement each other and provide high-quality and cost-effective care to plan members.

Employers turn to self-funding for cost savings, to take control of their benefits plan design, and for opportunities to tailor their health management programs. It’s worth giving your self-funded strategy an annual check-up to see how you can work with your health partners to make an even greater impact on your company’s bottom line and the health and productivity of your employees.

Lisa M. Hundertmark is senior manager of claims services and clinical resources at Sun Life. She oversees the daily operations of the clinical nursing staff and is responsible for monitoring the medical landscape to ensure that Sun Life and its groups are prepared with information, knowledge and new resources when changes occur.

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Developing an Effective Financial Wellness Strategy

Andie Burjek, Working Well blog

Financial wellness is a trendy phrase nowadays in the wellness space. People don’t want to worry about money, and companies want employees not to worry about their finances, either. It makes sense that employees will be more productive at work, and employers can get the most out of their workers if they’re not fretting about their finances. But let’s take a step back for a moment and consider what financial wellness even means.

The whole definition has changed within the past 10 years, said Dorothy Miraglia-King, strategic benefits consulting expert and executive vice president at Engage PEO, a company that provides HR solutions for small and mid-sized businesses. Ten years ago, financial wellness meant retirement savings. But the idea of what retirement looks like has changed dramatically in the past decade. It’s not as realistic for people to retire at 65 anymore, for example. People are living and working longer. What about all the life that happens before retirement that requires financial health?

Another dramatic change? The multigenerational workforce: baby boomers, millennials, Gen X and Gen Y, all working together.

I recently wrote about how, at the basic level, employees in every generation want the same thing. They’re interested in the same benefits and life-long financial goals. However, they’re at different steps in obtaining those goals. Their immediate financial needs are dependent on where they are in life. Based on these more short-term differences, I spoke with Miraglia-King about how a company can develop a successful financial wellness program.

The first step, she said, is to create a measurable objective. For example, “I want employees to understand their 401(k)s better.”

Financial health objectives may be dependent on the employee demographic. One company’s workforce is not the same as the other. A millennial who needs to learn how to manage credit card debt or how to acquire a mortgage or how to put together a financial plan has a different objective than someone in their 50’s who’s figuring out if they can retire in 10 years.

The employer has to ask, “What do my employees look like?” when defining financial health.

In general, millennials may be interested in things like paying off student debt and managing basic living expenses. Also: balancing a checking account. This is one example of a financial skill that certain generations never learned because of how quickly technology took over everything.

“You’d be surprised at how little people know about balancing a checking account,” Miraglia-King said. “We don’t use paper anymore, so balancing a checkbook is a skill that’s gone away. A financial wellness objective could be learning how to manage money online.”

Once the employer has developed the need (the objective), Miraglia-King said, they should develop the communications strategy that identifies the audience and looks at method of delivery. How do employees prefer to get their information? Something electronic or written? In an email campaign or through access to an adviser? Maybe a weekend workshop?

Employers should also consider how will they measure what’s occurring and what changes happen as a result of the initiative. They could, for example, use a survey at the beginning and the end to see if they’ve met the objectives.

This should be a continuous process: Financial well-being, like physical and mental well-being, is something that needs to be constantly worked on and improved. There’s no easy fix. As employees age or face different hurdles in their lives, there’ll be something new to learn.

One final topic we spoke about in creating an effective financial wellness program: the importance of having high-level support.

“Lead by example,” Miraglia-King said. “Your upper management must set the tone for any campaign you do, and financial wellness is no exception.”

Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor. Comment below, or email at aburjek@humancapitalmedia.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.

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Hilton Pledges to Pay Equality for Its Female Workers

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The Hilton Hotel, Bangkok. Photo credit: Ian Gratton

Women on average make 79 cents to a man’s dollar in the United States, according to the National Partnership for Women and Families — and that’s before taking factors like age and race into account.

With a workforce that is half female,  Hilton  Worldwide became one of 55 companies to sign the White House’s Equal Pay Pledge, which encourages businesses to provide equal pay for women. Half of Hilton’s global workforce is female. The pledge extends to employees of hotels owned and managed across the Hilton portfolio and corporate offices in the United States, according to Laura Fuentes, senior vice president, talent, rewards and people analytics.

President Barack Obama initially announced the pledge at the United State of Women Summit in June. The White House released a press release on Women’s Equality Day on Aug. 26, announcing 29 new companies to sign the pledge, bringing the total to 55, including Microsoft, Apple, Chobani, IBM and Target Corporation.

“We have long been committed to diversity and inclusion across our company, and signing the Equal Pay Pledge is just one way we have demonstrated this commitment,” said Fuentes via email. “Our goal is to be the most hospitable company in the world — for our guests and team members around the world.”

The international hotel chain uses groups — such as its Women’s Team Member Resource Group, Women’s Executive Networking Program and Women in Leadership Excellence Program (in partnership with the University of Virginia) — to further this commitment, Fuentes added. Also, it uses certain family-focused benefits such as an “industry leading” maternity leave policy and flexible working options.

More specifically, by signing the pledge Hilton and the other companies have promised to conduct an annual companywide gender pay analysis, review hiring and promotion processes to weed out unconscious bias and other barriers, and promote best practices that can close the national wage gap.

“When women are fully engaged in our workforce and communities, society at large benefits from the great ideas and innovation that flourishes” said Microsoft in its statement. “Our commitment to equal pay gives us the opportunity to attract and hire from a broader talent pool of the best employees, managers and leaders.”

Target, in a statement, said it has implemented “meaningful business practices” such as leadership training designed to reduce that likelihood of making decisions based on stereotyping or bias.

Hilton, meanwhile, aims to represent the different cultures, backgrounds and viewpoints of its guests in order to become to the “most hospitable company.” Part of that diversity is gender diversity.

“We’re honored to help advance action around this important issue,” Fuentes said.

Web: Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor. Comment below, or email at aburjek@humancapitalmedia.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.

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Back to Basics: Appealing to a Multigenerational Workforce

Andie Burjek, Working Well blog

I recently had an eye-opening generational experience while at a Slovenian picnic a few weeks ago. The crowd was varied (made up of the Slovenians who had immigrated to Chicago in the early 20th century and their descendants): 80-something-year-old immigrants who sit on picnic benches the whole time and have long conversations in their Eastern European tongue, 50-somethings playing bocce ball with a beer in hand and the 20-somethings like me.

The people in my parents’ generation undoubtedly talk about work or when they can finally retire. Where should they invest? Will retirement be in 10 or 15 years? Will they retire in Arizona or Texas or Asia? They speak like they’re one of those persnickety couples on House Hunters International, saying things like, “I really don’t care where we live as long as we’re five minutes from the beach,” and “But we could get a much better deal if we’re willing to move further from the beach!”

The people in my grandparents’ generation also bring up work and retirement, like when my grandfather shows off his construction union retirement gift (a gold watch that’s probably fake, he points out) and tells stories about his job.

Meanwhile, my similarly aged cousins and I have different thoughts on the same topic. Like on the evening news, my cousin and I both had a minor panic attacks when the anchor said something along the lines of, “College graduates today may not be able to retire until age 75.” That’s a big jump from 65. I’m hoping that’s a case of exaggeration for the sake of ratings.

In any case, it hit me that despite this huge generational divide between my parents and grandparents, we care about the same thing: security. The only difference is, we’re in very, very different places.

Much like my large, extended family, the workforce is multigenerational. That can seem daunting to a company managing employees in five different generations, but it’s less daunting when you consider that ultimately most people want the same thing. They’re just in different places in their lives in terms of attaining it.

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Acclaris’ Carlos Hernandez

“Millennials don’t necessarily look at benefits in a wildly different way than the other generations. They’re worried about base pay, bonuses, retirement,” said Carlos Hernandez, vice president of strategic alliances at Acclaris, an information technology and services provider that manages health care plans. As an employer, “you have to offer the basics.”

Where there may be a difference, though, is the messaging itself, added Hernandez, who has more than 25 years of experience in the health care industry advising employers on how to best meet their benefits goals. Companies, when considering benefits offerings, have to use different messaging to different groups — like age groups — to show the value points they have. But it’s still the same program underneath that skin.

One way to facilitate the access to information, for example, is bring a financial firm to a lunch and learn every month and let employees sign up to speak to an adviser, Hernandez noted. This could be appealing to a baby boomer who’s retiring in 15 years, or someone just starting out their career who wants to get on the right path.

Also useful to facilitate access is a creating a touchpoint, like a mobile app or portal or private conference room, he added. Companies could use something like this to deliver services and guidance in private.

Finally, in terms of managing a multigenerational workforce, he suggested creating a committee or a strategic forum made up of employees of every generation. These representatives of the company could talk about issues, like financial or health benefits, from their own points of view.

“That sense of involvement cannot be understated,” he said.

Andie Burjek is a Workforce associate editor. Comment below, or email at aburjek@humancapitalmedia.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.

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Working Parents Finding Support for Their Special Needs Children

The number of children with disabilities has been climbing for more than a decade and that means that a growing number of employees are struggling to care for a child with special health care needs.

About 6 million children in the United States are considered disabled, according to a 2014 study in the Journal of Pediatrics — a 16 percent jump from a decade earlier. And about 1 in 20 employees are caring for a child with a disability or chronic illness, according to Family Voices, a national nonprofit advocacy group for special needs children.

In an effort to alleviate some of their burden, consulting firm Mercer and Rethink, a health technology firm, teamed up earlier this year to offer companies an online resource that features video-based treatment programs, tools to help parents manage behavioral problems, communicate better with school districts, and provides access to remote clinical consultations in addition to other supports.

“The motivation behind this was seeing the explosion in the prevalence of autism and other developmental disabilities,” said Mike Civello, vice president of employee benefits at New York-based Rethink. “One hears from the families and from the clients of Mercer how hard it is to support this population, whether it revolves around finding services or other support for the family. Looking at this increase in prevalence and the dearth of trained professionals to address these needs, whether in school, home or the health care arena, made it clear that something more was needed.”

While Rethink was launched in 2007 to help public school districts provide better support to students with developmental disabilities, awareness is growing among employers, in part because of recent state laws requiring insurers to cover certain autism therapies, he said.

“Employers are going to their benefits departments asking about this, so it’s really only in the last couple of years that we are seeing a desire on the part of employers to do something for employees with children that have special needs.”

The program focuses on developmental disabilities, such as autism and Down syndrome, but Dr. David Kaplan, senior partner and leader of Mercer’s Health Innovation LABS, said that parents of children with any kind of physical or mental disabilities face similar challenges.

“Play dates become more complicated, there are issues with schools around accommodations, and there’s the need to take time off for treatments,” he said. “The general stress level for parents — whether a child has autism or another kind of disability — is the same.”

Kaplan said that these kinds of pressures often result in greater levels of anxiety and depression for parents, in addition to increased absenteeism and higher health care costs. Typically, employers rely on employee assistance providers to help parents, but according to Kaplan EAPs are not specifically trained to deal with issues surrounding disabled children.

According to the National Business Group on Health, nearly half of caregivers of children with special needs require more help managing stress and 40 percent of parents need help balancing work and family responsibilities. The NBGH found that parents of children with a disability lose around five hours of work weekly, totaling about 250 hours per year, which translates to an average of $3,000 to $5,000 per person in lost productivity for businesses.

In addition to making sure that benefit plans cover treatment for various disabilities, Kaplan said that employers could help alleviate some of the stress for parents of special needs children by creating a supportive workplace.

“It’s important to create an open and accepting atmosphere by talking about these issues so parents aren’t suffering in silence,” he said. “If you can create a situation where a parent can go to a doctor’s appointment without feeling condemned, that will make a huge difference for the family.”

Rita Pyrillis is a writer based in the Chicago area. Comment below or emaileditors@workforce.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.

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Minorities and Wellness

In 2002 Prudential Financial’s employee wellness program had a participation rate that many employers would envy, but when executives examined who was signing up, they discovered that African-Americans were greatly underrepresented.

They developed a new communications strategy to get more African-American workers on board, but another problem emerged. As they looked more closely at the company’s health care data, they found that African-American employees had much higher rates of diabetes and hypertension than those from other racial and ethnic groups, according to Dr. K. Andrew Crighton, chief medical officer at Prudential Financial.

In order to address those disparities, the company created a data warehouse to collect and analyze employee health information by race, ethnicity, gender, age and job levels and to track chronic conditions like diabetes, cardiac disease and asthma. Armed with that information, Prudential launched the Healthy Diabetic program in 2011 to address the disproportionate incidences of the disease among various employee groups.

Prudential is part of a small but growing number of employers that are addressing inequities in the health status of their workforces. Racial and ethnic disparities in health care — whether in access, insurance coverage or quality of care — is typically thought of as a public health concern, but awareness among employers is growing, according to LuAnn Heinen, a vice president at the National Business Group on Health.

“As the U.S. workforce becomes increasingly diverse and company operations globalize, health disparities in the workplace are also becoming more common,” she said in an email. “By addressing health care disparities and health equity, employers are improving the value, quality and effectiveness of the services their employees receive through health care benefits and productivity programs.”

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, African-Americans are 60 percent more likely to develop diabetes and 30 percent more likely to die of heart disease than non-Hispanic white people. While insurance coverage and access to care affect health outcomes, disparities exist even among those with insurance. For example, when it comes to cardiac care, insured African-Americans are significantly less likely than white people with health insurance to undergo angiography, which identifies blockages in the heart’s arteries, according to an NBGH report on health care disparities. As a result, African-Americans are less likely to undergo heart bypass surgery and other potentially life-saving procedures.

“Employers are coming to see that this is really critical,” said Ron Goetzel, vice president at Truven Health Analytics, which helped Prudential develop its data warehouse. “Even companies that offer very good health benefits, even those in the Fortune 500, when you begin to analyze the data and look at different racial and ethnic groups, you will see differences in prevalence.

“It doesn’t start when you enter the workforce, it starts way before that. Your childhood, your education, the environment you grew up in, all of those factors come with you into the workplace. To the extent that employers can address those factors, it’s going to benefit the employee and the organization.”

In 2015, Goetzel co-authored a study of racial and ethnic health disparities at 46 large companies and found that even among employees with good health benefits, higher incomes and a safe work environment, disparities existed. The study points out that some differences may be attributed to social, environmental and economic differences that were not measured in the analysis.

At Prudential, on-site nurses provide personalized coaching to help diabetic employees manage their blood glucose levels. First-year results showed declines for all groups with 61 percent of diagnosed employees joining the program. The company also provides cultural competency training for all health and wellness professionals.

Unlike many employers, Prudential eschews outcomes-based wellness incentives like financial rewards for employees who complete weight-loss or fitness challenges because such practices could unfairly discriminate against those with conditions associated with race and ethnicity, according to Crighton, who also co-authored the 2015 study, which was published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Employers who are concerned about health care disparities in their workforce must look beyond the physical and take into account factors such as an employee’s social and cultural environment when designing a wellness program, he said.

“It’s about focusing on those nonmedical barriers to health and really sitting down and meeting the person where they are to find the best approach for them,” he said. “It’s not the old medical model of, ‘Here’s what you need to do.’ Even among minority groups there are differences. Not everyone is the same.”

 

 

 

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The Increasingly Important Role of Screening in Recruiting

Today’s recruiters face tough competition for good talent — and they worry about losing good candidates to long, drawn-out screening processes.

Recruiters are also facing increased pressure to fill more roles faster as 3 out of 4 companies plan to increase hiring. “With hiring on the rise, there is always a time challenge,” said Clare Hart, CEO of SterlingBackcheck, a background-checking provider. “The war for talent has enabled people with skills to change jobs more frequently, which is creating anxiety for recruiters tasked with filling those roles.”

At the same time, recruiters can’t afford to skip this vital step in the hiring process, especially with trends showing candidates are misrepresenting themselves more than ever. “I don’t want to be responsible for hiring someone with an unacceptable background,” said Kimberly Martin, senior human resources manager for Dentsply Sirona, a global dental supply company based in York, Pennsylvania. “People falsify their applications all the time.”

Mary O’Loughlin, vice president for global customer experience for HireRight, attributes this rise in part to the recession. “A lot of candidates were unemployed, and they are trying to expand previous jobs to cover those gaps,” she said.

Automate Everything

To meet the needs for faster, better and more seamless screening, employers are looking to their background-checking providers to streamline the screening process and make it as transparent and easy as possible for both the candidates and hiring managers. In response, vendors are revamping their technology and processes with a focus on improving the candidate experience from start to finish, and eliminating much of the manual entry and administrative tasks that bog recruiters down. “It’s all about addressing the pinpoints in the screening process,” O’Loughlin said.

These upgrades include integrating user platforms with clients’ applicant tracking systems in order to automate candidate data capture, offering tools that enable candidates to enter their own data from any device rather than requiring recruiters to do it, and providing text and email alerts to let the candidate and hiring manager know where they are in the screening process. Some vendors are also working with clients to develop candidate-facing tools including videos for their hiring sites to educate candidates about the screening process. “It helps set their expectations, which helps them build their brand as a great place to work,” she said.

To demonstrate the effect of these new tools, they are also offering more metrics to help customers understand how the screening process is functioning and to track key trends such as where red-flag candidates might be sourced from, said Christine Cunneen, CEO of Hire Image, a national background screening firm, and a member of the board of directors for the National Association of Professional Background Screeners.  “Employers want more metrics about screening because it helps them to hire faster,” she said.

 

Contingents to Marijuana

Along with streamlining the screening process, employers are also turning to their screening vendors to help them manage a number of emerging trends in the broader recruiting world. One of the most notable trends is the tremendous uptick in use of contingent labor.

In 2015, the U.S. Labor Department found that 65 percent of employers anticipate an increase in the use of flexible staffing arrangements to meet their future talent needs, and consultancy Ardent Partners anticipates that 50 percent of the workforce will be contingent by 2020. Yet, less than half of organizations screen these workers, which exposes them to increased risks of negligence, fraud, theft and violence.

O’Loughlin said that interest in screening these workers is rising, though it can be more difficult to track down data about serial contracts, particularly because of how they record their work history. “They may say they worked at IBM, but really they were part of Beta Staffing Co. doing a project for IBM,” she said. “It’s a challenge to sort out.”

There is also the question of how to handle the data, and what you can screen for with contingent laborers, said Chris Dyer, founder and CEO of PeopleG2, a background checking company. “In most cases you can evaluate more data for contract workers because they have fewer protections,” he said. However, as contingent labor becomes a more dominant aspect of the workforce, that’s likely to change. Employers should pay attention to shifting regulatory trends. “If compliance rules for screening contract labor changes, it could impact the business,” he said.

Then there is the issue of drug screening, which Cunneen believes is an area of the background-checking process that is “ripe for change.” The big issue: marijuana. In many states marijuana use is legal in some or all cases, but it is still a federally banned substance, and unlike alcohol there are no tests to determine whether someone is using on the job because the drug stays in a person’s system for a long time. Employers are already asking how they should address marijuana testing if at all, she said, and she anticipates that there will be a lot of lawsuits as employers and regulators figure out how to handle this issue.

Lax Compliance Puts Employers at Risk

One area that employers are less worried about than they should be are general compliance rules. Less than one-fifth of employers say they are extremely concerned about compliance issues and related lawsuits despite the ongoing risk of lawsuits tied to mishandled screening processes.

In 2015 alone, BMW Manufacturing Co.; Chuck E. Cheese, also known as CEC Entertainment; Food Lion; Home Depot Inc.; and Whole Foods Market Inc. paid substantial Fair Credit Reporting Act class-action lawsuit settlements ranging from $716,400 to $3 million for conducting illegal background checks, failing to disclose background checks to applicants and breaking other FCRA rules.

Cities and states might also have a unique set of regulations governing what employers can screen for, how far back they can look, what constitutes a personal intrusion, and how exactly an employer needs to notify a candidate about the screening process. And when employers “screw up,” they face serious consequences, Cunneen said. “It is the employers’ responsibility to follow these rules, but they need to be able to rely on their background-screening provider to let them know what’s going on.”

This risk will only increase as more employers use these firms to screen employees in other countries where data can be less accessible, rules vary and information is harder to track down. Employers also need to be concerned about where screening data is stored when screening global candidates. “If a vendor’s data center is overseas, employers should be aware of their security protocols and their liability if that data is breached,” she said.

The issue of global compliance is becoming more important in light of the rapid growth of this $2 billion industry where several leading vendors have been acquiring competitors in order to quickly grow their global footprint. In the past two years alone, Accurate Background acquired fellow background checking company Hirease; HireRight acquired Powerchex, a pre-employment screening firm in the United Kingdom; and SterlingBackcheck acquired EmployeeScreenIQ then merged with cloud-based TalentWise earlier this year.

The industry has also seen HR tech firms from other areas of the workforce management software world moving into the background checking space through deals such as CareerBuilder’s acquisition of Aurico, a global provider of background screening and drug testing services. “Background screening is an essential part of recruitment and a natural extension of CareerBuilder’s product line,” CareerBuilder CEO Matt Ferguson said in a news release about the deal.

And this is just the beginning, said SterlingBackcheck’s Hart. “The industry is definitely consolidating, and we will continue to make future acquisitions as opportunities arise.”

Hart said that the consolidation trend is being driven by demands for better, faster and cheaper screening. “You gain advantages with scale,” she said, arguing that larger firms have the talent and resources to upgrade their platforms and provide a global service to meet the needs of international customers.

Vendors need to be thoughtful about their acquisitions and how they will continue to meet the needs of clients during the often tumultuous integration process, Dentsply Sirona’s Martin said. Martin previously worked with a background screening vendor who provided great service until it was acquired by another firm.

Suddenly the technology stopped working as well, links were broken or timed out, the screening process was delayed with no explanation, and in one case the vendor asked a candidate to travel 200 miles to do a drug screening.

“It was frustrating for the applicant, and it took up a lot of my time,” Martin said. It also caused a few good candidates to move on to the next job offer because the screening process took so long. “We hung in longer than we wanted to make sure the next vendor would be a good fit,” she said.

Martin now uses HireRight, which she said eliminated a lot of the technical glitches, automated much of the data entry, and in most cases completed the screening process in 10 days or less. “Background screening should feel seamless,” she said, adding that vendors need to stay on top of that customer experience or risk losing business. “If it’s not done well, customers will feel it,” she said, “and they have a lot of other options to choose from.”

Sarah Fister Gale is a writer based in the Chicago area. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.