Benefits Archives - Page 9 of 63

June 22, 2019June 29, 2023

Experts Advise Revising Ailing Time-Off Policies

Presenteeism is heralded as a big problem in business as it’s something that can decrease an individual’s productivity or affect that of their co-workers as well.

Presenteeism, which is chiefly defined as employees who are not functioning at maximum capability due to illness, injury or another condition, could be helped if employees took time off when sick or vacation days to unwind. But the issue is not that simple. Reasons for presenteeism depend on many factors, whether it’s an individual’s attitude toward work, an employer’s workplace culture or the overall economic environment.

Employees taking time off bottomed out during the Great Recession. Over the past decade, the numbers haven’t recovered, said Steve Koepp, former Time Inc. editor and founder of From Day One, a Brooklyn-based conference series focused on creating a more collaborative, empathetic and productive workplace.

The United States is the only country without mandated vacation or sick leave. If the nation doesn’t set the tone that time off is important, it doesn’t trickle down to companies, Koepp said.

There are some things companies can do to address presenteeism, based on the reasons why employees are not taking time off.

Company Culture

Employees may face barriers to taking time off if the company has overt or subtle ways to vacation-shame employees, Koepp said. If a manager responds to a request for time off with a negative response like, “But this is the worst time,” that may have a “chilling effect” on future requests, he said. In unhealthy workplace environments, an employee may return from a vacation only to hear from their manager that something stressful would not have happened if the employee had been at work.

“Companies should lay out some structure, and not just about the number of weeks but about how managers should handle the request, the return and everything about it,” Koepp said.

Leadership expert and coach Jack Skeen shared other ways to address presenteeism. Managers can help create an environment where people feel comfortable taking time off, perhaps by taking time off and talking to employees about how they used it.

Skeen had further suggestions for employees anxious that their career, salary or reputation could be tarnished by using paid time off. The crux of the matter is that you can’t convince people of anything if there’s not trust in the employee-management relationship, he said. That trust is key to delivering PTO-friendly messages successfully.

Skeen suggests that employers clearly and repeatedly tell employees that PTO is encouraged, supported and respected. Employers can share stories about employees who both used PTO and were promoted.

For formal vacation and sick-day policies, Skeen said that they must be fair to everyone in the company, from the frontline workers to the executives at the top. Also, employers should make sure that the policy is clear, specific and not open to excessive interpretation.

Tom Parry, president for the Integrated Benefits Institute, a nonprofit focused on research and benchmarking the link between health and productivity, agreed that trust between the employer and employee is paramount.

“Employees have to trust their employer. If they don’t trust their employer, if they have that culture that lacks trust, then you’ve got a problem [bigger than presenteeism],” he said.

Also read: Eggnog With a Splash of Paid Time Off

Given the vast number of reasons employees don’t take time off, Parry said it’s important to survey employees anonymously to determine what’s standing in the way.

Reasons to Support Time Off

The institute seeks to quantify the impact of presenteeism, Parry said. Absenteeism is visible but presenteeism often isn’t, he stressed. While managers can clearly see if an employee is not at work and estimate some business impact, it’s harder to quantify presenteeism.

IBI has done four studies with CFOs in recent years, Parry said. Conceptually, they understand the link between presenteeism and business impact. Practically, though, they won’t take action unless there’s data.

The most important takeaway for employers is to consider the forces outside of their company, Parry said. “What happens a lot of time is we take employers out of that economic and business circumstance that they’re in,” he said.

When an employer is thinking about its individual business, long-term thinking is key alongside short-term opportunities.

“You have to be willing to bite the bullet and maybe not take advantage of every business opportunity if it’s going to have a long-term effect on your workforce,” Parry said.

June 20, 2019June 29, 2023

How Employers Can Utilize Well-Being in the New Social Contract With Employees

Few people realize that the notion of a workplace social contract came about accidentally nearly 80 years ago as the result of an executive order on wage controls issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Cutting-edge companies at the time then began offering health insurance to employees as a recruitment incentive. And, in the early 1950s, the Internal Revenue Service deemed that insurance and similar benefits wouldn’t be counted as taxable income. Viola! The workplace social contract was born.

Over the last half-century, social contracts between employers and employees have evolved to the point where modern social mores drive a very different conversation today. The old agreement that employees would work for a company in exchange for wages, health insurance and little else sufficed as an agreeable social contract for both parties for decades. Today, however, 56 million millennials and an upcoming 61 million Gen Z workers are reshaping the contract terms.

Also read: The New Employer-Employee Social Contract

And, because younger employees comprise approximately 70 percent of today’s workforce, employers who listen and respond to their demands will be in a better position to compete for and retain top talent than those who ignore their concerns.

One employee benefit that can address these concerns is the often-debated employer-sponsored well-being program.

Many C-suite executives have a hard time seeing a return on investment for their well-being efforts. After all, under terms of social contracts from days gone by, well-being programs were designed to keep employees off the health care merry-go-round, thereby containing the employer’s health care costs. Employees participated in health screenings because employers mandated it, and no one found it to be fun or engaging. What’s more, this approach hasn’t shown improvements in overall employee health.

Today, fortunately, the new social contract between employees and employers presents a tremendous opportunity to leverage well-being as a strategic business tool to not only realize cost containment but to increase productivity and enhance recruitment and retention of top talent.

With these new conditions in mind, employers can utilize well-being benefits as part of a new social contract to address employee demands by doing the following.

Keeping an Integrated Mindset

Well-being initiatives are connected to health insurance and, therefore, overseen by the benefits or human resources department. However, companies won’t get full value of a well-being program if it is viewed solely as a benefit or cost rather than an engagement, culture and productivity driver. Well-being activities should be incorporated more broadly into:

The entire organization by including safety, recruitment, onboarding and training departments.
The entire work day, rather than expecting people to engage on their own time. Incorporate huddle stretches, encourage your supervisors to set an example by walking around to check in with their direct reports, bring in healthy snacks or ditch the junk food vending machine altogether.
Employee-based challenges beyond physical activity. For example, try challenging employees to keep gratitude journals, track their sleep to identify potential sleep issues, even to drink more water. Most employers don’t realize that most of us are dehydrated to some extent and that lack of hydration can play a role in impaired cognitive ability.
A single place where employees can access and interact with all of their benefits. The mind-boggling speed of technology growth in the consumer market mandates that companies evolve just as quickly to provide employees with personalized, consumer-based experiences.

Looking at Your Entire Work Environment

Your employees today expect that every touchpoint of their experience at work be influenced by terms of the new social contract. Are the restrooms well maintained? Do you provide sedentary employees with sit/stand desks and stationary bikes for lunch-hour workouts? Does the cafeteria offer healthy food options?

If you aren’t attending to basics such as these, you’ll send mixed messages around how you’re prioritizing your employees’ health and well-being, which can create confusion and cause employees to question the authenticity of your commitment.

A growing component of the new social contract comes from workers who want to work on their own terms — remotely, from home or while traveling. In fact, a 2019 survey of 1,000 hiring managers revealed that up to 73 percent of all departments expect to have remote workers within the next decade. Smart managers will remember to include these workers in well-being efforts to ensure they’re also happy and productive, even though they might not experience the physical work environment on a regular basis.

Getting Your Leaders Engaged

Employees in the 21^st century expect their bosses to walk their talk. If your company’s executives verbally extol the virtues of the corporate well-being program, then they also need to actively participate if they’re to meet terms under the new social contract. Do they run in the company 5K? Do they avoid eating lunch at their desks, opting instead for the cafeteria or break room? Do they participate in annual biometric screenings? Are they transparent about their own challenges and efforts?

When your C-suite executives and department heads participate, they organically connect with employees on a human level and will contribute immensely to the success of your initiatives.

Contracts, by their very nature, are designed to protect the best interests of both parties. Today’s new social contract between employees and employers is forcing companies to expand their definition of employee benefits, stretch old-school operating procedures to manage talent and look beyond traditional HR channels to deliver a more fulfilling employee experience. Employers who are up to the challenge can expect that their employees will take more responsibility on their side of the contract to participate in activities that lead to long-term well-being habits, resulting in a rested, alert and productive workforce.

June 19, 2019August 3, 2023

Employers, Stop Oversimplifying Your Employees’ Body Mass Index

Conference season is exciting when you hear a solid debate, learn more about a topic you care about or discover a speaker who is a promising resource.

But it also means coming across speakers who sling dangerous or overly simplistic ideas to their audience, in this case employers. I want to take this opportunity to gripe about my biggest pet peeve(s) in the employer health and benefits space. These are ideas I’ve heard at several conferences over several years and/or have read in a good number of articles about.

Here’s the biggie: Workplace weight loss or nutrition programs that hinge on body mass index on an individual level, especially outcomes-based programs whose “rewards” rely on reaching a certain BMI or losing a designated amount of weight.

“BMI is useful when studying populations and trends,” according to Medical News Today. But it can only give a rough idea of an individual’s health and weight status. There are flaws in the formula.

This is important to point out because if employers want to continue to micromanage employees’ health, they should know the nuance behind certain health measures instead of blindly trusting wellness companies.

To be clear, I understand that obesity is a considerable public health issue in America. I understand that there can be health risks.

But it’s also an issue I feel employees should feel safe dealing with in the privacy of their doctor’s office rather than having to share private medical information with their employer. Also, I’m aware of the fact that people and organizations have misconceptions about BMI and weight that are important acknowledge. Here are some important facts to know:

There’s a misconception that thinner people are healthier. This is not always the case, as weight is only one of many measures for health. (Northwestern Medicine)
Using BMI gives us a false idea about who has weight issues and who doesn’t. (Northwestern Medicine)
“It’s important to recognize that BMI itself is not measuring “health” or a physiological state (such as resting blood pressure) that indicates the presence (or absence) of disease.” (Harvard Health Blog)
Plenty of people have a high or low BMI and are healthy and, conversely, plenty of folks with a normal BMI are unhealthy (Harvard Health Blog). [This fact might not be considered in certain settings. For example, the New York Times recently reported about how, even though women can still be healthy with a high BMI, fertility clinics often refuse to treat them.]

I don’t know if employers in general understand the limitations of BMI.

The American Journal of Managed Care published an interesting research paper in November 2015 called “U.S. Employee Wellness Programs and Access to Obesity Treatment in Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance.” Its primary results were that 16 percent of employers required wellness program participation in order to receive full health benefits (how employers do not realize that this is coercion and does NOT make the program voluntary is beyond me!). Further, while most wellness programs set targets for weight and for other health indicators, most organizations health plans did not provide coverage for evidence-based obesity treatments.

The paper concluded:

For people seriously affected by obesity, the coverage gap described here is problematic because substantial improvement in their condition is unlikely without evidence-based treatment. This is true because obesity and its complications are typically chronic and progressive. Wellness programs may have little impact on costs driven by severe obesity in the absence of access to effective treatment for this chronic disease.

This is one of my major issues with wellness programs: They should be treated as secondary to real, HIPAA-protected medical benefits. Adequate health care is important. A wellness program should not be a replacement for certain coverage areas in a health plan. Also, if an employee would rather deal with health issues (any health issue, not just weight) through their doctor rather than a wellness program, they should not have to lose the opportunity to get hundreds of dollars in “rewards” like wellness program participants do.

I enjoyed this Consumer Reports story about privacy issues on wellness program. Its basic argument is that wellness programs often pose major privacy problems and that people should have a choice on whether they want to participate. Financial incentives or insurance discounts muddy the waters and may coerce people into sharing medical information.

Why is the free choice to participate necessary? The goals and recommendations of a wellness program may not align with your personal health care decisions, the article noted.

“If something you’re being asked to achieve in your workplace wellness program is unhealthy in your doctor’s opinion, you shouldn’t be required to do it,” said one source, Dr. Anna Kirkland, professor of women’s studies at the University of Michigan. “Wellness programs should never replace or supersede your doctor’s advice.”

The final point I want to make is that bias against people who are seen as overweight or unhealthy does exist. This is more so for women than for men, unsurprisingly; women tend to experience higher levels of weight stigmatization than men, “even at lower levels of excess weight.” Some negative stereotypes against seemingly overweight people include that they are “weak-willed, lazy, unintelligent and gluttonous.”

Further, a research report about this, “The Impact of Workplace Health Promotion Programs Emphasizing Individual Responsibility on Weight Stigma and Discrimination,” was released in November 2018. The research identified workplace health promotion programs as “potent catalysts of weight stigma and weight-based discrimination, especially when they emphasize individual responsibility for health outcomes.”

This is a lot of information, but my main argument here is that employers shouldn’t look at employee weight and BMI in such a black-and-white capacity. Also, I want to stress the point that health plans (covered under HIPAA, unlike wellness programs) should cover evidence-based obesity treatments. Finally, as employers focus more and more on employee health, be aware that weight discrimination is serious and should never be tolerated.

Also read: Some Constructive Criticism on Wellness

June 4, 2019June 29, 2023

Proposed Law Wants to Convert ‘Anti-Vaxer’ Into a Protected Class

With a couple of important exceptions, an employer can require that employees be up to date on their vaccinations.

The exceptions?

1. An employee with an ADA disability that prevents him or her from receiving a vaccine may be entitled to an exemption from a mandatory vaccination requirement as a reasonable accommodation.

2. An employee with a sincerely held religious belief, practice, or observance that prevents him or her from receiving a vaccine may also be entitled to an exemption from a mandatory vaccination requirement as a reasonable accommodation.

A recently proposed Ohio looks to significantly expand these exceptions by elevating “unvaccinated” to the equivalent of a class protected from discrimination.

The misleadingly named Medical Consumer Protection Act would prohibit an Ohio employer from discharging without just cause, refusing to hire, or otherwise discriminating against any person on the basis that the person has not been or will not be vaccinated because of a medical contraindication or for reasons of conscience, including religious beliefs. It would also create a private cause of action allowing an employee to file suit over violations and seek compensatory and punitive damages.

I had a roommate in college who was fond of telling me that my opinion was wrong. I would tell him, “My opinion is my opinion. It might be misinformed. You might disagree with it. But it can’t be wrong.” It’s Hyman’s Law of Opinions. Today, I decree the following amendment to Hyman’s Law:

* … except in the case of vaccinations. If you oppose vaccinating yourself or your children, your opinion is wrong, period (unless you have a bona fide medical condition or religious belief that prevents you from receiving said vaccinations). Otherwise there’s no reason not to vaccinate. If you don’t care about your own health, care about the health of all of those around you, and the public health risks and costs you are helping create.

And if you happen to be an anti-vaxer and take issue with Hyman’s First Law of Opinions (as amended), you’ve brought the measles back from extinction. Case closed.

So I give a big thumbs down to the Medical Consumer Protection Act. It’s both unnecessary (by protecting from employment discrimination those whom the law already protects) and wildly over broad (by also protecting those who are unvaccinated “for reasons of conscience”).

Thankfully, this poorly conceived piece of legislative policy will never become an actual law.

June 3, 2019June 29, 2023

The Business Benefit of Employee Assistance Programs

Employee assistance programs were originally created to address alcoholism and drug use in the workplace.

These programs have since matured to address a broad range of issues that can affect all aspects of employee performance and engagement. From the misuse of drugs and alcohol to stress, anxiety, sleep disorders and depression, they take on “virtually every problem an employee could have,” said Gregory DeLapp, CEO of the Employee Assistance Professionals Association.

This evolution has also changed who runs the programs, he added. In the beginning, most EAP leaders came to the role through the training department or because of their own recovery. But today, most EAP professionals have a social work background or mental health training.

“It reflects what’s being offered and when,” he said.

Today, mental health is a leading driver of EAP investments and the services provided, and thanks to the growing social dialog about depression and anxiety, employees are more open to taking advantage of these offerings, said Barbara Veder, vice president of employee support solutions for Morneau Shepell, an HR technology and consulting firm in Toronto. “That leads to more early engagement, which is always the focus for EAPs.”

She noted that stress, depression and anxiety are among the top reasons why employees access EAP services, and she encourages employers to provide tools and services that help employees to be more proactive in their mental health care. These may include online assessments to gauge risks, rapid access to counseling rather than waiting weeks for an appointment, and wellness apps and self-directed programs to help “get people back to their best selves,” she said.

On the employer side, EAP providers are offering more data and analytics to help them understand whether these programs are being used, and what impact they may have on the business. “Having access to meaningful data allows employers to tailor their programs to the needs of the workforce,” Veder said. It isn’t just about gauging whether employees use these services. Good metrics also help them understand what intervention types are most appealing and how their use breaks down among employee groups. “A lot of people want to take ownership of their care, while others respond better to human interventions,” she said.

DeLapp noted that companies should be sure the data they are getting demonstrate actual business impact. “So much of what is sold today is based on measures of activity, like number of therapy visits, or calls to a call center,” he said. He argued that employers should be asking for outcome measures that demonstrate results.

Workplace Outcome Suite Impact

Many benefits leaders are finding this kind of data through the annual “Workplace Outcome Suite” report developed by Chestnut Global Partners, which uses workplace surveys to demonstrate the effectiveness of EAPs in business terms related to absenteeism, presenteeism, work engagement, workplace distress and life satisfaction. For example, the most recent WOS annual report found that before implementing an EAP program, companies saw an average of 10.92 hours of work missed over a 30-day period due to mental health related issues; after the implementation, it dropped to 5.64 hours — or an improvement of 48 percent. “It helps employers anticipate what impact an EAP will have on the business,” DeLapp said.

Also read the 2018 Sector Report: Anxiety and the Employee Assistance Program

Also read the 2017 Sector Report: EAPs are Valuable but Underused

While EAPs are often considered separate from other benefits programs, it is also important to find synergies between EAPs and benefits offerings, he said. For example, financial pressures can cause stress and anxiety, so offering financial planning services, student debt repayment and other voluntary financial benefits can have the knock-on effect of easing workplace anxiety. “It’s an interesting dichotomy that should be considered when crafting any EAP program.”

May 31, 2019June 29, 2023

Some 2020 Election Views: Jan Berger on Single-Payer Health Care

Not surprisingly the future of the United States heath care system is already a huge topic of debate for next year’s presidential election.

Many of the 2020 Democratic nominees for president are supporting a single-payer or Medicare for All solution.

Since the United States has never had this type of health care, it’s helpful to sort out the myths from the facts, which is exactly what one woman did at an employer-centric health care conference recently.

Jan Berger, president and CEO of international health care consultancy Health Intelligence Partners, gave a presentation on single-payer health care at the Midwest Business Group on Health annual conference in May.

One of the first ideas Berger brought up is key. Every country in the world, including the United States, is having the same health care problems no matter what the financial model is being used, she said. These problems include rising costs and access issues. The only way the U.S. is different, she added, is that we’re the only country that has made health care “political warfare.” Also, in most other countries people don’t go bankrupt or homeless because of health care costs.

Meanwhile, Berger also debunked several myths about other countries’ single-payer systems. One key myth is that “health care is socialized medicine.” While some socialist countries do use a single-payer system, many non-Socialist countries do, too. Pulling the socialist card to dismiss the single-payer discussion is “a bullet people use to not discuss change,” Berger said.

Berger listed other misconceptions about single-payer health care:

Single-payer financial models are all the same. (None are the same.)
“Single-payer” applies to both the finance and delivery of health care. (Only four countries have fully integrated models.)
Single-payer means no cost to the consumer. (This is very rarely true. There are out-of-pocket costs in almost all countries that use single-payer.)
Single-payer means no focus on preventative care. (This is not true, Berger noted, giving the examples of Cuba, Costa Rica, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Australia.)
Single-payer dictates how doctors treat patients. (It doesn’t.)
Single-payer models destroy innovation. (Berger noted many examples of how this is not true. To name a few: The Netherlands, which has one of the most unique memory-care systems in the world; South Africa, with its automated pharmacy teller machine.)

“We don’t have to be somebody else, but we have to learn from somebody else,” Berger said.

One other idea that Berger mentioned was the need to know the definitions of key phrases if you’re going to have a conversation about the different health care proposals. For example, the difference between Medicare and the Medicare For All bills. While Medicare doesn’t cover vision or dental, the predominant Medicare for All Act in Congress covers a broader range of services, she said. While the word “Medicare” is used in this context, by definition Medicare for All does not mean the exact quality and coverage of Medicare expanded to each U.S. citizen.

It’s also necessary to understand the definition of universal health coverage, which the United States does not have even with the Affordable Care Act. The World Health Organization defines universal health coverage as “ensuring that all people have access to needed health services (including prevention, promotion, treatment, rehabilitation and palliation) of sufficient quality to be effective while also ensuring that the use of these services does not expose the user the financial hardship.” It continues, “People need to be protected from being pushed into poverty because of the cost of health care”— a milestone the U.S. has yet to reach.

None of this is to say health care should be one way over another. But if we’re debating on what health care system works best for the country, then relying on facts rather than myths for information is a good start.

It’s possible to admit that the current employer-based health care system is not doing well in certain regards. Almost 24 million Americans enrolled in employer health plans must spend a large share of their income on health care. High-deductible health plans have the power to impact low-wage workers in much more detrimental ways than they impact high-wage workers. Contributing to HSAs like some employers promote just isn’t possible for many low-income employees; in fact, Bruce Sherman, medical director at the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions noted at this same MBGH conference that only 1 percent of low-income employees contribute to HSAs.

Whatever the solution is to problems within employer-sponsored plans currently are, it’s not something that has been solved yet. There are going to be plenty of suggestions from the candidates.

As the 2020 election nears, we’re likely to hear a lot of hyped and a lot of misleading “facts” about certain health system proposals, and I’d encourage you to look at the facts instead of falling too deeply into the “political warfare” of U.S. health care.

May 27, 2019June 29, 2023

Paid Leave for Caregivers Being Used to Attract Millennials

As the demand for family friendly benefits grows, employers are responding by offering paid leave to new parents.

While that’s good news for families, a rapidly growing segment of the workforce is often overlooked — employees who are caring for an aging parent, an ailing spouse or other loved one.

About 40 million people in the U.S. are caring for an adult family member and 60 percent of them are employed, according to a 2015 report by AARP. And an increasing number are stepping into that role at a younger age. About a quarter of all caregivers are millennials ages 18-34, according to AARP’s research.

That is why a small but growing number of employers are expanding their family leave policies and offering paid leave to employees caring for a loved one, whether it’s a child, a parent, a spouse, or an in-law or grandparent.

“Caregiving comes in all different forms,” said Jen Fisher, managing director of wellbeing at consulting firm Deloitte. “It’s not just about bringing a child into the world. The dynamics of caregiving and the definition of family have changed.”

In 2016, Deloitte began offering 16 weeks of paid leave to full-time employees caring for a family member. Leave can be taken all at once or at a minimum, in three-day increments, according to Fisher. Previously, only new parents were eligible for paid leave.

“Caregiving for someone who is sick ebbs and flows,” she said. “If you’re caring for an elderly parent at home, one week there’s a lot going and on other days you’re not needed 100 percent. You can build your caregiving needs around that. It’s a really flexible program.”

Under the 1993 Family Medical Leave Act, private employers with more than 50 employees must provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave, but some employers are going beyond what’s required in order to attract younger workers.

“Caregivers are getting younger,” said Kathleen Kelly, executive director of the Family Caregiver Alliance, a nonprofit research and policy organization that supports caregivers. “There are many more millennials and Gen Xers caring for a parent or grandparent. It’s a byproduct of baby boomers having kids later. Caregiving has changed generationally. Employers need to wake up to this.”

More than half of millennial caregivers are the sole provider for an elderly family member, providing an average of 26 hours of care each week — the equivalent of a part-time job, according to a 2018 study by the AARP Public Policy Institute.

Yet, most do not feel supported at work. They are less likely to tell a supervisor they are caring for a family member or to discuss it with co-workers, the study showed.

In addition to providing paid leave, employers need to better understand the challenges that caregivers face, said Kelly.

“Issues around children have become more or less accepted, but not with eldercare,” she said. “If you say, ‘I have to take my mom to a doctor’s appointment,’ people think, ‘Can’t she do it alone?’ It doesn’t have the same urgency or importance.”

According to AARP Public Policy Institute, about 100 major U.S. firms have adopted or expanded paid family leave over the past three years, but only 20 percent made it available to family caregivers.

That is likely to change, according to Candice Sherman, CEO of the Northeast Business Group on Health.

More than half of millennial caregivers are the sole provider for an elderly family member, providing an average of 26 hours of care each week.

“People are living longer, there are gaps in the health care system, employees are more dispersed geographically, so they are caregiving from afar. Large employers are aware,” she said

The vast majority of employers surveyed by the Northeast Business Group on Health in 2017 agree that caregiving will become an increasingly important issue over the next five years, and nearly half cite caregiving as one of their top 10 priorities.

“You’re seeing companies expand paid leave but they are also looking for ways to support caregivers and that creates an opportunity for companies like ours,” said Michael Walsh, CEO of Cariloop, a platform that enables employees to access caregiving resources. “With our services, you’re not just giving people time off but giving them the tools they need to figure out things they don’t understand. We didn’t feel that a company’s health plan or EAP had the coverage needed for the long-term or took into account all the barriers involved with caregiving.”

Walsh, who launched the Texas-based company in 2013, said that younger workers are driving the interest in support for caregivers in the workplace.

“A major factor is a wave of millennialism, which is about feeling supported and making sure that your company empathizes with what’s important to you,” he said. “We can’t just check the boxes. We have to go further and send a message that we care about you and your family.”

May 24, 2019June 29, 2023

The Ongoing Struggle to Lower Health Care Costs for Employers and Employees

It’s the human resources dilemma: how to balance what’s best for the business with what’s best for employees.

The place where you feel it the most? Medical benefit costs. With health care costs increasing nationally, HR is stuck in the middle trying to decide between savings for the company and easing the cost burden on employees.

Finding new strategies to lower costs is a constant challenge — one that doesn’t always prove fruitful. Employers that tried 14 or more tactics to curb rising health benefit costs, such as having healthy food choices available or offering onsite fitness facilities, only realized .4 percent savings, according to a recent Mercer survey. That’s a lot of work for little payoff.

Barry Rose, superintendent of Cumberland School District in Wisconsin, cycled through numerous health plans in the last six years, none of which struck the right balance between saving the district money and satisfying employees. “I couldn’t keep taking money out of the budget to spend on health insurance. Our district needs that $2 million for a new high school and teacher salaries.”

One hidden culprit behind the health benefits struggle? High-deductible health plans. Today’s average deductible is $3,000. Yet, many Americans don’t have $400 in savings to cover medical costs.

Deductibles often are preventing people from seeking the care they need. Due to cost, 44 percent of Americans say they avoided the doctor last year when they were sick or injured. In addition to lower company morale, care avoidance is costing businesses a lot of money. Illness-related productivity losses cost employers $530 billion on top of the $880 billion they spent on health benefits in 2018.

When J&E Manufacturing Co., a custom metal manufacturing company in the Midwest, learned from their existing health insurance provider their premiums were set to balloon over 30 percent in 2019 along with a deductible of $6,500, Ha Nguyen, corporate human resources manager, took a hard look at alternatives for their 200 employees.

“I couldn’t stand before our employees and tell them that,” said Nguyen, “It would upset most people, and we would risk some of them deciding to explore the marketplace to find a different job. Manufacturing is in a talent shortage right now, so we can’t afford to lose employees.”

With unemployment at an all-time low, it’s a candidate’s market; they have negotiating leverage and little tolerance for inferior benefits. Recruiters are struggling to offer attractive new incentives — commuter reimbursement, stock options, and personal trainers. Between the 14 tactics to lower costs and the myriad efforts to attract and retain talent, human resource professionals are juggling a lot.

HR managers need solutions that lower everyone’s health care costs and also promote compelling talent acquisition and retention. How can they do that? By giving employees what they want:

Clarity on what care is covered.
Clarity on the exact cost for that care.

Employees want access to both those things before they obtain care, not weeks after. When employees have access to these things in their health insurance plan, it can drive down costs for the employer.

Both J&E and Cumberland found such a solution in on-demand health insurance, a new model of health insurance that gives employees more control. Instead of a deductible and unpredictable costs, they have simple copays, easy coverage verification, and price certainty before they step foot into a doctor’s office.

“Our employees became better consumers because they see exactly what they’re paying for care,” Rose said. Seventy percent of members on the plan spent less than $500 in total copays — that’s one-sixth the cost of the average deductible.

And they have a compelling new advantage to attract talent.

“Top tier labor is hard to find. When people look at our benefits package and compare it to others, they see our plan is superior,” said Nguyen. “In the past, I just glossed over the health insurance plan during interviews. Now, it’s one of the first things I mention.”

Take some time to evaluate your current health insurance offering. Are you feeling like you are trapped between your employees and your C-suite? You don’t have to be. It’s time to make health care easy and affordable, and it’s time to empower your employees to make informed care choices.

May 15, 2019April 25, 2019

Business Travelers May Need Help Managing Their Health

Long-distance trips may be something to boast about, with wanderlust-driven influencers posting perfectly filtered photos on their social media accounts. Work-sponsored road trips also may sound glamorous but workers should recognize the potential negative impacts of business travel on their health.

Frequent business travel is associated with poorer health outcomes, according to “Business Travel and Behavioral and Mental Health,” a 2018 article from the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The analysis found that people who traveled more often for work were more likely to smoke, have trouble sleeping and show higher levels of anxiety and depression symptoms. The study concluded that “employers should provide programs to help employees manage stress and maintain health while traveling for work.”

Hal F. Rosenbluth, chairman and CEO of New Ocean Health Solutions, at one point hit the road every other week for work. Rosenbluth knows the challenges of regular business travel within the U.S. and abroad. For people who travel overseas, there’s “always the possibility of sickness or geopolitical events that require immediate attention and sometimes evacuation,” he said.

Also read: Helping HR Care for the Business Traveler

Medical and travel security services firm International SOS and medical insurance provider Geo Blue are among the options for these travelers. “I typically use it if I’m traveling to countries where medical care isn’t terrific or I’m out of the city somewhere where there isn’t a lot of care. If something goes wrong, I know I can have a plane or a helicopter get me to where I need to go,” Rosenbluth said.

Lengthy international trips may “cause a person to lack focus after arrival” and Rosenbluth recommends travelers delay meetings for 24 hours to recover from the flight and adapt to time changes.

Whether someone is traveling domestically or abroad, work-life balance may take a hit. Especially for people with young families, the partner who remains at home with the children may feel overwhelmed, Rosenbluth said, and that communication is important.

Business professionals informally polled on LinkedIn by Workforce had several suggestions to stay healthy while traveling for work and how employers can help.

Find quick, healthy grab-and-go options near the hotel to resist the urge to eat fast food.
Join a gym with multiple locations to use the membership while traveling.
Employers can maintain a company culture that stresses positive health behaviors like getting enough sleep and allowing people time to eat.
Reimburse reasonable wellness expenses for fitness classes in travel destinations.

Rosenbluth suggests that travelers exercise, which may be difficult if there’s no fitness center or if the destination poses a safety hazard for walks offsite. Business travelers also should be careful about what they eat and should carefully consider food safety.

Also read: Got Breast Milk? These Female Business Travelers Do

April 29, 2019June 29, 2023

Personal Lessons in Communicating Change

At the start of the year, I took a personal crash course in navigating organizational change. Despite consulting on issues around change management for most of my career, I learned it’s a different animal when you’re right in the middle of it yourself. Going through a big change reinforced a lot of what I know — and it gave me some new insights.

The source of all this change? My company, Benz Communications, joined forces with The Segal Group on Jan. 1. By absolutely all measures, this was — and is — an awesome step for our team, our business and our clients.

Segal is an 80-year-old privately held employee benefits and HR consulting firm that works with an amazing group of clients around the country. Our communications team doubled from 30 to 60 people, and we are so proud to be part of an organization with Segal’s history, values, people and clients. One of my favorite comments from a member of my team was “I feel like I just got an even better job — along with 30 of my best friends.”

Still, all the good stuff doesn’t mean change isn’t hard.

One of the things I learned is that it takes people a while to digest information when they are caught off guard. Fortunately, we were able to share our news in person with the Benz team during our annual end-of-year celebration in November.

But they were expecting to enjoy the time with colleagues and rejoice in all the great work we created during the year; no one was expecting me to announce a huge organizational change like this. That kind of surprise, no matter how good the news is, creates anxiety.

Also in Benefits Beat: Make Benefits and Internal Communications Inseparable

One of my team members said, “I know your lips were moving, but I didn’t absorb a thing you said.” It highlights an important lesson for corporate communicators, reinforcing why you have to give people time to absorb information and why you need to say things many times and in multiple ways.

It was also a reminder that leaders and employees experience change in entirely different ways. When I talk to clients about this, I tell them to remember that leaders have more context, more insight, more control and more notice.

It takes people a while to digest information when they are caught off guard. No matter how good the news is, surprise creates anxiety.

Those factors make it hard to put themselves in employees’ shoes. Even so, I was surprised by how big a blind spot I had in predicting my team’s concerns. Fortunately, people felt comfortable telling me exactly what they and their colleagues needed (it helps to have several communications consultants among them!). But over and over, I was disappointed in myself for not being able to anticipate their concerns on my own.

One example: Benefits changes are hard — even for a team of benefits experts. We didn’t have much time to move the Benz team onto Segal’s systems and benefits.

It’s hard getting up to speed on new programs, understanding how they compare to the old ones and making decisions — especially when you have so many other questions and concerns bubbling around. And present discomfort obscures long-term gain.

Our benefits package at Segal is far richer than what we had as a small business — we have a 401(k) match and a pension plan! But when your prescription ID card doesn’t arrive and you’re at the pharmacy with a sick kiddo, you’re not thinking about your pension plan.

And that was a big lesson for me. In times of change, not only do you need to communicate more, but you also need to thoughtfully engineer the small stuff.

Also in Benefits Beat: Employers Should Be Bold With Their Benefits

Go above and beyond to make sure there are no kinks in the systems or information flow. I recently caught up with a longtime friend and client who works for a large global corporation. She is immersed in M&A all year, because their business strategy relies so much on acquiring new companies. She said they have perfected almost everything about acquiring new companies — except delivering medical plan ID cards. That’s still a huge pain point for new employees and the one thing that continues to be a disconnect. It’s the small stuff.

I hope these personal anecdotes will help you navigate your next big change. While they are the lessons learned, we did plenty of things the right way, too.

Most importantly, we started from a place of trust and transparency, built from an employee-centered culture. And we joined an organization that shares our core values and also prioritizes doing the right thing for employees. Those are the best things any organization can have to help navigate the inevitable changes ahead.