Want wellness? Offer some motivation
Source: https://www.benefitspro.com
By their very definition, incentives serve as motivation to elicit specific actions.
When used by employers as part of a medical management program—particularly wellness and disease management—incentives are proven to significantly raise participation rates, leading to improved member health, increased productivity, reduced health care spending and, ultimately, positive returns on their investment.
The challenge is determining how to structure an incentive program to deliver the desired results.
Studies and our experience have shown that incentives of $50 per employee per month, or $600 per employee annually, yield participation levels of 75 percent or better when the member answers the call. In other words, with the right incentive, you can lead a horse to water, and you can expect him to drink, at least three-fourths of the time.
Successful medical management programs target high-risk plan members with medical conditions or lifestyle behaviors that drive costs for employers. When implementing an incentive program, however, it is wise to cast a wider net.
Although it might seem counterintuitive to offer incentives to employees who are already healthy, it’s important to engage the entire member population. Doing so deepens the pool from which you can identify candidates with chronic conditions or emerging lifestyle risks who would benefit from one-on-one coaching from a registered nurse or behavior-change specialist.
Remember, about 75 percent of those you engage will agree to participate. So if you are able to reach a larger percentage of the overall population, your participation rate will increase proportionately. Plus, even the healthiest of plan members can benefit from learning more about how the decisions they make can influence their personal health and well-being.
Consider a plan structure with a primary incentive that appeals to the total population, complemented by a secondary incentive used to target the at-risk population. Primary incentives often are distributed in the form of premium reductions or additional dollars applied to an employee’s paycheck, a health savings account or as part of a value-based benefit plan.
These incentives typically are used to motivate members to complete clinical health risk assessments and biometric health screenings, both of which help identify individuals for potential coaching intervention.
These at-risk or high-risk individuals are candidates for secondary incentives. They may have a chronic medical condition, such as diabetes, heart disease or asthma. They may have a higher likelihood of developing complications during pregnancy. Or they may have one or more lifestyle risks, such as obesity, tobacco use or a lack of physical activity.
Secondary incentives can encourage these members to work with a health coach toward managing their medical condition or making health sustainable changes to their behavior.
Their participation may be required in order to remain eligible for premium reductions, or they may receive secondary incentives in the form of gift cards or reduced or waived copayments or coinsurance for:
- Therapeutic class medications used to treat chronic diseases
- Diabetic supplies
- A newborn’s inpatient stay following delivery
- Nicotine replacement therapy gum or patches
- Weight loss or fitness club memberships
Our experience shows that, on average, more than 80 percent of those who enroll in coaching will complete the process, equipping them with healthy habits and techniques that are sustainable for a lifetime.
When combined with an effective medical management plan, the right incentives will help employers move employees’ personal wellness forward, move their corporate health culture forward, and reduce their plan costs long-term.
Workers Flounder with Health Care Decision
By Editorial Staff
Source: https://eba.benefitnews.com
Open enrollment deadlines are just around the corner, and a new survey suggests the choices aren’t getting any easier for many workers.
According to a report from Aetna, Americans rank choosing health care benefits as the second most difficult life decision, behind only saving for retirement. Aetna’s survey shows those who stress over health benefits decisions cite confusing and complicated information (88%), conflicted data (84%) and difficulty knowing which plan is right for them (83%).
“The … results showed that consumers understand the importance of health benefits. However, they don’t feel they have the resources they need to make an educated decision,” says Mark T. Bertolini, Aetna’s chairman and CEO “We need to make the process of choosing and using health benefits easier for consumers.”
Conducted in July with results released last week, the survey finds Americans split on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, though 75% think that all of its key elements are important for them or their families. Forty-one percent of respondents said they need more information on health care reform to understand its impact.
Reducing medical costs remains a major economic and political issue, even though 42% of Americans reportedly never or rarely monitor out-of-pocket health care expenses. This is despite the fact that more than one in five respondents had to dip into their savings in the past year to help cover medical bills.
The survey further finds that more than 40% of respondents have skipped a prescription dose, halted their medication or delayed a needed medical procedure. What’s worse, those in fair or poor health (76%) or with chronic conditions (57%) are the most likely to engage in those dangerous behaviors.
Wendy Shanahan-Richards, national medical director for Aetna, says the survey illustrates the need for health plans data to walk the line between concise and digestible and thorough and comprehensive information.
“The [survey] results help us better understand the challenges that consumers are facing today,” Shanahan-Richards says. “We want to arm consumers with as much useful, easy-to-understand information as possible to help them make more informed health benefits choices and take better control of their health.”
Social Network to Monitor Staff Benefits Mood
By Julia Rampen
Source: Workplace Savings and Benefits
Yammer is launching a tool to analyze employees’ reactions to company initiatives such as benefits.
The Microsoft-owned social network for businesses has introduced technology which tracks the emotions expressed in employees' comments, allowing employers to monitor the mood of staff in different departments and locations from a central dashboard.
The tool would analyze all employees' responses in order to gauge the overall reaction - allowing HR managers to quickly view the staff response to actions such as changing health benefits.
Underpinning the tool, created by digital technology company Kanjoya, is "emotion-aware sentiment analysis" which retrieves data from Yammer groups and can distinguish between 80 different emotions.
Users can then compare the level of different emotions expressed by employees and visualize them via a word cloud.
Its influencer analysis tool may also allow companies to pinpoint the most praised and well-liked individuals.
Yammer chief product officer Jim Patterson said: "By enabling this integration, Yammer customers will be able to recognize when something has affected employees either positively or negatively - and take action."
The tool is now available for all Yammer Enterprise users.
The British Are Coming!
If you live in New England, like I do, you tend to look over your shoulder when someone shouts that familiar phrase. But in the case of sports these days it’s a fresh and inviting thing. With Bradley Wiggins winning the Tour de France this year, as the first Brit to win and a couple weeks later capture a gold medal in the Olympics, you would say the British are here.
Looking at the major accomplishments of Bradley, from France, to back home in London for the time trials there, it got me thinking about goals, measurements, and performance, and how we reward our employees.
You see where I’m going with this right?
So what do you do when it comes time for raises, or increases, or reviews as some organizations call them? Do you look at the dollars in the budget and divvy them up evenly among the workforce? Do you send out the reviews a couple weeks before they are due to your managers and tell them to fill them out the best they can? Or do you have everything documented in a Workforce Management system that shows you the employees’ profile information, tenure, past performance ratings, goals you set for them for the quarter or year and how they are doing with those documented goals, and the ability to assess your employees in a timely fashion? Then have that all tied together with your budget for the year that is sent to the managers so they can link the performance reviews with compensation reviews and send that seamlessly to payroll.
Some of you are saying “British said what?”
Performance and Compensation Management is something that every company wants to do, and at some level you do it; either through spreadsheets and Word docs, homegrown databases, or with a fully functioning system that ties all the pieces together. The key to all of it is communication.
Just as each of the members of the Tour de France teams communicated with each other in some way, shape, or form; or as far back as the militia communicated in every little township to make sure everyone was on the same page with defeating the red coats…
You too can communicate with your workforce. In the end, when the loop is closed and you have your managers talking to your employees and vice versa and HR talking with both of them; you find the trifecta of communication keeps employees informed and you’re able to use the tools provided to assess, retain, reward great employees.
In the spirit of the times – Go for the Gold !!
OUTMATCHED
Fewer employers are offering a company match to their retirement benefits, a new study by the Society for Human Resource Management finds. About two-thirds of companies currently match their employees' contributions today, compared with 75 percent in 2008.
Failing to See
By Marli D. Riggs
Source: eba.benefitnews.com
Baby boomers are not taking advantage of available eye care benefits, leading to lost productivity
Despite employees reporting a strong interest in their company vision program, today's workforce isn't taking full advantage of the coverage — especially baby boomers.
Baby boomers (age 45-64) are only slightly more likely than younger employees to enroll in their vision benefit (79% vs. 75%), according to Transitions Optical's Employee Perceptions of Vision Benefits survey.
"1-out-of-4 employees that have an opportunity to enroll in the program do not," says Pat Huot, director of managed vision care and online retail for Transitions Optical.
"Of those that do enroll, 1-out-of-3 employees in the baby-boomer age range and 1-out-of-4 in the 65-plus range have not used their vision plan at all in the last year."
Huot believes the industry is trying to make it easier for employers to help employees become connected with the importance of the annual exam and all of the other touch points associated with it, "but if employees don't use the benefit, there's no opportunity there for them to realize that benefit."
The consequences
Studies by The Vision Council, an Alexandria, Va.-based nonprofit optical trade group, show about $8 billion is lost by employers every year due to lost productivity that stems from employee vision issues.
"This is mainly because employees' eyes are either not in focus or they have debilitating eye conditions that aren't managed well, so they just aren't as productive as they could be," says Dr. John Lahr, the medical director at Cincinnati-based EyeMed Vision Care.
Dr. Lahr, who has been in the field for nearly four decades, talks about the need for correction, which becomes more prevalent as employees age. The crystal lens of the eye where cataracts form, he says, is very elastic and loses that elasticity as people age.
"Usually, those between 40 and 45 cannot focus optimally for close vision and require reading glasses, or if they already have glasses they might need a multi-focal application to be able to read," he says.
"This factor really hits the worker that's in their 40's, 50's and 60's and is looking at a computer screen daily," adds Dr. Lahr. "If you measure that distance in which they are viewing it's usually 22 to 24 inches, where the normal reading distance is 16 to 18 inches."
He adds that the focus of glasses or contacts for everyday use is not optimal for the computer screen.
"In turn, employees lose a lot of productivity because they get eye strain, headaches, and they're also leaning forward in unnatural positions."
"In 2006, the very first baby boomer turned 60," says Transitions Optical's Huot. "As a snapshot of where we are as a country in terms of an aging workforce, it amazes me that every 10 seconds from that point in 2006 until 2023 someone in the U.S. will turn 60."
At age 40 employees should start protecting their eyes against serious diseases such as cataracts and macular degeneration - neither of which has symptoms in the early stages, says Dr. Lahr.
He adds that these diseases are much more prevalent in blacks and Hispanics.
"We find there are profiles where we can draw to try to assess risks and try to be more cautious with those individuals."
The obstacles
According to the Employee Perceptions of Vision Benefits survey, not having vision or eye health problems is the most commonly cited reason for not enrolling in a vision plan. This shows a lack of understanding of the importance of preventative eye care, says Transitions Optical's Huot.
He and his team encourage brokers to motivate their clients by giving them an interactive set of tools.
For example, his company's Healthy Sight Calculator helps clients educate their employees, calculate costs and learn about potential ROI with their vision plan.
"High profile tools, such as an online calculator, are designed to help the employees become more engaged around how a vision benefit connects to total health care versus" mentioning it as an afterthought in a larger presentation about health benefits, he says.
"We have yet to meet that broker that says, 'My clients can't wait to talk about vision!,'" adds Huot with a laugh.
EyeMed Vision Care tries to create an awareness of routine eye care and the associated benefits by providing an identification card that plan participants can put in their wallet to serve as a reminder during the year, says Dr. Lahr.
A personal experience
A decade ago Patrick Tibbs of Everence Financial Advisors in Indiana began to experience pressure in his eyes. He went in for a routine eye exam where the ophthalmologist determined his symptoms could be a cause of glaucoma.
Tibbs now goes once a year to have his eyes checked and glasses dispensed. He says by taking preventative steps for his own vision he feels a personal satisfaction knowing that employees are doing the same.
Vision care benefits are "near and dear to my heart," he says.
Vision benefits play a key part in motivating employees to see an eye doctor for a comprehensive exam.
EyeMed Vision Care's Dr. Lahr has seen in studies that those who have vision care coverage are more likely to get preventive eye exams even if they don't have symptoms.
"Our average utilization of a voluntary benefit where an employee defers money out of their paycheck we see about 35%," he says.
One factor keeping that utilization rate from rising is a misguided assumption that "if I see well [then] there's nothing wrong with my eyes."
Tibbs says baby boomers who are paying higher premiums for health insurance at the same time they're seeing their 401(k) values drop, yet still having to cover dependents with out-of-pocket costs, could be avoiding routine eye care "because they can't afford to pay $75 to $100 for an eye exam, then pay $300 for a pair of glasses."
Vision care is the summer
In the summer months employees' calendars are filled with vacations, parties and other outdoor festivities. Protecting eyes from ultraviolet rays is a must - but that is not the only one to be careful of, says Dr. John Lahr, medical director at Cincinnati-based EyeMed Vision Care.
In ophthalmology there is a new acronym to account for as a contributor to the development of cataracts and macular degeneration: high-energy visible light.
"This is the blue spectrum which we would see longer wavelength that is closer to the UV spectrum," says Dr. Lahr. "It has been studied through longitudinal studies which measured people's development of the two key eye diseases," cataracts and macular degeneration. "Since both of these eye diseases are much more prevalent in individuals that have high exposures to UV light, now they're starting to break down where they are when they're exposed," he adds.
As employees age, they have a heightened risk for cataracts that can impair performance at work," says Indiana broker Patrick Tibbs. "Out of 20 million people with cataracts it's estimated that 20% of those are caused by ultraviolet rays. Having proper eye wear is important and it will help with productivity." -Marli D. Riggs
Benefit Aspects of Employee Leaves of Absence
Employee leaves of absence raise a number of difficult questions under federal employment laws. Must a requested leave be granted? Under what conditions? Must the employee's position be held open so that the employee may return to it after the leave?
In addition to those questions, employers often must address the benefits-related aspects of any leave of absence. Complicating a benefits manager's task are a host of federal laws, including the Family and Medical Leave Act, COBRA and more.
Learn what you need to know to cope with leave-related challenges from your workforce. Please contact us for more information.
Why is Engaging Employees on Wellness so Hard?
by: Helen Box-Farnen
Source: eba.benefitnews.com
Employee engagement is the goal of just about every wellness and health management program. You need to engage employees to be more active, eat better, get more sleep. … You get the idea.
So why is engaging employees so hard? Maybe it’s because we haven’t really thought about it from the perspective of the employee – the end-user of the wellness initiative. According to research from a partnership of Aon Hewitt and The Futures Company, most people fall into discrete attitudinal segments that influence how they think and feel about wellness.
The folks in the C-Suite and most in leadership fall into a category that embraces a sense of control and responsibility when it comes to their health. And, they see wellness as part of the solution to important business problems: lowering costs and increasing productivity.
The average worker, on the other hand, has a completely different mindset. Here are a few of the attitudes that define nearly half of the U.S. population:
- Time-starved
- Seeks entertainment
- Family-oriented
- Stressed
- Likes high-tech media and social networking
- Interested in group activities and competition
- Wants to look and feel good
- Wants recognition for their accomplishments
- Trusts friends and family as information sources
In addition, while you might appreciate a lot of detail, the people you need to engage are not information-junkies. Try this approach with your clients and see if it doesn’t engage more of their workforce:
- Make it entertaining and create some buzz: To get employees’ attention, it needs to be fun, hip, humorous, and exciting.
- Appeal to what’s important to me: Tell employees how it will help them look good, feel good, and be more confident.
- Make it easy: Today’s workers are stressed and starved for time, so it needs to be simple and uncomplicated.
- Make me feel part of a community: Family and friends are important, and people like to feel connected to others.
Whether you are advising a client about products and services that will help them engage employees in wellness behaviors or you’re a benefits executive needing to achieve business objectives through improved health, wellness, and benefits consumerism, being successful might mean stepping outside of your own attitudes. Instead of approaching wellness as a way to solve the company’s issues – sell it to employees as a way to solve their issues. In other words, if you make it about them, you might just get what you need.
LEVEL WELLNESS
A recent survey by the Society of Human Resource Management found that 61 percent of companies are offering some sort of wellness initiative this year, up only slightly from 58 percent in 2008. Although wellness adoption by employers seems to have leveled off in the past few years, the elements of the programs have changed. For instance, 45 percent of polled employers said their program includes health and lifestyle coaching, compared with 33 percent in 2008.
6 Tips to Engage Gen Y Employees
By Dr. Ronald Leopold
Source: https://eba.benefitnews.com
Benefits are typically structured to reward and motivate employees who stay at the company for the long haul. For example, retirement rewards and paid time off usually get sweeter as time goes on. Dangling a long-term benefits carrot makes sense for driving retention right? — Perhaps not when it comes to Gen Y workers. As companies focus on attracting and keeping a pipeline of Gen Y employees, I maintain that, when it comes to benefits, it is time for a mind-shift from long-term to a short-term value and appeal.
The annual MetLife Employer and Employees benefits survey tells us that Gen Y employees really, truly value their benefits. This is the generation hardest hit by the recession — experiencing underemployed and unemployed and in debt forever with student loans. Sixty-six percent of these younger workers say that, because of economic conditions, they are counting on more help from employers through employee benefits. In addition, they are more satisfied with their benefits than any of their generational co-workers (52% compared with 36% of older boomers.)
For ten years, the MetLife study has shown a strong correlation between employee loyalty and being satisfied with benefits. However, here’s the kicker. Despite being super-satisfied with benefits, the study shows that more than half of Gen Y intends to be the first out the door looking for a new job!
This contradiction does not mean that Gen Y workers are a self-centered, disloyal bunch. In fact, they take their careers and their financial futures very seriously. Rather than being grasshoppers in the job market, they are serial resume builders. To them loyalty is demonstrated by high performance not by how long you stick around. This is a challenge for employers who are conditioned to investing in employers when they join the company, in hopes of payback measured in decades.
I suggest that employers accept the inevitable and ask themselves what they can do to create a benefits program that delivers what Gen Y workers need and want today and not in some rosy future.
Here are some examples to consider:
1. Flexibility matters. Gen Y values generous time off policies and freedom to work when and where they like. Work-life balance is more important to Gen Y than any other generation – 50% say it makes them feel loyal to their employer. This is a powerful retention carrot. If you offer it, they will take it – but will not take advantage. Don’t send mixed signals about use of this benefit.
2. Gen Y prefers choice and customization when it comes to benefits. With inelastic benefits budgets the solution for this preference is voluntary benefits. This generation is used to reaching into their wallet for their benefits, so give them the choices they crave with employee-paid insurance products – from car insurance to pet insurance.
3. Gen Y is serious about their finances and concerned about risk. Provide liberal life and disability coverages from day one. Offer supplemental buy-ups to ensure adequate coverages.
Financial education in the workplace is highly valued at all levels — from basic financial literacy to sophisticated investment advice. Turn to carriers to deliver low-cost/no cost programs.
4. Health coverage is a big concern. Sixty-eight percent of Gen Y survey respondents are concerned about paying health care premiums and out of pocket costs. Help them meet these costs with affordable supplementary health products such as dental and vision coverages. These are popular benefits that you don’t have to be sick to use.
5. Advancement opportunities drive loyalty — more than their employers realize. The MetLife Study shows that 66% of Gen Y cite this as an important loyalty driver, yet only 42% of employers are on board. Don’t make employees have to move out in order to move ahead.
6. Text and Tweet to build engagement – communicate in preferred ways to build a benefits bridge to Gen Y.
Benefits are a powerful draw for attracting Gen Y to a company – 56% of Gen Y report that benefits were an important reason why they chose their current employer. They may not collect a gold watch from you, but you can motivate them to stay as long as possible by providing benefits that clearly help them solve immediate problems and needs.