Take out the earbuds
Intriguing artile from Benefits Pro by Marty Traynor
Walk around any workplace and unless there's a safety issue, almost every employee under 50 is wearing earbuds and remains focused on their own personal music zone. What a perfect metaphor for the barriers we must overcome to gain the attention we need for benefit purchase decisions.
With the fall enrollment season approaching, let's consider some of the ways we should work to “remove the buds” and focus employee attention on the process of benefit enrollment.
- Employer's earbuds must come out first. Employees are not the only ones ignoring the importance of benefit-related communications. Employers often think a simple introductory email is sufficient. That kind of communication is enough if the goal is to tell employees about an event. However, in no way does this type of message convey importance or opportunity. You must convince the employer that a well-designed campaign will be a big positive for them, both in terms of employee engagement and happiness with employee benefit options.
- Know your audience. Many otherwise great campaigns have failed because they are tone deaf to their audience. A program benefitting union members better not be littered with “employee” references. The graphics used to illustrate the benefit plan should also be carefully designed to match the demographics of the employee audience. Designers often tend to show “beautiful people,” but benefit plans need to be shown benefitting real people.
- Use multiple approaches to connect with people. You often hear about the importance of multi-channel benefit communications. Unfortunately, we cannot just say, “Alexa, create a multi-channel campaign to teach employees about their benefits and get them to enroll to best meet their needs.” We must do what's next best and create a campaign that gives employees information in multiple ways: web details, calculators, videos, printable pieces with brief, explanatory, and detailed options. Use on-site materials such as break room table tents and bulletin board posters to augment e-campaigns.
- Use “real speak” whenever possible. The benefits business is full of jargon. Studies have shown that words we use all the time are confusing; even a term like “premium” isn't clear. Most people think of premium as an adjective, meaning “expensive, special or high class.” They don't see it as an everyday expenditure, but rather as a luxury type of item. So when we say “your premium is affordable,” employees may immediately think we are trying to scam them. Watch the jargon, and use terms that make sense to employees.
- Get people in front of people. The best way to communicate is in person. Regardless of how effective an employer's enrollment system is, the most effective communications campaigns still have a human element. Personal meetings, group meetings or call center-based enrollments can all add the personal touch. Without a personal touch, a benefit enrollment campaign may seem empty to many employees.
- Make sure employees know what's in it for them. They need to understand the importance of good benefit elections for themselves. This helps ensure they credit their employer for offering a valued program, and ensures they will understand the importance of good choices in enrollment.
Good luck with your fourth quarter enrollments. Earbuds are not noise cancelling headphones, so there is still a great opportunity to break through to employees and make your benefit communications campaigns your best to date.
See the original article Here.
Source:
Traynor, M. (2016 September 13). Take out the earbuds. [Web blog post]. Retrieved from address https://www.benefitspro.com/2016/09/13/take-out-the-earbuds?slreturn=1474041704
Rising Health Care Costs: Driving Factor Causing Changes to Employer Health Plans, SHRM Survey Finds
Get the latest trends in healthcare benefits in the survey conducted by SHRM.
Original Post from SHRM.org on July 13, 2016
- Ninety-six percent of organizations offered some type of health care plan to their employees.
- Mail order prescriptions have gone down by 6 percent over the past five years.
- Eighty-five percent of organizations offer mental health coverage, compared to 91 percent just last year.
- Organizations were evenly split as to whether they offered coverage to spouses who had access to health care coverage through another employer, or if there was a spousal surcharge for health care coverage.
- Several new health-related items added to the survey this year: health care services such as diagnosis, treatment or prescriptions provided by photo or video (23 percent), high deductible health plan not linked to an HSA or a health reimbursement account (HRA) (17 percent), genetic testing coverage for diseases such as cancer (12 percent) and a smoking surcharge for health care plans (20 percent).
Use It or Lose It: Are your employee's taking advantage of their PTO?
Are your workers taking advantage of their PTO? It is important for you employee's to de-stress and take a break to continue to be sucessful. Ensure your employees are taking the time off they need to keep a happy and healthy workfoce.
According to a Forbes article, only 25% of Americans take their paid vacation. The article also gives insight as to how not taking vacation can impact your overall effeciency in the workplace.
It’s not healthy to keep working without a break. Vacation recharges our internal batteries, gives us perspective on what we do and fuels creativity and energy. Vacation also promotes creative thinking, expands our cultural horizons and sharpens cognition, especially if we can travel to another country. “Traveling shifts us from the solipsistic way we operate every day,” Joan Kane, a Manhattan psychologist, told me a when I did a story on vacations a few years ago. “It promotes a sense of well-being and gets you thinking in different ways. It can be life-altering.”
In the article The common workplace practice that’s costing employers billions by Cort Olsen, gives more understanding of why employees do not always take the time offered.
Having diligent, hardworking employees is every employer’s dream, but it can come at a cost. Studies have shown that employees who sacrifice their vacation time to maintain their work flow could be costing an employer more than it would to have one or two employees out of the office for a couple of weeks’ vacation time.
According to the U.S. Travel Association, employees who choose not to use their paid time off could potentially cost an employer close to $52.4 billion annually due to lost revenue, employee termination or resignation, and hiring and training replacements.
“When you look at a manager or someone in a leader capacity, we run into situations where managers don’t want to be out of the office or away from the team because they feel like they need to be available,” Sciortino says. “Some people who are not in a leadership position may be the only one who does a certain task, so they know if they are not there then the work is not going to get done.”
To combat this problem, employers need to train employees to be backups for other employees who are responsible for a specific task in the event that person is out of the office for a period of time, she says.
“From an employer’s perspective, we want our teams to take PTO, because turnover is costly,” Sciortino says. “You can lose employees because they are feeling burnt, and obviously rehiring and retraining people for positions frequently can be costly on their organization.”
Another costly issue employers face when employees do not use their vacation time is paying out that unused time. Claire Bissot, managing director for CBIZ, says she is against any employer that allows employees to be paid out for not using their vacation time at the end of the year.
Read the full article from Forbes.com here.
See the full article from Employee Benefit Adviser here.
Sources:
Adams, S. (2014, April 7). Only 25% of americans take their paid vacation [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2014/04/04/only-25-of-americans-take-their-paid-vacation/#ea0d8c22c5cf
Olsen, C. (2016, June 7). The common workplace practice that's costing employers billions [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/news/the-common-workplace-practice-thats-costing-employers-billions
5 Top Employee Benefits Questions and How to Answer Them
Original Post from BenfitsPro.com
By: Monica Majors
Legislative changes continue to markedly affect the health benefits marketplace. Employers and their workers face challenges on a number of fronts. Along with those challenges come questions that range from current and future requirements of health care reform, to providing adequate plan coverage that serves employees well.
By understanding the top-of-mind employer benefit issues and responding to them appropriately and effectively, brokers and advisors can better serve existing clients, attract new ones, and help employees protect themselves and their families going forward.
1. How can I meet my employees’ needs?
A key concern of today’s employers is making sure benefits they offer for both prospective and current employees are competitive. Businesses recognize the role a solid benefit program plays in attracting and keeping good talent, and they want to know what is included in plans offered by their competitors.
Brokers serving the health benefits marketplace can best serve customers by knowing the current market landscape well, speaking confidently about it and sharing that knowledge with customers. Key to this knowledge is understanding what the employer currently offers, what types of employees make up its workforce, what their needs are, and what gaps may currently exist.
Then, talk with insurers and learn what industry and market insight they may possess based on geographic and industry-specific factors. Search out findings made available from insurance- and customer-specific industry research organizations and trade associations. You can also mine data from within your own office, such as aggregated customer information by industry.
Integrate all of this information with comprehensive benefit offerings available from the carriers you represent, and show employers how they can gain a competitive market advantage with the right benefit plan.
2. How can I control my costs?
The question of controlling costs is common for obvious reasons. Small groups, in particular, are looking for creative ways to keep their health benefit expenses down. Brokers can address this question by understanding current offerings and combining that with knowledge of the plans available through the carriers they represent.
Understanding the various coverage tiers available and sharing that knowledge with employers is key. Often, implementing a health benefit program that meets the minimum required coverage levels brings the lowest cost.
Other cost-reduction strategies include addressing coverage for dependents or part-time employees. Some employers may consider eliminating dependent coverage or reducing contributions for this coverage. Also, determine with the employer the cost versus the benefit of including part-time staff in the plan. Employers may need to make tough decisions to maintain viable programs for employees.
Employers need to consider other costs that may come into play. For example, new IRS and ACA reporting requirements for employers to notify employees about new mandates bring with them administrative expenses. While they may not be able to eliminate these costs, brokers can help provide guidance and increase awareness around the changing requirements. They can also recommend approaches that might help employers streamline the process to reduce the impact of the requirements.
3. What about exchanges?
Employer questions about health benefit exchanges are prevalent. How do the exchanges align with the employer’s desire to deliver benefits in a cost-effective manner? What advantages do they offer? What are the drawbacks? Brokers need to be familiar with individual and group exchanges — both private and public.
Brokers working with some employers may find that certain tax advantages come along with using a public exchange. Private exchanges offer other benefits, from cost-management tools to a broader set of administrative support options and a choice of benefit options that extend beyond basic medical coverage. Group or employer-focused exchanges are becoming increasingly popular as a way to efficiently manage health benefits. Brokers should become familiar with the pros and cons, as well as processes involved.
It’s important to understand the advantages for different employer groups, as well as the reputation and satisfaction levels of exchanges, and use that knowledge to help employers select the right option.
4. What’s on the horizon?
Large employers are concerned about looming changes. They wonder how new regulations—for example, the Cadillac tax —may affect them in the future. Brokers need to be knowledgeable about what is coming down the pike, and how to minimize negative resulting impacts.
Preparing for the Cadillac tax, for example, may require a strategy shift. While the tax is primarily levied against health plans for coverage deemed “too rich,” it will ultimately affect employers and workers. Health plans are likely to pass off at least some of the costs to employers in the form of higher premiums. Employers may then pass costs off to workers in the form of higher cost-sharing arrangements. Of course, employers will have to consider how this will impact employee retention and recruitment.
The Internal Revenue Service posts helpful information about the ACA’s requirements on employers on its website: irs.gov/affordable-care-act. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website is another valuable resource: cms.gov/cciio/.
5. Why you?
The final top question may be one employers don’t explicitly ask; but it’s one you need to answer: “Why should I use you as a broker?” How is it that you set yourself apart from other brokers — industry knowledge, market strategy or customer service? Brokers need to carefully and clearly explain benefit plan designs, educate employers, guide them through the maze of changes in the benefits arena, and explain all the implications.
Building knowledge is the first part of the answer. Learn about laws, regulations and your employers’ workforce attributes. Learn more about the products offered by carriers and through the exchanges. Combine that knowledge with employer and employee data you capture to design programs that can help employers attract and retain good workers. Work with financially strong carrier partners to find and deliver the right benefit plans, and consider offering your clients a multi-year strategy where appropriate. And leverage administrative, technology, client portals and other resources your carrier partners offer.
Be sure to document and explain the advantages you can bring to the employer. Also, encourage satisfied customers to provide testimonials, directly and on social platforms, and then share these testimonials and references to help differentiate yourself and your shop from your competitors.
By understanding the needs of your clients, offering cost control solutions and keeping businesses apprised of changes on the horizon, you set yourself apart from other brokers and demonstrate your value as a trusted adviser. New and existing clients will come to you year after year for help in designing affordable health benefit plans that will attract and hold onto good workers.
How to Avoid Penalties Under the Affordable Care Act
Original Post from SHRM.org
By: Lisa Nagele-Piazza
2016 is expected to be the most expensive year for businesses complying with the Affordable Care Act (ACA), said David Lindgren, senior manager of compliance and public affairs for Flexible Benefit Service Corporation, a benefit administrator headquartered in Rosemont, Ill.
It’s the first year for dealing with ACA reporting, which many employers will have to complete by the end of June, Lindgren said during a concurrent session at the Society for Human Resource Management 2016 Annual Conference & Exposition.
There are more than 30,000 pages of guidance about the law, but Lindgren said the ACA is fairly easy to comprehend. “Of course, many people would disagree with me,” he noted.
“It’s not necessarily easy to comply with the ACA, and it’s not financially inexpensive, but most of the rules aren’t overly complicated,” he said.
The federal agencies that regulate the ACA have said they intend to monitor all businesses for compliance. This may not be realistic, but employers should keep in mind that more auditing can be expected.
Lindgren identified 30 penalties associated with noncompliance and provided insight on how to avoid them.
Employers can choose to pay the penalties for noncompliance, but steep fines are often attached, he said. For example, market reform violations carry a penalty of $100 per participant per day, up to $500,000 for each violation.
Employees Must Receive Notices
Some noteworthy penalties to avoid are those associated with the failure to provide required notices to plan participants, including a written notice of patient protections.
Lindgren said sometimes employers aren’t clear about who has been designated to provide this notice. “A lot of times the insurance company thinks the employer provided it and the employer thinks the insurance company did,” he said. “So it’s important to double check who is in fact giving the notice.”
Participants must also be provided with a summary of benefits and coverage in a standardized format. Lindgren likened this format to a nutrition label on a can of soup.
A participant should be able to easily compare the benefits to other plans, such as a spouse’s plan, just as the nutrition facts for two cans of soup can be easily compared.
There is a standardized template for the summary of benefits and coverage on the Department of Labor website.
The requirement to provide a summary of benefits and coverage applies to medical plans, but not to dental or vision plans.
The summary should be distributed at the time of open enrollment and special enrollments related to qualifying events, as well as at the request of participants and when a material modification has been made to the plan.
Although there is no penalty attached for noncompliance, employers must also provide written notice about the health insurance marketplace to new hires within 14 days of their start date.
This applies even for organizations that don’t offer benefits and even to those employees who aren’t eligible for benefits, Lindgren said.
There are some exceptions. For example, if an employer isn’t subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act, then it doesn’t have to provide the marketplace notice.
Exceptions for Grandfathered Plans
Grandfathered plans aren’t subject to some of the requirements under the ACA. This includes plans purchased on or before March 23, 2010, that haven’t made certain material changes.
Lindgren noted that employers with grandfathered plans must provide written notice to participants notifying them that it is a grandfathered plan and describing what that means for participants.
If participants aren’t provided this information, the plan will lose its grandfathered status, Lindgren said.
HR Takes the Lead
Benefits compliance isn’t just a human resources issue anymore, but HR often takes the lead in compliance efforts, according to Lindgren.
However, other departments, such as finance, legal and information technology, are increasingly getting more involved.
3 Key Takeaways of Designing Employee Benefits Programs
Original Post from BenefitsPro.com
By: Nate Randall
Throughout my career, I’ve had the good fortune to work for a variety of industry leading organizations from stratospheric startup Tesla Motors to Fortune 100s Safeway and Washington Mutual.
I planted myself knee deep in managing, analyzing, and creating everything related to employee benefits and have learned more than a few finer points along the way.
The common thread across these three companies was a genuine desire and drive to apply innovative, forward-thinking approaches to change and improve the way employee benefits are delivered.
I’ve reflected on my experiences to give you three takeaways that helped these companies make the biggest impact possible with their benefits and employee experience programs.
Innovation isn’t easy
Much has been written about long work hours. Stories abound of people sleeping in their cars or under their desks and subsisting on Top Ramen and frozen vegetables. That might exist for you at some point along the path, but that’s not the type of innovative environment that I’m talking about here. I am talking about an atmosphere that applies a conscious drive for change which can lead to meaningful acceptance of new ideas.
Whether you’re rethinking the value of the way health insurance is delivered to families or trying to disrupt a 100-year-old automotive industry, mindfully striving for innovation isn’t a cakewalk.
That’s because humans are programmed not to like change, and for many, working through innovation doesn’t come naturally. It takes a laser-focused and cognizant decision to examine the way things are traditionally or typically done. To do that, you’ll need to gather data, build a team, prove a case, influence, iterate, fail, and to achieve success, you’ll need to do all of these things quickly with minimal errors and missteps.
In my experience, it all comes down to the team that you surround yourself with. When hiring or building your team, I always advise to think creatively about your problems and look for passion in those you recruit. More important than having “done it before” is an intense drive to solve problems and an underlying interest in the core subject.
Early in my career at Tesla, an HR manager said to me, “there are three reasons people come to Tesla. Either they are passionate about cars, passionate about the environment, or passionate about their chosen profession. And Tesla is the best place in the world to be for all three of those things.” Notice there is nothing about money, benefits, or perks. That brings me to the second lesson I’ve learned..
Top talent doesn’t care about perks (until you take them away)
Rarely do candidates and their families make the decision to change their lives — in some cases moving across the country or world — because of the benefits and perks you offer.
Attracting top talent is about storytelling. It’s about having a mission and purpose that a person (and his or her family) can identify with through hard work. I have literally witnessed thousands of people join a common mission early on with little more than unlimited cereal and coffee being offered as the perk. And this was in the geographic backyard of arguably the most intense company perk culture on the planet in Silicon Valley. At the end of the day, people want to feel like they are contributing to something bigger than themselves.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to imply employees don’t care about the benefits offered to them. They must be satisfied knowing that the basics — health, disability, life insurance, and retirement — are covered. But in my experience, top talent doesn’t make the decision to join a company because of free lunches and massages on Wednesdays.
Keeping that in mind, it is extremely important to construct benefits and perks with care and thought. Once implemented, any experienced HR manager will tell you his or her sad tale of trying to take something away that people are accustomed to.
It’s also imperative to align benefits with perks. Trust me, employees notice if either appears alien to the company culture and mission. I learned this lesson at Safeway during a program that linked the amount of premium a person paid for health insurance to their biometric measures like blood pressure and cholesterol. Employees scratched their heads wondering why the company cafeteria featured cheap burgers and sodas in comparison to the healthy (but pricey) salad bar if poor eating habits could potentially equate to higher health insurance premiums. To promote the healthy lunch options, we had to align its costs with the culture we were trying to foster.
Silicon Valley has become legendary for perks and what many of my colleagues across the country consider frivolous and extravagant benefits. While I agree that many of the Valley’s largest and most iconic brands along with many wannabe cool kids are foolishly wasting time, resources, and money on programs that really do not serve any identifiable goal, I will argue that offering smartly aligned, personalized benefits and perks are the wave of the future. And that brings me to my third and final take-away...
Let the people choose
We have a lot of choice in our lives. We choose the items, price points, and brands to put into our carts when shopping at Safeway. Every Tesla purchase is made to order, built to the specific requirements of the buyer. Google organizes information to make it individualized and useful. Amazon provides a personalized online shopping experience. Uber and Airbnb tap into excess individual capacity in existing systems to create value. We all have different needs, priorities, family situations, and interests, so is it so difficult to offer benefits that can be personalized, too?
The traditional way of offering limited choice employee benefits and perks for everyone (i.e., group benefits) is outdated and bloated with waste. Upwards of 30 percent of compensation costs are funneled to these traditional benefits and American companies spend over a trillion and a half dollars on these inefficient benefits per year.
And that doesn’t even include any so-called perks. In my own research, most employers are paying anywhere from $7,000 to $25,000 per year for a single traditional benefits package. That’s a huge chunk of change and much of those benefits will never be used by the individual if it doesn’t apply to their situation or they find no personal value in it.
Instead of these antiquated and engorged traditional benefits, smart people are creating systems and methods whereby employees can build personalized benefits packages that meet individual needs and circumstances. Giving people the choice and ability to craft what they need can and will make a real difference in people’s daily lives.
Adoption by forward-leaning employers along with regulatory cooperation will finally result in a system for employee benefits and perks that is modern, flexible, and valued. A system that looks like the rest of our world: personalized.
Health Care Consumerism Is More Than A Benefit Design
Original Post from BeneftisPro.com
By: Steven Auerbach
The shift to health care consumerism is well underway. Trends continue to point to increased financial responsibility for consumers with rising deductibles, increased consumer out-of-pocket responsibilities, and accelerated adoption of consumer-directed health care plans (CDHPs), health savings accounts (HSAs), and other account-based benefit offerings.
According to Mercer, enrollment in CDHPs among large employers nearly doubled in the past three years from 15 percent to 28 percent of covered employees.
Employer adoption of these consumer-directed benefit designs will continue to grow for the foreseeable future, driven by the need for cost control, the impact of health care reform and the looming excise tax. The costs of providing health care continue to rise, surpassing $25,000 for an average family for the first time in 2016 (Milliman Medical Index).
However, the fact that the term “consumer-directed health care (CDH)” has become almost synonymous with CDHPs and HSAs is a bit of a misnomer. In reality, CDH is much more than a benefit design – it is a paradigm shift for how consumers must manage their health care and make health care decisions going forward.
Dimensions of consumer-directed health care
The underlying premise of CDH is that, if given more financial responsibility for health care and empowered to make informed decisions, consumers will make better choices – leading to improved health outcomes and decreased overall health care costs. Implicit in this definition are two equally important dimensions:
- Benefit designs that require increased consumer financial accountability
- Empowerment and engagement to support decision-making
The market has made considerable progress shifting to benefit models that increase consumer financial responsibility, as evidenced by the data above. While new plan designs have been created and successfully implemented, financial accountability is only the beginning— behavior must change too, not just costs. We have only just begun to unlock the second dimension of health care consumerism.
Giving somebody new responsibility without the education, tools and support to manage those responsibilities is like giving a teenager the keys to the car without teaching them to drive.
Unlocking consumer engagement
So where does the health care industry really stand in terms of engaging and empowering consumers to make better choices? The health care industry is still struggling to drive meaningful consumer engagement.
Consumer fluency is low. Alegeus research is clear that consumers still don’t have a good grasp on how the plans work, how to predict and manage out of pocket costs, how to determine coverage, etc. Engagement overall is low. The average consumer interacts with their health plan just one or two times per year – and more than 40 percent of members have never taken the time to log-on, dial-in, subscribe, or download any content from their benefit providers.
And in many cases, consumers are resistant to change. When asked whether they wanted to take a more active role in managing their health care, 50 percent said no thanks.
Employers are now spending nearly $700 per employee on various employee engagement programs related to health care, per Fidelity. There are more tools and resources than ever before. Yet most of these programs are delivered with a “one-size-fits-all” approach, and the consumer experience is still very fragmented.
However, by its very nature, CDH may be the key to unlocking consumer engagement. CDHP members are significantly more engaged than their counterparts in traditional coverage for one very important reason…
People pay attention to their money
According to our research, people enrolled in CDHPs scored universally higher on all measures of engagement. CDHP members:
- Are considerably more fluent in the details of health care coverage, costs and billing
- Are more value-conscious - 50 percent more likely to research and compare costs for health care purchases
- Interact more frequently– the average CDHP member interacts with their account 10-50 times per year
- Leverage available resources & channels - one-third more likely to consume content and engage with their benefit service providers through available channels
- Are more likely to participate - twice as likely to participate in employer engagement and wellness programs
Although CDHP members interact more frequently, the key to true engagement and behavior change is not just driving more interactions, it is driving strategic engagement that is targeted, timely and relevant.
Health & wealth must converge
The path to true, meaningful engagement in health care may lie in the convergence of these financial components with the traditional health care domain. No matter what age, health status, or consumer segment, the responsibility for managing finances and costs will become universal.
The convergence of claims, financial transactions and other behavioral and demographic data will provide a robust foundation for targeted engagement.
The fact that consumers pay closer attention to their finances presents a unique opportunity to tap into a captive audience with personalized offers, messages and value-added tools designed to improve engagement, influence behavior and enhance decision-making.
For the vision of consumer-directed health care to be fully realized, it is imperative that employers and benefit providers do not overlook the critical importance of education and targeted engagement to empower better decision making – and better outcomes for all stakeholders.
Core Benefits Drive Satisfaction More Than Niche Offerings
Original Post from SHRM.org
By: Stephen Miller
Improving traditional core benefits could be the best way to increase employees’ satisfaction with their rewards mix, new research suggests.
The three offerings with the greatest effect on how employees rate their benefits are health insurance, 401(k) retirement plans and vacation/paid time off. Among these, health insurance was by far the biggest driver of employee satisfaction, according to a new study, Which Benefits Drive Employee Satisfaction?, from Glassdoor Economic Research, the research arm of career website Glassdoor.
At organizations where employee ratings of the employer-provided health coverage increased by 1 star (out of 5), there was also a statistically significant increase in average employee satisfaction with the overall benefits package. (See graph above, from Glassdoor Economic Research. *Denotes that the increase in the overall benefits rating was statistically significant.)
Notably, 4 in 5 U.S. workers report they prefer new benefits or perks to a pay raise. This finding supports a recent Glassdoor survey that found health insurance, paid time off and 401(k) plans are among the top benefits employees would prefer over a pay increase.
Benefits with Narrower Appeal
Two benefits that did not seem to have a significant impact on overall employee satisfaction were maternity/paternity leave and employee discounts.
“Though many employers have added generous maternity/paternity leave plans, it is possible benefits that are not used by a large subset of employees do not impact overall benefits package satisfaction,” the researchers suggested.
“We know benefits and perks are an important recruiting tool in today’s challenging hiring landscape, and this study shows that the flashiest or trendy benefits aren’t always better,” said Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist of Glassdoor. “Investing in core benefits programs like health care coverage, retirement plans and paid time off will go far with new and current employees. Other benefits, like maternity/paternity leave, are important to recruit and retain smaller subsets of employees—like new parents—though we saw little impact on overall satisfaction related to benefits that don’t touch a wide variety of employees.”
He advised, “Employers who have well-rounded compensation plans that include core benefits, fair and competitive pay, and desirable perks stand to attract and retain top talent.”
A separate Glassdoor Economic Research study, The Best Industries for Benefits, found that the best benefits packages, according to employees, are found in the finance and technology industries.
Stephen Miller, CEBS, is an online editor/manager for SHRM. Follow him on Twitter @SHRMsmiller.
8 Common But Costly Benefits Communication Mistakes
Original Post from HRMorning.com
By: Tim Gould
Here are a few stats that really drive home just how critical benefits communication is for HR pros.
When employees that were offered rich employer benefits received poor communication, just 22% of those workers reported being satisfied with their benefits.
On the other hand, when employers with less-rich benefits communicated those benefits effectively, 76% of workers reported being satisfied with their employers’ benefit offerings.
These stats were part of a recent study by Towers Watson WorkUSA.
At the 2015 Mid-Sized Retirement & Healthcare Plan Management Conference in San Diego, Benefits Strategist Julie Adamik used those surprising stats as an opening to launch into a presentation about effective benefits communication.
What to avoid
During the presentation, Adamik covered some of the most common — and costly — benefits communication mistakes, which included:
1. Holding a boring benefits presentation. There’s a common misconception among workers that anything about benefits is going to be boring. But when HR pros don’t make the effort to make their benefits presentations interesting, the message is bound to be lost on employees.
2. Letting Legal draft all of your benefit communications. When employers let a legal department write all your benefits communications, there’s a very good chance the documents will be littered with legalese that confuses employees, bores them to the point of tuning out or both.
3. Not allotting enough of the budget to the benefits communications. Upper management often doesn’t have a handle on just how much solid benefits communications are going to cost — at least not in the same way HR does.
Benefits communication must be more detailed than standard inter-office communications, so it’s likely to take more time to prepare and produce.
4. Relying on workers will bring their benefits info home and discuss it with their family members.Effective benefits communication should always try to include spouses and family members.
5. Assuming employees will simply act on the messages in the benefit communications. It’s up to HR to specifically tell staffers what they should do with the benefits info as well as why.
6. Thinking workers will read their open enrollment materials cover to cover on their own time. The more HR can go over during the actual open enrollment meeting, the better. Of course, enrollment time shouldn’t be the only time benefits info should be addressed. Communication should be a year-long process.
7. Opting for “professional-sounding” language instead of simple “plain-speak” English. Sure, HR pros’ world is filled with jargon, buzzwords and benefits-related acronyms, but rank-and-file employees’ worlds are not. Keep the benefit communications as simple as possible.
8. Covering too much info. It’s only natural to try and cram everything possible into your open enrollment materials, but when there’s just too much being thrown at employees, they suffer from information overload — and retain little (if any) of what was covered.
Remember, continuous education is a proven way to improve employees’ decision-making regarding their benefits, which should be the goal of every communication effort..
Adapted from “Effective Benefit Communications” by Julie Adamik, CEBS, CCP, CBP, as presented at the 2015 Mid-Sized Retirement & Healthcare Plan Management Conference in San Diego.
4 keys to picking the right benefits admin system
Original Post by HRMorning.com
By: Jared Bilski
With HR departments at small companies stretched so thin (many times one staffer handles all of HR), it’s no surprise many small companies are using benefits administration systems for their needs. But with new software vendors popping up every day, how do HR pros find the right system?
At the Dig|Benefits Conference in Austin, TX, Joshua N. Jeffries, a partner with Arkin Youngentob Associates, LLC, outlined the four most important steps small employers should take when selecting an “efficient, cost-effective” benefits administration system:
Selection checklist
Step 1: Define your needs. What are you looking for in a benefits administration system? This step needs to go beyond HR and incorporate all departments within the company. Jeffries reminded HR pros that Benefits has one of the top Profit/Loss (P/L) line items for most businesses. Any soft-dollar spending in this area needs to be justified in your compensation plans.
Step 2: Evaluate your vendor. With the sheer number of vendors out there, this step can seem a bit daunting. But the process is much less intimidating when HR pros break it down into small questions.
Examples: What type of back-end customer support do I need? Is it broker-friendly — in other words, will most brokers be able to use the system easily and effectively? Does the system account for all ACA and other federal and state regs? Does the system offer a mobile component? Does the data make it home? If the system is giving employees easy access to their benefits, it should offer a mobile component for spouses and dependents. After all, most families use smartphones for virtually everything.
Step 3: Understand the implementation process. Obviously, you’ll want the system to be as accurate as possible, so you’ll want to do your homework and find out any vendors with less-than-stellar track records in this area. You’ll also want to find out if the system updates automatically or if that’s a separate undertaking.
Step 4: Change your culture. For many employees, any type of change is difficult. If your benefits administration system alters the way people are used to doing things, which it most likely will, you have to account for that — and find ways to make sure the new system can positively impact your company’s culture. Here, Jeffries lauded the use of employee committees as a means to educate staffers on how everything works and all that workers can get from a new system.
Based on “Platform Power — Solving Ben Admin For Small Businesses,” by Joshua N. Jeffries, as presented at the Dig|Benefits Conference in Austin, TX.