Workforce Obesity: What Can You Do?
| Source: https://safetydailyadvisor.blr.com
What can you do to help workers maintain a healthy weight and keep your bottom line healthy at the same time? Read about a company that's helping its workers lose tons of weight. |
| Employees of Health Care Services Corporation (HCSC) lost more than 53,000 pounds last year. HCSC is the owner and operator of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.
According to Senior Vice President Dr. Paul Handel, that amount tops the company’s 20-ton weight-loss goal. A robust wellness program including fitness centers, classes, and healthy cafeteria food are part of the solution. "Many employers have viewed wellness programs as a nice extra when times are flush," says Handel. "We believe that the obesity epidemic and the rising toll of diabetes now make them a strategic imperative." Financial incentives are an important part of the HCSC strategy. In addition to tying wellness to annual bonuses, the company offers employees additional incentives of up to $200 a year for taking an annual wellness exam and logging their physical activity. Great news! BLR's renowned Safety.BLR.com® website now has even more timesaving features.
Other StrategiesThe key to achieving and maintaining a healthy weight, says the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), isn't about short-term dietary changes. It's about a lifestyle that includes: · Healthy eating; · Regular physical activity; and · Balancing the number of calories consumed with the number of calories the body uses. According to CDC the first step in maintaining a healthy weight is to look at the current situation. Body Mass Index (BMI) is one way to measure weight. BMI calculations are based on height and weight: · A BMI of 18.5 signifies being underweight. · The range between 18.5 and 24.4 is considered to be a normal weight. · The range between 24.5 and 29.9 is considered to be overweight. · A BMI between 30 and 40 is considered to be obese. · BMI of 40 and greater is considered to be morbid or extreme obesity. Your employees can calculate their BMI by going to |
Happy Hour at Work?
June 4, 2012
By Denis Storey
Source: benefitspro.com
The headline that jumped off my iPad this morning was all I needed to see: “Is beer in the workplace an employee benefit?”
I jumped to my feet with my hands in the air like I was back in church.
Then I slumped back down. In this compliance-heavy era, where lawsuits are more common than doctors’ notes, how was this even possible?
But the blogger – Carol Harnett over at Human Resource Executive – went on to elaborate this stemmed from a panel discussion she’d hosted on wellness with Mark Torres, senior vice president of people and culture at The Rubicon Project. Shortly after joining the company, he polled his work force about their benefits, “which resulted in a strong staff request to retain the 24/7 beer refrigerator on the premises under the category of ‘the one thing we shouldn’t change.’”
Harnett touches on some other companies whose wellness programs venture into the progressive, to say the least.
(I’m kinda partial to Hulu’s, where their wellness plan amounts to an annual $700 check for each employee to spend any way they like to improve their own performance. But then I end up right back at the beer.)
My wife just got a new job. They apparently have these “Wellness Rooms,” where employees can go take a nap – presumably alone. Oh, and they have a “snow fairy,” an anonymous Samaritan who makes sure all the cars are cleared at the end of any our snowy Colorado workdays. And keep in mind: this isn’t some tech startup. She works for an 80-plus-year-old trade association.
My first thought – after asking about job openings – was how do you tell the difference between a perk and a benefit these days? Or is there one anymore? And where do wellness programs fit in to all of this?
Then it occurred to me we’re watching the slow, sometimes clumsy evolution of employee wellness. Many companies are getting it: that it goes far beyond gyms or smoking cessation programs. It’s about more than reducing claims or cutting costs. Simply put, it’s about getting (and keeping) happy, healthy employees. So how do you get there – booze, dark rooms or by just cutting a check?
And I think that the employers who take more of a holistic – if sometimes out-of-the-box – approach to wellness (and benefits in general) are the ones who are not only going to hang on to the best talent as we fight out way out of this economic malaise, but they’ll be far better positioned to attract the next generation of employees who live their entire lives out of the box.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m sleepy and I need a drink.
Labor Power Softens But Still Lingers
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's recent recall-election victory over a union-backed opponent may serve as another black eye for the U.S. labor unions. But employers shouldn't consider unions down for the count, experts say.
Walker, who defeated Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett , had been strongly opposed by the state's public-sector unions because of his support of a bill that curtailed collective bargaining rights.
Walker's win followed a recent federal ruling that threw out a National Labor Relations Board rule that would have allowed for faster votes on union elections, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Unions historically have a much higher success rate in elections if the vote is held 15 days or less after the request, according to a Bloomberg Government report.
For unions, the recent events add to a growing trend of decline in membership and influence.
"[Unions] have declined to the point of irrelevance in most workplaces," Peter Cappelli of The Wharton School told Human Resource Executive Online. "They are having a hard time hanging onto whatever [contract] arrangements they have."
Government statistics back up Cappelli's view. Slightly more than 20 percent of U.S. workers belonged to unions in 1983, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. By 2011, that number had shrunk to 11.8 percent, according to HREO.
As union power wanes, labor leaders in Wisconsin worry that Walker will push for legislation that would make Wisconsin join 23 other states as a "right-to-work" state, which would bar employers from agreeing to contracts with unions that force employees to join the organization, according to The Capital Times of Madison, Wis.
Still, unions continue to carry political weight, Cappelli noted.
"There are still, in absolute terms, a lot of people who are union members -- so they have feet on the ground," Cappelli told HREO. "They can run voter-registration drives, and they can help get out the vote -- so they will still be a force in the election."
The days of powerful unions dictating terms to employers -- public or private -- however, may be at an end, he said.
"Unless the political climate in the U.S. changes quite radically, it's hard to imagine any scenarios where this turns around," Cappelli said.
What’s the Difference between Performance & Proficiency?
By Mykkah Herner, MA, CCP, Compensation Consultant at PayScale.com
Here at PayScale, we often talk about compensation philosophies answering 3 main questions:
- How do you define your market?
- How competitive do you want to be relative to the market?
- What do you want to reward?
In working with clients, I find they know the answers to the first two questions within a heartbeat. The third question, however, often leads them to stumble and to look to me for guidance. What are the options? What should we reward? At that point, I have to dig in deeper to their organization.
There’s no single right answer for what companies *should* reward. In some orgs, there will be just one thing to reward, in some it will be a combination of factors. At a time when most companies are focused on pay-for-performance, I want to explore this third question a bit further.
What do you want to reward?
Performance
Ultimately, for me, it will always come down to some variant of performance. If your employees aren’t going above and beyond, exceeding expectations most of the time, it’s likely that your organization will stagnate. Stagnation is close to death in a highly competitive environment. The number one question I ask myself when defining a compensation strategy is how am I going to motivate employees to perform? In measuring performance, it is about setting clear expectations, in the form of metrics, for what it looks like to excel and then following up on those expectations.
Proficiency
What’s the difference between performance and proficiency anyway? I see proficiency as one’s ability to perform the tasks required to do the job, having the right skill-set, etc. Performance refers to how well one performs those required tasks, exceeding expectations vs. meeting expectations, and so on. I know that’s simplistic, but breaking it down to that level helps me then think about how I might measure proficiency. Some measures for proficiency include checking that one has skills and ensuring that tasks have been completed.
Tenure
The average tenure in my parents’ generation was 5+ years. My generation can boast a meager 3 years. The average tenure in newer generations to the workforce can be measured in months, not years (usually 12-18, according to one researcher). With that in mind, rewarding tenure can sometimes be helpful to the continuity of your organization, but it still may not be the right motivator for performance. You may have better luck achieving continuity through structural means rather than through compensation.
Other options?
There are plenty of options besides the big three listed above. For some, it will make sense to reward certain skills. I’ve worked with clients who couldn’t get by without their technical staff. For them, targeting a higher percentile for their technical staff was crucial to accomplishing their business goals. For other clients, security clearances are a hot commodity. You know what’s important to your organization. Put your money where your priorities are.
Remember, you don’t have to reward all things equally. You may decide that you want to tie a large part of your compensation to performance, but still give token acknowledgments for proficiency and tenure. But be sure to keep it simple. Explain it easily and succinctly – and maybe you will avoid a few headaches for your payroll team.
Whatever you decide, live it as an organization. Make sure your managers and leaders buy in to your decision around what to reward. Explain your philosophy to your staff so they are clear about what’s important to your organization. And, as with all policy decisions, once you decide what you want to reward, stick to it.
Employees Placing Greater Reliance on Benefits
By Brian M. Kalish
Tough times have employees placing greater reliance on benefits for financial security, as employers affirm their commitment to sponsoring those benefits albeit with increased cost sharing.
That’s one upshot from the 10th Annual MetLife Annual Study of Employee Benefits Trends released Monday. It found that since 2002 employer’s top benefits objectives -- controlling costs, attracting and retaining employees and increased productivity – have remained fairly constant. However, some delivery aspects have changed, such as the growth of auto-enrollment features in 401(k) plans. For advisers, the trends seem to point toward stable expenditures for core benefits, but greater funding from employees, including voluntary benefit purchases.
Nearly half of the 1,412 employees surveyed said that, because of the economy, they are counting on their employer to help them achieve financial security through employee benefits such as disability and life insurance and health.
For younger generations, that number is even higher. More than half (55%) of Gen X and two-thirds of Gen Y workers said economic pressures leave them counting on employers’ benefits program to help with their financial projection needs, according to the study, presented by MetLife’s National Medical Director Dr. Ron Leopold, an EBA Advisory Board member, at a MetLife Symposium in Washington.
Employers say they are hearing these concerns and rising to the challenge. Regardless of company size, of all companies surveyed, only 10% said they planned to reduce their benefits.
“The workplace has changed rather dramatically over the last decade since MetLife began doing its annual study,” says Anthony Nugent, executive vice president of MetLife. “Ten years ago, many Baby Boomers were planning to retire at age 65, Gen Y workers were just entering the workplace, and communication vehicles like Facebook and Twitter didn’t exist.”
As employees rely more on benefits, they are willing to bear most of the cost of them. Of surveyed Gen X and Gen Y employees, 62% said they are willing to bear more of the cost of their benefits rather than lose them.
And that may happen. While a third of employees believe their employer is likely to soon cut benefits, 70% of surveyed employers said they intend to maintain their current level of employee benefits. However, 30% will do this by shifting costs to employees. Some 57%, are interested in a wider array of voluntary benefits offered by their employer, as compared to 43% of Baby Boomers. The study also found that employers recognize this interest as 62% of employers agree that in the next five years employee-paid benefits will become a more important strategy than they are today.
With the ever-changing benefit landscape, loyalty continued to fall. Only half (42%) of employees feel a strong sense of loyalty to their employer, a seven-year low. Conversely, 59% of employers said they feel a very strong sense of loyalty to employees. One in three people would like to work for a different employer in 2012, but that number climbs to one in two for Gen Y employees.
Employers Continue to Look for Savings
The recent trend of shifting more health care and benefit costs to employees is showing no signs of letting up, according to new industry research.
A survey displayed that 22 percent of employers had medical deductibles of at least $1,000 this year for in-network services for their most popular plans, according to a report in Business Insurance, compared with just 8 percent in 2008. Twice as many employers (44 percent) imposed that deductible level on out-of-network services this year, the survey found.
"The biggest change in the past two years has been the increase in cost sharing with employees," said Michael Thompson, a principal. "Employers have been careful not to shift premium costs to employees, but have decided that the better way to shift costs is to require those who use health care services to pay more."
A separate report by Milliman also points to an increase in cost sharing in PPO family plans. According to Healthcare Town Hall, a website sponsored by Milliman, the survey found that the average premium cost of those plans this year increased $1,319, or 7.3 percent. Of the total cost increase, employers paid $641, while workers picked up the rest, totaling an increase of $275 in additional cost sharing and an additional $403 in payroll contributions..
Many employers, however, are searching for solutions beyond deductible increases. More employers -- especially midsize companies -- are turning to voluntary benefits to reduce their burden while still offering valuable benefits to their employees, according to a new LIMRA study. While employers traditionally have used voluntary benefits as a morale booster, nearly 80 percent of polled employers said they are most interested in voluntary worksite benefits because they bring no direct costs to their business, an onlinePLANSPONSOR news report noted. Two-thirds said they offer such benefits because it boosts their overall benefits package and allows workers to receive services cheaper than if they tried to buy coverage in the marketplace.
Although the trend of cost sharing is growing, U.S. workers are starting to see improvements in their overall compensation, which is creeping back toward pre-recession levels, according to a recent survey published on the Society for Human Resource Management's website. Only 9 percent of polled employers still have a pay freeze in place - down from 48 percent in mid-2010. More companies also are restarting bonus programs in an effort to retain top talent, the survey said.
Voluntary benefits can help contain company costs
To recap a previous blog post before jumping straight in to the questions: Voluntary benefit plans help employers round out their employee benefit offerings amid cutbacks in company-paid core health care, allowing employers to provide employees with additional benefits without bearing the weight of increasing cost pressures. These optional benefits can serve as value-added tools to help attract and retain top talent. Employees often pay 100 percent of the premium on these voluntary benefits through payroll deduction. Many of these benefits can be offered to family and friends as well. It's up to the employee; it's their money, and it's not costing the employer anything.
How can companies determine if adding a voluntary benefit program is the right choice for them?
They have to look at the true cost of running a company. Adding a voluntary benefit program can help offset those costs for them. Many companies are looking to ways to cut costs in the health insurance arena. It is extremely costly to maintain these major benefits. Often, what these companies are doing, ultimately, is passing those costs on to their employees.
Most voluntary benefit programs will help reduce that cost to employees because of the unique system of these benefits. If employers decide to lower their cost of mandatory benefits by passing some of that cost on to their employees, the employees can then offset those costs by participating in, for example, auto and home insurance programs saving them money over the traditional coves they would shop on their own.
What should companies look for in a voluntary benefit program?
You want to choose a company that can provide access to a variety of types of voluntary coverage and choice for your employees in the plans available. The last thing you would want to do is to present a variety of new benefits to your employees, only to have them ultimately be confused about the different types of coverage, from different sources and the costs of each one. You will want to work with a company that can provide a powerful, effective and simple voluntary benefits package that will be communicated clearly to your employees to achieve the highest level of participation and acknowledgement of the added perks.
What is the benefit of having several policies within the same voluntary benefit package?
Simply put, the renewal process for any benefit plan can be extensive to research and implement at the term of each and every policy, not to mention having to do that multiple times across multiple carriers for multiple plans. That is a huge migraine in the making just thinking about it! By having your plan developed and presented in a unified way to your employees, you will not only save administrative costs communicating these benefits, but you will also save time and money when it comes time to renew.
If you have additional voluntary benefit questions, please do not hesitate to contact our office to learn more!
Employers Get Creative with Tight Budgets....
Voluntary benefits are on the rise, but why is that the trend we are seeing? The economy is in recovery, but it is and will continue to be a slow climb up a very tall mountain. Company belts have not loosened and with the overall impact of healthcare reform still uncertain, it still may be quite some time before they let those belts out a notch or two.
According to HR Daily Report, this is why more employers are looking at Voluntary Benefits as a lower-cost incentive to attract new and retain existing talent. Employers are taking to offering employees everything from auto and home insurance to legal plans or even pet insurance. All of these being growing trends in employers looking to stay competitive. That's the assertion at a recent presentation at the 2011 Health Care Benefits NY conference. Outlined in the course of that presentation was a list of the most popular group voluntary benefits, now and in the future.
Most popular now included:
- life insurance
- disability (long and short-term plans), and
- vision plans
- long-term care
- legal plans, and
- auto and home insurance
- Because it provides protection against lost income, disability insurance (short and long-term) is perhaps the most popular voluntary benefit today.
- The financial security afforded by life insurance makes it an especially popular voluntary benefit in uncertain economic times. While term life is still most prevalent, a "fight to qualify" among employers and employees is making permanent life insurance more popular.
- Voluntary dental insurance holds great appeal to both employees and employers because you can design plans so that it is not very expensive.
- Relatively new among voluntary benefits, supplemental limited-benefit plans that provide a set dollar amount per day for hospital stays are gaining popularity, as are gap insurance policies that pay a certain amount up to a deductible.
- More targeted in their coverage, but also appealing, especially to small businesses with high-deductible plans, are supplemental accident insurance and critical illness insurance.