Taking an unconventional approach to wellness planning
Benefits managers often find themselves stranded in no-man’s land when it comes to bringing wellness to a workplace. As a concept, wellness is a thriving and transformative experience for many employers, but justifying those costs – or adopting a wait-and-see attitude to measuring a wellness program’s success – is a difficult case to make with a company’s financial decision-makers.
In tracing the wellness success story of Elkay Manufacturing – whose wellness program saw a 76% reduction in major health issues among staff most likely to incur substantial health care costs, not to mention a projected increase in 2015 health care premiums limited to just 1.8% - some of the secret may lie in the unconventional approach taken by the company’s wellness champion.
Carol Partington, corporate manager of compensation and benefits with the 3,000-employee maker of sinks and water coolers – speaking at last week’s EBN Benefits Forum and Expo – said her company’s unimpressive early results with wellness required her to take a more straight-forward tack.
“You need to get leadership support to create an effective program, but you also don’t want to scare the hell out of senior management,” Partington says. “My approach was, ‘I know where I’m going, I’m just not telling everyone where we’re going yet.’ You also can’t be too aggressive; you need to put disciplined steps in place, and be willing to be flexible.”
And while most company executives need to be shown the hard facts before committing to any additional wellness spend, Partington says she simply admitted to her company’s leaders – a business founded in 1920 – that return on investment is often impossible to demonstrate in a wellness effort, opting to emphasize value of the investment instead. Rogue as that may seem, Elkay’s current wellness results – and its low anticipated health care cost increases – earned her the respect of her managerial team.
“We have a company that’s 70% manufacturing workers, in 15 locations across the country, two of which are unionized, and I don’t get a lot of time with people,” she notes. “But my job is to remove distractions from our employees’ lives – we work in a setting where people can lose body parts if they’re worried about their own health, their parents, their sick kids. How can I give them a solution that works?”
Elkay first adopted biometric testing-based wellness in 1994, offering a $25 incentive to employees to participant, but Partington says that the company so almost no results after 12 years, with the company still paying approximately $23 million a year on its employee health care plan. Partington said a high-deductible plan never fit into Elkay’s culture, and costs continued to escalate. Evan a $700 premium differential for employees who demonstrated better health results wasn’t the answer, she says.
“We asked our employees why they took part in the health screenings, and most said they were doing it just to get the premium. I realized we’d failed in our mission,” she notes. “And with no dedicated wellness staff at our company, wellness is only 15% of what I can pay attention to – it’s one of my many responsibilities.”
Partington opted to join forces with Interactive Health to introduce an evidence-based program that could seriously improve her employees’ health, especially those with the most potential health risks, as well as actively addressing those escalating health plan costs. The use of aggregated health data was instrumental in finding some customized solutions for workers.
She says it was also critical to match any incentive programs to company culture, a task somewhat more difficult as Elkay has manufacturing sites in more than a dozen very different and often remote parts of the country. In some rural sites, hunting and fishing licenses were seen as extremely valuable commodities, or even Jiffy Lube coupons for oil changes.
Partington also shied away from gamification efforts, given employees’ limited access to email and smartphones, and also did not establish fitness challenges as a company-wide initiative. She says she also had to be mindful of other cultural differences: Championing the company’s successful tobacco-cessation efforts at a manufacturing site in the middle of tobacco-growing country, where employees’ spouses and families were often employed in that business, required a bit of extra sensitivity.
In the end, by personalizing the incentives and communication, Elkay has created an almost $1,200 differential in its better-health insurance rates, resulting in a 20% savings. Of 636 employees tracked with a litany of five serious current or potential health indicators, Elkay produced a 76% reduction in those health issues. And 77% of employees taking part in more personalized health tracking met their personal health goal in the second year of the enhanced program.
“Change is hard,” Partington says. “So you gotta talk a lot.”
Workforce participation: Entering later, staying longer
Originally posted October 3, 2014 by Nick Otto on https://ebn.benefitnews.com.
Retirement patterns are changing globally. As a result, providing employees greater retirement security and financial literacy can help employers cultivate a less stressed, healthier and more engaged workforce.
To fend off employee concerns about retirement savings, Shane Bartling, a senior retirement consultant at Towers Watson, says benefits managers should work to use impactful approaches to set smart retirement savings habits.
“Showing employees the age when their resources will maintain their lifestyle [and their] financial independence, provides a clear, personal and emotional motivation to save,” he says. That pre-retirement sweet spot, which the consultant firm dubs “the FiT Age,” can be reinforced with “emotionally impactful, personalized communications to drive behaviors, since auto-enrollment and auto-escalation may fall well short of what is needed.”
During the mid-to-late 20th century, labor force participation rates dropped for older workers and rose for younger ones. These trends have recently reversed, especially among men and younger workers.
More recently, a chart from the Senate Budget Committee shows that almost 1 in 4 Americans in their prime working years, between the ages of 25-54, are not working which could drastically affect changes in how and when an employee can eventually retire.
The trend of longer working careers is expected to continue, possibly even intensifying, according to recent Towers Watson survey results. On the other hand, those who are unemployed today require more and more education, resulting in many young adults putting off a potential job in favor of additional education. Typically, employees delay or take a break from labor force participation by spending more time in school.
Meanwhile, to assist employees to build better saving habits, Bartling advises that employers educate the advantages of increased tax efficiencies for workers which would provide for a stronger retirement. “Tax treatment of Social Security and post-retirement medical premiums makes Roth 401(k) and health savings accounts highly attractive for many workers, including [those in] middle income levels; tax efficiency alone may pay for a year of retirement,” he says.
“The risk of a workforce that is stuck, due to employee retirement financial shortfalls, merits re-examining how benefits are delivered,” he adds. “Evaluate the business case for more efficient retirement benefit delivery,” adding that just matching contributions may not be the most efficient way to deliver benefits.
5 root causes of disengagement
Originally posted on https://ebn.benefitnews.com.
The one-size-fits-all communications approach is ending, but employee engagement is still an issue for many employers. Alison Davis, of employee communication firm Davis & Company, identified five root causes of deteriorating engagement, which she shared with attendees at this year’s Benefits Forum & Expo.
Since the recession, employees are losing confidence in the security of their jobs. Workers feel there has been a shift and that employers are holding more of the cards. According to Gallup, the number of actively disengaged workers increased to 24% in organizations that have recently laid off employees. Additionally, Towers Watson notes that 72% of companies have reduced their workforce in response to the recession.
According to Towers Watson, fewer than two in five employees have confidence in senior leaders. People are skeptical and often have a wait-and-see attitude to what leaders have to say. Employees are saying “let’s wait and see what really happens,” Davis says.
Another, and probably the biggest, challenge revolves around the different attitudes of the three primary generations in today’s workforce, says Davis. Baby boomers are burnt out and display a negative attitude in their exchanges with co-workers; Gen Xers are balancing work and home life responsibilities; Millennials have an “all about me” attitude and are somewhat impatient about moving up (or across) the corporate ladder. The average length of tenure out one job for a millennial is 2.6 years, and by the age of 27 they will have already worked four different jobs.
Employers are trapped in a 1950s mindset. This can be seen in the organizational charts that show a top-down hierarchy. The decision-making is done at the top, and general access to information is scarce, even as corporate leaders talk about transparency.
We’re in a 24/7/365 mindset where an employee is always on the job. Employees never feel quite done or that they can ever shut it down, which affects their work-life balance and causes them to feel disengaged.
7 ways to keep your sanity during open enrollment
Originally posted on https://ebn.benefitnews.com.
‘Tis the open enrollment season in the benefits world. For many benefit managers, that means stress, panic and very long days (and nights). But there are ways to make this time of year less frantic and more productive.
HR cannot run open enrollment in a vacuum. So lean on consultants and communication pros to craft your messaging. Turn to senior leaders for top-down messaging on why changes are happening. Bring in your benefit vendors to explain the impact of changes and walk employees through the enrollment process. Like many things, open enrollment takes a village, so use yours.
Few things can set off a fire drill like systems crashing and just plain misbehaving – especially with online enrollment. Get ahead of the game by partnering with IT to determine how people will enroll, how data will be handled and how it needs to flow between departments (like HR and payroll). Map out contingency plans and decide who will be on point if things go awry.
Be straight-up with employees about what’s changing, why and what they need to do. No spin. No sugar. If you’re making significant plan changes this year, use personas to help people understand how this will affect them. And provide decision guides that walk them through all the variables (particularly deductibles, co-payments, HSA contributions, covered services and provider network details) so they can make the best choice for themselves and their families.
We all put a ton of blood, sweat and tears into benefit planning and open enrollment communications – so much so, that it can become a bit of a one-way street. Keep in mind that this is a time when employees are sitting up straight and paying attention. Ask for their feedback. How do they feel about what’s changing? The benefits overall? Why? What could be done differently? Whether you’re talking with employees at a town hall, engaging with them over social media or asking for their honest responses to a survey, really listen to what they have to say, thoughtfully respond and act on their feedback as much as you can.
We know – right now, it’s all you can do to stay focused on the enrollment at hand. But it’s less daunting than it sounds: what we’re suggesting is that you take employee feedback and lessons learned from this enrollment period and start compiling them for next year. That might be possible benefit changes, new benefits to add or ways to communicate differently. You know what they say about the early bird … and in this case, the sooner you nail down what 12 months from now looks like, the more proactive (and effective) you’ll be when it comes to next year’s systems and communications.
Why not make open enrollment fun – and an opportunity to earn points and prizes? Launch an Open Enrollment Challenge and reward employees for taking various actions, like attending an open enrollment info session, updating beneficiary details and enrolling by a certain date. Or plan an Open Enrollment Walk, where people can head out for a stroll with HR and colleagues, giving them an opportunity to ask benefit questions along the way (and make time afterward too).
Although you may feel like you just don’t have time to take a break, right now you need it more than ever. Along with those enrollment meetings, town halls, social media replies and survey reviews, block time for yourself on the calendar. Go for a run, head out for a relaxing healthy lunch, read a great book, meditate, take a yoga class – whatever makes you happy and keeps you sane.
Employers face crackdown over worker misclassification
Originally posted September 29, 2014 by Michael Giardina on https://ebn.benefitnews.com.
Since the onset of the recession, there has been a surge in worker misclassification litigation and enforcement against employers that are trying to effectively manage their finances, but are incorrectly classifying their workers. There is also concern around the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate, which may make misclassifications a tempting alternative to offering group health coverage.
The Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue oversee the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which establishes minimum wage and overtime pay standards and how much private and public employers should pay their employees. At the state level, there are also a slew of regulations that can make any HR professional or benefit plan sponsor concerned.
Linda Doyle, trial partner at international law firm McDermott Will & Emery, says many employers with large teams of individuals in one category – such as trainers in the tech world or sales representatives in product and promotion businesses – have asked how they could come under the ACA’s coverage limits. This has been an area she’s been docking a lot of analysis in.
“There are benefits, but there are also huge costs and potential liabilities if you get this wrong,” says Doyle. “You know saving health insurance money is a way to avoid the teeth of the Affordable Care Act; it may be a laudable goal, but you may be just putting off extensive liability down the line.”
It doesn’t help that many employers are still trying to climb out from the recession.
“Particularly after the last recession, which I think we are technically are still in, there was a lot of headcount management,” Doyle explains. While noting that “‘temporary’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘independent contractor’, or ‘work-from-home’ doesn’t mean ‘independent contractor’,” she says “there are really some employers that just don’t understand this is a category – even if the employee or individual agrees to it.”
Nancy Vary, director of the Knowledge Resource Center for Buck Consultants at Xerox, explains the ACA, and employee benefits needs in general, is an influence in these decisions.
“It all factors in, because if you’re an independent contractor, typically you’re not in a situation where you will not be receiving any kind of employee benefit,” Vary says.
In 2012, the National Employment Law Project stated that 10-30% of employers, or even more, misclassify their employees as independent contractors. This equates to millions of misclassifications and billions in revenue losses for state and federal governments. Because employers with independent contractors or other exempt employees are not tied to benefit and payments requirements levied by federal, state and local agencies, this is the conundrum, says Jeff Phelps, chief operating officer at Nelson Compliance, a consultant firm that helps employers figure out their contingent workforces.
“The problem is with independent contractors is, of course, employers are not contributing to the tax base for those individuals,” says Phelps. “That’s the No. 1 driver, that’s why you see the legislation and regulation getting tougher and more enforcement. They want to go after the misclassification issue, because they want to recover taxes that have not been made as well as [future] taxes.”
Phelps adds that typical employee protections afforded to employees such as the FLSA, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Family and Medical Leave Act are not offered to independent contractors.
The current severity of misclassification cases and costs, which employment lawyers will tell you rival what was seen in the dot-com era – especially after Microsoft agreed to pay the IRS $97 million to settle a benefits suit that included its independent contractors that were not allowed access to the company’s stock purchase plan.
“If you are an employer and you get this wrong, you have tax liability,” says Doyle. “You also have the problem that Microsoft faced years ago, if you call someone an independent contractor but they are really an employee, and your benefit plans give employees certain buckets of benefits, then you owe them those benefits.”
Under Employee Retirement Income Security Act plans, or state insurance plans, employees cannot waive their rights to benefits, says Doyle, even if they agreed to the exemption. She says a lot of employers rewrote their benefits plans in order to address the issue. But now, as 10 states enacted worker misclassification laws in 2012 and more than 14 regions did so in 2013 – including the District of Columbia – the topic is top of mind for employers.
Meanwhile, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014, enacted in January, was authorized for just this purpose and the DOL has plans to award $10.2 million to fund worker misclassification detection and enforcement activities in 19 state unemployment insurance programs. “This is one of the many actions the department is taking to help level the playing field for employers while ensuring workers receive appropriate rights and protections,” says Thomas E. Perez, the U.S. secretary of labor.
“The DOL has engaged in quite a bit of outreach over the best few years but its focus in many respects has been on educating the workers, educating the employees and providing them assistance in filing complaints,” says Buck Consultants at Xerox’s Vary. But, “you get a sense where the DOL’s head is, and that’s not that different from many government agencies. They are, after all, in the enforcement business.”
Because each state regulation may vary, with some state laws being more strict than those at the federal level, Phelps says the independent contractor classifications, and misclassifications in general, are being labeled as “an unfair business practice.”
“All of those costs that an employer would have satisfy within the W-2, they don’t have to satisfy as a 1099,” Phelps explains.
But all employers want to know whether there will be some reprieve or clarification. According to Doyle, the DOL’s broad strokes of intervention, essentially audit programs and education programs, may help some uninformed organizations. Meanwhile, Vary adds that compliance audit of pay practices and time sheets can help employers skirt some of the liability going forward.
Because misclassifications are neither a function of HR departments or upper management, it’s a puzzle that has not been solved and will likely not be for a while, Phelps says.
“I don’t see anything coming down in terms of regulation that’s going to make this simpler,” says Phelps, who has spent more than 30 years in the human capital management industry. “All we’re seeing is greater enforcement.”
Nearly One in Four Employers Say Private Health Insurance Exchanges Could Provide a Viable Alternative for Full-Time Active Employees in 2016
Originally posted September 25, 2014 on https://www.insurancebroadcasting.com.
ARLINGTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Results of a July 2014 survey of midsize to large employers by global professional services company Towers Watson (NYSE, NASDAQ:TW) showed that 28% said they had already extensively evaluated the viability of private exchanges. Nearly one in four (24%) said private exchanges could provide a viable alternative for their active full-time employees as soon as 2016.
“Private exchanges are a relatively new path for many employers — one that has only recently become available to provide benefits for active employees”
The results are from the 2014 Towers Watson Health Care Changes Ahead Survey, which was completed by 379 employee benefit professionals from a variety of industries and reflect health care benefit decisions for 2016 – 2017.
The survey also revealed that the top three factors that would cause employers to adopt a private exchange for full-time active employees are:
Evidence they can deliver greater value than their current self-managed model (64%)
Adoption of private exchanges by other large companies in their industry (34%)
An inability to stay below the excise tax ceiling as 2018 approaches (26%)
Public Exchanges Not Considered Viable for Full-Time Active Employees
In contrast, nearly all employers surveyed (99.5%) said they have no plan to exit health benefits for active employees and direct them and their families to public exchanges, with or without a financial subsidy. More than three out of four employers (77%) said they are not at all confident public exchanges will provide a viable alternative for their active full-time employees in 2015 or 2016.
“Private exchanges are a relatively new path for many employers — one that has only recently become available to provide benefits for active employees,” said Dave Osterndorf, a managing director with Towers Watson’s OneExchange. “However, with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s excise tax top of mind for large employers, and with the potential to cost companies billions of dollars unless they act now to keep the cost of health benefits below government-mandated thresholds in 2018 and beyond, new solutions are necessary. Even employers that have managed to keep increases in their health care benefit costs lower than industry averages are working very hard to maintain that success. Private exchanges offer employers a new opportunity to save on health care coverage with a reduced operational burden, which is the main reason they are more seriously evaluating them for their active employees.”
Data from the 2014 Towers Watson Health Care Changes Ahead Survey revealed that nearly three-quarters (73%) of employers said they are somewhat or very concerned they will trigger the excise tax based on their current plans and cost trajectory. More than four in 10 (43%) said avoiding the excise tax is the top priority for their health care strategies in 2015.
Osterndorf added, “Effective private exchanges can provide value in many ways. For example, as more employers move to account-based health plans, they can realize the promise of avoiding the excise tax while providing the added benefit of putting employees in charge of how their health care dollars are spent. Private exchanges offer more choice, including account-based plans, with the tools and support for helping employees make better health decisions, and recognize the connection between their physical and financial well-being. Employee understanding and engagement are critical to the long-term sustainability of an employer’s program. Private exchanges can accelerate the fulfillment of that goal.”
According to the 19th Annual Towers Watson National Business Group on Health Employer Survey on Purchasing Value in Health Care, released in March 2014, nearly three-quarters of respondents currently offer account-based health plans (ABHPs), with another 9% expecting to add one for the first time in 2015. Nearly 16% of respondents have adopted ABHPs as their only plan option, up from only 7% in 2012. Nearly one-third of all companies could offer ABHPs as their only option by 2015, if they follow through with current plans.
About the Surveys
The 2014 Towers Watson Health Care Changes Ahead Survey offers insights into the focus and timing of U.S. employers’ plans and perspectives related to their health benefits, and their efforts to better manage costs and employee engagement, as well as their planned responses to the business risks associated with the 2018 excise tax. The survey was completed during July 2014 by 379 employee benefit professionals from midsize to large companies across a variety of industries and reflects respondents’ 2014 – 2017 health care benefit decisions. The responding companies comprise a broad range of industries and business sizes, and collectively employ 8.7 million employees.
The 19th Annual Towers Watson/National Business Group on Health Employer Survey on Purchasing Value in Health Care tracks employers’ strategies and practices, and the results of their efforts to provide and manage health benefits for their workforce. This report identifies the actions of high-performing companies, as well as current trends in the health care benefit programs of U.S. employers with at least 1,000 employees. The survey was completed by 595 employers between November 2013 and January 2014. Respondents collectively employ 11.3 million full-time employees, have 7.8 million employees enrolled in their health care programs and represent all major industry sectors.
ABOUT TOWERS WATSON
Towers Watson (NYSE, NASDAQ: TW) is a leading global professional services company that helps organizations improve performance through effective people, risk and financial management. The company offers consulting, technology and solutions in the areas of benefits, talent management, rewards, and risk and capital management. Towers Watson has more than 14,000 associates around the world and is located on the web at towerswatson.com.
New-age challenges for employee privacy
Originally posted September 23, 2014 by Michael Giardina on https://ebn.benefitnews.com.
An individual’s online behavior and presence may seem like their own business, but when it comes to on-the-job use of social networks, the rules have changed. And as benefit managers and their HR teams do their due diligence to try to find the ideal candidate for a position, are they overstepping the law by requiring new hires to allow an employer access to the candidate’s online life?
How can employers ensure that current employees or potential hires are the right fit for their workplace without crossing the line — and taking steps enforcement agencies and new state laws deem too intrusive? As they look for answers, many companies will find that guidance has been a bit fuzzy.
Employers, including private companies and educational institutions, are being forcibly excluded from their employees’ social media accounts as privacy advocates push for more action from legislators. This year, New Hampshire became the 18th state to enact laws that promote employee and student privacy when it comes to employer access to personal online account information.
Five other states in 2014 and nearly a dozen others in 2013 have pushed forward with similar provisions to protect employee privacy, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
“I don’t think it’s surprising that more states are enacting legislation,” says Jaklyn Wrigley, an associate at law firm Fisher & Phillips, who represents employers in Mississippi and on the federal level. “It’s a personal realm; that’s where you engage in communication with people that don’t have anything to do with work or school. So it makes sense — unless there is a reason for the employer or university to really stick its nose into that aspect of your personal business — that it is protected without fear of some sort of retaliation.”
The issue of employer social media access was first addressed in 2012 with the introduction of the Password Protection Act, which aimed to prevent employers from demanding access to their potential or current workers’ personal social media accounts. At the time, a Workplace Options and Public Policy Polling survey discovered that 89% of American workers felt their employers had no right to demand their social media login information, and 68% predicted that forcing workers to hand over this information would cripple the already shaky employer-employee relationship.
Alan King, president and chief operating officer of Workplace Options, explains that employer access to personal online information remains “a tricky issue.”
“There are several levels of concern for both parties, but when you look at the big picture, it really boils down to trust, engagement and security,” King says. “It’s dangerous to say that prohibiting employer access to search or monitor employee activity online or through social media sites will improve employee well-being across the board. That may be the case in some instances; it may not be in others.”
According to King, there is a fine line for both employers and employees to walk when policing this new-age issue.
“Employees need to know that what they do or say online or outside of work can impact their professional lives, even if they are off the clock,” he says. “But employers also need to hear and understand that too much interest in what an employee does in their personal life can be bad for
business.”
From a legal perspective, employers may be taking the wrong approach when considering an employee’s (or potential employee’s) personal life in their review process. But even before bans on employer access to social media and online account passwords were considered by state and federal lawmakers, employees did have protective safeguards in place.
“A lot of employers just assume that if it’s on the Internet, it’s fair game — and that’s not the case,” says Louis L. Chodoff, partner at national law firm Ballard Spahr.
“Social media in hiring comes up where employers like to do their own Google searches on people, and sometimes applicants will not privatize any parts of their Facebook page,” explains Chodoff. “The trouble that employers will get into sometimes is that they will access information that they shouldn’t be considering in the hiring process.”
He adds that employers should “insulate the decision makers from any information that may be considered in a protected class,” anyone who could suffer discrimination because of their race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or disability. Under the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, formal guidance on the issue has been less concrete. The enforcement agency has yet to issue formal guidelines for employers to follow when implementing social media policies, but has commented on its encroachment in employment issues.
At a meeting addressing social media in the workplace, Carol R. Miaskoff, acting associate legal counsel at the EEOC, referenced the Internet-age medium’s impact on equal employment opportunity law.
“When an employer or other entity is covered by the EEO laws, their recruitment, selection, and employment decisions and activities are subject to the EEO laws, regardless of the media they happen to use,” she said.
While noting that regulations do not prohibit specific technologies, she highlighted that “the key question under the EEO laws is how the selection tools are used.”
Miaskoff says the National Labor Relations Board has been keeping an eye on employer social media policies as they pertain to violations of Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, which mandates that employees have the right to organize. Organing activities, whether in-person or online, fall under the veil of “protected concerted activity,” according to NLRB.
Employees also need to be very clear about a company’s internal social media policy, to help prevent an ill-timed or unflattering Facebook or Twitter post from turning into a major public liability. Claire Bissot, HR consulting manager at CBIZ, a business services company, says a proactive stance on the rules can help avoid accidental (or genuinely injurious) messages from going viral.
“You should have a social media policy and certain expectations about what you expect about them; [including] not to give confidential information, not to post negative things about the company and other people, or say this is a view of the company,” says Bissot. “But I believe if you truly encourage your employees to feel like they have ownership in their company, and where they work, they are not going to do malicious things on social media.”
Meanwhile, social media monitoring proposals remained a hot button issue among state legislatures in 2014, and are likely to continue in 2015. As Wrigley notes, social media awareness and privacy concerns in the workplace are not going away anytime soon.
“[The legislation landscape] is really interesting in this age where everyone and their mother is on social media. So it makes sense that lawmakers have an eye to protect their constituents, and employers are also mindful of the privacy rights of [their] employees and applicants,”
Wrigley says.
She explains that it is also logical for employers to prepare themselves by developing a company social media policy, if they haven’t already.
But employers “need not go with [their] gut” when crafting and deciding specific policies, Bissot advises.
“They need to make sure they are taking the right steps,” she notes. “You don’t want to be the one that defines the case. With social media, it’s new ground, it’s new territory, and you want to make sure you are doing it correctly and appropriately for the culture.”
At the same time, Chodoff, an expert on labor and employment law, agrees that social media policies should leave nothing up to chance or assumption.
“I think social media policies have to be very specific about what employees can and can’t do,” Chodoff says. He warns that a savings clause in policies may also miss the ball when it comes to Section 7 because it may be deemed too broad by the NLRB.
“The NLRB will say that infringes on their Section 7 rights,” Chodoff notes. “So say, ‘you can’t make defamatory comments about people.’ You have to make sure that policy is being very specifically written in regards to what it is prohibiting.”
6 ways to overcome distractions
Originally posted by Erin Bramblett, HR specialist with Insperity, an HR outsourcing firm on https://ebn.benefitnews.com.
If anyone knows a thing or two about multitasking, it’s benefit managers. From understanding the compliance complexities of the Affordable Care Act to navigating the nuances of ERISA, benefit managers are experts at juggling several priorities. Yet multitasking and having to deal with constant interruptions can negatively affect work quality, according to a recent study from the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
“Prioritize what you need to get done as an employee and do those things early in the day,” says Bramblett. “Focus on what needs to get done, whether it’s three things or five things, and focus on those until they’re done.”
“Write that bulleted list, include scheduled breaks and cross them off as you complete them. That will help you stay focused,” advises Bramblett. “And taking a mental break in between tasks will help employees shift gears a little more easily.”
A five-minute break to update your status can easily turn into a 30-minute waste of time, says Bramblett, who advises keeping social media pages closed during the work day. But if you absolutely can’t go all day without seeing what those crazy cats on Instagram are up to, then schedule it as part of your break on your to-do list.
“It’s hard to not say ‘yes’ to every assignment that comes your way,” says Bramblett. “But you’ve got to make sure you’re keeping your to-do list at a realistic level.” She advises communicating with your team, your boss or your clients to make sure your daily priorities are correct and that you’re finding out which things are most important for you to get done each day.
“It is scientifically proven that individuals work better when they are single-tasking,” says Bramblett, citing an American Psychological Association study that showed multitasking undermines efficiency by as much as 40%.
“If employees feel like they have to multitask because their boss keeps coming at them with multiple projects and asking for updates on 15 different things in a day, that would certainly be something that would create that environment so you want to ensure you create that work-life balance,” advises Bramblett.
How to help alleviate specialty Rx costs
Originally posted September 9, 2014 by Melissa A. Winn on https://ebn.benefitnews.com.
Half of large employers say the cost of specialty pharmacy drugs is their second or third highest cost-driver, behind high-cost claims and special conditions, according to a recent survey by the National Business Group on Health. Brian Marcotte, NBGH’s president, calls the concern “significant,” considering specialty pharmacy currently impacts only about 2% of the population, but advancements in the manufacturing of these expensive drugs threaten to greatly increase the number of employees using them.
As employers consider their 2015 health plan designs, they “are very focused on specialty pharmacy drugs and the potential impact they have” on the company’s bottom-line, says Marcotte. Benefit advisers can add value by offering solutions to reign in the costs of these drugs, including programs to limit the quantity of the drugs dispensed at any one given time, the use of prior authorization to confirm the necessity of the treatment, and even the use of a freestanding specialty pharmacy.
“Benefit advisers should make sure employers are utilizing all of the specialty clinical programs offered by the medical and pharmacy vendors for their benefits,” says Brenda Gagnon, a pharmacy benefit adviser and president and CEO of the health care consulting firm B.M Gagnon Associates.
This is especially true in light of the fact the utilization of the drugs is bound to increase. “Current estimates for specialty medications are that they will cost an employer 50% to 60% of their total health benefits by 2016,” says Gagnon.
That’s true not only because the high cost of developing and manufacturing the drugs is reflected in their high price tag, but also Gagnon says, because “drug manufacturers have put more effort into finding more than one drug therapy for the drug.”
For example, she notes, AbbVie’s Humira is used for rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, colitis and psoriasis.
Research and development costs are “passed onto the employer when an employee is taking a specialty medication,” Gagnon adds, saying the cost of the drugs can be anywhere from $1,200 to $12,000 a month, depending on the disease.
Utilization controls
An employer client has no control over the high price tag on these drugs, says Michael Zucarelli, national pharmacy practice leader for the employee benefit and financial firm CBIZ.
Where benefit advisers can help employers tame their client’s drug spend, however, is through health plan options designed to manage these drugs’ utilization, he says.
First and foremost, plans should have some sort of appropriate use protocol or prior authorization. Such a procedure would ensure claims are reviewed to make sure the drugs are safe and effective for the employee, as well as safeguard the plan financially, suggests Zucarelli.
In addition, employers have an opportunity to manage drug use as the number of specialty drugs available to treat any one disease expands, creating competition within the drug classes.
Employers “can now become a little more creative in how they set up their plan. They may prefer one or a couple of treatments over another,” he says.
This can be designed as a formulary in which a less expensive drug option would be covered at 100% and the more expensive option would require the employee to pay 100% of the cost share, he says. Otherwise, it can be set up as a step-therapy program, in which the more expensive drug cannot even be used until the less expensive option has been tried and failed.
“We’re seeing plan sponsors look at that as an option and more are adopting it,” says Zucarelli, adding that he typically advises employers to institute a step-therapy program as soon as possible, while it affects only a small number of plan members.
Advisers can also work with employers on channel management, Zucarelli suggests, saying employers should have a consultant, pharmacy benefit manager, or medical plan carrier evaluate where the drug spend is to gain visibility and look at opportunities for site-of-care management.
“Maybe a patient is getting a particular specialty drug in a hospital infusion suite and that may not be the most convenient or cost-effective treatment,” he suggests.
Gagnon agrees employers can use a third-party consultant company like Artemtetrx, which uses data analytics to evaluate claims data and identify high drug spend and opportunities for cost management across clinical management, reimbursement management, site of care management and plan design.
When an employer client raises a question about a high-dollar claim, Zucarelli says the plan’s PBM or carrier could also be asked to do a case review and insure the patient is taking the high-cost drug for an appropriate use.
“Unfortunately, once an employee is on a certain drug, it’s hard to get them off of it or switch it,” he says, adding that that’s why he suggests employers get a lot of these tactics in place now, before the use of the drugs increases, which is inevitable.
“Getting these management techniques in place now is going to further minimize disruption,” he adds.
Are e-cigarettes friend or foe to employee wellness?
Originally posted September 8, 2014 by Nick Otto on https://ebn.benefitnews.com
As the gap widens on whether e-cigarettes are part of the solution or still part of the greater problem of employee smoking cessation, their popularity is still on the rise. Experts from the health management group HealthFitness have provided some additional tips for employers taking on the challenge of creating e-cigarette policies in the workplace.
The group advises workplace policies which classify e-cigarettes in the same regard as tobacco products. In doing so, it will minimize risks from known and unknown toxins as research continues on the long-term health impact of the devices.
“This recommendation is the highest standard of public safety,” Dennis Richling, HealthFitness’ chief medical and wellness officer, says in a recent blog post. In doing so, benefit managers’ policies will align with the current trends other employers are reportedly doing, he adds.
Currently, the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t regulate the use of e-cigarettes as smoking cessation devices. As such, the use of incentives to discourage the use of e-cigarettes has no clear right or wrong answer, “but is driven by what an employer believes best fits their situation.” Before making that decision, Richling says he recommends employers consider the following questions:
- Are you prepared to add complexity to your incentive programs?
- Does adding e-cigarettes matter?
- Do you use blood or saliva testing with your smoking cessation program?
As one example, HealthFitness notes there are several ongoing trials researching use of e-cigarettes as cessation devices. Adding their use as an incentive may “create an extra level of effort to manage what may be an appropriate use of e-cigarettes.”
Lastly, HealthFitness recommends using health assessments to educate employees on e-cigarettes. Because the likelihood that current users are either former tobacco users or current “dual users” of both e-cigarettes and regular tobacco progress, tracking e-cigarette data independently is still limited.
“However, the information needed to inform almost all e-cigarette users can be gained by assessing smoking status,” HealthFitness says. “And there is value in providing messaging to health assessment users who use tobacco products about the risks and the facts concerning e-cigarette use.”