Employee Benefits Blog

With healthcare costs continuing to rise, small employers that aren't obligated to offer health/medical insurance per the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) “employer mandate” have been dropping group coverage. This is a trend that started in 2009 during the recent recession. Some larger employers have also considered doing the same (though, they must pay steep ACA penalties if they do). At first glance, it might seem like this would bolster the health and stability of the individual insurance market. Despite the numbers of insured rising, however, increased costs and fewer options have put a serious squeeze on what was once a very healthy marketplace.

Group Health Insurance and Individual Health Insurance by the Numbers

Occasionally, a news piece predicts major shifts in the health insurance landscape, including dire predictions about employers dropping group health plans due to their high costs. However, it’s important to look closely at these numbers, as well as the size of the companies cited in the statistics.

3 Great TED Talks in The Era of Consumer-Driven Healthcare (CDHC)

Initial indicators suggest that consumer-directed health plans are indeed succeeding on several fronts; primary care engagement is up, trips to the emergency room are down, health savings account (HSA) balances are rising, and most importantly, health care spending is falling by 5 to 14 percent. But there's a big roadblock to CDHC / CDHP adoption: rampant consumer confusion.

That was the chief point from Harry Gottlieb, during a keynote address last Wednesday at the Human Resource Executive Health and Benefits Leadership Conference.

At least two of the pitfalls with Consumer-Driven Health Care (CDHP) and Consumer-Driven Health Plans (CDHP) are the rampant growth in options and the fundamental belief that humans make intuitive, rational decisions. If only that were true!

So what can we do about it? Fortunately, there are a multitude of behavioral studies to help guide our understanding of this phenomenon, as well as lay out a roadmap for us to follow to facilitate better decision making.

Here are what we, as the JP Griffin Group, consider to be three of the most relevant, informative and actionable TED Talks on audience segmentation, behavioral economics and the cognitive limitations of humans when faced with choice.

#1) "Choice, Happiness and Spaghetti Sauce", by Malcolm Gladwell

Struggling to find the perfect medical plan and perfectly optimized employee benefits portfolio for your entire work force? This TED Talk makes the case that we are not one homogenous group of consumers, no matter what the category for consideration, be it coffee, soda, healthcare, financial services and even spaghetti sauce. The concept is presented in a highly entertaining fashion by one of the best storytellers of our day, Malcolm Gladwell, author of such best selling books as Outliers, The Tipping Point, Blink and other works that focus on the unpredictable things that people do in the course of their normal lives. Gladwell sets out to explain how a guy by the name of Howard Moskowitz reinvented tomato sauce – a challenge given to him by the Campbell Soup Company when he was asked to create the “perfect” sauce.

More and more, employers are looking for innovative ways to increase the value of their employee benefits packages without breaking the bank. Oftentimes, this comes in the form of unique employee perks which attempt to depart from the tried-and-true. 

While this quest for creativity should be commended, no matter how well intentioned, sometimes the best laid plans wind up backfiring in spectacular fashion. To keep this from happening, it’s a good idea to vet your ideas with a representative cross-section of your workforce before introducing them to the entire company. Role playing worse case scenarios as an HR team might also help mitigate any disasters. Here are five examples of good employee perks gone bad.

Penny Wars for a Good Cause

“At a previous employer, we had a ‘penny wars’ competition to raise money for a good cause. It was part of a lot of fun activities for the annual workplace giving campaign and employee engagement (which was a good idea). Employees donated coins in jars labeled with each executive’s name. The executive whose jar collected the most money would get a pie in the face. When the CEO won, the penny jars quickly disappeared as it didn’t seem like a good idea to pie the CEO in front of employees — and no one wanted to be the one to actually do it.”

• Amanda, Chief Marketing Officer at Health Charities

This June, Arizona experienced a near-historic heat wave that caused all kinds of strange things to happen, such as cacti falling over and planes being grounded. This is a safety concern for everyone, as heatstroke is a very real problem that causes death every year, especially among the infant and elderly populations. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported nearly 3,500 heatstroke-related deaths between 1999 and 2003.

Taking precautions at work, at home, and while on the road is extremely prudent. It can help keep your workforce safe by literally saving lives and/or helping prevent hospitalization. So as we enter August, in what is typically the hottest month of the year, consider implementing these tips in your workplace. Pass them along to your employees as well so everyone can be vigilant.

ON THE ROAD

Keep Extra Water in Vehicles

For companies with a workforce on the roads, it’s a great idea to keep extra water stocked in all work vehicles. Supplying large volume coolers will help encourage employees to stay hydrated. Even warm water stored in a truck will come in handy should an unanticipated roadside breakdown occur.  

In this day and age, it's critical for Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) and Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) to partner together with a shared sense of purpose to ensure a strategic advantage for their organizations. 

Consider the role of each in managing one of the largest costs to organizations today: healthcare benefits.  Due to the increasing cost of employer-sponsored healthcare, employee benefits are now often the third or fourth largest line item on an organization’s P&L. CFOs cannot ignore such a sizable expenditure, and must take a keen interest in understanding the underlying cost factors of providing medical coverage to workers.

CHROs are in a unique position to provide insight into these cost factors. Thus, CFOs and CHROs share the responsibility of managing human capital costs appropriately. Only with solid alignment between the objectives of the CFO and the CHRO will organizations continue to grow and prosper in today’s hyper competitive corporate climate.

We recently released an in-depth ebook which addresses not only the obstacles to creating CFO/CHRO alignment, but also the commonalities the two functions share, and the steps that must be taken to achieve proper alignment and sustainability of both financial resources and human capital resources in the coming years. You can download this free ebook/white paper simply by clicking here. It covers all of the following:

For any employer hoping to contain employee benefit costs, workforce adoption of high deductible health plans (HDHPs) is almost always a critical component these days. Yet this flight to what’s become known as “consumer driven healthcare” comes with a duty to help the workforce become savvy shoppers of healthcare. As the traditional decision makers in this area, employers must keep in mind that many employees will feel overwhelmed with this new responsibility.  If fact, many experts already feel as if we are failing as a nation when it comes to this concept of healthcare consumerism.

Never before have employees had to care much about whether a prescription was brand name or generic; they just had a copay. Maybe that copay was more expensive for the brand name drug, but it was manageable in comparison with paying the full retail price. They also never had to pay more than a copay for a doctor visit, but now they’re on the hook for the whole bill (at least until they reach their deductible). It’s understandable that many people feel confused and frustrated by this change in benefits.

This is not, however, an impossible transition. With more and more companies shifting to HDHPs every year, the education challenge is widespread. Engaging employees in the decision making process will empower them to feel as if they can make good decisions on their own — instead of expecting their employer to do it for them. With some education and a little assistance from your employee benefits broker and internal communications team, employees can gain the confidence they need to control their healthcare spending. Here are a few things employers can do to engage their employees in consumer driven healthcare.

Many employees feel like they have to check-in with work even when they’re supposed to be enjoying paid time off. More often than not, this is a cultural issue within a company. Supervisors might be checking-in and sending emails in the evening or on weekends. This leads their direct reports to believe they need to respond immediately, and they may even start adopting these behaviors themselves. 

Yet, research has shown time and time again that workers need frequent breaks and unfortunately, Americans leave a lot of that paid time off on the table every year. It might seem like workers would be more productive if they aren’t using all their vacation time, but in reality, skipping our vacations actually makes us less productive. To keep employees operating in top shape, we need to encourage them to enjoy their downtime — and perhaps it’s fitting to begin with the July 4th holiday. Here are 5 ways to encourage employees to enjoy their independence...and their paid time off this weekend.

Navigating the alphabet soup of types of health insurance can make anyone’s eyes glaze over, but it doesn’t have to be so intimidating — or boring. HMOs, PPOs, EPOs, POSs, and HDHPs share similarities, but they all provide health benefits in slightly different ways — and some of those can be deal-breakers for employees. Here’s a go-to guide for differentiating the types of health insurance plans available on the market today.

HMOs (Health Maintenance Organization)

Created by the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973, HMOs are designed to be a less expensive type of health insurance plan than some of the alternatives — in fact, they are usually among the least expensive options, but with that perk generally comes narrow networks and less freedom of choice when it comes to doctors and hospital systems.

With HMOs, you must see a primary care physician (PCP) prior to seeing any kind of specialist, otherwise the visit and any treatment provided may not be covered. In addition, the insurance policy does not cover any portion of a bill accumulated from an out-of-network provider. However, if an enrollee is transported to an out-of-network hospital in the case of an emergency (such as in an ambulance or life flight), services must be covered at the in-network price. The exception to this rule may be doctors within that hospital because they can bill separately (such as an anesthesiologist).

This type of health insurance generally boasts the least amount of paperwork, which is appealing for many people in an age where insurance paperwork seems to be as endless as it is pointless. Policyholders are subject to monthly premiums, in addition to their deductible, copays at the doctor’s office and pharmacy, and coinsurance.

Employers are struggling to assemble impressive employee benefits packages under the crushing weight of ever-increasing healthcare costs. While these escalating expenses may be forcing companies to cut back on their overall benefits package, there are still plenty of innovative ideas that can enrich a company’s offerings without costing them a fortune. Here are 11 out-of-the-box employee benefits that won’t frustrate your finance department.

8 Affordable Employee Benefits

Convenience Benefits

Dry Cleaning Pickup

Picking up the dry cleaning is something no one wants to do. It’s certainly an unappealing errand before or after a long work day, so offering an on-site pickup and delivery service can be a welcome employee benefit. Employees will pay for the cost of the actual cleaning, so at most, the employer will only be on the hook for a delivery fee from the dry cleaner. It’s a cost-effective way to give some time back to employees.

Flexible Schedules

Allowing employees to work a flexible schedule is essentially free for employers. As work-life balance becomes an increasingly hot topic, workers will appreciate that they can get to their kid’s school event at lunchtime and make up the hours later that evening or on the weekend.

This is an easy employee benefit to offer — as long as there’s some sort of tracking system in place. Some companies use the honor system (assuming everyone will get their 40 hours in), while others use tracking websites, such as Toggl to “clock in and out” so supervisors can be assured their employees are all on task.

As employers search for ways to create meaningful employee benefits packages, many have turned to life insurance policies. It’s become fairly standard to offer life insurance in the amount of the employee’s annual salary at no cost to the worker. Beyond that, it’s common to offer “buy up” options for employees who might want additional coverage for themselves, or sometimes for a spouse. This could be double, triple, or even five times the amount of a person’s annual salary and in these cases, the premium for extra coverage is typically paid entirely by the employee.

Life Insurance 101: Understanding the Policies

Much like health insurance, life insurance options can be confusing. There are three different types (whole, universal, and term) and even variants among those three. How are people supposed to choose? How do they know which policy is best for their family? We put together a cheat sheet to prepare employees and HR professionals alike to make a more informed decision.