An effective employee benefits broker is an extremely useful
ally in your HR efforts. Employees fuel business growth and success, so it’s
important for growing businesses to take care of their employees’ needs in
order to attract, retain, and engage the best possible talent. Employee
benefits are not just one of your largest expenses, they are also one of your
biggest tools in maximizing the human potential of your business. And benefits
brokers can bring much-needed experience, expertise, and connections to your
efforts to craft and maintain an effective employment brand.
However, not all benefits brokers or insurance brokers are
created equal and many effective collaborations can become neglected over time.
So how can you tell if your benefits broker is still the right partner for your
business or if you need to start taking them to task or finding an alternative?
Let’s walk through five questions that will help you clarify matters:
Is your employee benefits broker maximizing impact
as well as minimizing cost?
Are they reviewing and updating your benefits?
Does your benefits broker operate on the employee
level?
Is your broker streamlining enrollment?
Do they offer the latest technology?
Is Your Employee Benefits
Broker Maximizing Impact as Well as Minimizing Cost?
A good employee benefits broker will not only minimize your
benefits expenses but also make sure that the money that you do spend is well
spent. While brokers can reduce your costs significantly, benefits remain
25-40% of most companies’ payroll. Instead of treating this expense as a
necessary evil, an effective benefits broker will help you maximize your
return-on-investment.
Benefits brokers can reduce your benefits expenses by
negotiating better rates with carriers and providers as well as helping you
identify waste and develop more effective processes. For instance, they can cut
down on your prescription drug costs by implementing a telemedicine solution, exploring
level or self-funding options, or creating a custom mix of plan designs. And
they can save on overall healthcare expenses by working with you to develop an
effective tiered insurance structure that allows employees to opt into low-cost
plans or comprehensive plans at their own expense. If your broker is working
hard to reduce your costs, then that is a very good sign.
But, as we’ve said, minimizing costs is only part of the
picture. The best benefits brokers will also serve as employee benefits
consultants and advise you on how to strategically invest in your employee
benefits. It is just as important for your benefits to have the greatest
possible impact for your employees for the given cost as it is to keep that
cost in control. So, a good broker won’t just talk about your bottom line, they
will also keep the focus on employee health, wellbeing, and happiness.
And there’s plenty of reason to maximize your impact beyond
wanting the best for your employees. According to Aflac surveys, 80% of employees believe that
their benefits package influences their engagement in their jobs. Plus, most
employees surveyed said they were likely to accept a job with lower
compensation and better benefits. So, benefits are crucial to any efforts to
attract top talent as well as maximize employee productivity and retention.
Are They Reviewing and
Updating Your Benefits?
The best employee benefits brokers don’t just help you craft a
benefits package and then call it a day. Instead, they serve as employee
benefits advisors or benefits consultants, guiding you through your employee
benefits journey year after year and constantly working to keep your benefits
offerings up-to-date. Your benefits needs will inevitably change as the market
shifts, your company grows, and your employee demographics change. New benefits
will become available, existing benefits will become outdated, and structures
that worked for your startup won’t do as well for your larger, established
company. Not to mention, your employees will get older, or you will welcome a
new cohort of younger talent, and their needs will change.
Which is all to say that it is highly unlikely that the same
benefits package or strategy will be the right choice for your business for
years on end. So, it’s not a great sign if you haven’t seen a noticeable
difference in your package for 3-5 years, or your broker hasn’t been
communicating new options. If you find yourself in this situation, then odds
are you’ve become a “safe” account for your broker and they have started taking
you for granted. In which case it is probably time to prompt them to reexamine
your benefits strategy or start looking for a more proactive partner.
But if your broker regularly notifies you of new options and
consistently works with you to review your benefits package to see if it is
performing well and still meets your needs, then they may be a keeper.
Does Your Benefits Broker Operate
on the Employee Level?
All too many benefits brokers are happy to help their clients
set up employee benefits packages and then walk away, leaving the employer to
manage the roll-out and maintenance of the package as well as convince its
employees of the package’s merits. A good benefits broker will see each and
every one of your employees as their clients, rather than appealing to just
your company’s C-Suite or board.
Your broker should be a benefits advisor, evangelist, and
educator for your employees at every level of the company. First, they should
teach your HR professionals and managers how to work the benefits systems,
communicate plan details and advantages to the rest of the team, and how to
field employee questions. This training should be accompanied by educational
materials and resources to give them the tools they need to guide the rest of
the employees. Their goal should be to create the best possible experience for
your employees and help everyone on the team become a better consumer of
healthcare.
Next, your benefits broker should work on the individual
employee level through educational seminars, Q&A sessions, and other forms
of direct communication. These programs should serve two different purposes.
First, they should help employees understand how to navigate the benefits
package and make the most of the benefits offered. Second, they should impress
upon employees the value of the benefits in order to maximize the impact that
your benefits have on employee retention and engagement.
Be on the lookout to avoid a broker that just wants to deal
with you and does not want to work directly with your HR team, operational managers,
and/or front-line employees. And if your broker takes this approach and is
unwilling to change course, then perhaps it’s time to start shopping around.
Is Your Benefits Broker
Streamlining Enrollment?
Enrolling employees in benefits and health insurance can
become the bane of an HR professional’s existence. Since a large part of your
benefits broker’s responsibilities involves serving as your insurance broker,
they should be an integral part of enrollment as well. An effective, proactive
broker will work with you to streamline enrollment and avoid HR headaches.
The first thing that a great benefits broker will do is help
you establish effective enrollment processes. This includes enrollment tracking
and compliance record-keeping in addition to the systems used to actually
enroll employees in health insurance. Ideally, they will provide or support existing
enrollment software solutions that centralize your data and make enrollment
easy for employees and HR teams alike.
The next thing that employee benefits brokers should do is
prepare employees for enrollment by providing educational resources. They should
create easy to digest reference materials explaining plan structure and
enrollment processes and hold open meetings explaining your benefits package
year-round. They can also help you create a benefits newsletter to regularly
update employees on your benefits package and keep your HR team apprised of any
changes in benefits or procedures. And when open enrollment time comes around
again, your broker should be available to answer any questions that employees,
managers, and HR professionals might have.
Do they Offer the Latest
Technology?
Technology is changing rapidly in today’s market. New tools
are constantly being developed to make things easier for your HR team and for
your employees, and to provide added benefits to employees. Innovation fuels industry
in today’s economy and that is just as true in benefits and HR. New benefits
technology will help you stand out from the crowd to attract the best possible
talent and keep your employees satisfied with their benefits.
And if the only reason you know about new benefits technology
is because of your own research or conversations you’ve had with your peers,
then your employee benefits broker isn’t doing their job. An effective benefits
broker will stay on top of the newest technology and help their clients figure
out what is useful and what is just trendy. And ideally, benefits brokers will
have established relationships with the companies that are developing benefits
technology so that you get access to truly innovative solutions.
It’s generally worth your while to find out if your benefits
broker provides enrollment software, telemedicine options, HR and benefits
automation platforms, and other benefits technology. If you have to go digging
for these solutions, then they may not be the broker for you.
Key Takeaways
Many companies work with the same employee benefits broker for
years. Sometimes that is because they are collaborating closely on an ongoing
benefits strategy that keeps employer costs low, maximizes employee wellbeing,
and makes the HR team’s life easier. Other times, it is because of inertia and
lack of comparison. Hopefully, this article has given you a good idea of how to
tell which one you are and how to make the most of your benefits broker
relationship. Just remember to:
Think about what is best for your employees as
well as your budget – and make sure your broker takes the same approach.
Make sure that your broker is regularly updating
your benefits package and working with you to meet your changing benefits needs.
Partner with a broker who operates on the
employee level instead of just working with your leadership.
Enlist your broker in making open enrollment an
easier and more effective process.
Work with a broker who provides innovative
benefits technology.
Are you looking for a benefits broker who will be your partner
in every aspect of your benefits strategy and implementation? Launchways can
help you navigate the complicated world of employees benefits to create the
most value for your employees and make the most of every dollar spent. Find
out more.
The healthcare
industry in the U.S. is in the midst of major market disruption. As systems condense and integrate and
nontraditional players enter the marketplace, guiding this transformation will
require smart, bold action on a variety of fronts.
Human Resource teams and insurance companies have traditionally led
the way when it comes to initiating and implementing improvement efforts. While
they have achieved some level of success, there is opportunity to do more. Surprisingly,
in the abundance of material on healthcare
improvement planning, we find very little that speaks to the role of one central
individual—the CEO. What precisely should be the task of the CEO, and how is
this role different from that of other executives or other stakeholders?
In today’s fast-moving business environment, companies cannot settle for incremental improvement; they must occasionally make radical changes to remain competitive. This is particularly true in the age of market disruption. In this post, we’ll look at some of the market dynamics that are driving the need to improve the healthcare delivery and cost model and examine several best practice actions CEOs can take to help accelerate these improvements, including:
Clear communication
Strategic collaboration
Leading by example
Healthcare as a core
business issue
A fundamental management tenant is that leaders
take personal ownership of their company’s toughest challenges. Still, despite persuasive
arguments, many CEOs have not treated health care costs as a central business issue.
They often transfer the responsibility to other internal teams or departments
that lack accountability for the company’s financial performance. This is not
the optimum approach.
Getting CEOs to approach health care costs like they do other parts of
their business can deliver substantial performance results. Key attributes CEOs
can bring to the forefront are their motivational and influencing capabilities.
They can help bolster improvement efforts by
communicating the rationale for healthcare changes, securing beneficial
alliances and modeling the desired changes.
Clear communication. CEOs regularly make gutsy decisions that affect employees, from
closing business units to discontinuing strategic operations. They make clear the
reasons for the changes, and employees acknowledge them as a part of their workplace
reality. Communicating health care changes should be no different.
The area of cost
containment and balancing rising healthcare expenses with employee expectations
is a good example. Controlling costs often requires steering employees to
providers that can deliver high-quality care at the lowest price. But imposing limitations or implementing any
type of healthcare change can be met with stiff opposition—even though the
change may be in the best interest of all parties.
This is where
honest, transparent communication is vital.
Case in point: Walmart confidently uses financial incentives to guide
employees toward a number of pre-selected centers of excellence— specialized
programs with concentrated areas of expertise— for expensive medical procedures.
The practice has resulted in significant cost savings. Employee complaints have
been minimal because the company’s leadership has effectively communicated the reasoning
and logic for the practice just as they do with any other important change in
company strategy.
Strategic
collaboration. Strategic partnerships are essential for
remaining competitive in today’s highly disruptive business environment. To
become more entrenched in the ecosystems that employees engage in, it’s
important for CEOs to strengthen and expand their alliances with a broader
range of partners in and outside the healthcare market. CEOs are ideally
positioned to work with potential partners to identify ways to work together
for mutual advantage.
The trend toward value-based care will continue to drive companies to closely scrutinize their healthcare options and fine-tune their cost management approach. Business can’t do much about shifting market dynamics. But they can team together to more effectively negotiate with providers and help ensure that healthcare quality is in line with costs. Bottom line: CEOs who form smart alliances and are proactive in their collaborative approach will save more on health care as will their employees.
Leading by example: When substantial financial
risk is at state, CEOs have a fundamental duty to roll up their sleeves and get personally involved. Leaders who give only lip-service
to an improvement effort will find everyone else following suit.
Modeling the behavior you want and
creating a personalized story will help employees buy into in the improvement
approach by answering their pressing questions, such as “What are we changing?” “How will it be implemented?” and “How will
it impact me?” People will go to surprising lengths for issues they believe in,
and a compelling example set by the CEO will establish and reinforce their loyalty
(and participation) in the effort.
Key takeaways
CEOs are uniquely positioned with the responsibility
and authority to articulate the strategy, vision and goals that frame every new
business challenge or initiative. This is especially true when it comes to managing
a transformation as significant and sensitive as employee healthcare.
For CEOs leading healthcare transformation, there is no single model for success. But they can place the odds in their favor by focusing on several core leadership actions: making the changes understandable and meaningful; modeling the preferred behavior; building a reliable and loyal team; and relentlessly pursuing results. Together, these efforts can generate the synergy needed to achieve tangible, lasting improvements.
The unemployment rate has now fallen to 3.6%, according to recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. While American workers welcome the news, it can be a challenge in this climate for hiring managers to stand out and continue attracting the best talent out there.
If your business is struggling to fill open positions, and you’re not receiving the quality applicants that you’d hoped for, take a look at your benefits package. When was the last time you updated it?
The 2018 Employee Benefits Survey from the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) showed that 34% of organizations beefed up their benefits packages within the last year, and 72% said that retention was a reason they did so. Over half cited attracting top talent as a main part of their reasoning.
In our current “war for talent” climate, creating a benefits package that can sell itself to candidates will ensure you’re attracting that top talent. In fact, your benefits package could be the differentiator that will give you the timely competitive advantage you need. A CareerBuilder survey revealed that 32% of workers will be looking for a new job in 2019, 15% of whom cited lack of benefits or low compensation as the reason.
Here’s how to create a high-impact benefits package that will help your business both attract and retain top talent.
Understanding What’s Hot
Of course, what’s most important to the top talent you’re looking for will depend on your industry. For instance, not every job can offer remote work benefits—some require a worker’s presence in the office.
However, there are general trends as far as benefits go. The same SHRM survey mentioned earlier also showed that benefits for parents have been increased in the last few years, including paid maternity and paternity leave and adoption, foster child, and surrogacy benefits.
According to Jobvite’s 2018 Recruiter Nation Survey, recruiters say that the most effective benefits to attracting top talent are medical and dental benefits (67%), followed by 401(k) benefits (55%).
Medical and dental benefits may seem like a given, but making these benefits competitive in themselves can upgrade your overall package. This is why it’s important to shop around for the best price on packages that offer the comprehensive care that your employees need. For retirement, many workplaces offer a company-matching benefit that top talent will look for when considering job offers.
The next most important benefit offering discussed in the Jobvite survey was work-from-home benefits. As mentioned above, this benefit may or may not be possible for your given industry. However, with our current everything-digital work culture, it’s worth considering making it happen, as 43% of recruiters said this was the most effective benefit offering to attract and retain talent.
Offering a flexible work arrangement or flexible schedule shows employees that their work-life balance matters, and that the company wants to support them in managing family obligations and other priorities outside of work.
The last three benefits listed as top attractions in the Jobvite survey were casual dress (36%), continuing education reimbursement (31%), and a signing bonus (28%). Paid vacation is still considered a top benefit, and many top candidates will negotiate the amount of days off they receive with the rest of their offer.
Another hot topic in the benefits world is student loan help. According to data from the Harvard Business Review, 48% of job seekers said that student loan assistance would be taken into account when considering a job offer.
Americans now owe around $1.57 trillion in college debt, as USA Today reported, yet only one in 10 companies surveyed by the Employee Benefit Research Institute offer student loan repayment subsidies or consolidation or refinancing services for employees. This means that employers willing to make this a priority will be ahead of their competitors when attracting top talent.
These examples show how any organization can construct a benefits package that checks off the list of what the modern candidate is looking for.
Building a Comprehensive Package
Once you’re aware of what candidates want, how do you begin the reconstruction process?
1. Research the competition
First, assess the trends within your industry. Start by researching the job ads that competitors are posting, or use a tool like Glassdoor to view salary trends for a given job title or company. Understanding what your competitors are offering is crucial to creating a competitive advantage.
You may also learn about other company’s benefits through interviews with top-level candidates. They may ask for a certain amount of vacation days, a salary level, or 401(k) contribution because they’re receiving it in their current position.
But as ApplicantPro points out, your top recruiting competition may not be the same as your business competition. Companies hiring individuals with the same qualifications, and not necessarily a company offering the same services as yours, may be more of your hiring rival.
2. Use data in strategic planning to increase ROI
Keep up on the latest research about what employees want, in addition to what competitors are providing. Each year, human resources organizations release surveys that reflect the latest trends, such as the surveys mentioned in this article from the SHRM and the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
According to the SHRM, planning benefits strategically based on specific data can help your company receive the greatest return on investment. This is important, because benefits aren’t cheap—they make up about a third of compensation costs (32%). When companies strategically plan benefits for recruitment and retention, the overall performance of the company is above average at 58%, versus 34% from organizations that don’t plan strategically.
3. Understand what drives motivation
Employees are more likely to feel motivated and satisfied by their work if they’re fully supported with adequate pay and benefits. This means making enough money, but it also means being able to receive high-quality healthcare services and to take time away from work to relieve stress and enjoy their personal lives.
This is why it’s also smart to offer a comprehensive wellness program that offers discounted gym memberships, for example, or mental health services, along with a good healthcare package. Over half of employees surveyed by the SHRM said that healthcare, paid leave, and flexible benefits were very important to job satisfaction.
Remember to approach the construction of your benefits package with people in mind, not just the bottom line.
4. Ask your employees for feedback
To better understand what would entice employees to stay at your company, why not ask them?
Implementing some kind of survey system can be instrumental in building a benefits plan that meets the expectations of employees. Just the gesture alone can show workers that you are considering their needs and desires, which can lead to greater feelings of satisfaction and recognition.
Consider holding discussions about benefits where employees can make comments and ask questions, and invite them to offer their opinions about their current package.
5. Continue adapting
During interviews with top candidates, one strategy that could help you succeed is being open to what they’re looking for, and asking them what their expectations are. This can not only open your eyes to what top talent is looking for, but it can also help you revamp your benefits offerings for your current employees.
Updating your benefits package is not likely to be something you can do once and be done with. Preferences change year over year in the realm of recruitment, as new technologies are introduced or new working trends pick up, so remember that your benefits plan needs to be revisited and adapted regularly. For example, the gig economy and the surge of freelancing has made flexibility and remote work more popular and desirable for employees across industries.
6. Embrace new technologies
Finally, recruiters and hiring managers should embrace new technologies that can help them create a strategic benefits plan for recruitment and retention.
According to the Jobvite survey mentioned above, almost half of recruiters say that artificial intelligence (AI) and automaton will improve their jobs and will allow them to focus more on strategy. Streamlining tasks can open up a lot of time that can be used on research and data analyzation that will lead to better benefits planning that’s focused around attracting talent.
Using an online benefits portal is another way to increase employee satisfaction and streamline the benefits process. According to the SHRM, 32% of HR professionals say that an online portal is very effective as a communication method with employees. A portal can help the HR team deliver messages while emphasizing the value of benefits to employees.
Key Takeaways
Winning the war for top talent takes research, planning, and strategizing, and may not happen overnight. But it’s more important than ever to focus on benefits offerings as the unemployment rate continues to drop and the recruitment competition heats up. Remember to:
Stay abreast on what’s hot in the world of HR and recruiting
Research your competition
Base benefits planning decisions on specific data to ensure Return on Investment
Think about what drives employee motivation and satisfaction
Survey employees and candidates to find out what would excite them beyond a high base salary
Continue to adapt your plan
Integrate new tools and platforms that will streamline processes for both you and employees
If you show both top candidates and current employees that benefits are important to the organization and do the research to offer what they really want, you’ll be well on your way to creating a high-impact benefits package that will set you apart from competitors.
Are you looking to hire an employee benefits broker and
don’t know where to start? Or have you had the same broker for a while and are
now wondering whether you could do better? Picking the right benefits broker is
challenging, especially because the right partner can have an enormous impact
on your employees and your bottom-line.
You want to work with a company that is not just your
benefits broker, but your trusted benefits advisor. Especially at growing
companies, having expert third-party help is essential to keeping your costs
low and your value-add for employees high. The right benefits broker will not
just sell you on a benefits package and then leave you to figure out the rest.
They will be an HR and Benefits specialist who can help you navigate the entire
benefits process and keep your benefit offerings up-to-date and competitive.
But the stakes are high, and there’s so much to consider –
how do you even get started? Well, luckily this guide is here to help you. We
will examine why it’s important to pick the right broker, and when to hire a
new broker before diving into what you should be looking for in a broker,
including that they provide:
Modern benefits that appeal to your workforce
Cutting-edge benefits technology
Cost savings
Comprehensive employee education
Looking for a Better Benefits Broker: Why and When to Start
Before we dive into what you should be looking for in a
benefits broker, let’s examine the reasons why it is important to choose the
right broker and when to start looking for a better partner.
Why You Should be Picky About Your Benefits Broker
Your benefits broker’s performance will have an enormous
impact on your benefits package’s ability to draw top talent to your company,
encourage your existing employees to deliver their best work, and keep
employees around for the long-haul. These are just some of the reasons why it’s
important to pick the right benefits broker, but let’s look at some specifics.
On a purely numbers level, benefits are a big deal. Benefits
spend is a large part of your overall budget, making up 25-40% of most
companies’ payroll. The right partner will help you minimize those expenses
while maximizing the return-on-investment.
But benefits are never all about numbers; they are
ultimately about people. Your benefits package is one of the most important
parts of your employees’ total compensation package and is meant to help your employees
live a higher quality of life. Your benefits broker should help you craft a
package that meets those needs for the well-being of your employees and your
company. Benefits that are tailored to take care of your employees will
strengthen your company culture and can mean the difference between attracting
and retaining top talent that drives your company’s growth or watching your
best people leave for better offers. Your employees are responsible for your
company’s success, so it’s important to make sure that they are properly taken
care of.
So, when building or updating your benefits package, you
need a benefits broker who will help you balance your budget and your
employee’s needs. Which is why it is important to be choosy when hiring a benefits
broker, and not just stay with the same broker because that’s what you’ve done
in the past. But when is the right time to make a change?
When to Shop for a New Employee Benefits Broker
Many companies overlook the importance of taking a proactive
approach to benefits, frequently staying with the same benefits broker for
years out of habit. That means that employers fall out of touch with the newest
benefits trends, losing the ability to properly evaluate whether or not their
current broker is providing them with the best possible service. That’s
why it’s a good idea to keep yourself apprised of what’s what in the benefits
world so that you can tell when your benefits broker may be underserving your
business.
The decision of what kind of benefits broker you are looking
for, and whether your current broker meets that description, should be based on
a comprehensive review of your company’s mission/vision, culture, short and
long-term goals, and business strategy. You want a benefits broker that will
support each of those elements and help you achieve sustainable growth.
So, the reasons why you may want to look for a new benefits
broker will depend on your unique business needs. That being said, there are
some clear signs that it’s time for a new broker that any business can look out
for, including:
Continuing to pay the same fees while retaining more or less the same benefits package year-over-year
Receiving limited guidance and/or a poor service level from the broker
Going several years without reexamining the broker relationship
Difficulty finding ROI to justify investment in your current broker
Your business and its needs are constantly changing and so
is the benefits marketplace. If you haven’t updated your benefits offering in
quite some time, chances are that you can do better for your employees and your
bottom line by looking for a new benefits partner.
How to Pick the Right Employee Benefits Broker
Now you know why you should take a proactive approach to
your relationship with your benefits broker and what to look out for when
deciding whether or not to look for a new broker. But how do you know which
benefits broker is right for you, once you’ve decided that your current one
isn’t meeting your needs?
Modern Benefits
The last thing you want is a broker who doesn’t stick with
the times and strive to deliver cutting-edge, high-impact benefits options.
Looking for a broker who can craft modern benefits packages will not only help
you compete in today’s market, and offer benefits that even appeal to
Millennial talent, it will also help you find a broker that you can trust long-term.
If a broker is keeping up with the latest and greatest now, odds are that they
will continue to do so. On the other hand, ff they’re already behind the times,
chances are they’ll just continue to fall behind.
What kind of benefits should the ideal broker help you
navigate? Some hot-topic benefits to ask about are telemedicine, financial wellness,
remote work, and other flexible work benefits that will help you compete in the
digital age. Again, even if these benefits aren’t the right fit for your
company now, they might be in the future and a broker who has expertise in building
diverse benefits packages will likely offer other cutting-edge solutions that
you can use.
Another increasingly popular option that the ideal benefits
broker will be able to offer is wellness benefits. These benefits help prevent
lifestyle-related healthcare costs while increasing employee engagement and
quality-of-life. Think of subsidized gym memberships, weight-loss or
smoking-cessation challenges, access to a nutritionist, financial planning,
employee assistance programs, and more. There are so many wellness benefits
that it’s easy to get overwhelmed. The right broker will help you find the
benefits that address your employees’ specific challenges.
Benefits Technology
Technology is an all-too-often overlooked aspect of what sets
a great benefits brokers apart. Software is what makes the world run nowadays,
and benefits are no different.
Benefits technology makes navigating your benefits package
easier for your HR team and your employees. The ideal broker will offer a
benefits portal that makes reviewing and managing your benefits package in one
central location a breeze. This makes it easier for you to plan your benefits
strategy and for your employees to take full advantage of your offerings. It’s
perhaps even more important that your benefits broker provides you with
enrollment software to ease the annual headache that is open-enrollment.
Getting employees enrolled in benefits is one of the hardest parts of the job
as an HR professional, and a streamlined software solution can make open enrollment
as painless as possible for both your HR team and then rest of your employees.
Cost Savings
Of course, one of the main reasons to hire a benefits broker
is to minimize your benefits costs while maximizing your package’s impact on
your employees. That’s why it’s a good idea to hire a benefits broker who will
also serve as your benefits consultant or employee benefits advisor, helping
you craft a strategy that meets your goals and needs.
One of the main ways that brokers can help you develop your
benefits strategy is through data collection. They can provide third-party
health risk assessments (HRAs) and employee surveys to establish demonstrated
employee needs. That information enables you to craft a strategic benefits plan
that keeps costs low while increasing the benefits that matter most to your
employees.
Another cost-saving offering to look out for is a tiered
health plan structure. These health insurance packages allow employees to
manage their health expenses, keeping your costs low while making sure that
employees get the coverage they need. Young and healthy employees to take on
low-premium, high-deductible plans paired with HSAs to keep their upfront costs
low, while employees with families or health risks can opt-in to more
comprehensive plans.
Health savings don’t stop at the plan level, either. The
right benefits broker will help you reduce your prescription drug spend while
making sure that your employees get the medications they need. Drug formularies
can guide employees towards lower-cost, preapproved medications and away from
expensive alternatives. When necessary, benefits brokers can also help you
impose limited restrictions such as requiring employees to try generic drugs
before covering name-brand equivalents. And some brokers will help you cut
costs across the board by offering a prescription savings card as an added
benefit for your employees. These cards can help employees save up to 80% on most
medications.
Education
Your financial investment into your benefits strategy isn’t worth
a whole lot if your employees don’t understand the benefits offered to them.
Your benefits broker can help you provide your employees
with the tools they need to decrease their medical expenses and increase their
wellness to minimize days off and maximize productivity. But if your broker
doesn’t also help you educate your employees about those options then your
employees won’t take advantage of them. As a result, you won’t see those
savings that the broker promised when you when you hired them.
Even by itself, education has a huge impact on your bottom
line and employee welfare. According to a McKinsey survey, engaged healthcare
consumers spend one-third as much as passive consumers. That means that having
a benefits broker who helps you educate and engage your employees can lead to
massive savings for your employees and your company. Plus, helping your employees
become educated, intelligent benefits consumers will allow them to better understand
their own needs.
At the same time, you’re investing a huge amount of money
into employee benefits to reward and engage your employees so that they are
productive, loyal, long-term members of your team. You want to make sure that
they understand all of the benefits that you are offering them and all of the perks
that make your benefits package stand out.
Choosing the Right Employee Benefits Broker: Key Takeaways
We’ve covered a lot in this guide, so let’s take a moment to
go over the key points that you should keep in mind when hiring a benefits
broker:
Benefits are a major expense and a significant investment in your human capital, so it’s important to work with the right broker for your organization
Don’t simply stay with the same benefits broker for years without reexamining the relationship, and be on the lookout for signs that your broker isn’t keeping up with the latest benefits trends
Look for a broker who offers and has expertise in modern benefits such as telemedicine and wellness benefits
Ensure your broker offers software solutions for benefits management and enrollment
See what the benefits broker can do to help you build a benefits strategy and proactively manage your benefits costs
Work with brokers who will help you educate your employees so that they can take advantage of their benefits, fully appreciate the package you offer, and become smarter healthcare consumers
The
healthcare industry in the U.S. is uniquely ripe for transformation. It is a
dynamic and growing market with rampant inefficiencies that attracts new technology-savvy
players seeking opportunity. Case in point: Ecommerce giant Amazon recently
entered into a joint venture with Berkshire Hathaway and Chase Manhattan to
enter the healthcare space. Amazon’s health offering will disrupt long-time
insurance incumbents like Blue Cross, United Health Care, Aetna, Humana and
Cigna.
This
competitive repositioning will force employees to change the way they consume
healthcare (i.e., go to the doctor, fill prescriptions, etc.). Companies that begin
to plan now for this change will have a significant advantage over those that
wait.
In this post, we’ll take a look at some of the key factors driving healthcare disruption and outline several best practice steps you can take to position your company for long-term success, including:
Don’t do it alone
Prioritize the disruption
Accelerate innovation
Extend traditional boundaries
Market forces are
accelerating the pace of change
In
healthcare, progress has moved forward in fits and starts. Overall, however,
the pace of change is accelerating. We’ve already seen consumers shift away
from brick-and-mortar stores in other markets, and it was only a matter of time
before healthcare followed the same pattern.
Consumers
are accustomed to quick responses, electronic access to information, and the
ability to be more engaged in decision making. With purchasing power tilting
more in favor of consumers, it’s natural that they would opt for more easily
accessible options when seeking the healthcare services and products they
need.
The
forces that have managed to disrupt other markets—from travel to media to
retail—have so far made only slight intrusions into healthcare. But that is
changing. Big technology companies like Google and Apple are also moving into
the healthcare space, bringing unique capabilities such consumer recognition, extensive
supply chains and powerful analytical capabilities—all backed by vast financial
resources.
Other
market entrants adding to the disruption include leading pharmacy retailers
such as CVS and Walgreens, which are integrating their e-commerce systems with
their numerous retail outlets and walk-in clinics to create new healthcare
delivery platforms. All of these efforts seek to address long-time service
delivery shortcomings while leaping ahead of incumbents.
In
the coming years we can expect a number of industry trends to play a central
role in re-shaping the patient care and healthcare delivery landscape.
Data as a strategic asset. One of the most valuable resources in healthcare is data. Access to data and the ability to leverage that data is essential to creating consumer-centric models of care, improving outcomes, and reducing costs. To that end, many traditional technology players today are building connected tools, wearable devices and healthcare applications, allowing patients to track and monitor their treatment progress and send data back to the healthcare provider. Meanwhile, insurance companies are partnering with drug manufacturers to utilize patient data to personalize patient care and improve the consumer experience.
Better decision making through AI. According to Accenture, the artificial intelligence (AI) health market is expected to grow to $6.6 billion by 2021—a compound annual growth rate of 40 percent. A number of factors are driving that growth:
Patient management. AI tools can help doctors and insurance providers better identify and prioritize patients to deliver the optimum level of resources to minimize costs and enrich patient outcomes. The technology will be instrumental for analyzing large volumes of data to evaluate and develop future treatments.
Diagnostic insight. AI is assisting researchers and doctors in diagnosis and understanding of complex diseases. Case in point: the FDA recently approved artificial intelligence tools to detect bone fractures and diabetic responsiveness in patients, helping to reduce time from onset to therapy.
Labor shortages. AI tools can help reduce the burden of providers performing documentation and data management. They have also proven highly effective in helping triage patients so doctors can focus on patients with the most critical need.
Managing social
determinants.
Most health outcomes are the result of circumstances outside the healthcare
system. These social determinants, such as the conditions in which people are born,
live, work and age, undergird many of today’s healthcare challenges. As social
determinants become a greater focus in healthcare treatment and delivery, care
spending is expected to drop while quality of life would improve for impacted
communities. In many areas, this has already begun, as hospitals and health
insurers work with local health departments to identify social determinants and
address community health concerns.
Taking a strategic approach to transformation
With the healthcare
market poised for major disruption, business leaders are rapidly developing
strategies to remain competitive. Disruption is not all doom and gloom. With
the right approach, it can be as much of an opportunity as it is a threat. How
you respond can make all the difference. Following are some best practice steps
that can help you take control of your response effort and better position your
company to capitalize on this market shift.
Don’t do it alone. Working with a
strategic employee benefits broker is essential for gaining an edge and avoiding
obsolescence in today’s fast-moving digital world. Find digital-savvy partners
willing to challenge traditional thinking and make sure your strategic approach
is aligned with market realities. The right broker will ensure your business is
not only poised to adapt to any market changes, but will also leverage those
changes to your business’ advantage.
Prioritize the
disruption.
The scale, the reach and the quality of the experience are three dimensions in
which digital disruptions can be viewed. Your ability to accurately assess
these dimensions can provide important market advantages. How will the disruption
effect your business and your employees? With new value will it bring? What
challenges will you need to tackle? How will it impact other aspects of your
business operations? Disruptions that impact two or more of these elements
should be given priority focus.
Accelerate innovation. To survive and thrive in the digital era,
companies must be able to innovate faster than their competitors. Driving
innovation at this speed requires a culture that encourages and celebrates innovation. Many organizations have little tolerance for
risk or failure, but risk-taking is the lynchpin to innovation. Companies that
encourage creativity, set bold objectives and aren’t afraid of failure are
better equipped to succeed in the face of market uncertainty. While innovation
is vital to your response strategy, ultimately your company’s core goals and
mission should drive your business focus and transformation initiatives.
Extend traditional
boundaries.
Carefully examine what
organizational changes your company may need to become more collaborative and
open. This requires an objective and honest assessment of people, processes,
and technologies across the organization. Be prepared to question beliefs based
on history, long-held practices and accepted patterns. Consider why and how
these beliefs are held and assess and weigh current practices to previous
patterns. Set aggressively high targets
that extend traditional boundaries and requires people to think outside the
box. A willingness to break from established practices can open the door to
creativity, allowing your team to see the possibilities often hidden behind the
status quo.
Key Takeaways
When
it comes to pioneering innovation, the healthcare industry presents a paradox.
Although life-changing medical breakthroughs often come about at a rapid pace,
the manner in which healthcare is delivered has been painstakingly slow to
improve. But change is indeed coming and the winners will be those that figure
out how to best prepare for, navigate, and benefit from this massive
disruption.
The one decision business
leaders need to make when it comes to healthcare disruption is how to respond
to it. Taking effective action will often requires leading a journey into
unfamiliar territory using new tools and processes. Uncertainty is inevitable.
Instead of trying to change that, explore what is technologically possible,
understand the risk-reward tradeoffs, and then rally the best resources to
bring the vision to life.
Whatever the
approach, one thing is certain: disruption waits for no one—there’s no time to
waste in moving from awareness to action.
There is no question that wellness benefits have become all
the rage in recent years. Companies of all sizes are offering benefits such as
on-site exercise facilities, healthy food during the workday, and flexible work
hours in order to improve employee health and morale. Wellness has been treated
as something of a cure-all for business ills ranging from healthcare costs to
high turnover rates. Are they worth the hype? We think mostly so, but that in
order for wellness programs to be effective they should be tailored to your
company’s values and your employees’ specific needs.
In today’s post we’ll explore the main reasons why you
should adopt wellness benefits including:
Decrease healthcare costs
Genuinely help employees
Adapt to and augment company culture
Increase employee engagement for productivity and retention
Let’s take a look at what wellness benefits are, how they
can help your business, and how you can get started creating a wellness program
of your own.
Benefits Overview
So what exactly are wellness benefits? Generally speaking,
they are any program that is intended to improve an employee’s mental or
physical health. Companies are increasingly adopting wellness benefits in order
to keep their healthcare costs low or increase employee morale.
Typically wellness benefits fall into one or both of two
categories: those that address mental health and those that address physical
health. Screenings and counseling can help identify both mental and physical
issues at the same time, but the wellness solutions to the two different
categories of health are generally different.
Some examples of physical wellness benefits are:
Contests for exercise, weight loss, or smoking cessation
Subsidized gym membership or on-site exercise facilities
Free healthy food in-office
Diet and exercise education and counseling
While mental wellness benefits can include:
Flexible vacation and remote-work policies
In-office breaks
Counseling and therapy
Support groups
Later we’ll explore how you can assemble the right wellness
package that best fits your company’s values and your employees’ needs. But
first let’s examine just why you should consider implementing wellness benefits
in the first place.
They Work
One of the main reasons why wellness benefits are catching
on so quickly is that they just work. In fact, wellness programs have an average
ROI of three to one. There are several reasons why the return on
investment is so high – the first one being that it doesn’t take that much of
an investment to create wellness benefits. Some programs can be expensive, but
benefits like education and competitions are easy to set up and require almost
no monetary commitment. Fundamentally, wellness is a form of prevention, which
is almost always more cost effective than treatment. So even benefits which
involve medical care, such as screening programs, save big bucks in the long
run.
The most obvious impact on your bottom line is decreased
medical expenses overall. Wellness benefits are especially effective at
targeting common ‘lifestyle’ issues, like smoking and obesity, and associated
chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. They have proven
successful in encouraging exercise, healthier eating, weight loss, smoking
cessation, and increased mental health; all of which lower medical costs.
But the financial benefit doesn’t end there. Because
employees become healthier and happier, they miss work less frequently and are
less stressed at work. This leads to increased productivity and decreased
turnover, which are major benefits to your bottom line and to the success of
your organization as a whole.
They Actually Help Employees
Unlike other methods of cutting healthcare costs, wellness
benefits are actually about making employees’ lives better. They decrease the
need for healthcare, rather than the coverage itself, and in-so-doing put the
employee’s needs front and center. Wellness programs only work for the company
if they succeed in helping employees; the ROI comes directly from improved
employee health.
This makes your job a lot easier – and more rewarding. You
get to think about what’s genuinely best for all of your employees and then
make it happen. And for once you won’t have to fight tooth and nail to get
employees to adopt the new initiatives, because the benefit to them will be
self-evident. Employees are the lifeblood of any company; make the most of this
opportunity to make their lives better while also helping the company succeed.
They Adapt to and Augment Company Culture
Every company’s challenges are different, and the solutions
need to be as well. Your wellness benefits can and should be tailored to fit
your company’s specific needs, goals, and values. They are also often most effective
when implemented with your company culture in mind; choose the benefits that
reflect what your company stands for.
If your wellness benefits are aligned with your culture,
they are more likely to be adopted by your employees and are more likely to address
your employees’ challenges effectively. And if you have a strong culture, then
your employees are already onboard with its values, so they will embrace
benefits that reflect those values.
Best of all, when you implement wellness benefits that are aligned
with your company culture, they will become an important part of the culture
over time. Wellness can be an enormous asset to your culture, serving as proof
that your culture is fostering a sense of shared values and commitments.
They Increase Engagement
Because wellness benefits are intended improve employees’
well-being, they generally make employees feel more valued. They are frequently
viewed by employees as quality-of-life benefits that are meant help them more
than they help the company.
The fact of the matter is that even if you were to implement
wellness benefits purely to cut healthcare costs, you would still have to make
your employees’ lives better in order to attain that goal. And your employees
would appreciate you, and their work, more for it. When your employees feel
valued, they will be more engaged with their work, increasing their
productivity and decreasing turnover.
Don’t just take our word for it – a recent study
found that 85% of employers saw an increase in engagement after implementing
wellness benefits, and that employee engagement was actually the primary reason
for providing wellness benefits for 42% of companies surveyed.
We probably don’t have to explain to you how much it helps
to have your employees engaged in their work. Wellness benefits can help solve
the retention crisis that many businesses are facing in today’s economy.
Turnover is a fact of life and an expensive problem that is only getting worse,
especially when it comes top talent.
And, a major driver of turnover is the difficulty of providing
meaningful work. So, when companies release wellness benefits that get
employees engaged in their work, they can do wonders for employee retention and
productivity. In 2016, Aflac found
that 60% of employees would take a job with lower salary but higher
benefits, and that 42% of employees said that increasing benefits would help
keep them in their jobs.
How to Create a Wellness Program
So, wellness benefits can decrease your healthcare costs,
strengthen your company culture, increase employee productivity and retention. But
you may be wondering how to get started setting up a wellness program. Well,
let’s explore the basics of introducing wellness benefits in your organization.
In order to develop an effective wellness program, you
should determine what health issues you need to address. You can do this in a
few different ways. The first is to consider the main healthcare issues
nationwide, particularly for the demographics that reflect your workforce. The
second is to look at your healthcare expenses over recent years for main
drivers of healthcare costs. The third, and best, way to figure out what issues
to tackle is to conduct a Health Risk Assessment, or HRA, company-wide. These
questionnaires provide you with the information you need to identify the issues
that most affect your employees. Third-party vendors can conduct the assessment
in order to maximize employee comfort and participation and can analyze the
results for you to give you the best possible insights.
Once you have determined what issues you want to tackle,
it’s time to decide on what programs you want to implement. We encourage you to
choose the benefits based on the issues you identified in conjunction with your
company culture. Don’t think too much about what other companies are doing to
address the same issues, try to think about how your company should
solve them. Every company is different, and you want your programs to be in
line with what your company values.
Wellness programs generally fall into four main categories:
screening, education, incentives, and counseling. Screening generally
encompasses preventative care beyond what is covered under the standard
healthcare plan and helps you catch potential issues before they start
affecting employee health and well-being. Education empowers employees to take
control of their health and can take the form of health fairs, regularly
scheduled health seminars or talks. Incentives directly encourage employees to
act to improve their wellness by making it easier to make healthy changes or
rewarding wellness accomplishments. Examples of incentives include contests,
subsidized gym membership, free therapy or guided exercise sessions on-site, or
rewards for participating in the other components of the wellness program such
as screenings or educational talks. Finally, counseling allows employees to
receive confidential advice about their physical, mental, or financial health.
Now that you have decided which programs can make the most
difference for your employees, implement them enthusiastically and
consistently. Get key stakeholders, especially executives and managers, deeply
involved in all of your wellness programs. Effective wellness should be fun and
rewarding, but they also involve challenging employee’s habits and lifestyles,
so your leadership teams can encourage adoption by getting fully onboard
themselves.
If you follow these guidelines, you should have a strong wellness program that is tailored to what your company stands for and what your employees need to be the healthiest and happiest versions of themselves. Just one last thing – listen to your employees once you have rolled out wellness. They likely know what they want and need better than you do, so you can continue to develop a more effective wellness strategy by encouraging and integrating their feedback.
Key Takeaways
We’ve thrown a lot of information about wellness at you in
this article. Don’t worry if you can’t remember it all – you can always come
back to refresh your memory. Just remember these key points when you start
thinking about developing a wellness program:
Wellness is worth everything you put into it and more
Your company culture should guide your wellness strategy – and your benefits will strengthen your culture in return
Wellness benefits actually improve your employees’ lives and make them more engaged with their work, increasing retention and productivity
There is no right way to implement wellness, do what makes sense for you and your employees, and don’t forget to have fun
There are many ways to integrate wellness benefits into your
business. We certainly have not covered everything in this article, but
hopefully you now have a better sense of what wellness can do for your
organization and how you can start putting together a wellness program. We
would love to hear from you about your wellness strategies successes, so post
any ideas we may have missed in the comments!
