by admin | Mar 13, 2023 | Employee Benefits
Employee benefits and open enrollment may be something you only think about a few times a year, and for your employees, it might be even less often. However, with a thoughtful, year-round communications plan, your business can increase employee engagement and smart benefits utilization.
Many employees don’t know what benefits are available or how to utilize them. And with many employees working remotely or on a hybrid schedule, communication is even harder. Only communicating with employees regarding their benefits package during open enrollment will most definitely result in them not taking full advantage of all it has to offer. So, what are some creative ways to engage employees with their employee benefits throughout the calendar year?
START WITH THE END IN MIND
As you begin crafting your engagement plan, think of the overall goal you want to accomplish. Perhaps you simply want your employees to be better educated on their plan offerings. Maybe you’d like to reduce the number of questions that employees ask during open enrollment meetings. Maybe you want your employees to utilize a certain plan benefit that has been historically underused resulting in higher costs to the employee or the company. Whatever the case, first set your goal for the communication plan.
CREATE A CALENDAR
Now that you have an end-goal in mind, start thinking of how frequently you want to communicate. Schedule your communication moments to post consistently. Maybe you start a “Benefits Minute” that hits the first Monday of the month. You could also start a “Benefits Blog” that posts every other Friday. Whatever the case, make the communication happen on a schedule so that employees know when to expect it and know what it’s called.
9 out of 10 employees will choose the same benefits year after year. Creating a consistent educational calendar gives people time to find out and digest changes. Be sure to send information and reminders to avoid unwelcome surprises.
KEEP IT SIMPLE
Get to the main point quickly. If your communications are long-winded, employees will likely tune out before they receive the pertinent information. Instead, follow this simple formula when crafting your communication:
- Pitch – “Here’s something you may not know about your benefits.”
- Why – “This is why it’s important/relevant to you.”
- Call to Action – “Here’s what you should do to learn more,
MIX UP YOUR COMMUNICATION STYLE
Communication isn’t one-size-fits-all. People learn in different ways—some may be visual learners while others may be oral learners. Make sure you mix up the way you communicate to cover both types. Also, change up the method of communication. Try emails, videos, printed flyers, and quick virtual presentations. The idea is to get your message out through every channel available to ensure you’re reaching the entirety of your audience.
Ultimately, a good benefits package attracts and retains talent and increases the productivity of people. Following through with strong employee benefit communication is equally as important as the implementation. By following through with consistent and relevant benefits education, you will see that your employees will reap the benefits of a healthy understanding of their benefit plan!
by admin | Mar 7, 2023 | Employee Benefits, Hot Topics
Health care is expensive but there is good news: Most insurance plans come with free preventive care and benefits. There is a lot of confusion around what is and isn’t preventive care – and why it matters. Here is what you need to know.
What is Preventive Care and Why Is It Important?
Preventive care is routine health care that includes screenings, services and counseling to help prevent illness, disease or other health problems. It is care that helps detect or prevent serious diseases and other medical issues before they become worse.
When you subscribe to a health plan—regardless of whether it’s one offered by your work or one you purchase in the marketplace—most plans will include an array of preventive care services free of charge if you use an in-network provider. Due to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), plan providers are required by law to offer basic preventive care services to you and those covered by your plan with no additional copay, coinsurance, or requirement to meet a deductible.
So why should you go to the doctor when you’re healthy? The simple answer is that preventive care can help you stay healthier and, as a result, lower your health care costs. It can also help identify health problems earlier like diabetes, high blood pressure, or even cancer, when these diseases are most treatable.
Preventive Health Care Examples
- Annual Checkups – This is when your primary care physician checks your overall health. These visits are a great opportunity to bring up anything you may be worried about with your doctor.
- Immunizations – These include Tdap (Tetanus, Diphtheria and Pertussis) boosters, and immunizations against Pneumococcal Conjugate and Shingles. Your annual flu shot is also covered.
- Cancer Screenings – Most people don’t experience cancer symptoms when it is in the earliest, most treatable stage. That’s why it’s important to have regular screenings throughout your life. Preventive screenings for women include pap test and mammograms. It’s also recommended that both men and women begin colorectal cancer screenings starting at age 45.
- Tests and Screenings – These include tests for blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, obesity and depression
- Pediatric Screenings – These include screenings for hearing, vision, autism and developmental disorders
- Colonoscopy – 1 typically every 10 years, usually after the age of 50
- Mammogram – 1 per calendar year, usually after the age of 40
Unfortunately, most people in the United States are not taking advantage of preventive care. In fact, one study from 2018 found that only 8% of adults 35 and older received the preventive care recommended to them. Today, the vast majority of deaths in America stem from preventable chronic diseases and 90% of the nation’s $4.1 trillion in annual health care spending goes for people with chronic and mental health conditions.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has provided lists of preventive services that must be covered by most health insurance plans. Lists are available for adults, women and children. Click here for the lists of covered preventive care services.
Preventive health services offer significant health benefits and are covered by most insurance companies. In other words, participating in preventive care usually won’t cost you anything. So, go get those freebies – and improve your health – while you’re at it!
by admin | Feb 27, 2023 | Human Resources
Employee engagement is the top priority of respondents to HR Exchange Network’s latest State of HR survey. Obviously, employers are keen to engage employees to increase productivity and retention. However, the economic downturn and inflation is complicating matters, and Human Resources leaders are seeking new ways to reach talent.
Recently, Eric Mochnacz, strategic senior HR leader and Director of Operations at Red Clover, shared his ideas about how to move forward and keep morale up, even in lean times. Here’s what he had to say:
HREN: First of all, do you think employees are going to continue with the leverage that they have? Or is that going to shift again?
EM: We’ve argued that it’s a job seekers market. Job candidates and employees can demand more. I think job seekers are more in the driver’s seat. However, they will probably come to future employers with more reasonable expectations. Recently, I got into it on LinkedIn with an individual who was honest. He said that if you were in talent acquisition, and you were making x amount of dollars, you have to be realistic about what some of these companies are willing to offer you. You may need to take a salary cut.
Obviously, we want people to feel like they are paid their worth. But I think what happened – and this is true for many of our clients – is they were getting people stolen from them because these companies were just throwing an exorbitant amount of money to win talent. That’s where a lot of people got burned.
Employees and job seekers will have the opportunity to say, ‘Listen, I still want remote work. I still want flexible scheduling. I think that’s still a good negotiating point for people. I think where employers will get savvier is that they will not throw money at job candidates like they did before. They’re going to be a little more conservative. Job seekers will have more realistic expectations about what they’re going to be able to find. If you’re from Meta or Twitter, when you think about becoming a software engineer at a 10- to 15-person firm, you must realize that they probably cannot afford what Meta and Twitter were able to provide.
However, we tell our tech clients to remind people that they will have a constant stream of customers, so they can offer job security. That’s the difference.
HREN: What are some of the best practices for employee engagement to keep productivity and morale up?
EM: It’s critical that how they communicate from this point on with employees helps them understand their standing in the organization. There’s been a lot of hot takes, and I’ve participated in some about how Elon Musk handled Twitter versus how Mark Zuckerberg handled Facebook.
If the company ultimately believes that the decisions they make will right set the organization, and they don’t think they’re going to need to make any layoffs in the near future, HR should say, ‘Listen, this was why we did X, Y, and Z. We think we will be successful in addressing the problem. We are relatively confident that we won’t need to do another round of layoffs.’ Again, nothing is ever guaranteed. I also think it probably requires HR leaders to get a little more face time with employees.
There’s probably this pervasive feeling of I’m doing more with less, and I’m not going to have the opportunity to find someone to relieve some of the work pressure. So, what are we doing? What’s the company doing? What are we doing to look forward? HR – I hope it’s part of the strategic leadership team – should be able to adequately respond to those questions. They must be able to listen and say, ‘So, you’re saying that you’ve now taken on the work of two other people, because we let them go? The solution to this problem is that we need to show your value. We don’t want to lose you.’
What needs to happen? I think it’s just more intentional communication with the remaining workforce, helping them feel valued, really listening to what they have to say. Then, you must use that to develop strategy into Q1 and Q2. Continue to communicate that effectively. Say, ‘We can’t hire more people now, but if things adjust, we might be able to do so in the next quarter.’
By Francesca Di Meglio
Originally posted on HR Exchange Network
by admin | Feb 20, 2023 | Health Insurance, Hot Topics
The pandemic gave us more reasons, and more options, to see doctors online. More and more, people are seeking out telemedicine services versus the traditional brick and mortar physician’s office. This trend includes telemental health services as well. And much like the necessity of remote work proved its potential to employers, telemedicine took hold as a convenient, safe and effective approach to healthcare.
While telemedicine services perform an important role in filling gaps in care, they do not address chronic care and primary care of people. This shortcoming has led to the creation of an entirely new category: virtual primary care (VPC). Today, many employers are exploring incorporating VPC into their employee benefits offering.
In practice, virtual primary care gives patients face-to-face time with their physicians across electronic devices. VPC combines the convenience of telehealth technology with an emphasis on building and maintaining strong relationships between patients and the primary care providers (PCPs). It can be used for chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes or screening for issues like anxiety and depression. During these visits, doctors can refer patients to specialists or even write prescriptions for some acute illnesses that do not require an in-person assessment.
The COVID-19 pandemic definitely thrust the use of telemedicine forward, but many healthcare providers have been using this type of service for years. What the pandemic did do is encourage patients’ use of the telehealth services already in place. In fact, in 2020 telehealth visits increased 8,336% over visits in 2019 and telehealth appointments continue to rise.
Patients and medical professionals struggle to stay afloat in the current healthcare space. Long wait times have become the norm at doctor’s offices. As a result, more people are avoiding medical appointments altogether. Alongside outrageous wait times, patients are also plagued by high medical costs.
VPC is a cost-effective way for more people to access healthcare more easily, as it reduces taking time off from work and traveling to see a doctor – especially for those living in remote areas. Not every visit can be a digital visit, but many can be.
The shift to virtual primary care is a solution appealing to younger generations who enjoy the ease of digital appointments. A poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found one-fourth of all adults and nearly half of adults under 30 don’t have a primary care provider – and don’t want one. Millennials and Gen Z (those born in 1997 or later) are “digital natives” and do not remember a time when the internet and social media didn’t exist. As a result, they communicate, shop and manage all aspects of their lives differently than generations before them. When it comes to healthcare, their expectations are no different. They want to schedule and complete a medical consultation from the same place they order dinner – their couch.
Today, all generations of health consumers are demanding a focus shift from just healthcare to health and well-being. VPC is a healthcare evolution that could open doorways for patients to interact with more doctors, receive a better diagnosis, and reduce the common healthcare concerns that are so prevalent today.
by admin | Feb 13, 2023 | Human Resources
There aren’t rules for how frequently you should update your handbook, but given laws do change, it’s smart to be proactive so you don’t get caught off guard.
An updated employee handbook helps employees understand what’s expected of them, and helps managers ensure company policies are followed.
We’ve identified four reasons to revisit your employee handbook in 2023.
New year, new employee handbook? There aren’t any hard and fast rules that require your handbook to be updated at specific intervals. But instead of assuming it’ll get you through 2023, there are good reasons to treat it like the living document it is.
First, the implementation of updated, clear policies that both employees can understand, and managers apply consistently will help employees feel like they’re being treated fairly.
Next, having a handbook that you know is up to date with current laws (and well understood by managers) can help reduce the likelihood of a claim against your business. Plus, if an employee or former employee does file a claim, a handbook can provide valuable documentation to demonstrate that your business has equitable and compliant workplace policies in place.
Here are 4 policies we think you should pay attention to in 2023:
- Personal Appearance/Grooming (CROWN Acts): Employers with dress codes or appearance policies need to keep an eye out for CROWN Acts, as these laws generally protect traits associated with race, including natural and protective hairstyles. If you have policies that prohibit afros, dreadlocks (a.k.a. locks), or hair past a certain length, they’ll need to be revisited. Even if you aren’t subject to a law that protects natural hairstyles, we recommend removing restrictions that are more likely to affect employees of a particular race, sex, or religion, in order to increase inclusivity.
- EEO (for CROWN acts and many others): Equal Employment Opportunity policies generally list the classes or characteristics that are protected by federal and state law. We see a handful of new state-level protections every year, so employers (especially those operating in multiple states) need to ensure that their EEO policies are up to date.It’s common for employee handbooks to say that they won’t discriminate based on the federally protected classes, and then say, “and any other class protected by state or federal law”. This catch-all is a nice idea, but many employers aren’t aware of all the classes that are protected by federal and state law. As a result, they can be caught off guard – and in a lawsuit – because they simply didn’t know the actions they were taking were considered illegal discrimination.That’s why we recommend including the full list of protected classes in the employee handbook. More knowledge is better. Also, managers have a duty to ensure that employees aren’t harassing one another based on their inclusion in a protected class. And if your managers aren’t aware of the full extent of their responsibilities, they’re going to have a much harder time keeping your workplace in compliance.
- Sick leave policies: State sick leave laws were trending even before the pandemic and that hasn’t let up. Even when we’re not getting brand-new laws, we’re seeing expansions of the existing requirements to cover more situations. Given employees’ heightened awareness of how disease spreads and an increased desire to avoid illness, we recommend revisiting your sick leave policies — even if they aren’t required by law – to ensure that employees are encouraged to stay home when sick.
- State Family and Medical Leave: State family leaves, whether paid or unpaid, are being passed at a steady clip. These usually interact with FMLA as well as benefits offered by the company, so it’s appropriate for employers to have this laid out in their handbook so that both managers and employees know when these leaves apply.
Taking steps to ensure your employee handbook reflects today’s workplace just makes sense. Your company isn’t stagnant, and the regulatory environment in which it operates certainly isn’t standing still. So, whether you review it annually, every six months, or quarterly, be proactive about updating your employee handbook in 2023. You’ll be glad you did.
Originally posted on Mineral
