By Murray L. Harber
As HR Professionals, we can get into the same routine when renewing health-related benefits programs we offer our employees for themselves and their families. We anxiously await the news from our brokers, consultants, and carriers to see the increase in premium needed to support the existing plan design. Most HR Professionals accept these increases and pass along these cost increases to the employees through cost-shifting methods and plan design changes.
When our CEOs and CFOs inquire about ways to mitigate these costs increases, we as HR Professionals seek out our brokers and consultants for solutions. They usually come back with the usual, rebidding the plans, adjusting plan design, cost shifting to the employees, and several other methods. You must remember that most of these groups are paid by the quantity of expenditures and not on the quality, aka, performance of the benefits. This is when we need to stop and take time for a “Check-up and Tune-up” of our benefits partners and vendors while learning from other employers who have seen improvements in quality, cost, and therefore the value of those investments.
THE CHECK-UP
Over ten years ago, Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company (SFBLIC), as a result of the senior leadership concerns with increasing health benefit costs, took the approach to question and expect more from its benefits consultants and vendors as they did a “Check-Up” on their health benefits programs. They began by using the HERO Health Management Scorecard, an evidence-based industry best practice assessment of all things health for employers. This assessment showed that they offered only 25% of the elements of the comprehensive program whereas today, they report over 85%.
The SFBLIC team with an aggressive focus, spent time learning from other employers across the country along with researching national trends to identify potential solutions for building a comprehensive set of benefits. They also pushed their consultants and vendors to do more with elevated expectations. When they did not perform to these expectations, SFBLIC replaced them. They also utilized multiple data sources and analytics to identify key improvement areas within their benefits program. HR Professionals must think differently as we have a duty to our organization to spend time and resources to establishing the highest level of value in employee benefits for its employees and their families.
“We had to change our thought process on how we went about looking at our employee health benefits as the usual practices were not working to reduce cost and provide the highest level of value for our investments in time and money. We learned from our research that we, the employer, could spend time and effort to build our own self-insured plan to include value-based vendors which have reduced cost and enhanced value.” –Joyce Plunkett, VP of Human Resources, Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company
THE TUNE-UP
Knowing the need to identify new approaches, SFBLIC began a journey to “Tune-up” its offerings to improve value and performance. They have asked more from their consultants, changed their Third-Party Administrator and the Pharmacy Benefits Manager, and began adding a series of value-based solutions including wellness programs, an onsite clinic, disease management and bariatric surgery for metabolic health issues, and developed an integrated behavioral/mental health benefit. They also aligned incentives across the board to include a premium discount program for completing a series of actions for engaging into preventive health, behavior change actions, and offer health programs and services with no out-of-pocket costs to the employees and plan members.
SFBLIC has also worked on building a solid “Culture of Health” in the workplace where they have been awarded the “Healthiest Workplace in Mississippi” for many years and this year they were recognized as one of the Top 40 employers in the US for employee engagement by the Gallup organization.
It is our duty as HR Professionals to be better fiscal stewards of our companies’ resources and to create better benefits to attract and retain top talent. By tuning up the set of benefits and creating a benefits toolbox, you can reduce waste and improve engagement into these benefits which in turn can maximize the performance of these offerings.
THE CONSUMER
Employee benefits are large part of the total compensation that an employer offers its employees. Employees do not always see it that way, which creates an opportunity for human resources and benefits professionals to offer up more ways to inform and educate on the value of such benefits. Most employees wait until an emergency to utilize a benefit where using them early in the process could avoid the many emergent situations all together.
Communicating benefits throughout the year and offering multiple opportunities to learn and engage these benefits is a critical part of a Human Resource Professional role in the organization. Too many times, I see these benefits outsourced which requires relying on the vendor to communicate the specifics which limits the performance of the benefit. A comprehensive communication and engagement strategy should be developed to ensure that employees know, value, and utilize these benefits on a regular basis. This “Down in the Weeds” approach will take more staff time in the short term which will reduce the staff time needed to answering questions and solving problems later in the process.
“Our team has spent a considerable amount of time in working with our benefits partners to create a system which provides more value by offering more specific levels of benefits. We have witnessed improved engagement and reduced cost as a result of these efforts. I recommend that all professionals in the human resources discipline take more time in crafting specific benefits offerings as these efforts make a difference in employee engagement and employment longevity.” –Melissa Robbins, Benefits Manager, Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company
The time has come where Human Resource Professionals need to be committed to inspecting your benefits plans by working with consultants and vendors to design more effective benefits. Just like an automobile, you should do regular check-ups and tune-ups to reduce misfires and breakdowns which in turn will reduce financial waste and ensure greater value of investment. It is important to remember there is not a one-size fits all for benefit plans. Take the first step forward and begin by assessing your current offerings by doing a checkup and learn from other organizations like Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company and the business coalition on health in your state.
