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My Pants are on Fire!...Again

  

  

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My Pants are on Fire….Again

At the time of this writing, it is once again open enrollment season. All across this great country of ours HR and Benefit Professionals are hard at work trying to figure out how to minimize rate increases, communicate changes in plan design attributed to either health care reform or “cost controls” and stress levels are through the roof. Every HR and Benefits Department is trying to do more with less and positively communicate the changes that will take place after the first of the year to all aspects of their benefit programs. Calm down. Come up to the surface and take a deep breath…after all, this panic and stress, by and large, is really your own fault. I realize that you are likely steaming right now over that last comment, but hang with me and let’s take a moment to analyze the entire situation.

Benefit planning, strategy and communication are a process…not an event. How many of you (be honest!) look at your employee benefit plan strategically as a company asset? If you do, you are planning and developing a multi-year benefit strategy with contingencies that allow you to anticipate and communicate change in a positive way. In addition, you are focused through out the year on a strategy that allows you to identify how to best communicate to your employees about the value their benefits provide. Are you really satisfied with the communication strategies that you have in place to promote programs that you know will have a positive impact on your employee’s health and the bottom line of your benefit program?

The key to the castle is finding the time to do all of the above. You are likely in a situation where you feel that completing this weeks tasks is a challenge.  In today’s economy, there are very few companies that have either the personnel or capital to be where they would they would like to be so far as benefit strategy. The good news is that, in many ways, health care reform has made strategic planning and communication a requirement and not a luxury. So, how do HR and Benefit Professionals get to where they need to be considering the restrictions of the corporate environment in which they reside? Here are some tips:

Begin the process of defining what your corporate goals for both budget and plan designs are going to be at least eight months in advance of your renewal. Think through and analyze your human capital needs and goals for at least the next two years. My crystal ball is no better anyone else’s, but take into account what you know about your business and industry, growth patterns, access to business capital and market fluctuations that pertain to your specific industry. Keep in mind how changes to your benefit plan design will be received by your employees. Utilize part of your strategy to analyze specific voluntary benefits that can be truly effective in controlling the employee’s financial exposure. Voluntary benefits can play a key role if they become part of your planning strategy. If you approach this as a process and not an event, you will find that small time commitments that are scheduled and planned pay huge dividends over time.

If you don’t have a good grasp on how to effectively communicate with (not to) your employees, set a goal to accomplish that within the next six months. Your planning should involve making sure that you are in tune with how your employees want to receive information. So many times, the failure in effective communication centers on the media method that was used. Look at factors like the age and gender of your employees, what internal communication tools you have used effectively in the past as well as those that did not work so well. This also includes the type of media that you are going to use to reach your employees and their dependents. Don’t forget that a reasonable portion of the risk that you carry in your employee benefit program is on the shoulders of your employee’s family members. Don’t be afraid to use the age old survey and even develop a focus group within your company to help answer some of these questions. With the right template, developing an effective communication strategy isn’t that complicated to implement!!

Here is the best news of the day! All of the above can be accomplished within the timeframes outlined without a huge fee to an outside consultant. How you ask? Are you already concerned about the time commitments outlined above? Again, relax. This one is not your fault! One of the positive aspects and outcomes of health care reform is that employers now have to look at their employee benefits from an entirely different angle. Planning and strategy processes have been moved to the front page and are now mandatory based on the changes the benefits landscape faces over the next three years. Seize the opportunity to work with your benefit professional now to both develop a benefit and communication strategy that will allow you to anticipate not only the changes to your core program, but how you can effectively communicate those changes to your employees. After all, wouldn’t life be a whole lot easier if you could make your open enrollment process just another company event?

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