We help top companies educate their people about important (and complicated) topics like health care and retirement. This blog is all about employee communication, benefits, health care and wellness, and our work. Please leave comments or contact us with any feedback or questions!
Health Care Reform: Crossing Key Messages Aug 31, 2010 By Jennifer Benz
Originally published in Employee Benefit News.
For many employers, the message is clear: health care reform is going to cost money. Removing lifetime limits, adding more dependents to your plan, restricting flexibility in the future (if a plan remains grandfathered), all of these things are increasing costs. That means higher premiums, higher employee contributions and higher blood pressure.
It is easy to take a pessimist’s view of health care costs. Too many things are driving up costs. Employees seem to refuse to make good health care choices, no matter how much we tell them to be good consumers. Washington just gave us a new checklist of to do’s and plan design changes that just add to costs and administrative burden.
But, before you go telling your employees just how bad things look, take a step back. The pessimist’s outlook does little to get people engaged in their health or good decision-making. Your job this enrollment season—in addition to helping people understand what health care reform means to them—is to keep your employees and their families engaged in choosing their health plans wisely. Then, you have to help them use their benefits well all year
In case you missed them: my Top 10 Tweets for August Aug 31, 2010 By Jennifer Benz
Here are my top 10 tweets for this past month—on social media, finance and HR.
Social Media
Here are some social media stats to give you the big picture, and a personal story that gives the topic a human face.
RT @jessica_lee: NYTimes: Minorities Favor Phones in Using Web http://nyti.ms/bTMHJH
Study: U.S. social-network use increases 43% http://sbne.ws/r/5hEn
share thisRe-Engage - What Goes into Employee Engagement? Aug 25, 2010 By Jennifer Benz
“Re-Engage: How America’s Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times” by Leigh Branham, SPHR and Mark Hirschfeld was published in early 2010. The book surveys over 10,000 employers in 43 states and found that the places people want to work are also the places where the most work is being done. The authors describe the innovative and real techniques being used by employers to keep their employees happy and engaged, and in the process, finding out it was well worth their while.
share thisRampant Cynicism + 401(k) Fees = Your Problem Aug 18, 2010 By Liz Rowell
You’re doing more with less, like everyone else. Reduced budgets that translate into decreased benefits, more work as layoffs happen, etc. The last thing you need is cynicism about your perpetually sunny 401(k) plan!
share thisThe truth about benefits communication is somewhere in the middle Aug 6, 2010 By Leslie Orellana
A couple of months ago I was, just like many of your employees, trying to make sense of a benefits annual enrollment guide. This one, from my husband’s employer. And, this long, technical and hard-to-read guide was the only resource I had. If I wanted more, I would need to call a central office and wait on hold. How on earth does this still happen, when technology has made information instantaneous and put it at our fingertips? Unfortunately, I was not alone. This happens all the time. And, it doesn’t have to be that way.
share this