Uncategorized Archives - Page 5 of 10

5 Ways To Raise Employee Engagement in 2020

Short-term employee engagement strategies fail. Intermittent engagement strategies fail. Strategies implemented over the long term can succeed—but only when a company’s leaders do more than “support” them.

That’s the latest on the nation’s employee engagement problem, straight from analytics and advisory firm Gallup, which has been studying employee engagement for the last 20 years.

As you probably know, engagement levels have been fairly dismal. Even in 2018, when those levels were on the rise in the U.S., just 34% of the nation’s employees were engaged in their work. That’s the highest level of engagement ever—but it means 66% of employees remained disengaged from their jobs.

Little has changed since then. The truth is, employee engagement levels have barely budged in the last 10 to 15 years, either nationally or worldwide. Of course, we can’t solve a problem like poor employee engagement on a global scale … Or even nationally or regionally, for that matter. We can only solve it one organization at a time.

In other words, every organization must figure out how to bridge its own engagement gaps.

5 Best Practices
Unfortunately, there’s no magic formula for raising your company’s engagement levels. That’s because engagement is influenced by a complex web of factors, including ensuring employees are personally aligned not only to the work you’ve hired them to do but also to your organization’s mission and culture.

Engagement also depends upon how well you communicate with and manage your people … The opportunities you provide for personal and professional development … And your compensation, benefits and rewards. The list goes on.

With so many factors in play, it’s easy to see why engagement gaps can vary widely from one employer to another. However, there are best practices you can implement that will move your company’s engagement needle in the right direction.

Hire for culture fit. To do this correctly, you need to do several things: a) identify the essence of your company’s culture (mission, vision and values along with the behaviors, habits and beliefs that define successful performance); b) map these elements to your open jobs; and c) interview and assess candidates to pinpoint those who best fit your culture and add value to it. Hiring for culture fit means you’re signing on people whose personal goals are aligned to those of your company. These people are passionate about the work you’re doing and want to engage and contribute.
Help employees map out development and growth opportunities. Investing in employee development increases employee engagement. The reason, Gallup noted, is simple: “High-achieving employees continuously seek purpose and development—so if they’re engaged at your company and you provide those growth and development opportunities, they won’t have a reason to leave, and you’ll attract even more top talent.” In fact, organizations that invest in employee development are 11% more profitable and twice as likely to retain their employees.
Commit to a multiyear engagement plan. Gallup also found that its clients who achieved exceptional engagement levels made long-term commitments to doing so. “Only a sustained, focused commitment from executive leadership can produce outstanding, long-lasting results,” it reported, referring to engagement as a marathon rather than a sprint.
Have leaders do more than offer “support.” As mentioned at the start of this post, leaders who support their companies’ engagement strategies don’t actually remedy the problem. Even those who communicate openly about the strategies aren’t going far enough, according to Gallup’s research. Business leaders—and not just the few at the very top—must actually drive change via a four-step process to lift engagement. “If those leaders take ownership for culture change, understand the business case for engagement and create a high-engagement, high-development strategy that they lead by example, employee engagement stops being a program and starts becoming a way of life,” researchers state.
Invest in benefits that support better engagement. It’s no secret that employees are frequently torn between their work and personal/family responsibilities. There are many benefits programs that help employees efficiently resolve personal and family matters, which enables them to be more focused and productive during work hours. These benefits include comprehensive work-life programs, child and senior care programs, backup care programs, and legal and financial services, among others. Employers who help people balance their competing responsibilities win big—not just in terms of engagement but also in attracting and retaining talent.

Engaging Benefits for an Engaged Workforce
If you want to improve employee engagement, a December Forbes article counseled your benefits need to have value and reflect your company’s values. To “have value,” your benefits must consist of programs your employees actually want and will use, and they have to prioritize real-life needs over trendy perks. As the article points out, there’s not much use in offering gourmet snack stations or onsite dry cleaning if you’re not attending to your employees’ more urgent needs like adequate medical insurance and dealing with family caregiving responsibilities.

Having a highly engaged workforce pays off in all sorts of ways—not the least of which are improved productivity, greater profitability and reduced turnover. You may not be able to sprint to those results … But they’re the rewards of a marathon well worth running.

If you’d like to discuss your company’s engagement and support programs challenges, contact us here or call us at 1-(866) 675-3751.

Testimonial Tuesday: What are LifeCare Members Saying?

We are dedicated to providing our members with essential support to help manage their work-life challenges so they can live engaged, productive lives and get the most out of every day. Here’s just a sample of the feedback we’ve received from members this month.

New Year, New Strategy: Advertise Your Employee Benefits More Often

When open enrollment season rolls around each year, employers generally make a significant effort to inform employees about their benefits plans. They hold meetings and send out materials covering all the options available to employees, program changes and regulatory updates. After this, however, many employers go silent for the rest of the year.

This one-and-done approach to benefits communications is definitely not a recipe for success—not for employees or for employers themselves. To reap the desired utilization and ROI from their sizable investments in employee benefits, organizations need a year-round communications strategy. After all, benefits programs are like so many other consumer programs: the more you “advertise” them, the more people want and use them.

Now Is the Perfect Time To Start
The start of a new year is a great time to get the ball rolling on a year-round communications strategy because your employees are particularly open to messages about their health and wellbeing at this time of year. These messages are everywhere—on television, in the news, in online and print publications, etc. People make and remake resolutions throughout the first few months of each New Year.

Take advantage of this momentum and let your employees know about the various programs that you make available to them. Tobacco cessation, exercise, weight loss, improved mental health, and financial wellness are all perennial concerns that employees focus on even more intensely at the start of the New Year. So marketing the programs you offer to help with these issues will be especially effective in the early months of 2020.

Of course, you’ll want to keep your initial momentum going to sustain high levels of utilization and ROI. This means you need to create a communications calendar that outlines a steady flow of specific messages to your employees. And don’t be afraid to communicate about the same topics several times throughout the year. Employees—just like any consumer—need to hear messages more than once to truly hear and understand them. Remember, the vast majority of employees need your help in understanding the value of their benefits and putting them to use properly. Communicating and educating frequently aren’t a nuisance, they’re a tremendous help.

If you’d like some tips about communication frequency, content, channels and more, read our previous post about “The Secrets to Better Benefits Utilization & ROI.”

Best Practices from the Experts
A 2019 BenefitsPRO article offered several practical insights from subject matter experts that you should consider when mapping out your own year-long communications strategy:

“You’ll get better engagement if employees have the option to meet and talk with a benefits expert. Look for a partner that can provide experienced, licensed, knowledgeable benefits counselors with high business quality scores.”—Steven Johnson, Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company

“Putting benefits in the context of goals can help employees better connect their enrollment choices in a given year to the long-term, as they are likely to face various obstacles along the way to reaching their goals.”—Meredith Ryan-Reid, MetLife

“Benefits communication is one area where your organization can leverage gamification using employee incentives or assessment-based tools. By providing your employees with gamified incentives to complete onboarding steps or learn about benefits options, you can incite real engagement within your organization and your benefits.”—Paige LeBel, Hodges-Mace

When it comes to effective communications channels, insurance brokerage and consulting firm, Woodruff Sawyer, notes that email is a go-to method for benefits communications but it’s certainly not the only one. Other effective channels include town-hall meetings, collaboration tools (Slack, Yammer, etc.), other electronic tools (social media, instant messaging, and texting apps), in-person meetings, and printed materials can all help to increase engagement and utilization levels, depending upon your company’s culture and preferences.

Finally, the BusinessHub blog recently highlighted the importance of learning how your employees feel about your benefits program. Doing so is essential not only to communicating effectively but also to optimizing your programs over time.

“You can find out how your employees feel about your program by conducting surveys, analyzing provider reports, or studying provider and actuarial research,” the blog stated. “If you’re aware of what your employees like or don’t like about their benefits, you can make an effort to highlight those things in your regular communication. For example, if your plan includes a free annual biometric screening but your employees do not take advantage of it, you can include reminders in your communication program.”

Now that 2020 is underway, don’t fall back on a one-and-done communications approach. Treat your benefits programs the way a hot-shot advertising agency would: send out a steady stream of high-energy messages across a variety of channels, and be sure to do it all year long.

To learn more about effective benefits communications strategies and tactics, contact us here or call us at (866) 675-3751.

Featured Friday: Meet Mallory S.

Mallory has almost 10 years of Customer Service experience between her time at LifeCare and her previous position. She started off at LifeCare as a Daily Needs researcher and shortly after moved into her role as a specialist. Mallory lives in Seymour, CT with her husband Chad, son Cameron, dog Cooper and cat Eliza. She loves to spend her free time with her family and friends.

Q: When a member calls, what is the first thing you ask?
A: I always start the call off with “How are you doing today?” I use this as a way to guide the call depending on the member’s response. Each call is so different, and the members’ response can usually help guide the approach I take with them.

Q: How do you approach each call?
A: I approach each call with an open mind. Our requests in Daily Needs vary so much so I always try to remember that these are real people in real situations. If they are excited, I am excited with them. If they are sad, I am empathetic about their situation.

Q: What is your goal for each case?
A: My goal is to match the resources that will best help the member. I do this by asking the necessary questions to make sure all bases are covered and to educate each member based on the experience I have working in Daily Needs.

Q: What are some memorable cases you’ve worked on?
A: Recently, I had a member who was looking for some resources for his stuttering as he struggles with this at work a lot. We sent him the information and he called and left me a voicemail thanking me and followed up with the QA Survey saying our conversation made him feel more confident and the resources we gave him saved him a lot of time and have taken a lot of sleepless nights away. That was so rewarding to see.

Q: What is the best part of your job?
A: The best part of this job is knowing that I help people in need every day. A lot of members do not know what resources are available in the community so being able to find what they need and help save them some time is a great feeling.

Q: How do you connect with the members you help?
A: I connect with the members by trying to relate to them in some way. Whether that’s having a child the same age as theirs, having visited their city before or having gone through similar situations.

Q: What advice would you give to someone who doesn’t know if LifeCare can help them?
A: I would tell them to call in and try us out! We have a lot of educated specialists and researchers throughout Member Services that can help with so many different needs.

Q: In your opinion, what makes your role/team so special?
A: In my opinion, my team is special because of the various requests we get. When a natural disaster occurs we take on those member needs on top of locating doctors, home maintenance services, support groups, funeral resources, homeless/Domestic Violence shelters, and travel requests – just to name a few.

Stay tuned every month for a new feature on our industry-leading, talented team of employees. If you’d like to learn more about how we can support your employees, contact us here or call us at (866) 675-3751.

Infographic: Support That Improves Productivity & Loyalty

If you’d like to learn more about our high-impact services or how LifeCare can create a custom program for your employees’ unique needs, contact us here or call us at (866) 675-3751.

A Look Ahead: Five Major Employee Benefits Trends of 2020

Our previous post outlined five of the major employee benefits trends of 2019. Now we look ahead to five employee benefits trends that will likely dominate employers’ attention in the coming year.

One caveat: caregiving-related benefits, backup care programs, and family-friendly perks will all continue to be important employee benefits trends in 2020. But since we covered them in our last post, we’ll focus on five others here.

2020 Trend #1: Financial Wellness Services
Ample research (including this 2019 survey) has shown most U.S. workers are stressed about their finances. In 2020, employers will implement more solutions to reduce this stress (while also strengthening their talent attraction) by offering financial wellness benefits that include:

Financial education resources and guidance that deliver unbiased debt counseling from financial coaches, budgeting expertise and retirement planning.
Student loan repayment benefits will help companies attract younger workers and recent graduates, although it’s not just youngsters who owe on student loans (in the U.S., more than 44 million people collectively owe $1.5 trillion in student loans).
Health savings accounts (HSAs), which can be used to pay for a wide range of health-related services and products, will be a particularly effective talent draw for millennial recruits and employees, as these debt-ridden younger workers are notoriously reluctant to visit a doctor due to the high costs. Employee participation in HSAs rose from 50% in 2017 to 81% in 2018, according to one report. Plus, these accounts are triple tax free. Contributions are tax-deductible, so they reduce federal income taxes owed, assets in HSA account typically grow tax-free and funds can be withdrawn without being taxed if they are used for qualified medical expenses.

Act swiftly to implement financial wellness benefits and 2020 could be a breakout year for your employment brand. Read more about financial wellness benefits here.

2020 Trend #2: Mental Health Benefits
A recent survey by the National Business Group on Health found that roughly half of all large employers will conduct campaigns in 2020 to reduce the stigma associated with mental health conditions and treatment. Nearly 70% will offer online mental health-related resources, nearly 50% will train managers to recognize mental health issues and direct employees to appropriate services, one-third will offer onsite mental health counselors, and almost 30% will supply online behavioral therapy.

All of these are smart strategies as depression and anxiety cost employers $1 trillion each year in lost productivity, according to The World Health Organization (WHO). For every $1 invested in treating common mental disorders, WHO estimates a return of $4 in improved health and productivity.

2020 Trend #3: Onsite Wellness Clinics
Clearly a trend that only large employers can afford, onsite wellness clinics have already popped up in companies such as Apple and Whole Foods Market. It’s estimated that in 2020 up to 65% of large employers will launch onsite clinics in an effort to lower healthcare costs, reduce sick days and productivity lost to them, and help employees more proactively manage their health.

According to Anthem, many companies with onsite clinics have already seen a return on their investment through increased attendance. Some of these clinics have begun providing more than basic primary care needs, including access to specialists who can help employees better manage chronic diseases.

2020 Trend #4: Benefits for Alternative Families
In the year ahead, more employers will adopt policies and procedures to give alternative families equal access to the same benefits they provide to traditional families. This will include elder caregiving benefits, backup care programs, family leave policies, parenting tools and resources, and more. As growing numbers of employers take action to create cultures of inclusion and diversity, employee benefits will be a primary area of their focus.

2020 Trend #5: Employee Discount Programs
As employers look for ways to separate themselves from their competitors for talent, they turn to unique nontraditional and voluntary benefits such as employee discount programs. These programs not only save employees money on real-life expenses but they don’t cost employers anything. How many other benefits can make that claim? The best programs give employees access to national and local discounts from trusted brands, and they enable employees to save money on major purchases (homes and cars), everyday items (groceries and clothing), child and senior caregiving expenses, entertainment, and more.

Creating a powerful mix of employee benefits is well worth your time and effort—especially when you consider that it can slash your company’s turnover by 138%. Leverage some of the trends above and you’ll be well on your way.

To learn more about high-impact programs that support your employees as well as your bottom line, contact us here or call us at (866) 675-3751.

Testimonial Tuesday: What are LifeCare Members Saying?

2019 In Review: The Employee Benefits Trends That Mattered Most

With 2019 fading fast, it’s a perfect time to reflect on the year’s major employee benefits trends … and pinpoint some that will be prominent in 2020.

2019 Trend #1: Family-Friendly Offerings
Companies of every type and size added family-friendly perks to their benefits packages in 2019, including:

Fertility benefits—Nearly one-third of employers with 500 or more employees offered some sort of fertility benefit, a rise of almost 10% since 2016.
Paid leave benefits—41% of employers of all sizes offered paid maternity leave in 2019, up from 37% in 2016.
Flexible spending accounts—74% of employers offer dependent care flexible spending accounts, up from 69% in 2016.
Child care resource and referral services—27% offered these helpful services, up from 22% in 2016.

In addition to improving talent attraction and retention, family-friendly benefits help employees resolve work-life conflicts, raise their engagement and productivity levels, and create more supportive workplace cultures.

You can read more about employers’ most favored family-friendly benefits here, and you can learn tips here on how to design a family-friendly benefits package that will deliver results next year and far beyond.

2019 Trend #2: Caregiving Programs
Harvard Business School’s (HBS) report, “The Caring Company,” was just one of 2019’s major reports highlighting the urgency and importance of caregiving programs in the workplace. Nearly one-third of employees surveyed by HBS voluntarily left a job due to caregiving responsibilities—including upper-level managers, senior leaders and highly paid men, who were most likely to report their jobs and productivity have been affected by caregiving responsibilities.

As the report pointed out, caregiving benefits open up employers’ talent pools tremendously, as there are literally millions of people who want to work while caring for loved ones at the same time.

Read about the mounting need for eldercare programs in particular here, and learn about four specific types of caregiving programs employees value most here.

2019 Trend #3: Backup Care
Going hand-in-hand with trend #2, backup care programs gained ground in 2019 as employers sought new ways to keep workers engaged and productive. With backup care in place, employees don’t have to miss work or show up late when their regular care arrangements inevitably go awry.

Featuring greater flexibility and comprehensiveness, the most successful backup care programs of 2019 gave employees access to extensive networks of vetted providers (both center-based and in-home options) while also allowing them to go out of network and to use trusted family members and friends. These programs also addressed all types of care—from child care to adult care (for spouses, parents and other adult relatives) to self care and even pet care.

Read more about the benefits of a flexible backup care model here, and discover the array of hard and soft returns delivered by backup care here.

2019 Trend #4: Leaves of Absence
As noted earlier, leaves of absence gained popularity in 2019. Reports during the year showed that implementing strong, clear leave policies and programs help organizations better attract and retain talent, boost morale, and improve employees’ work-life integration. Indeed, one Atlanta employer infamously learned the hard way just how crucial leave policies and practices are when it was forced to settle a $75,000 EEOC lawsuit when it failed to make a reasonable leave accommodation.

The business benefits of leaves—even paid leaves—can far exceed their costs. Google, for example, saw a 50% drop in resignations among new mothers when it increased its paid maternity leave from 12 weeks to 18 weeks.

Learn about three unique leave programs that could benefit your company’s talent attraction and bottom line here.

2019 Trend #5: Blended Work-Life Support

Although it’s been around for nearly half a century, the work-life movement was more relevant than ever in 2019, thanks to the ever-blurring lines between employees’ work lives and personal lives. A LinkedIn survey found that half of workers reported feeling stressed in their jobs, and 70% said the biggest driver of their stress in 2019 was a lack of work-life balance.

Today’s blended work-life models are more comprehensive and better than ever at helping to restore this balance. Blended models provide work-life resources via three channels: professionally staffed call centers; secure, user-friendly websites; and a growing number of handy mobile apps. And they give employees the guidance and resources needed to cope with issues ranging from child and elder care challenges to financial and legal pressures to health and wellness issues and beyond.

One reason the blended work-life model has gained favor is that employees typically don’t use just one channel of work-life support. When given the choice, they use call center services, website-based services and mobile apps, depending upon their situation and the urgency of their needs. Read more about the ongoing relevance of work-life support here and the benefits of a multi-channel work-life model here.

So there you have them—five of 2019’s most prominent employee benefits trends. In our next post, we’ll highlight five key trends for the year ahead so be sure to check back.

Happy New Year!

Featured Friday: Meet Lauren D.

Lauren has over 10 years of experience in the child care and education field. In her current role as Parenting and Education Researcher, she’s responsible for researching and referring resources for Member Services that range from child care, education, special needs, mental health and more. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Albertus Magnus College, and took 35 credits in graduate-level clinical mental health counseling before setting a new direction for her career. Lauren currently resides in New Haven, CT. She enjoys biking, is an aunt and considers herself a pizza aficionado.

Q: How do you approach research?
A:I approach research by absorbing the energy of their request, if that makes sense. I’m going to make sure that I take the time to find resources that seem to match what they want.

Q: Why is finding right matches for the members is so important?
A: Our members take time out of their day to contact us, so I want to find the best possible matches so we aren’t wasting their time. Many of our member requests are urgent, so it’s really important to get it right the first time!

Q: What is your goal for each case?
A: My goal is to make sure members know that I have heard their request, understand any obstacles in their search for resources and aim to go above and beyond. For example, if a daycare’s location is really important to the member because they take public transportation, I will include information about what trains and/or bus routes stop by the daycare.

Q: What are some memorable cases you’ve worked on?
A: One of the most memorable cases for me was finding child care providers for a member whose child had recently been physically harmed at daycare. They were in the midst of pressing charges and were understandably very wary of trusting another child care provider. I remember being especially diligent because I felt so awful that they went through the unthinkable. On a lighter note, I’ve also been assigned a case where a member was looking for a cat behaviorist to help her emotional support cat get along with a feral cat she adopted.

Q: What is the best part of your job?
A: The best part of my job is when I hear back from our members letting me know that our services helped them. Some cases can be really tough, so it’s really validating to hear back and know you made a difference.

Q: How do you work with your team as a whole?
A: We work together really well! I know I can always ask my team members for guidance if there’s something I’m not as familiar with, and I feel incredibly lucky to be part of such an amazing team.

Q: What advice would you give to someone who doesn’t know if LifeCare can help them?
A: Just call and find out! We typically say yes to every request since sometimes even we are surprised by what we can find. The worst case scenario is that we offer alternative research for things we CAN help with, which in turn can help with the original request.

Q: In your opinion, what makes your role/team so special?
A: Our team’s role is so special because we help parents enjoy more stress-free time with their children!

The Importance of a Multi-Channel Work-Life Model

When researching or upgrading work-life programs, employers sometimes assume that the only way to get a high-quality solution that’s affordable is to choose between a web-based model or a call center-based model.

The good news is you don’t have to choose one or the other. You can have the best of both worlds with a multi-channel work-life model, and you won’t have to sacrifice quality to keep from breaking the bank.

Of course, the real beauty of a multi-channel work-life model isn’t just its quality and reasonable cost. It’s the model’s comprehensiveness you’ll come to appreciate in the long run. It will serve all of your employees, no matter how vast or varied their needs and preferences are.

Getting It Right for Everyone
Today’s workers face an array of pressing work-life needs—child and elder care, financial and legal pressures, health and wellness issues, family matters, and more. Some are responsible for caring for older spouses and loved ones, others are struggling to pay back school loans or to put money into savings. They’re also juggling these issues with their work responsibilities and long-range career ambitions. A high-quality work-life program will offer counseling and a wealth of resources to navigate all of these challenges, regardless of employees’ age or where they stand in their careers.

But a truly effective work-life model doesn’t just address their diverse needs. It also serves their differing preferences—most essentially their preference for support via web-based self-service resources or the personalized support provided by a professionally staffed call center.

This is a key consideration because it has a huge impact on your program’s program reach, engagement and effectiveness. If employees prefer telephonic assistance, for example, they’ll likely be disappointed by a program that offers only web-based, self-help resources. More importantly, they won’t use these resources with any regularity. Conversely, employees who want to handle their issues entirely on their own will likely balk at always having to call a specialist for assistance.

It’s All About the Situation
The fact is employees don’t typically use just one type of work-life support when given a choice. In LifeCare’s 35 years of experience, we’ve found the majority of individuals use both online and call center services when they have the option. It all depends upon their situation. In a crisis or when time is of the essence (when employees’ child care falls through and they need to find a caregiver in a pinch) they might want to get live, personalized support, but they might also want to access that support via web or mobile device. Giving them these access options can save an incredible amount of time and stress.

The fact is, at some point, all of your employees might want to speak to a live specialist. They’ll need the counsel of a trained expert … Or they’ll want to know all of the benefits and programs available to them … Or they’ll need to know which resources are best suited to their needs. Employees who are assisted by trained professionals often have a higher level of confidence in the decisions they make, and there’s a real comfort in knowing they can speak with an empathetic subject matter expert at any time of the day or night.

Implementing a muliti-channel model also helps you meet the various generational preferences within your workforce. Younger workers might generally tend to favor the self-service approach of an online model, while older workers might appreciate the personal interaction offered by a call center. But, again, most workers will use and appreciate both online and call center resources over time.

Don’t Forget the Devices!
Given the growing preference for all things mobile in the workplace, it would be wise to at least consider a work-life program that includes mobile responsive websites and specialized apps. Enabling employees to access assistance and resources on the go from any device is particularly helpful with child and elder caregiving needs, backup care emergencies, discount programs, and more.

When employees are able to receive relevant, personalized, time-sensitive information on their mobile devices at any time, they’ll come to rely on your program again and again. And that’s essential to the success of your program.

To learn more about the advantages of a mutli-channel work-life support model and what it can do to improve your workforce’s health and productivity, contact us here or call us at (866) 675-3751.