As planning for Annual Enrollment gets into full swing for many employers, setting goals around benefits choice-making and delivery success makes sense. As part of offering benefits that meet larger organizational goals, HR pros should think critically and strategically about how they are connecting benefits to both employees and their own departments and expect a higher level of function and experience from their benefits technology solutions moving into this year’s Annual Enrollment and beyond.

To paraphrase Tennyson very loosely, at this point in the year, the thoughts of many HR pros turn to Annual Enrollment (AE). AE is effectively the year’s “main event.” The spotlight is on, and it’s time to shine.

Exemption and Workforce Notification Deadlines Extended

The Department of Family and Medical Leave has announced that exemption and workforce notification deadlines have been extended.

Health Reimbursement Accounts (HRAs) are a mystical creature, some might even call them the “Griffin of account-based plans“. (OK, in full disclosure, no one ever called them that until right now. However, humor us.) If you haven’t kept up on your mystical creatures, the History channel, describes a Griffin as “an intimidating blend of two different predators said to possess the body and back legs of a lion as well as the wings, beak and talon of a hawk or eagle”. HRAs certainly possess a mystical quality. There is an intimidation factor. Plus, they are a blend of numerous things. Lastly, recent regulatory guidance is throwing in a few new mutations to keep the mystery alive. SO, clearly HRAs are the Griffin of account-based plans. But, I digress. Let’s dig into the new HRA mutations (aka new HRA rules).

Over 43 million people in the United States currently provide unpaid care to a family member; 52 percent of these caregivers are also employed full- or part-time. The demands placed on caregivers are often overwhelming, exhausting, and unsustainable. Many experts have identified this as an impending public health crisis. 

Fortunately, caregiver advocates have been pushing for public policies to be created at a national level to address this growing stressor on Americans. With the recent enactment of RAISE— the Recognize, Assist, Include, Support and Engage Family Caregivers Act—a range of diverse stakeholders including family caregivers, healthcare and social service providers, and employers will soon come together to develop a national family caregiving strategic plan.

There’s a lot of buzz about #EmployeeEngagement, but what does it look like? There are a variety of descriptions, but I like Gallup’s: engaged employees are enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace.

High levels of engagement promote retention of talent and foster customer loyalty while improving both organizational performance and stakeholder value.

As someone who has made a professional home in the employee benefits space, there are a number of events that I look forward to each year. One of them is the NEEBC Annual Employee Benefits Summit & Trade Show. I had the privilege of not only attending this year, but of also being asked to blog about the event. As a former prolific blogger (that’s debatable), I was happy to oblige.

NEEBC has been in existence for nearly 40 years, and each year they do a great job of getting a top-name speaker to keynote the event. This year was no different. Dr. Martin Makary was the first speaker.  He is a Johns Hopkins surgeon and New York Times bestselling author, was the lead author of the first publication on The Surgical Checklist and later served in leadership with Atul Gawande on the World Health Organization Surgery Checklist project.

Win With Wellness: A Great Culture Helps Bring Clients To Your Door

Entrepreneurs are passionate, driven and always looking for innovative solutions to grow their business. Forward-thinking organizations are now looking to corporate wellness as an effective strategy to improve an organization from within and drive business to the front door.

Research shows that a return on investment (ROI) can be a long-term benefit (3-5 years) of a strategic wellness program. But recently, a lot more of the focus is on wellness improving many aspects of an organization which can affect recruitment, retention and even attract customers.

When thinking about how to tackle the opioid epidemic, prevention is just as important as intervention.

There is often a long journey an employee goes through before a prescription gets in their hands. In addition to thinking about your pharmacy benefit plans or high quality in-network treatment centers, think about what programs and policies can be put in place that prevent the ripple effect of medical and emotional conditions that may lead to opioid use:

The PERKS team has been analyzing the shift toward additive cutting-edge benefits improving recruiting and retention for employees of any age.

Here are five different benefit trends of note: family & mom perks, telehealth & access, on-demand development, financial goal support and mental health & personal development. 

Employer and Employee Tool Kits/Guides about the Massachusetts Paid Family and Medical Leave Law have been posted to mass.gov/dfml. 

The Department of Family and Medical Leave offers these tool kits to help businesses and individuals navigate the latest information, and to provide resources to inform interested stakeholders. The tool kits include:

Last week the Kaiser Family Foundation released a health tracking poll that revealed that one in four U.S. patients has trouble affording their medication. Three in ten (29%) of adults don’t take their medications as prescribed. Affordability is particularly acute for patients who take four or more prescriptions (35% reported difficulty affording). Numerous studies show that lack of medication adherence drives up medical costs.

Innovation
     Disruption
          Social Determinants...

...were just some of the themes of NEEBC’s 2019 Health Insurance Market Outlook panel discussion. Twenty-year employee benefits veteran and Principal with Strategic Benefit Advisors, David Chamberlain, gave the opening "outlook" which included top health care concerns.

Employers have long realized the benefits of helping workers stay physically healthy, but many have been reluctant to venture into the less understood, often stigmatized realm of mental health issues. Today, that attitude is starting to change as organizations realize the extent of the problem and the toll it takes on productivity and business continuity.