Webinar: Organizational Success - Spotlight on HR
One of our BGN member agencies, Lacher & Associates, holds regular education sessions for their clients and has asked us to present this week. They are inviting all of our BGN readers to attend. Join us for this FREE session - Register Now!
Kevin Trokey will be presenting and talking about HR as a strategic driver within an organization - what businesses need to be doing to recover and begin thriving once again after the fallout of the recession.
Thu, Dec 16, 2010 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM EST
Webinar Description:
As businesses were facing a quick and significant economic downturn, scrambling for survival became the focus for many organizations. The resulting actions, as necessary as they have been, now have companies poised to face unforeseen challenges that could ultimately prove to be their downfall.
We'll identify and discuss:
• Those challenges we're facing
• Why now is the time to change our organizational focus from survival to thriving
• How HR can, and should, play a significant role
Register Now!
Check out the presentation slides:
Three things we wish everyone knew about benefits communication
Guest Blogger
Jennifer Benz is founder and chief strategist at Benz Communications, a boutique consulting firm that focuses on benefits and strategic HR communication. She has been on the leading edge of employee benefits communication for the last 10 years—starting with early adopter consumer-driven health plan implementations and now with innovative wellness and social media strategies. Her work has been recognized by Business Insurance, the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), the Profit Sharing Council of America and others.
And she's an all around great person we really enjoy working with! Connect with her on Twitter, @jenbenz, or on LinkedIn.
Why would a company invest so much in something that is as seemingly dry as benefits communication? It’s highly regulated. Often quite complex. And it’s not typically the first thing most people think of when they want to brand their organization and build employee relationships that stand the test of time. And yet, benefits communication also has the most potential reward of any HR communication. That’s why we at Benz Communications focus our energy on creating the kind of benefits communication employees find irresistible, and our clients love.
Three core principles guide the work we do—and they are the reason why our projects succeed. We keep coming back to these principles on every project, every client conversation, every article. They are the reason we love benefits communication—why making it shine is now our mission. And, following these principles will let you and your employees replace the age-old benefits experience dread with appreciation, a sense of security, and action.
See below and let us know if you agree by posting a comment.
Benefits are about people
In an industry filled with crazy administration requirements, a library of acronyms, and enough government regulation to bore you to tears, it’s easy to forget that benefits are actually about people—your employees and their families.
And, people care about their benefits. You can’t get much more important than health and financial security. This is the stuff that makes sure you live happily ever after, or not. In fact, people care about their benefits now more than ever before.
Companies have such an amazing and powerful role to play in their employees’ lives. When you do great things with your benefits programs, you can do great things for your employees, and they can do great things for themselves and go on to do great things in the world (and for your company). But, you have to keep your communications focused on those people and on what matters to them—not on all those processes.
Effective benefits communication is one of the most powerful ways to brand your organization
When it comes to branding, benefits communication is often overlooked. But it can actually be one of the most powerful ways to brand your organization. Especially when you communicate to families, too. How much would it mean to your organization if not just your employees were engaged and loyal, but their families loved your organization as well?
Libby Sartain (HR superstar, formerly of Southwest and Yahoo!) makes a brilliant point about this on the Brand for Talent blog. When describing one of her first projects at Southwest, communicating a new flexible benefits plans, she writes “We quickly realized this could be a prime opportunity to deepen the sense of relationship between the business and its people.” She continues, “More than ever before, a company’s benefits program—what it contains and how it’s administered—is your chance to stand apart from the pack.”
It’s also another reason why you must keep communicating with employees, even when you don’t know everything. Employers who go the extra mile now for their employees will have the strongest employer brands later when the economy changes.
You can’t be effective without a strategy, and you can’t have a strategy without measurable goals
You may know the components of an effective benefits communication campaign—a branded website, print materials to drive employees there, in-person meetings and using social media channels. But, what makes them all work is how you put these components together, and how they support your goals. You can’t communicate effectively without a strategy to guide you, and you can’t know you’re successful unless you have measurable goals.
But, when you do have those in place, you can accomplish great things—by helping your employees take the incremental steps that will help them plan better and be healthier and happier. Whether trying to improve preventive care screenings, moving people into Consumer-Driven Health Plans, or changing investing behaviors, knowing where you’re headed will ensure you get there. And there is no better way to make your benefit programs—and your employer brand—more effective than by helping your employees to do the tangible things that make their lives better.
This is how we think of benefits communication and what we believe makes benefits communication a success—valuable for your organization, your employees and your families.
Is the benefits glass half-full or half-empty?
Benefits brokers must forge strategic ties to HR departments
I am going to say right up front, the opportunities on the benefits side of the insurance business have never been greater. Unfortunately, not every agency will survive to take advantage of those opportunities.
Every week, I speak with many agencies. Not surprisingly, I get asked a lot of questions about the future of health care.
- What exactly does it mean now that health care reform is a reality?
- What does it mean for the country, the industry, our clients, and, of course, for us?
- Is it going to put us out of the benefits business?
My answer is, “It depends.” It depends on many different factors. Just because the legislation has been passed, the true impact cannot yet be predicted. However, health care reform isn’t the only issue impacting our future on the benefits side of our industry.
The other—what HR will look like after the recession—is also going to have a significant impact on our future. Regardless of which of these issues you see as most pressing, the key is to take control and start preparing to play a new role with your clients.
Let’s start with health care reform. While there are many provisions of the bill that I don’t agree with, and a few—such as health exchanges in 2014—that cause some anxiety, I don’t see anything in this bill that is cause for us to panic. Much can happen within the timelines and the certain maneuvering that will take place before key features become active. The “experts” don’t seem to expect many companies to drop health coverage entirely, even if they are squeezed by rising costs. Additionally, some surveys point to employers preferring to maintain control if it is something they have to be paying for.
However, not panicking doesn’t mean it isn’t a time to be prudent. This is a wake-up call and one that should be heeded. Forecasters have advised brokers: “What you get paid for today you will give away tomorrow, and what you give away today you will get paid for tomorrow.” If you have struggled to believe this, then rethink your position. This is the first step to that reality.
If you have any doubt, go back to the health care reform bill and read the provision about the Minimum Loss Ratio. If you didn’t think about it the first time you read it, this is a limit on insurance carrier profits. If you don’t think they will share that burden across all of their expenses (including your commissions), you’re fooling yourself.
If you try to continue to compete by focusing on getting paid on the placement of a product (medical, dental, life, disability, etc.), your days are numbered or, at the very least, you will need to get used to a new standard of living. Our future has to be built on getting paid for the value we create for our clients. The future benefits agent will create value by addressing much larger HR issues rather than just benefits issues.
This brings us to my second issue—what HR will look like after the recession. However, before looking forward, it is always prudent to reflect on our past.
Prior to the recession, employers were emphasizing the importance of attracting and retaining employees. Employee “free agency” was seen as imminent as there was projected to be a surplus of 10 million jobs by 2010. While the recession may have delayed that surplus, employers have unknowingly placed themselves in the eye of a perfect storm by complicating the matter further. As the recession took root, there was a quick and almost sudden pressure on bottom lines. Companies enacted layoffs and cut expenses such as training and education initiatives; they reduced benefits; and they stopped communicating with their employees.
Although these measures were necessary in many cases, employers have inadvertently created a situation that will make emerging from the recession incredibly difficult. Employee morale is at an all-time low, and employees are more disconnected from their employers than ever before. While employees may be happy to have a job, they’re not happy with the job, and employers are staring down the tunnel of unprecedented turnover and employee disengagement. That light coming towards them isn’t just the light of the economic recovery; it’s the runaway train of employee frustration.
While this may be a challenge for employers, for those brokers who are prepared, it may also be one of our greatest opportunities. The answer to both the employer challenge and to our opportunity lies in the HR department. For a long time, employers have wanted their HR departments to be more strategic, to be more of a driver of the business. This is no longer going to be a “nice to have”; it is going to be a “have to have.” The reality is that, as good as they are at what they do, HR professionals tend to be more administratively focused than strategically focused.
As we emerge from the recession, employers must once again start investing in their business. They are going to have to make sure they are in position to attract/retain the highest level of talent. They are going to have to re-build a culture (through training, education, communication and engagement) that will allow them to execute on growth strategies. They will have to lower their cost structure by being leaner than ever before, lowering turnover, and increasing employee productivity. They will have to determine what they are doing today internally that they should outsource tomorrow.
In all of these areas, they are going to need their HR departments to be a driver of the strategies. Unfortunately, the typical HR department is less prepared now than ever before to be that strategic driver. This is largely because as employers cut expenses that wouldn’t take revenue with it, the HR department was quite often at the front of that line.
However, this doesn’t change the fact that businesses need a more strategic approach to HR; they are just going to have to look outside of their own business for the right partner. This is where we/you come in, and it is here where we find our greatest opportunity. Let the internal HR department perform the administrative functions of HR; your opportunity is to fill the strategic void.
Taking advantage of this opportunity is going to depend on your recognizing that it is no longer sufficient to focus on the benefits offerings of your clients. Yes, this will still be a part of your offering, but it will be only a part of your offering. The future role you need to be playing will have much more to do with helping your clients maximize the value they get out of their human capital than it will with quoting insurance. Your future role needs be grounded in the following:
- Create the vision of what it will take for businesses to thrive once again. Most businesses are still in survival mode. You have to show them, in terms of HR and benefits, what it will take to get beyond simply surviving and start thriving once again.
- Identify the obstacles that your client faces. Before we can offer the right solution, we have to identify the real problem.
- Show them how you can be integral to their achieving their post-recession vision. Some of your future solutions are going to have to go well beyond the traditional solutions provided by brokers. They will have to include:
- Training programs
- Employee education
- Leadership development
- Cohesive management strategies
- Strategically designed communication plans
- Employee engagement resources
- Effective hiring/firing procedures
- (The list can go on from here.)
While we will certainly face many challenges, this will also prove to be a time of great opportunities. Now, more than ever before, it is time to abandon the “traditional role” and focus on your ability to control costs and make your clients more attractive to the marketplace. When your efforts and involvement allow your clients to be more profitable and to be a better-run business, you are going to get paid. Getting paid for the value you deliver, rather than the product you deliver, will be an infinitely more profitable model for you and your agency.
As a benefits producer/department/agency, you are at a fork in the road. It was Yogi Berra who said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” You can’t afford to make such a cavalier decision; your very survival may depend on the path you choose. While it may feel easier to stay on the path with which you are familiar, it is the more difficult path—the one with which you will assume a new role with your clients—that will lead you to unprecedented opportunities.
No, it won’t necessarily be easy, but the rewards will make the effort worthwhile.
Reprinted from Rough Notes Magazine, June 2010 © Copyright 2010
Photo by versionz.
Benefits Producers – Your New Job Description
There are so many unknowns in terms of health care reform and its eventual impact, but there is one certainty: the Minimum Loss Ratio provision of the bill is going to change the way benefit producers get paid. No longer will you have the luxury of getting paid for the placement of a product; you will now have to get paid for the value you create. This isn’t necessarily bad. Getting paid for the placement of a product gives you no opportunity to differentiate yourself from the competition. As a result, everyone is getting paid the same amount. If you feel you add more value than your competition, that should be unacceptable. Unacceptable or not, that will no longer be an option. In the not so distant future, assuming you want to continue to get paid, you are going to have to compete based on the impact you have on the business of your clients. That impact will have very little to do with the insurance products that make up their benefit program and will have almost everything to do with generating a return on the investment into human capital made by your clients. The more strategically you can align yourself with the goals/objectives of your clients, the greater a return you can help drive, the more critical you become, and, therefore, the more you will be able to earn. However, before you can assume this new role, you need to understand exactly how you can create that alignment. Start thinking about how organizations plan strategically as well as how HR can/should be the driver towards those strategies and you will be on the right track.
Making an impact
As businesses continue to become leaner run organizations, they need HR to be a strategic driver more than ever before. However, before HR can effectively become that driver, it is critical to identify where those opportunities exist within the organizational strategic plan. Once all of that is established, our opportunity to make an unbelievable impact with our clients grows exponentially. It may be over simplifying, but businesses make strategic decisions in four key areas: innovation, implementation, optimization and outsourcing. Innovation – These decisions are built around creating a separation between the business and its competition through some form of differentiation. Those organizations that consistently innovate within their market/industry will consistently outperform their competition. HR’s role: Implementation – These strategies focus on an organization’s ability to execute on their strategies for innovation. This is about speed to market and being able to make quick, confident decisions as an organizational team. Those companies who have a culture that allows them to move quickly and in unison will always get a greater return for the investments they make into their business. HR’s role - Building the culture of the organization through: Optimization – In this area, business are focused on how to create cost advantages over their competition. This tends to be the more commoditized part of the business, and the only sure way to protect the bottom line here is to lower the cost of doing business. HR’s role: Outsourcing – Companies have to regularly ask themselves, “What are we doing today that we shouldn’t be doing tomorrow?” Primarily focused on processes, anything that can be done as well by someone else should be outsourced so that internal resources can be re-allocated in a way that creates greater value. HR’s role - By eliminating the following process-driven responsibilities, HR will be able focus on delivering the more strategically focused responsibilities identified in the first three areas. Although businesses have largely been focused on the tactical issues they need to execute in order to survive the recession, it is time for them to start thinking strategically once again. Knowing how HR can be a significant driver and making sure HR has access to the necessary solutions to effectively execute will enable the business to achieve their strategic objectives bigger, better and faster than those companies who relegate HR to a purely administrative function.
1. Compliance
2. Administration
3. Training (the more process focused aspects of training)
Maximizing investments
Being realistic, most businesses will not be able to execute on this internally and will need to partner with someone who will bring them the vision, plan and resources to truly connect HR to the corporate strategy. This is our opportunity and our new role; a role that has us not only maximizing the return clients get on their benefits investment, but also maximizing the return they receive on their people investment. Your future role is to: Reinventing yourself isn’t necessarily easy, but it will not only ensure your survival, it will create more opportunities than you have ever imagined. You just have to ask yourself, “How badly do I really want it?”
Originally published on agencyfuel.zywave.com © Copyright 2010 Zywave, Inc.
Photo by HikingArtist.com
