Group Medical Insurance should be a benefit—not a burden
Although expensive, employee benefit packages are necessary
Employee benefit packages are a fact of business life in America if a company wants to be competitive in hiring quality workers. Group medical insurance is getting more expensive for a business to fund and maintain, and even more expensive for an employee in terms of lost coverage and higher co-pays.
Are employee benefit packages helpful in attracting employees?
They certainly are! Among job seekers, benefits packages—especially group medical benefits—have become just as important, sometimes more so, than salary considerations. In fact, many candidates will accept a position because it offered a better employee benefit package even if the salary was higher from other offers.
Can companies afford to continue offering health benefit packages?
Companies cannot afford to lose their competitive edge by not offering attractive benefits. Businesses can get more creative and diverse on how they administer benefits plans, and those plans can be more affordable and more generous. Even though the rising cost put a strain on a company’s bottom line, good packages are needed to compete effectively for quality employees. A lot of Americans would be without coverage if it were not for companies grouping insurance under one roof for their employees. In lean times, companies begin to scale back that coverage and limit the number of employees covered under the employee benefit packages. Although the plans are still available at many companies, the low co-pays and low deductibles are no longer available.
Cost-cutting strategies
The long-term goal of cost-cutting strategies must include optimizing the health of your employees. When a company motivates employees to become healthier, often chronic conditions (diabetes, for example) can be avoided. That is good for everyone.
Long term strategies such as promoting safety, reducing worksite hazards, and healthful living programs also help.Companies can help themselves and help their employees also by assuring good future health, plus it is a good investment for the company. Last month’s article on worker’s compensation has some statistics on how investments in health and safety can pay for itself, over and over (investing in reducing workers comp claims could be your best investment). As statistically shown, companies can see returns on investment of 200% to 500% over time.
Among some of the easier short-term actions a business can take to help support the long-term strategy of maintaining healthy employees are:
- Memberships to a fitness center which are great perks for your employees and are greatly appreciated.
- Have fruit available in the office in place of junk food, which helps workers snack healthier and be more productive throughout the day. The Fruit Guys is a company that will deliver fresh fruit to offices at a very affordable rate.
- A pedometer is also a nice gift for employees and can help encourage their walking more to meet a goal.
- Implement a wellness program into your company and its culture. See a detailed plan on how to do so in our sub-story.
- When a company “thinks healthy,” other ideas will start to come.
PEOs can often arrange for insurance more efficiently and for less
PEOs such as CBR are experts at administering all types of employee relations and benefits programs. They also have economies of scale working for them because they have the ability to group several employers into a single large group. At the forefront of PEO activities are outsourced payroll and benefits package administration. As such, PEOs can usually attract better insurance rates than most businesses. Besides seeing how others creatively solve problems, PEOs have a lot of creative, problem-solving people at your disposal.
PEOs can step up and actually do a better job of economically managing employee benefit packages than small- or medium-size companies. Small businesses have few options. PEOs have many. There is a partnership here that greatly benefits both parties. Request a proposal.
