10 New Year’s Benefit Resolutions for Employers - Sam Slade

Monday, December 28, 2020

Sam Slade, Business Contributor

 

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Sam Slade of Hilb

With calendar-year benefit plans starting January 1, the start of the New Year marks a good time to commit to optimizing your benefit program with 10 achievable goals. 

1. Benchmark benefits, plans, and contributions: Rather than simply renewing your plans every year, be proactive and see how your offerings stack up and work towards implementing changes that will bring your benefits up to par.

2. Research competitors’ benefits: Part of your benchmarking effort should involve seeing what other companies in your industry are offering to identify opportunities to enhance your plans so you don’t lose employees to the competition.

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3. Develop a strategic 3-year plan: It’s easy to look at benefits a year at a time but you should take a longer-range perspective and identify priorities for your program and realistic actions you can take to achieve your organization’s goals.

4. Begin renewal work early: For a smooth open enrollment, it’s a good idea to start the process early. Depending on the size of your group, that means 180 to 90 days before your renewal date. This early start will give you time to assess your current benefits and contributions, understand your renewal increase, and make changes in order to achieve your budgetary and HR goals.

5. Commit to timely renewal decision making:  Once you know your options, don’t dilly dally; make decisions in a timely manner. This approach can alleviate a lot of the pressures around open enrollment timelines by enabling you to start preparing communications and do all the hard work needed to execute and complete the open enrollment process in a timely and efficient manner.

6. Conduct a compliance audit: With continuously evolving laws and regulations affecting benefit plans, like ERISA, the ACA and COBRA, among others, it’s a good idea to do an annual audit to identify any gaps in your current policies and practices.

7. Communicate more effectively:  A lot of companies focus on open enrollment as the one time each year to communicate about benefits. But you should adopt a year-round communications plan to help make sure employees are engaged and maximizing the value of their benefits.

8. Update wellness programs and add incentives and disincentives: Successful wellness program engagement requires offerings that meet employee needs and a culture that supports healthy behavior. Ask your employees for input on your programming and utilize financial rewards and penalties to drive participation.

9. Explore HSAs if you don’t already offer one:  Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are the only triple tax advantaged benefit out there: employees save taxes on money they put in and any investment gains, and amounts they withdraw for qualified medical expenses are never taxed. The plans are of the best ways for employees to save for both current and future healthcare expenses and can enhance your benefit offerings with little cost to you.

10. Consider self-insurance: Depending on your group size and management risk tolerance, there are many self-insurance options to consider. Even small employers can partially self-insure with level premium and hybrid-funded programs for medical and self-insurance options for dental benefits. With benefit costs as high as they are, employers should leave no stone unturned so it’s worth looking at these options even if you decide not to adopt them.   

Sam Slade is Managing Director, Employee Benefits, at The Hilb Group of New England, where he delivers consulting and brokerage services to local employers. He has extensive experience in all aspects of employee benefits, including underwriting, plan design, communications, compliance, and analytics, with a particular focus on alternative funding and self-insurance. Sam lives in South Kingstown with his wife and three sons.  

 

 

Best wishes to everyone for a Happy New Year!

 

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