The New Employee Communication Rules for Health Care Reform-

Extensive multi-year change is coming to U.S. health care programs; will your employees get it?  

Imagine you are in the C-suite to discuss the newly regulated changes to your employee health care programs and the millions of dollars you will be spending on them.  If you work for a larger organization the number could be $300,000,000 - $500,000,000 or more.  Your C-Suite leaders look first at the thirteen page calendar of multi-year changes and then at the cost and gasp!  “What value will be getting for this health care spend?” You squirm in the chair and comment something about new regulations, recruiting value, competitive hiring and employee appreciation, BUT what do you have to back that up? Do you have data?

Can you quantify a hard dollar value?  What if you could respond confidently about employee usage and value with numbers your C-Suite leaders will understand?
In September 2009, the US Bureau of Labor statistics reported that the average employee earns almost $14 per hour more in their paycheck through employee benefits.  That’s an extra $560 per week or $29,120 per year – a full 34% of the total spending on compensation.  How does your company compare…are you close to this amount?  The cost of implementing your health care reform requirements is sure to climb this number even higher. The Employee Benefit Director’s job, already a challenging one, just got tougher with the constant change of plan provisions required by health care reform.  How will your program stand up to C-Suite scrutiny?

As a senior benefit professional, you likely spend a good part of the next few years managing the administration of these new changes for your organization.  In the crystal ball for the next coming decade, you see administrative challenges like no other, hard negotiation sessions with vendors and labor organizations and presenting your multi-million dollar program for approval to the C-Suite.  And once that is all complete, you’ll need to communicate them to your employees. Is your communication process ready for all this change?   For most employers’ communication programs, the outlook is discouraging.  Here is what a plethora of studies say about the state of today’s health care communication.

Employees aren’t using their health saving accounts enough, even leaving your employer match or contributions on the table.  Consumer-driven health care enrollment is low even with the groups that benefit the most. Further, despite your great wellness programs, they are exhibiting unhealthy behaviors driving up health care costs with double-digit increases.  And worse, employees frequently ignore important disability, life insurance or long-term care programs that protect their current income for themselves and their families.  Does this sound like your company?

OUCH!

If your organization had a product that cost millions to develop, would your leadership team be happy with poor customer response and mediocre results?  But that’s the plight of most benefits leaders and with health care reform requirements like provision changes, new summary communication requirements, exchanges and penalties; it isn’t going to get easier.

With so many mandates, it can be hard to understand that there are things you CAN control and influence.  It’s true, you have the power to control how your employees listen, understand and act on the changes.  AND, if they listen, understand and act as you want them to, you may be able to minimize the impact of health care reform on your programs.

In this article, I am going to show you how to prepare your communication system so it is Health Care Reform fail safe in five steps.  These 5 simple steps when used together create a powerfully effective approach to getting appropriate employee response to the health care reform changes in your programs and bring about the kind of results you need.  Rightfully you are a skeptic and I was too until I started using these steps with difficult change messages and getting solid employee response.  Over the past 20 years, I have employed these steps in all kinds of situations when intense change management is required.  They have been tried and proven on small employers and the Fortune 500. Read this.

A ball bearing manufacturer using these steps changed their entire benefits program adding choice credits and benefits dollars to decrease costs and had employees thanking them for the effort.

During Pension reform, numerous hospitals, utilities and manufacturers terminating their pension plan for new employees and offering existing employees a one-time choice used these steps and the choice analysis proved most selected the appropriate option.

A jewelry manufacturing division of a large holding company used these techniques and improved their safety record from dead last to top 5 out of almost 40 divisions.

An automobile manufacturer using these steps with retirees but not with active employees found retiree web usage climbed at almost three times that of actives.

Have I got your interest?  Think about this.

When your health care costs are skyrocketing and only 5% of your employees are taking the health risk assessment…there’s value left on the table.  When you have less than 95% participation in a health savings account program that gives money away increasing someone’s paycheck…there’s value left on the table.

Yet for many benefit managers the goal of their program promotion is no response, passive enrollments and benefits inertia.

I once asked a client how they would measure success in the upcoming open enrollment and demonstrate value to their CEO and was told they measured success by the number of phone calls.  If the CEO didn’t get any phone calls, it was a good year.

Wow – this is the opposite of what any good marketer worth their salt will tell you.  In fact the key to employee appreciation and value is response.  So, if you don’t hear anything from employees during your health care reform communication (the good and the bad), than no news means no response.  No response means your benefits programs are just wasting company money.

Does this sound like your promotion program?  You send tons of letters, emails, kits brochures, flyers, conduct seminars and put up posters for almost no response for a 3% change in enrollments.  And, despite this lack of success, this approach is used over and over in most organizations.   How do you know if employees are even in the right plan? Isn’t Albert Einstein quoted as saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over for the same result?”
Well, here’s how to stop the insanity and start getting results.

Employees need to know you, like you and trust you before they will act on information you provide.  The first and single most important first step you need to take to get your communications systems humming for Health Care Reform is to create a compelling message and brand.   If your brand or message is “Important Information from the Benefits or Human Resources Department,” you might have work to do!

The words in your message mean the difference between generating interest and wasting money.

Just like the key to your house opens the door, your communication message is how employee attention begins.  If it’s the right message, you’ll unlock the door and attract employees in…if it’s not the right message, they’ll tune you out and you’ll be wondering why your programs are not being used.

Deliver You Message to Get Attention

The second critical step is to deliver messages in a way that gets employee attention.   When you buy something online, generally at the end of the buying process you get a choice of delivery options. You select the option based on your need for the item.  You might want it for your spouse’s birthday in a month so the free approach may work fine.  Or, you might need the item right away for a special event so only super speedy delivery will do.

Choosing the right delivery method to get your employees attention requires a similar look at needs.  But, it doesn’t have to be time consuming or even expensive.  Start by asking yourself or your team what delivery approach will ring true with employees?  If you don’t know the answer, ask their managers…they’ll know for sure as they need employee attention to get work done every day.  
The answers might surprise you.  It might mean the latest and greatest social media or a poster in your elevator or restrooms.  Both can work and be effective.

But, at least you made the choice with some basic intelligence about what is working and not used the same old approach. Remember the definition of insanity?

And, speaking of intelligence brings us to step three in our proven method.

Smarten Up with Intelligence

I love the holidays and especially receiving gifts.  You feel excited when a beautifully wrapped package is placed in your hands.  What could it be?  A thousand things are going through your head.  You are feeling so warm towards the giver.  Then, you carefully unwrap the present and it’s the ugliest necktie you have ever seen!  You can barely contain your disappointment.   What was the person thinking?  You are such a careful and conservative dresser and this tie has pink elephants with martini glasses in their paws.  Yuck!  Not your taste at all.

Well that is how employees can feel when you deliver a message without first seeking some intelligence about how the news will be received.  Missing this step can mean the difference between the right employee action and a flop.  And, while it works for all types of news you need to communicate, it is especially critical if the news might not be perceived as pleasant.

Doing some preliminary sensing of employee reaction to your message will uncover roadblocks and help you remove obstacles to your program’s success.

For example, let’s say you will be needed to get employees more engage in wellness activities and leading healthier lifestyle.  If you have a 40 year old smoking population, this is a culture change.  How will you get them onboard?  There might be a hundred great reasons to undertake this effort but I have seen projects like that come to a grinding halt because no one went out to find out how the impacted employees would receive the information, what they might need to get on board, and what types of questions they might have.  And, without that intelligence built into the promotional program, it goes nowhere fast.  Have you experienced a project like that one?  With a little bit of intelligence, you can remove the road blocks or obstacles to employee action and insure there is a smooth road ahead. Get your sensing systems set up now and your health care reform messages will sail through.

Use eBay’s Secret to Increase Response

Ever shop in an online auction?  Well online auction giant, eBay, is an expert at step 4 creating action through urgency and follow-up.  If you have ever gotten caught up in the online auction process you know a few important things…and they make you act.  First, there is a deadline. The offer isn’t open forever.  If you really, really want something you better act.  Second, eBay will keep you informed every step of the way.  You have they have learned that by sending you messages throughout the process, the likelihood or your continuing to bid is high.  This is the eBay success model…create urgency through a deadline and following up with the interested shoppers.

You can use this technique to add tons of response to your promotion programs.  I once changed a single line of copy in a message and increased response by 25% with this technique. This is a powerful step not to be missed.

Partner Up For Success

The final step in our approach is how to use super partners to promote and endorse your programs.  We have all seen how celebrity endorsements of products have driven response and sales.  The NutriSystem commercial came immediately to my mind showing lots of popular celebs losing pounds of weight.  It reaches the audience on a couple of levels…these folks are just like me (having to stay trim) and if they can do it, I can too.

Well, you don’t need to hire the latest Grammy winner to promote your programs, but you can use the influential people in your organization to motivate and drive action.  Here is how to identify and get your super partners on board.  Make a list of all those folks whose influence employees.  Then run down the list to see what makes sense for your program or message.  I have used everyone from the company president to the mailroom guy and each time, their partnership has surpassed my expectations.

Using any one of these steps is powerful but using them all together will be inspiring.  Spend some time in 2010 to prepare your communication systems for the kinds of employee action you’ll need to minimize the impact of Health Care Reform and generate greater program response and appreciation.  With just a little bit of effort, you CAN take your programs to new levels of performance.

About the Author

Gale Golden, G2 Communications Group, LLC

Gale works with her clients to help them get their employees to take action.  Her proven approach has worked for more than 20 years in every kind of organization.  Gale’s website provides a free e-report with additional insight on how employers can learn to replicate this process.   Learn more about Gale and receive her special report about how help your employees listen and act by visiting www.g2communicationsgroup.com.