One way Businessolver helps keep employees happy is through our concierge program. Much like a concierge at a hotel, Businessolver aims to provide five-star service to our employees, clients and potential clients.

Client Delight

Erica Adams runs Businessolver’s concierge program and is committed to client delight.  The concierge services provided by Businessolver ensure that our guests have an enjoyable and productive visit.

This means that travel plans are arranged, meeting preparations are complete, and a smiling face is there to greet visitors at the airport.  “We want to go above and beyond the normal eight to five,” said Adams. Before a visit, Erica checks to see if there’s anything we can do to make their stay more enjoyable.  Whether it be arranging lunches or providing ideas for things to do in Des Moines, Erica makes sure visitors feel at home.

A great example of Erica’s commitment occurred during a recent client visit.  A broken shoe resulted in an uncomfortable situation for one visitor. Rather than going shoeless the rest of her trip, she was rescued by Erica, who brought her a new pair of shoes.

Employee Delight

But Erica’s commitment doesn’t stop there; she knows that employees today wear many hats, and schedules can be demanding both at work and at home. Businessolver created a concierge program to “help employees live the Businessolver values to the fullest,” said Adams.

Many of the concierge services that Businessolver provides allow employees to spend more time focused on our business and our clients. If an employee is worried about everything they need to get done outside of work, they may not be fully engaged in best serving our clients. That’s why Erica arranges a variety services for employees, from dry cleaning pick-up to on-site haircuts to travel accommodations. Erica also coordinates a number of fun activities throughout the year to reward employees for their hard work.

“A lot is expected of employees at Businessolver, we all work very hard. The concierge services are just another way that Businessolver keeps employees engaged and provides a fun work environment,” said Adams.

So what does a typical day look like?

• Drive to the airport and pick up a client. Smile! Give a brief introduction to Des Moines on your way to the office.

• Go to Casey’s and get breakfast pizza for an employee anniversary.

• Deliver Swag tokens (recognition for being awesome) to five employees who have been recognized by their peers.

• Take a manager’s car in for service; stop by the store on the way back to pick up materials for a marketing presentation.

• Send out three employee anniversary emails.

• Order lunch for 170 employees.

• Order client lunch requests.

• Arrange for the dry cleaning to be picked up.

• Coordinate a schedule for employee massages.

• Meet the caterer at the door and help them set up lunch.

So THIS is what a company concierge does all day. And it’s only 11:15!

Success One Happy Employee/Client at a Time

Businessolver has seen the positive impact of the concierge program come to life. Employees have more time to build impactful relationships with our clients, and they feel rewarded and excited to come to work each day. Clients know that when they visit Businessolver, their stay will be enjoyable and their visit will be hassle-free. The concierge program and Erica’s dedication to client and employee delight are just another way Businessolver is creating and building strong relationships throughout our business.

“Our Internalship program is an opportunity for current employees to see other aspects of the business,” said HR Manager Mimi Kelly. “It allows the business not only to get extra help from someone who does not require an onboarding” plan, but also allows us to better utilize the ebb and flow of work volumes in different areas. “

Kelly said that another great feature of the program is the opportunity for people to work with others within the organization who may have a different perspective on how or why things are done. “This allows us to collaborate on better ideas and to information and process share,” she said.

“The job is bigger than I expected,” Saul said of his experience. He has been with Businessolver for about a year, as a Service Center representative. He is working with Shari Naughton in the Process Excellence area, helping to develop process documentation. “I have been taking completed documentation and picking it apart,” he said. He is testing and editing the documents before they become part of the Helpsolver tool found on the Benefitsolver platform.

“I knew there was a lot to learn,” Saul said, “but I didn’t realize how deep it went.” Saul sees this opportunity as a win/win. “Here I am, 23 years old, at the beginning of my career, and I’m being given this opportunity to explore other areas of the business without having to change jobs, and the company gets the added bonus of getting new content.” Saul Internalship is expected to last about three months.

Rachel Pirkl, another first-year Businessolver employee who works in the fulfillment area, is learning about the implementation process as part of her Internalship with senior implementation architect Amy Wilson as her mentor. As part of that process, she has met and worked with the Implementation Architects and others on the Client Centric Teams. “It’s given me the opportunity to put names with faces and make sense of what they do,” Pirkl said. She is helping review last year’s implementations to help improve the processes for those going forward. “Seeing it broken out in all the steps that they take is really amazing,” she said.

Tori Peterson has completed her Internalship as a recruiter for HR, and her experience led her to a new position within the company. During her Internalship, she helped recruiter Lori Vander Zyl with phone screens and other recruiting processes. “I’m definitely sales oriented and I loved helping to sell our business,” she said. I learned so much about Businessolver and the other areas in the company.” Her Internalship also helped her gain confidence and build communication skills, she said, which she believes helped her earn a new position with the sales team. Like Saul and Pirkl, Peterson has  been with the company for about a year.

Businessolver has prided itself on innovative technology and service since the doors opened in 1998. We’ve learned the challenge in innovating with the input of team members, clients and consultants isn’t the lack of ideas – it’s formalizing a plan for drawing out relevant ideas, evaluating the details and making a plan for implementing the innovation.

Businessolver formed a plan for intentional innovation more than a year ago. At the center is a tool that allows the Businessolver team to submit, build and vote on ideas, and innovation campaigns that draw out ideas related to specific topics. The results are a plethora of innovative ideas, some simple to implement and others that are larger in scale. “We’ve had almost 150 ideas submitted since December,“ said Shari Naughton, director of Process Excellence at Businessolver. Of those, 10 percent have already been implemented.

Ideas are submitted and reviewed by a cross-functional innovation team to understand the impact of each idea. “The team evaluates, scopes and prioritizes each project,” Naughton said. “From there, we begin implementation on the ‘Just Do It’ ideas that are fast, easy and inexpensive, and kick off project plans for the more intensive ideas.”

What makes Businessolver’s innovation plans especially relevant is the development cycle. “We push new updates to Benefitsolver every week,” said Naughton. That allows clients to reap the benefits of technology innovations immediately, not months or years later.

“We develop innovations that make a difference,” said Naughton. “Our intentional innovation plans are helping us be more strategic for the sake of clients – which aligns with our ultimate goal of delight.”

If you’re looking for a benefits partner focused on consistent innovation, talk to your Businessolver representative.

After your team completes the Strengthsfinder exercise, the results are sent to Businessolver. When you sit down to meet your potential business partners for the first time, Businessolver has selected an internal service team, based on, among other factors,  the various strengths of your team, and introduces their internal team  to you along with a strategy for best integrating the strengths of both teams.

“We walk the talk,” says Josh Wolk, quality and development coach at Businessolver. Wolk says that in some companies, employees will take the Strengthsfinder test, hang up the strengths poster in their cubicle and leave it at that.  But Businessolver lives it. “Strengthsfinder is embedded into the organization. We have really made this part of the culture.”

The graphic below is a slide from a recent finalist presentation at the Businessolver headquarters in West Des Moines, Iowa. As Wolk and the team presented this portion of the presentation, the strengths were discussed and dissected.

“We take the Strengthsfinder concept farther into some of the practices found in the book, Strengths Based Leadership and map the talent of the teams,” Wolk said. “We examine, within each team, ‘how many executers do we have, how many influencers, relationship builders, strategic thinkers’,” he explained. “This is a really important step in building a cohesive relationship between Businessolver and our clients.”

The graphic below is an overview of how the two teams mesh.

“If there are a lot of strategic thinkers in a group but not a lot of relationship builders like in this example, we just need to be mindful of that,” Wolk said. “If there’s a lot of strategic/intellection, we might have to say, sometimes, ‘it’s time to not overthink and just execute’ It sometimes challenges us to leave our comfort zone in order to make a stronger team.”

Businessolver utilizes the strategies internally as well. Each employee takes the Strengthsfinder assessment and then completes a one-on-one training session with Wolk to help see how their strengths can help them in their position. “We can start to recognize what the talents look like when you use them,” he said. “I help the employee to see ‘how this is reflective of my talents’ and ‘this is what talent I’m using when I’m engaged in my work.’ ”

The Strengthsfinder culture is very visible within Businessolver offices, with employees  displaying their strengths poster; some have attached their strengths to their email signatures as well.

“Businessolver is an industry leader in its internal training program,” Wolk said. “We support conceptual knowledge. We educate our employees not only the step by step information to get them up and running in their specific job but we also educate them with general knowledge about the industry and the field we work in.”

According to MetLife’s 10^th annual Employee Benefits Trends report, 41 percent of surveyed employers say voluntary benefits are a significant benefits strategy – up from 32 percent last year. And young talent is asking for voluntary options. The MetLife study found that 56 percent of Gen Y and 58 percent of Gen X, compared to 44 percent of Younger Boomers and 41 percent of Older Boomers, were interested in a wider array of voluntary benefits they can choose to purchase on their own..

Offering voluntary can also be directly tied to employee loyalty. According to the 2012 Aflac WorkForces Report, “workers who are extremely or very satisfied with their benefits program are nine times more likely to stay with their employer, compared to those workers who are dissatisfied with their benefits program.”

So how are you addressing voluntary options? Businessolver is focused on a comprehensive voluntary strategy that can deliver results for brokers, employers and employees.

A Different Perspective on Voluntary

Unlike the old standard of high-pressure, face-to-face enrollers, Businessolver’s voluntary approach is to consider a holistic and educational approach to benefits.

“We focus on the Total Benefits Dollar,” said Businessolver Director of Benefit Advisory Services Jen Daniel. “It is important that employees understand all of their options and make selections that meet their individual needs.” Employees are supported by our guided enrollment through Benefitsolver – our single source benefits technology – or by our one-on-one phone enrollment.” Daniel points out that service representatives are licensed, carrier appointed and salaried, not commissioned.

Brokers and employers also have the advantage of working with Daniel, a Businessolver resource who consults on voluntary strategies including enrollment, carrier and group product selection, and more.

Carrier Neutral

Benefitsolver’s advanced connectivity via single sign on and web services with (20 and counting) carriers streamlines underwriting and evidence of insurability (EOI) processes by opening live communication between systems. “We’ve seen participation rates climb with groups because it is a seamless online process,” Daniel said. And it happens with a wide variety of carriers. The current list includes the ABCs of carriers from Aetna and Allstate to The Standard and Unum. “We pride ourselves on being carrier agnostic,” Daniel said. “This allows us to provide a variety of options because we’re not tied to one or a few carriers.”

Why Does it Matter?

Businessolver’s comprehensive voluntary enrollment structure benefits everyone involved: employees, employers, brokers, consultants and carriers. Employees are able to enroll with a variety of tools and spend a Total Benefit Dollar on the solutions that fit their needs – including core and voluntary benefit choices. Employers are able to offer a voluntary lineup that creates stickiness for top talent with a technology partner that makes enrollment and billing easier all year round. Brokers and consultants are able to choose from a large selection of voluntary options from nearly any carrier, and can enjoy higher participation due to seamless web service integration. Finally, carriers can realize increased participation that can be otherwise affected by manual underwriting and EOI processes.

A majority of programs are likely in the clear. Programs that are educational in nature and have voluntary participation are the safest, legally speaking. Yet those programs don’t always yield the ultimate outcomes employers want. So some employers are pushing the limits of their wellness programs to achieve planned results. Before an employer takes steps toward stiffening a wellness program, they should consider the laws that govern them (from Business Insurance):

• HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) restricts incentives or penalties to 20% of an employee’s total health care premium. In addition, it requires options to outcome-based incentive requirements for disabled employees or those unable to meet the requirement.
• ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act) requires plan documentation for all wellness programs and could require benefits and incentives to be extended under COBRA continuing coverage provisions.
• ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) limits employer-required medical exams for employees. It also blocks discrimination and/or retaliation against disabled employees.
• GINA (Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act) prohibits employer discrimination against employees based on genetic information, including family or medical history.

Employers should also be aware of state laws that may have an impact wellness plans. Want to play it safe and effect change? Limit access to employee medical information to what only is necessary to apply incentives or penalties so you avoid the appearance of making an employment decision based on health information.

Have you developed a comprehensive wellness program? Is it integrated with your health enrollment? How are you communicating program details? If you don’t have solid answers for those questions, contact your Businessolver representative to discuss how you can deliver an integrated communication and enrollment platform that drives accountability for employees.

“I look forward to working directly with the network of brokers and consultants in Southern California,” Reece said. He believes brokers and consultants in California know the value of technology for their clients. “As health care costs continue to rise and organizations look for innovative ways to control cost, the brokers and consultants of Southern California have developed innovative strategies, including the use of benefits technology, to help employers.” Reece knows that the technology and service delivered by Businessolver is the perfect fit for many mid to large market employers.

Businessolver is relying on Reece’s HR technology and actuarial experience to partner with brokers, consultants and employers. “Brian’s track record of partnership with brokers and consultants shows his commitment to helping them build their business and provide significant value to employers,” said Businessolver Vice President of North American Sales, Loren Brockhouse.

Reece has served in benefits technology sales positions at Benefitfocus and A.D.A.M. along with actuarial consulting roles with Mercer HR Consulting and Towers Perrin before joining Businessolver.

About Businessolver

Businessolver is a provider of online benefits administration services and benefit administration outsourcing services. Its web-based platform automates employers’ insurance benefit administration by consolidating multiple insurance carriers into a single platform and customizing the process to meet each employer’s unique enrollment requirements. In addition to Enrollment and Eligibility services, other Businessolver service offerings include: COBRA Administration, Billing and Financial Reporting, Service Center, voluntary enrollment, Eligibility Verification and Fulfillment. For more information about Businessolver please go to www.businessolver.com.

What makes those numbers more interesting is the fact that employers’ confidence that health care benefits will be offered at their organization a decade from now continues to decline. According to the 17th Annual Towers Watson/National Business Group on Health Employer Survey on Purchasing Value in Health Care, only 23 percent of employers feel confident they will be offering health benefits in 2021. Juxtapose that nugget against 66 percent of employees saying health benefits are important to employee loyalty and it looks like we have quite the conundrum on our hands.

A whopping 75 percent of respondents cited managing health care costs as the top risk and around 85 percent said they expected health care costs to increase over the next five years as a result of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). In addition, 68 percent said they would re-evaluate their benefits strategy to offset PPACA’s impact.

In addition, 68 percent said they would re-evaluate their benefits strategy to offset PPACA’s impact.

The big question is what will employers to to change their benefits strategy? Will they improve their wellness programs to impact behavior? Will they look at voluntary benefit offerings that help employee have more complete coverage?

Whatever the change in strategy, benefits technology like Benefitsolver can have a positive impact. Communication tools offer the ability to drive enrollment to specific plans and help employees better understand the complete benefits package. Advanced integration streamlines enrolling in voluntary plans. A paycheck calculator can help each employee manage the impact to their monthly budget. And it can all be done from a single benefits platform. Contact your Businessolver representative today to find out how benefits technology can help manage the cost of providing health care (and any other benefit!) to employees.

Northeast Business Group On Health’s 1st Annual Health & Wellness Benefits Conference
30 Years of Innovation: What’s Next for Employers?
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Sentry Conference Centers
730 Third Avenue
(between 45th & 46th Streets)
New York, New York 10017

Learn more or register here.

EVENT AGENDA
7:30 a.m. – 8:15 a.m. Continental Breakfast, Registration and Exhibits
8:30 a.m. – 8:45 a.m. Opening Remarks
8:45 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. Why Employers Need to Innovate
9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. Keynote, Innovations in Healthcare Technology: Will Supercomputer Dr. Watson Improve Patient Care?
10:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. Break
10:30 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. Breakout Sessions Part 1
a. Innovations in Health Reform: The Spectrum of Opportunity Between Pay and Play
b. Innovations in Employee Health Management
c. Innovations in Employee Engagement
d. Innovations in Medical Decision Support
Noon – 1:300 p.m. Luncheon, Allowing the Mind to Blossom: Making the Business Case for Transcendental Meditation
1:45 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. Breakout Sessions Part 2
a. Innovations in Stress Management Programs and Building Workforce Resiliency
b. Innovations in Alternative Delivery Models of Care
c. Innovations in Pharmacy Benefit Management: Pharmacy – 2012 and Beyond
d. Innovations in Global Wellness
3:15 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Break
3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. Panel Discussion: The Future of Healthcare