CSI Benefits Industry News

We all know that business is all about people. The success and failure of every organization depends on the quality of people found in the organization. Sourcing for and recruiting the best hands in an organization is not just all it requires. For an organization to grow and stand out in its industry, the best set of people should be sourced, selected, recruited and retained.

Employee retention is of paramount importance and a critical issue in an organization. Retaining your best hands ensures customer satisfaction, improved sales, satisfied co-workers, effective and balanced relationship between staff and management, effective succession planning, general growth of the culture and ethics of the organization.

One very important adage says that if one does not value the importance of knowledge, then one should try ignorance. This goes a long way to explain the benefits of sourcing, recruiting and retaining the right staff in an organization. The cost of frequent employee turnover in an organization can be felt in the areas of the cost attached to selection, recruitment, orientation, induction, training and developing such staff. Failing to retain a key employee is very costly infarct more costly than recruiting a new one.

Employee retention is very important also because of its societal perception. When a firm starts loosing its staff especially the good ones, it does not say well about the health of the firm to the society. Employee retention is one of the primary measures of the health of your organization. If you are losing critical staff members, you can safely bet that other people in their departments will not be comfortable most especially when you are loosing such staff they are looking up to. Exit interviews with departing employees provide valuable information you can use to retain remaining staff, but most companies do not even care about conducting an exit interview when they have staff exit.

TIPS TO RETAIN YOUR EMPLOYEES:

Employ the best staff available in the Labour Market: The very first and important tip to retaining your staff is making sure that you go for the best staff the labour market is ready to offer. Most recruiters compromise this by employing their friends, brothers, sisters and relations. The result of this is that the norm, culture and ethics of the organization are always pushed aside.
Satisfy your employees: A satisfied employee knows exactly what is expected of him at all times. Creating unnecessary and unhealthy stress in a work in environment keeps people on edge and always questions their job security.
Authority and Responsibility lines should be clearly stated: An employee should be able to have a clear knowledge of his daily, weekly and monthly expectations as well as his line of reporting clearly stated. Both the supervisor and the supervised should feel valued at all times as employee turnover may result when any feels unvalued.
Avenue for Feedback: A good firm must provide an avenue for a total and complete feedback structure. The firm should be able to solicit ideas and provide avenue in which people are comfortable to say their minds. Employees should feel belonged to the firm, provide ideas, suggestions, citicise, and be heard. Any thing less than this will make the employee feel deprived and not belonging to the firm.
Develop their Talents and Skills: Training and development is very important in career Management. A well-trained staff will be motivated to add value to him self and his organization. New trends and technology is evolving now and then, and all firms should be able to update their staff with current information and technology at all times.
All staff should be treated with fairness and equity: Staff salary structure should be clearly defined, career path should be clearly established and staff should be rewarded accordingly with performance and not because the staff is related to the CEO or GM.
Recognition: When a staff achieves a great feat, he should be recognized and rewarded accordingly. Nothing motivates a staff like recognition for performance met.
DON’T threaten a staff with his job: Give a staff a target and encourage him to do his best. Do not keep on hammering in his ears that you will sack him if he does not perform. This may add to him not performing as he will become nervous and be on his toes to look for other opportunities outside instead of concentrating to do his job.

Your staff must be REWARDED, APPRECIATED & RECOGNISED. Thank you, well done, that’s a good one, cudos etc makes a staff feel rewarded and happy as well as being motivated to do more. Also monetary rewards, gifts and bonuses are tools to retain your good and performing staff. Where these are lacking when a staff is performing, makes the staff to look for where he will be appreciated for a job well done.

These tips for sure will help any organization to retain their good staff and reduce the cases of employee turnover.

The current economic downturn has changed the world dramatically. It’s a new ball game for every organization. Now, more than any time in the past 60+ years, current feedback from employees and customers is essential for knowing where we are, where we need to be, and for planning our organizations’ futures. Conducting effective surveys provides information and insight for making informed decisions, driving positive change and significantly increasing profit and organizational sustainability.

If your organization conducts surveys, or if you are thinking of conducting a survey, this article will help you achieve excellent results and avoid pitfalls often encountered while conducting surveys.

To receive a PDF version of the complete survey report by e-mail, including employee survey best practices, key survey findings, survey data and verbatim comments, please send an e-mail to hdeutsch@Quantisoftdotcom requesting the “Employee Survey Best Practices Report.”

Survey Best Practices – Increasing Your Survey Expertise

As a survey company we are often asked questions about survey practices: What is the best way to conduct surveys? How can we get the highest possible response rate? Should we use a survey company, or should we try to use a self-use online survey service? The questions we receive are many and varied.

While Quantisoft has extensive survey experience and expertise, we decided to conduct a survey to identify employee survey best practices at organizations we do not conduct surveys for. The findings of the survey validated our own survey experience and produced interesting and useful information and insight about employee surveys.

This article includes the key Lessons Learned and Actions for You to Consider from Quantisoft’s Survey About Employee Survey Practices. Please contact Howard Deutsch at hdeutsch@Quantisoftdotcom to receive the full Employee Survey Best Practices Report, including the survey findings, data and verbatim comments.

Lessons Learned

1. Types of Employee Surveys – Participating organizations are using a wide range of employee surveys to gather information and insight for making better decisions and making informed changes. Types of surveys they conduct include employee satisfaction/engagement, employee benefits opinion, employee turnover, sales force opinion, IT customer satisfaction, business risk assessment and other surveys. Information about types of employee, customer and specialty surveys is presented at http://www.quantisoft.com/Industries/SurveyTypes.htm.

2. Survey Frequency – The most common frequency for conducting surveys is annually.

3. Satisfaction with Survey Companies vs. Self-use Survey Services – Organizations that primarily use survey companies are significantly more satisfied with their survey process than organizations primarily using self-service online survey services. The reasons survey companies are providing greater satisfaction and value than self-service survey services include the expertise and experience provided, receiving survey reports quickly without the need to take time to generate graphs and other reports in-house, objective analysis of survey results, more focus on implementing changes, greater support and involvement from management and other factors.

4. Effectiveness of Survey Practices – Organizations primarily using survey companies rate the effectiveness of key survey practice significantly higher than organizations using self-service online survey services. The survey practices with the largest gaps in effectiveness ratings are receiving support from managers, producing timely useful reports, communicating survey findings, developing implementation plans, analyzing survey results and achieving results from surveys.

5. Importance of Survey Practices - Survey respondents identified the “most” important survey practices as keeping responses anonymous, conducting follow-up surveys, time taken to complete survey and analysis of survey data.

6. Survey Response Period and Rate – Responding organizations strive to achieve a high survey response rate. A 2-week survey response period is most popular. A third week typically generates a higher response rate. 60% of responding organizations typically have a survey response rate of 60% or greater.

7. Primary Survey Approach - Online/Web surveys are the most often-used approach. Organizations are learning ways to end the use of paper surveys, even for employees that do not use computers to perform their job. 70% of responding organizations use Online/Web surveys as their primary approach, 20% use paper surveys as their primary approach and 10% use Online/Web surveys supplemented with paper surveys as their primary approach.

8. Reasons for Conducting Employee Surveys – The top reasons for conducting employee surveys include identifying performance improvement opportunities, assessing employee satisfaction and engagement levels and trends, part of ongoing measurement process and identifying causes of employee turnover.

9. Surveys Achieving Their Objectives – Some organizations are achieving very strong results from surveys while others are falling short. Key factors for achieving survey objectives include management support for conducting surveys and implementing changes, using a survey company and executing well on all of the survey practices. Surveys generate significant quantitative and qualitative results when designed and executed well, followed up by effective analysis and implementation of changes identified by surveys.

10. Using Normative Benchmarking Data – Survey respondents prefer to benchmark their survey results with survey results from other organizations. However, they are not comfortable using benchmarking data unless they can be sure the data enables “apples-to-apples” comparisons. Similarity of organizations being bench marked, similarity of survey questions/wording, common time frame for when survey data was collected and other factors are important for making valid benchmarking comparisons.

11. Survey Best Practices – Knowing and consistently following best practices is very important for successfully conducting surveys and achieving results. Organizations that fail to follow best practices for all survey practices fail to achieve the full potential results from surveys.

Actions for You to Consider – Conducting Better Surveys

1. Share the full Employee Survey Best Practices Report with people in your organization who are responsible for conducting surveys, and with managers that can benefit from conducting surveys. Send your request for the full report to hdeutsch@Quantisoftdotcom.

2. Compare your organization’s approach for conducting surveys with the best practices, lessons learned and other information and insight included in the full report available from Quantisoft. Identify and implement changes your organization can make to achieve greater results from surveys.

3. Consider conducting surveys to gather information and insight for increasing your organization’s competitiveness and bottom line in this difficult economic environment. Beyond the usual employee satisfaction/engagement surveys, other types of surveys can enable your organization to identify ways to increase sales, identify and manage risks more effectively, gather feedback for reducing costs and increasing quality and customer service levels, enhance your organization’s “going green” profile, get more value from employee benefits dollars spent and much more.

4. The world has changed dramatically during the past year. The information and insight gathered from surveys conducted just a few months ago may no longer be valid. Update previous surveys now to gather current information and adjust action plans to reflect the “new reality”.

5. Make sure to focus your organization’s surveys on gathering actionable information that will positively impact employees, customers, the environment and your bottom line.

Information and tips that will help you to achieve results from surveys are presented at http://www.quantisoft.com.

The term culture by and large denotes the ideas, customs, and art of a particular society. While referring to work culture or organization culture one would particularly mean the customs, patterns, arts and beliefs followed in various organizations. Edgar Schein, one of the most prominent theorists of organizational culture, gave the following definition: The culture of a group can now be defined as a pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.

Employee satisfaction on the other hand is a measure of how happy workers are with their job and working environment. Keeping morale high among workers can be of tremendous benefit to any company as quite rightly pointed out Jack Welch in his statement Employee satisfaction gets you productivity, quality, pride, and creativity.

In today’s world of globalization organizations stress immensely to follow a culture which encourages open channels of communication, a flat hierarchy, informal environment, teamwork, and respect to new ideas and thoughts.

The following aspects can broadly define the likely preferred work culture in today’s organizations which contribute to a satisfied workforce:

1.Work timings: Flexible work timings have gained immense popularity amongst today’s organizations. Organizations have started giving their employees the leverage of entering the office premises at anytime of their convenience and completing their designated tasks, though a minimum hours have to be spent in the workplace

2. Work from Home: Another concept which is gaining importance, more amongst female workers, is the concept of work from home. Organizations are largely investing in equipments with the aid of which employees will have the benefit to stay at home and at the same time stay connected to the office network

3.Business Attire: As opposed to formal business attire for day to day work, organizations have now remodeled their policy on daily dress code to the widely preferred business casuals which also includes denim on one day of work. A few organizations also have a policy of Friday dressing where only casuals can be worn by their employees

4. Flat Hierarchy: The preferred organization structure is a flat organization structure with few levels of hierarchy which enables fast decision making and easy accessibility to top management. People who stay closer to customers know better the market needs and can respond faster to rapidly changing customer requirements and such changes can be easily highlighted and brought to the notice of the top management in a flat hierarchy. Another emerging trend in today’s organization are meetings with supervisors supervisor which helps in smooth interaction within different levels of management which is very effective within a flat hierarchy

5.Decentralization: This is the process of dispersing decision-making governance to the employee at the lowest level of the hierarchy and giving them the right to exercise a few decisions all by themselves which acts as a great time saving and cost cutting mechanism

6.  Employee Empowerment: Organizations are largely investing in employee empowerment. The increasing use of Employee Self service Systems which allow employees to maintain their own personal data is the biggest example. This also helps to reduce unnecessary paper work and also aims at data accuracy

7. Innovation: As George S Patton says “Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” The increasing demand of today’s workforce is acknowledgment and implementation of their ideas and thus organizations have now started investing in employee innovation where young and fresh ideas are being recognized as best practices

8.Rewards & Recognition: With the increase in stress levels, with long working hours how does an organization aim to create contributing and motivated employees, how do organizations maintain the high employee morale and the quality of life are some of the key concerns of today’s organizations and one of the many answers to these question is an effective reward and recognition system. Apart from the performance appraisal system organizations today are investing a lot in reward and recognition programs where employees are rewarded as Star employees and key achievers, long Service awards are announced for employees who work with the organization for a long tenure, Employee referral programs motivates an employee to bring their friends to work with them

9. Employee Recreation: Employee recreation programs have been shown to reduce absenteeism, increase performance and productivity, reduce stress levels, and increase job satisfaction. The new term coined to define employee recreation is associate engagement. A few examples of employee recreational activities are office outings, invitation to employees family to come and visit employees workplace, annual sports event, team outings, decoration of employee workspace , organizing music clubs, dance clubs, drama clubs, arranging training for special areas of interest of the employees

10. Employee Benefits: Benefits are forms of value, other than payment, that are provided to the employee in return for their contribution to the organization. Employee benefits typically refers to retirement plans, health life insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, vacation, employee stock ownership plans, membership to clubs, special offers and discounts on premium products and outlets, sponsorship for education of employees children, attractive schemes from financial institutions on purchase of assets, subsidized food in canteen

To sum up culture is the acquired knowledge people use to interpret experience and generate behavior and in today’s world organizations are going through a constant change in order to maintain the best possible culture which sets an example and pave the way for enhanced employee satisfaction.

Open enrollment can be an exceptionally complex and involved process, consuming months of valuable time and taxing your resources to the breaking point. Open Enrollment is always a hectic time of year when employees have the opportunity to change their benefit plan.

Online benefits enrollment does help organizations. It can significantly reduce the cost of running a human resource department by allowing employees to manage their benefits from the convenience of their desktop. According to Survey reports, more than 44 percent of employers used the Internet for benefits enrollment. At companies with more than 5,000 employees, the rate of usage jumps to 71 percent. Many issues contribute to the rise of online-benefits administration, one of which is the common practice of telecommuting.

According to the survey,telecommuting is up 3 percent nationally in 2002 and is expected to climb an additional 32 percent by 2005. The ideal and essential way for offsite employees to access benefits information from a remote location is through a Web-based solution. As these statistics show, employers reap rewards from online-benefits administration in straightforward ways, including reduced human resources costs, outsourcing of staff functions, and increased employee self service. However, many companies only outsource pieces of their benefits administration functions, rather than the entire process. Industry experts are of the opinion that all human resource functions will be delivered online in the near future.

With Online Benefit Enrollment Employees can easily:

• Enroll in flexible spending account (FSA) programs that help them plan for the future further creating a sense of cohesiveness and loyalty.

• Electronically enroll in a rules-based system that allows only eligible selections to be made by the enrolling employees reducing costly errors and reducing administrative time.

• Access and view/edit benefit selections from any computer during the period allowing to compare, analyze and check costs of plans.

Online Benefit Enrollment empowers the Management in:

• Reducing open enrollment cycle by deploying web based system and increasing both efficiency and effectiveness.

• Streamlining the process, save time and eliminate expensive errors by shifting to online rules-based electronic enrollment process.

• Reducing administrative workload and control costs by empowering employees to manage and update their benefits elections.

• By setting-up the entire administration approval process for employee, benefit elections prior to updating into HR and payroll reducing overall administrative time and burden.

The trend of shifting to online benefit enrollment is going to increase because of because of the advantages for both employers and employees. Employers have the rewards of employee satisfaction and efficiency can save on printing, and potentially, on call center expense.

Briefly the advantages of Online Benefits of Open Enrollment are:

• It automates the tedious benefit enrollment process.

• It allows the definition of eligibility criteria for employees who will participate in the open enrollment period.

• Selection process of real-time benefit plans to be included in open enrollment period

• Clear, simple instructions on every screen- practical online help ensures that employees quickly feel comfortable working with their own data.

Paul

Resources:

Online Electronic Benefit Open Enrollment Automation Web Software

Workforce Management HR Software

Survey: Employers say health care reform will not control costs

By Lydell C. Bridgeford

March 1, 2010

While health care reform enters a cooling-off period, employers insist that reform must make cost-containment a central theme in order to lower health care costs, reports the National Business Group on Health and Towers Watson.

From November 2009 through January 2010, the HR consulting firm and the business advocacy group conducted a survey of 507 employers with 1,000 or more workers.

The survey results show that 71% of employers claim that health reform will increase the overall cost of health care services, while 69% report it will boost the cost of their benefit programs. In addition, 35% of respondents felt that health reform will lead to fewer companies providing subsidized benefits.

It also appears that workers agree with their companies on the cost effects of health care reform. In a November 2009 survey of 1,000 workers, Towers Watson found that 67% of workers acknowledge that health care reform would result in higher benefit costs, while 54% report it would reduce their available benefits, and 53% declare it would lower the quality of health care.

“These survey data confirm quantitatively what many people – employers, employees and policy pundits – have been talking about for the past four months. That is, whatever else a health care reform plan might do, it is unlikely to control health care costs, which has everyone worried,” says Helen Darling, president of the NBGH.

Steve Raetzman, senior consultant for Towers Watson, explains that while “[a]ll eyes remain on Congress, there will likely be trade-offs in whatever final legislation emerges from their negotiation process.” Still, “with or without health care reform, employers will continue to look for ways to control rising health care costs and provide high-quality health care for their workers and families,” he adds.

Other findings from the employer survey include:

* About 35% of employers believe health care reform will increase transparency of provider prices, and 30% say it will increase the transparency of provider quality.

* Thirty-four percent of respondents report health care reform will increase adoption of consumer-driven health plans by large employers, while only 9% believe adoption will decrease, and 27% believe there will be no change.

* Nearly half (46%) of employers believe health care reform will decrease employer-sponsored offering of retiree medical benefits, while 5% say it will increase, and 27% of employers say it will cause no change.

Reform redux

Thought health care reform was on the back burner? A cross-chamber effort by two Republican lawmakers may get things boiling again. Some members of Congress seem to be warming up the Patients’ Choice Act, introduced last summer by Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). However, some experts warn the bill would burn out the employer-based system.

Most significantly, the bill would eliminate the cherished income tax exclusion for employer-sponsored insurance and replace it with a refundable tax credit ($2,290 for individuals and $5,710 for families) that people could use to purchase coverage.

Thus, without the tax advantage to offering coverage, industry watchers largely believe employers would drop coverage.

Even employers who wished to continue offering coverage might be unable to do so, since the young and healthy workers that help tamp down prices for older and sicker plan members likely would opt out of employer plans. Thus, premiums – already unsustainable for many companies – would skyrocket at an even faster rate than they already are.

This article was used by permission from Employee Benefit News.