6 MAY 2019 • FOGHORN FOGHORNFOCUS: HUMAN RESOURCES I would bet that I see at least two to three articles a week about the strength of the economy and how it is creating a difficult job market for attracting and retaining quality employees. Additionally, I probably talk to at least one business each week that laments about how difficult it is to “find good people.” I am sure this is a conversation that you have had internally or with a vendor of yours. It is no secret that the hos- pitality and client service indus- tries, specifically passenger vessel operators, like yourselves, are impacted by this issue each day. The war on talent is real. What I have found, though, is that companies that look beyond starting salaries, regular breaks, and paid time off and take a strategic approach to their benefits package, even going so far as to begin to view their benefits package as a total rewards platform, are best positioned to win the war. In the benefits consulting industry, we are seeing a shift in the way that companies are assembling their total rewards platform. In preparation for a presentation in New Orleans that I recently made at the PVA Annual Convention at MariTrends 2019, Industry Benefits Benchmarking Survey of Results, which examined trends and benchmarking, I was re- searching the most common types of medical plans offered to employees. Utilizing the Milliman 2018 National Benchmarking Survey, I was able to see that 51 percent of employers currently offer a traditional PPO plan while 30 percent now offer a High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP). I was curious, however, about how the plan design offerings have shifted over the last five years, so I went back and looked at the 2014 Milliman Survey results, expecting that the most significant growth would be in HDHP plans. The results, to say the least, were surprising. The biggest jump in plan designs offered in the last five years was not in HDHP plans but in HMO/EPO plans, which operate like traditional PPO plans but have a more limited network of participating providers. These plans represented five percent of companies in 2014 and 16 percent of companies in 2018. Furthermore, when you look at the total number of medical plans that companies are offering to their employees, employers that offer only one medical plan dropped from 51 percent in 2014 to 33 percent in 2018. Coincidentally, employers that currently provide three plans jumped from 14 percent in 2014 up to 22 percent in 2018, and employers that now offer four or more plans jumped from seven percent in 2014 to 13 percent in 2018. While this may seem like a bunch of insignificant statistics, this tells me two critical things about the state of employee benefits and medical plan offerings: First, employers have started to shift their benefit programs to appeal across a broader base of employees. Employees want choice. In many cases, you are probably buying too much insurance for your employees and paying more money than you need to for those rich medical plans. Employees are willing to shop for their care and will travel a little further or change providers to save money. Second, the health insurance delivery model is changing and evolving rapidly. Employers have squeezed every dollar out of deductible and co-pay changes to control costs. Milliman, in the same benchmarking report cited earlier, also found that 40 percent of employees will gladly trade a broad network of providers to save money in their paycheck. Health insurance carriers have already begun to respond to this market condition as we have seen a considerable shift in the number of carriers offering more narrow network products to appeal to a broader base of employees while also doing everything possible to optimize network performance and control costs. Furthermore, carriers have found that by raising the bar for provider performance, their networks perform more efficiently and cost-effectively. At the same time, employees are willing to forego a network that has every provider for a network with fewer, but more cost- effective providers, if it saves them money too. We’re also seeing a change in the delivery model around telemedicine. Telemedicine has provided a cost-effective option for routine medical care while increasing access. We have also begun to see more and more employers offer benefits that appeal to an employee’s “lifestyle.” For the first time ever, there are five generations of employees in the workforce. They all have varying needs when it comes to medical insurance, and they expect you, the employer, to meet those needs by offering a variety of benefits plans and options. The days of employers providing one medical plan, one dental plan, some vision coverage and $100,000 in group term-life insurance may soon come to an end.As the pressure mounts on talent recruitment and benefits, you, the employer, need to think more than ever about what you’re offering to get employees to come work for you and what you are doing to keep them working for you. Therefore, the best strategic consideration is to implement multiple benefit options that increase the value of an employees’ total rewards program. A recent BenefitFocus study found that 73 percent of employees agree that having Finding Good Employees: Is Healthcare Insurance a Solution to the War on Talent? By Chris Shipley, PHR, SHRM-CP, Henderson Brothers, Inc. Telemedicine seeks to improve a patient’s health by permitting two-way, real-time interactive communication between the patient, and the physician or practitioner at the distant site. Source: Medicaid.gov