America's Benefit Specialist November 2023

NOTEWORTHY

organization’s priorities and direction and, ultimately, im prove the employee experience. “Employers that commit to employee engagement and communication strategies, measure their effectiveness and adjust accordingly earn an advantage over the competition,” Ziebell said. “That’s because employees tend to give as much as they get. And we developed the Gallagher Career Wellbe ing Report to help employers uncover the best practices to unlock their employees and the organization’s potential.” AMERICANS ARE HIGHLY SATISFIED WITH THEIR DENTAL INSURANCE Dental health is an important part of overall health and well-being. In a recently released survey of people with den tal insurance, 90% of respondents reported being satisfied with their dental plan. Global Strategy Group (GSG) conduct ed the online survey on behalf of AHIP, focusing on dental in surance enrollees who have visited their dentist, oral surgeon, orthodontist or other dental specialist in the past year. Key survey findings: • Enrollees continue to be satisfied (90%) with their dental insurance plans, driven by easy access to providers and the value they provide. • Enrollees continue to prioritize preventive care (90%) and are satisfied with their ability to quickly access local, in-network dentists and specialists. • Enrollees remain overwhelmingly satisfied with the af fordability (87%) of their plans and believe their plans help them maintain and preserve their oral health. • Parents are increasingly satisfied (82%) with their dental plans’ benefits for their children. The survey was fielded July 24-July 27. GSG took care to ensure that the geographic and demographic divisions were properly represented by the survey’s respondents. STOP-LOSS PREMIUMS INCREASE 7% TO 16% High-dollar claimants remain a driver of total healthcare increases currently experienced by U.S. employer-sponsored, self-funded health plans. Accordingly, annualized increases in individual stop-loss premiums, measured from 2021 to 2023, show increases of 6.9% to 15.9% or higher as the individual stop-loss deductible increases, as reported by the 2023 Aegis Risk Medical Stop-Loss Premium Survey, cosponsored by the International Society of Certified Employee Benefit Specialists. This dynamic, known as leveraged trend, occurs as the underlying increase in expense of a catastrophic medical claimant is fully borne by an unchanged stop-loss deductible from one year to the next. Stop-loss insurance provides protection to self-funded health plans against large and unpredictable expenses that can arise when one plan participant, or claimant, has cata

ed an in-depth employee engagement survey over the past two years. This shift away from more detailed research began during the pandemic because employee needs, wants and concerns evolved at such a rapid rate. To capture these changes, pulse surveys—abbreviated questionnaires requiring minimal time investment for participants or data analysis—became one of employers’ go-to tactics. The insights gathered were so useful that many employers continue to rely on pulse surveys to formulate their engagement strategies. However, when measuring a complex variable such as employee engagement, pulse surveys can provide an incom plete picture. Transitioning back to annual surveys will help decision makers uncover the organization’s strengths and ar eas for improvement, and this investment will provide signifi cant cost savings compared to the cost of filling vacancies. Communicating benefits is as important as offering bene fits. Familiar HR priorities are repeating their well-established role as focal areas for effective talent management, including retention (66%), attraction (49%), training and development (35%), strengthening work culture (33%), and increasing engagement and productivity (27%). Like any other integral goal in any other year, strategic internal communication is a key tool for achieving these outcomes. Only about half of employers (53%) rate their employees’ understanding of compensation and benefits as excellent or good. As such, employers are increasingly realizing how communication can positively influence the engagement with compensation and benefits, allowing employees to wor ry less and be more productive—particularly in an uncertain economy. And in response to the current economy, nearly three in four employers (74%) increased their emphasis on communicating about compensation and benefits in 2023. Crafting employee communications through a mar keting lens will improve outcomes . What employees see and hear from leadership often influences their attitudes and behaviors, making employers’ communication about business strategies, people priorities and work approaches mission critical. For these reasons, nearly every employer surveyed (93%) indicated their organization takes a deliber ate approach with its internal communication function. But of those, only than one in four (23%) claimed to have imple mented a comprehensive internal communications strategy. There is also skepticism about whether communications can drive change. Just over one-third of employers (37%) believe their communications create tangible results or a desired change in behavior. Organizations will improve out comes by developing messaging through a marketing lens. Accomplishing this involves creating and leveraging commu nications that elicit an emotional response, while reinforcing shared values. Strategically planning and regularly delivering these messages will ensure the workforce understands the

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