wpengine, Author at BenefitVision

New Hire for VP of Sales

Harrisburg, PA…October 5, 2017 – Janet Flores, brings over 15 years of experience in sales to BenefitVision as Vice-President of Sales in Midwest. Flores will bring her strengths of planning, delivering market share growth, strategy development and execution.

Prior to joining BenefitVision, Janet held key leadership roles at companies such as Xerox, Pitney Bowes, Ritchie Bros, and DHL. She has led large complex organizations and smaller entrepreneurial businesses, transforming them to grow revenue, and operating profit. Janet is known for building “customer for life” relationships. “Her current methods are going to blend very well into the company culture of BenefitVision.” John Resor, President, noted.

Janet has a BS in Psychology from Syracuse University. She has also been the executive speaker at The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals and the Eye for Transport Conference, both in 2010. In addition, in 2011, she was the keynote speaker and sponsor for the Women in Logistics Forum.

What We Know About Technology

In our current society, everything is based around technology. It might be hard to think back to a time where you had to mail a handwritten letter instead of typing up a quick email. There have been extreme advancements in communication among other areas. Many of the reasons to see someone face to face have been replaced. You can FaceTime or Skype from a mobile device that sits in your pocket. As technology becomes more convenient, businesses also have the opportunity to expand their operations.

We know that every company is not prepared financially or staffed to implement new technology. “The squeaky wheel gets the oil” often sets priorities. Benefits technology alone can’t help employees choose the best plan for their money. Many aspects of running a business still require a human touch which can increase the payroll budget.

BenefitVision provides a solution that offers the best of technology and staff to communicate your benefits messages. The ACES program combined with well-trained Benefits Representatives give employees old fashioned service when they enroll for benefits. Logging on or calling in gives employees a choice of how to get an immediate connection to the communication process.

Everyone needs technology they can depend on with easy access. Our online enrollment program is BenefitVision ACES, A Configurable Enrollment System. It can be described as “robust” and “flexible.” Data can be transferred to insurance carriers, payroll departments and human resources. BenefitVision’s IT staff inspects, scrubs data and sets alarms to alert and ensure that the data feeds are sent and received as scheduled. ACES is always up to date and on real time, so you can depend on our proprietary technology to manage clients’ employee benefits programs.

Benefits technology doesn’t resolve all of your HR challenges. It is the personal touch that can help employees avoid costly mistakes that will impact them throughout the year. We can assist employers in controlling health and welfare benefit costs by defining terms that confuse employees such as dependent eligibility, and evidence of insurability. At BenefitVision, we never lose sight of the fact that all the employee benefits, enrollment services and technology we provide are for and about the people who need a helping hand. Click here to see how we do it!

Optimizing Enrollment and Improving Employee Engagement

Is there a role for “guided enrollments” in today’s self-service age?

It used to be that it didn’t matter if you understood your benefits. Employers gave them to you. Then costs starting going up and employers wanted you to start sharing the cost. Benefit choices, flexible benefits, tradeoffs, voluntary benefits… suddenly you needed to make informed decisions but wow this stuff was complicated.

Employers turned to group meetings, but they were disruptive and often poorly attended. One-on-one enrollments came on the scene, but work disruption and scattered work forces were problems.

So where are we today? If you ask most employers “do your employees understand their benefits?” most will answer “no.” And if you ask “why not?” the answer will be “they just don’t read.”

Today, we hear everyone wants the solution on their phone or their app. They want it in real time. Gen Zers have no patience for this. Millennials want just to touch their screen.

Is that right? Will employees today read and understand their benefit information and feel they have what they need to make decisions because the information is online?

It is really interesting, both anecdotally and from survey data, what we know is that what people really want is to talk to someone. They want a knowledgeable counselor to explain their options, inform them of the differences between plans, and to help them decide what plans work best for them.

One career benefits professional I know well (me) knows that when it is time for my annual 401k enrollment, I want to talk to my 401k advisor. I don’t want him to make the decisions for me, but I do want his input and guidance. For most people, that is exactly what they want for all of their benefits.

I have said it before, “Self-Service is not Service,” that is an oxymoron. If you are doing it yourself, it is not service.

Why don’t employers provide more service to their employees? It is just too expensive. What employer is going to pay to have someone spend 30 or 45 minutes with each employee helping them with their enrollments? But that is exactly what we do in our business, each of us that funds our benefit communication and enrollment service with voluntary benefits.

Methods vary…call center, web-based co-browsing, still some one-on-ones…but all providing “guided enrollments” that employees want.

We help people make informed decisions, we help them have better benefits, and we help employers cut their costs, reduce turnover, and increase employee appreciation of the benefits the company is providing.

All in all, this is probably the best win-win venture I can imagine.

Communication – People Helping People

Even in a technological world, there are still some aspects which require a human touch. When calling a customer service line in addition to a fear of being put on hold for a long time, there is a threat of bad music, and a disembodied, prerecorded voice. Frustration grows while suffering through countless menus with no option to talk to a real person.

Actually, a 2016 Open Enrollment Survey* found that 48 percent of employees would rather do something unpleasant, such as talking to their ex or walking across hot coals, instead of completing their annual benefits enrollment.

Whenever employees try and learn about their benefits, they soon discover the sheer magnitude of information to be absorbed. Assistance is almost always required. It is important that employees have benefits; it is more important that employees make informed decisions about those benefits.

Providing a communications staff which is well-trained at engaging employees in the decision process is the mission of BenefitVision; helping employees have a better vision, a better understanding, of their benefits. It is widely known that this connection can affect the work ethic of the employees as well. When employees fully perceive the value of their benefits, they have lower rates of attrition.

It’s generally estimated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that replacing an employee costs a business one-half to five times that employee’s annual salary. Employers who deliver an education campaign about their benefit package can save the unwelcome costs of turnover. Providing effective communications about benefit options must be a top priority.

The most important message is that “effective communication of the benefits is as important as the benefits themselves” says Ron Kleiman, CEO of BenefitVision. “When an employee feels like they matter to a company, they will be producing the best work possible. A full understanding and appreciation of benefits is one way to gain respect and loyalty from employees.”

* Conducted by Lightspeed GMI on behalf of Aflac, the survey includes responses from 1,900 employees across the U.S. in various industries and business sizes. Its results point to a need to simplify benefits information and enrollment.

BVI-PR Up and Running with Enthusiasm and Salty Tears

Creating an Enrollment Center in San Juan, Puerto Rico seemed like a brilliant idea giving the benefit enrollment firm BenefitVision greatly expanded call center staffing and bilingual support. That is until Maria happened.
Obviously, the Maria referred to is the once in a century hurricane that blew the Island to tatters, not Maria Torres, BVI-PR’s Managing Director.

Today the Managing Director Maria reports that after nearly three weeks of slow recovery the Enrollment Center is fully back up and operating on grid power with excellent generator power back up if the grid power drops for some reason.
Employees have struggled with things like fuel shortages and washed out roads, but BVI-PR set up car pools and found other ways to help employees connect.

She reports employees at the Enrollment Center are particularly grateful to BenefitVision and to USRBP, the company with which BenefitVision recently affiliated. With most still without power at home, they are grateful to have a job to come to and an airconditioned place to work.

And, it is reported that many have been moved to tears after the amazing financial support BVI and USRBP extended to every one of the current employees. With both companies giving $500 for a total of $1000 to every employee, the missed time from work, hurricane repairs, lost food, and so forth became just a bit more manageable.

Maria reports “I was truly moved to receive the relief help from our BVI Family. When we handed out the checks, there was hardly a word spoken as I looked around at my fellow employees. No one uttered much more than a soft “thank you.” There was nothing more to say. The moment was very somber as tears welled up in everyone’s eyes, no one wanting to actually cry, but to be strong, not just for themselves, but for each other.”

She goes on “Life here has been extremely difficult for us since the storm. Knowing that BVI & USRBP cares this much and is so dedicated to us… I am filled with gratitude and respect. Personally, I have never received such support from a company here or anywhere else in my life. I feel truly blessed and honored to be working for and with such wonderful people.”

BenefitVision CEO Ron Kleiman noted that the entire BenefitVision/USRBP family is proud to work with such a strong and resilient group of people. Open Enrollment season is going to be that much better because of their participation.

BenefitVision Joins U.S. Retirement & Benefits Partners

BenefitVision is pleased to announce that we are joining forces with U.S. Retirement & Benefits Partners. USRBP is the nation’s largest independent K-12 public school and governmental employee benefits and retirement planning services firm. USRBP also serves the corporate and non-profit marketplace through 40 partner firms, all in the retirement and/or benefits arena.

“Ron Kleiman is without a doubt a leading pioneer in the communications and delivery of employee benefits. We are proud to call him Partner,” said Bob Dughi, Executive Chairman of U.S. Retirement & Benefits Partners.

“Through BenefitVision’s call center resource in Puerto Rico, BVI-PR, we can expand our bilingual Benefits Representatives’ capabilities for all clients,” Mark Skinner, President and CEO of USRBP added.

“There are no organizational or personnel changes anticipated because of this merger. BenefitVision will continue to provide the outstanding services we have built our reputation on. The value we see will be in long-term growth and the benefits of expanding valuable administration services to our clients,” said Ron Kleiman, CEO of BenefitVision. He continued, “If you would like to know more about the company with which we are locking arms, please take a look at www.USRBPartners.com.”

John Resor, President and COO of BenefitVision, said enthusiastically, “We are very pleased to be able to transition our business to an organization with such high qualities as USRBP.”

About BenefitVision

BenefitVision was established in 1994 by Ronald Kleiman, Chief Executive Officer, and has led the industry in designing and developing unique, client-focused employee benefits enrollment and administration programs. Serving mid-to-large employers, BenefitVision utilizes dedicated Enrollment Centers in Pennsylvania and Puerto Rico that employ innovative technology to ensure efficient enrollments and superior, personalized service.
BenefitVision delivers its services through offices in Los Angeles, an Enrollment Center in Harrisburg, PA, and now through BVI-PR located in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

View PDF of this article — BVI-USRBP Press Release

Why does everyone hate Open Enrollment?

With increases in the cost of employee benefits, Benefits Departments continue the search for effective cost containment strategies. Most employers are extremely busy re-evaluating benefit plan options, shopping for new providers, raising employee contribution levels and searching for increased efficiencies within their HR technology strategies. Additionally, pressure to explain their plans to every employee and transmit the data in a short period of time is stressful.

And…it’s no wonder that almost every study out there suggests that employees dread open enrollment because they have difficulty understanding the benefits and health insurance options available to them.

A Harris Poll survey really hit home:

Nearly half (49%) of employees eligible for employer-sponsored benefits say making health insurance decisions is “always stressful,”.
Researchers note that “others use more critical language, calling their benefits communication complex (18%), disappointing (15%), boring (10%), or a waste (7%).”
Only about half of employees know their out-of-pocket maximums (53%) or their employers’ contributions to the costs of health insurance (47%).

Outsourcing has its advantages. Enrollment firms can staff and deploy Benefits Representatives who are trained on their client’s benefit plans, but can the client expect consistent delivery of the client’s critical messages? And what about newly eligible employees throughout the year?

BenefitVision can work with you to find the most effective strategies and methodologies for every learning style. We can offer a choice for employees to call-in or log-on to get the information they need. With either method, our seasoned Benefits Representatives explain and compare the features of all of the benefits as they review the plans with the employee. The data is captured and sent to back to our clients and/or their vendors.

Surveys taken have shown that the employees have a greater appreciation of the benefits the employer has offered, and are confident that they have made the best choices for their family’s future needs. Benefits Departments are relieved from the redundant tasks that require additional resources they cannot deploy.

If you hate open enrollment, BenefitVision is your pain relief.

BenefitVision Opens New Employee Benefits Enrollment and Administration Center in Puerto Rico

BenefitVision Opens New Employee Benefits Enrollment and Administration Center in Puerto Rico

Center brings significant added capacity and bilingual support for employers in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the United States.

San Juan, Puerto Rico (December 2016) BenefitVision, Inc., a full-range provider of employee benefit enrollment, administration, and communication services, has opened an all new, state-of-the-art Employee Benefits Enrollment and Administration Center in San Juan, PR. The new facility has the capacity to host 160 benefit enrollment personnel and will feature the most extensive bilingual support in the industry. It will also provide a cost-effective resource to support BenefitVision’s comprehensive slate of benefits services.

The BenefitVision-Puerto Rico (BVI-PR) facility is located at the Hato Rey Center, a premier location in the heart of San Juan’s business district. The Center is staffed by fluent bilingual benefit representatives who hold health and life insurance licensing across the United States. They will work to support BenefitVision’s clients in Puerto Rico as well as the 50 states.

John Resor, President of BenefitVision, noted, “Operationally, our technical support for clients will be delivered seamlessly, coordinated through our phone and online enrollment systems, across the United States.”

BVI-PR has already begun support for the enrollment of the health plan promoted by the Teachers Union in Puerto Rico (AMPR). The center is now launching support for the 120,000 retirees of the government, sponsored by the Pensionados (Retirees Association).

BVI-PR hours will be from 9 AM to 1 AM each workday to support BenefitVision’s practice of providing enrollments from 9 AM to 9 PM, coast to coast.

About BenefitVision

Founded in 1994, BenefitVision offers a full range of employee benefit enrollment, administration, and communication services. The company’s primary focus is centered on effective communication of plan benefits, features, and choices to employees. BenefitVision offers fully customizable programs that help employers control rising healthcare costs while retaining satisfied employees.

BenefitVision delivers its services through offices in Los Angeles, an Enrollment Center in Harrisburg, PA, and now through BVI-PR located in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Contact for journalists:

Virginia Eanes

BenefitVision, Inc.,

2690 Commerce Drive, Suite 200

Harrisburg, PA 17110

800.810.2200 Ext 1115

If you have any questions regarding information in these press releases please contact the company listed in the press release. Our complete disclaimer appears here

The Inconvenient Truth… About Benefits Communication

With apologies to Al Gore for ripping off his title, there are some things we can learn by analogy to his movie.

First, the inconvenient truth about benefits communication: It is incredibly important but usually not done well.

At least three major changes over the last few years have made it particularly important. First, companies made benefits flexible and asked employees to make their own decisions about what they needed. But to make informed decisions, that meant they had to understand them.

Second, to help bring down the cost of health care, many companies have moved to “consumer driven” health care. That meant that employees have to take an active role, but that doesn’t work if the employees don’t get the message.

And third, the high cost of recruitment and training combined with a shrinking skilled workforce as baby boomers retire means employers have to pay more attention to the need to cut turnover and retain quality employees.

Key to each of these is understanding benefits, but if you ask most employers “do your employees understand their benefits?” most say “no!”

When asked why not, the most frequent answer is that “They just don’t read.”

Using today’s convenient technology, employers have turned to web-based self-service enrollment programs as their primary tool for communicating. But, while these programs can do an excellent job of recording decisions the employee is ready to make, they do little to help the employee make decisions. They are not a substitute for real communication.

That’s where “The Inconvenient Truth” is such a great example. Without getting into his subject matter, Al Gore’s movie demonstrated a great truth about communication. Imagine how successful he would have been in getting his message across if he just sent an email to everyone he could saying, “I’ve got this great website. It has in-depth information about climate change. Go there and you can learn all about it.”

The effectiveness of doing that would have been close to zero. People just don’t go on their own and dig out this kind of information.

Instead, he put together a presentation and delivered it to the audience. He didn’t ask them to read it. He read it to them. The movie may have been a PowerPoint presentation with Al Gore delivering it, but it took the Oscar. We need to get to ‘Oscar level’ benefits communication.

What a wonderful basic of successful communication. Deliver the message. Don’t ask the audience to work to get it. Deliver it to them.

But it didn’t’ stop there. What made it so effective was that it used a second highly successful communication process – create participation – get the audience involved. He stopped, challenged the audience to think, and to the extent you can in a movie, created participation.

Back to Communicating Benefits

Benefits are about as dry a topic as climate change, less global but more personal. How can they be communicated so people will really get the messages management want to communicate?

For clients of BenefitVision, we’re building on several of those strong basics of communication…deliver the message and get the employees involved. And we’ve found a way to do this and save clients money in the process.

Basically, to enroll for benefits, employees are instructed to call their company’s enrollment center, which is actually outsourced to BenefitVision. A benefits representative, not just a recorded voice with instructions about punching 1 for this and 2 for that, answers the phone in the company’s name. Callers are often pleasantly surprised to be talking to a real person.

This trained benefit rep takes the employee through a structured and very consistent presentation. The caller follows along in a workbook that matches the rep’s computer screens as they are guided through the presentation. So, as the benefit rep delivers the presentation to the employee, the employee is following along screen-by-screen in the workbook. Since most employees call from home, they can take as long as they need – ask as many questions as they want, and feel confident in making informed decisions.

Interactivity and Participation are Key

As the presentation moves from the agenda screen, to the data verification screen, to the value of benefits screen and then the screens describing each benefits plan, there is specific personal information that comes up on the benefits representative’s computer. The employee has blanks in his or her workbook. When they get to those key points, the benefits representative asks the employee to fill in the blanks, to write in those key pieces of information in the workbook.

For example, when presenting the value of benefits, the benefits representative has that information, personalized to that employee, on the screen. The amount is told to the employee and the employee is asked to write it in the blank spot in the workbook. Now we have real interactivity, real participation. The act of writing the amount down imprints the information so much more than just hearing it…or just reading it…or just knowing that it is available somewhere…that there is no comparison. This is highly effective communication. And something the employee will remember.

As the employee learns about the benefits available and indicates which ones he or she wants, the benefits representative records that information in the computer and the employee is enrolled. There are no forms to fill out. (Everyone hates filling out forms.) From that point, the process has all the efficiency of the web-based self-service program, but it was full service and the employee goes through the process feeling comfortable with the decisions made.

Back end processing, including confirmation forms back to the employees and feeds to the employer and its vendors has all the advantages of any of the electronic programs, but the interface to the employee was someone who could really help the employee understand the benefits messages the employer was trying to get across.

Making Effective Communication Affordable

The problem with all of this is the cost. During open enrollment, typical enrollment sessions run from 15 minutes to 30 minutes or more for each employee. During the year, new hire orientations and life-events changes are available every day. Making people available year-round to talk to employees is an expense beyond what most employers are willing to spend.

To make the process affordable, BenefitVision has developed a creative funding model that not only deals with the cost but goes further by helping employers enhance their benefits offering.

We work with the employer to add a voluntary benefit such as universal life or critical illness to the menu of what is available to the employees. While considering the range of options before them, the employee is permitted to select from these additional products if they wish. Income from the optional voluntary benefits pays for cost of the communication program. The result? Employees love having more options, the employer gets to enhance the benefits package without extra cost, and better communication is provided to all. This is a real win-win.

Cutting Turnover

One very measurable result of this better communication is reduced turnover. A study done by a major benefits consulting firm found that organizations that had better benefits communication had lower rates of turnover than did organizations that had better benefits but did not communicate them as well.

Perhaps that is an intuitive result. But, it tells us that organizations with limited budgets are better off spending money on communicating their benefits than just enhancing them. That’s an important lesson.

Going a step further, BenefitVision analyzed turnover results among its client base, looking at the effect of enrollment in voluntary benefits. Those results showed a striking impact. Employees who enrolled in voluntary benefits had much lower rates of turnover than those who did not.

Putting those two factors together, better benefits communication and commitment to the organization by being enrolled in more benefits, compounds the likelihood the employee will stay with the job and that turnover rates will be reduced. Given the staffing challenges organizations will be facing due to demographic change (sounds almost like climate change, doesn’t it), cutting turnover is becoming ever more important.

Talking to a Parade

Another key to success in communication is to remember you are talking to a parade. That is because there are new employees throughout the year that need to hear the message. And even though you deliver the message once, people’s lives change and they will hear a message differently based on their needs at any given moment.

BenefitVision’s model is available for new hire orientations every working day, not just open enrollments. It is available to handle life-events changes so that employees can talk to an informed benefits representative when they’re most receptive to learning.

Making it Convenient

BenefitVision typically works with large organizations, usually clients ranging from 3000 employees to groups over 100,000. But regardless of size, the same principles of deliver the message, create involvement, find a way to make the messages available repeatedly and specifically when the employee is ready to receive the message, are all critical to success in benefits communication. One more brochure or one more webpage just will not do it.

About Ron Kleiman

Ron Kleiman is CEO of BenefitVision, Inc. based in Long Grove, IL. BenefitVision provides benefits communication and enrollment services to major corporate, union, and public sector clients across the country. The firm’s foundation reflects Ron’s experience as television reporter, in corporate communication with Ford and GE, and 15 years of communication consulting with leading benefits consulting firms. Learn more about BenefitVision at www.benefitvision.com.

Self-Service alone sounds good but does not work

Benefit Enrollment is much more than just the mechanics. Helping to insure employees understand and appreciate their benefits works best when employees can speak one-on-one with a knowledgeable benefits representative whose focus is on helping the employee understand his or her options and helping them through the process.

In a white paper authored by Andrea Davis, Editor-In-Chief Employee Benefit News, we hear that “Blanket communications of benefit programs – mass communication to the whole population with the same information, regardless of what their needs are – may be one of the factors that contributes to low engagement and utilization of benefits.” Further, amongst the top concerns workers have is “Selecting and understanding benefits (50%).”

And the reality is that it is even worse according to another study.

The International Foundation of Employee Benefits Plans’ Benefits Communication Survey Results revealed that, despite prioritizing benefits communication, only 19% of employers say their employees have a high level of understanding their benefits. The reason why employers say benefits understanding is so low is because most participants do not open/read materials (80% of organizations reported this), almost half don’t understand the materials, and participants do not perceive value in their benefits (31%).

At BenefitVision we use live, knowledgeable and experienced people as well as one of the best enrollment and administration platforms available to communicate one-on-one with every employee. To do any less would be just short of criminal.