The Three Keys to Strategic Benefit Planning

Seldom are you ever locked into one benefit approach or plan design. In fact, you can change up your benefit plan design at any point in the year. You need not wait for the renewal.

Plan design is like fuel efficiency in a vehicle or home. How your benefits are designed is the infrastructure for which all aspects of the program, and those who are the intended users rely. From alignment with compensation, to your safety program, ultimately productivity, are all dependent upon the design structure. Therefore, the decision for which options to include, or exclude, what needs to be insured, verses what should be a self-insured options need to be taken very seriously.

Key Components of Strategic Benefit Planning Strategies

Like your own business, benefit plan design is not a “one-size-fits all”. Three keys to consideration include:

• People
• Productivity
• Operations

People

Each and every business, regardless of technological intention or advancement, comes down to the people. The people are the culture and how engaged they are in the ultimate goals of the organization can mean the difference between success and failure. So too, is this true when it comes to the benefit program. For these reasons and so many more, here are some of the considerations:

• What are the demographics of the employees—their ages, stages in life, geographical location.
• What are the knowns and unknowns of their needs? Has feedback been initiated to ascertain what’s important to them?
• How will the benefit plan be set up for success in aligning with the compensation and overall business strategy of the organization?

Productivity

This is the financial engine of the organization. If people are not productive, the business suffers. If people are not completing their tasks in a safe and efficient manner the business suffers. When it comes to benefit alignment with productivity and safety, here are some key considerations:

Within each classification of employee group, what are their expected duties? Below are three examples on how a benefit plan will assist with improved productivity and therefore the safety the people within the firm.

1. If the expectation is that people will be primarily working from their computers, like providing them with the best IT equipment to fulfil the tasks, so too must the business consider ergonomics—their eyes, their seating arrangement, etc., and ask if the benefit plan providers for adequate coverage for vision care, back support and the like. If not, might the person’s ability to perform suffer if they cannot see the screen or are in pain while working?
2. Further, if a construction company requires steel-toed boots for job site, it is not equally important to have access to orthotics for knee, hip and back stability so they can continue to perform without injury?
3. How about employees who are customer-facing, serving the purchasers of the goods or service of the organization? Their productivity may be dependent upon being able to effectively hear and communicate, therefore reasonable access to hearing aids and employee assistance may be a necessity to keep them ready and “fit-for-duty”.

Operations

The day-to-day of every business relies upon the many cogs working in harmony. Less distractions, more focus on innovation and customer retention will bode success. In this, all operational functions must align, from human resources, to finance, to people and more, and the benefit plan sits at the centre of this being able to move operations forward.

Consider the knowns of the salary, the duties, the obligations, the many legislation obligations and then how the benefit plan can work to ensuring, like the grease in the mechanism, keep things running smoothly. This would include protecting employees in the event of an untimely death, unexpected disability, whether short term or long term, emotional health and wellbeing, crippling family situations, and diagnoses.

We’d be pleased to engage in a meaningful conversation on this and other benefit topics. Give us a call.

Note: this was written without the aid of Artificial Intelligence (AI)