Submitted by McGohan Brabender
The demographic of the workforce has evolved over the past three years. Due to a re-evaluation of priorities, Baby Boomers left the workforce earlier than expected, leaving many organizations scrambling to fill roles. These roles went on to be filled by Gen Zers or Zoomers.
The change in the workforce's demographic required employers to alter their perspective on employee benefits. Employers need to understand the health care member journey and the benefits their workforce values.
McGohan Brabender saw this need and conducted a Member Journey study. After four months of extensive research, we discovered the essential components employers must consider while crafting a benefits package to recruit and retain a workforce.
MB’s study found that two member journeys existed. A high plan utilizer and a low utilizer journey.
High utilizers, unsurprisingly, are more engaged with their health plan. Any change in plan design could result in these individuals spending hundreds of additional dollars on care. Also, high utilizers agreed that health insurance was the most important benefit an employer could offer.
Low utilizers often feel they aren’t receiving “a benefit” when offered health insurance. Their outlook is, “how does this benefit me since I don’t use it?” When it comes to low utilizers, all they want to know is:
What is changing?
How much will it cost me?
Due to low utilizers' lack of health issues, they place a higher value on non-traditional benefits. The top requested non-traditional benefits were the ability to work from home, employers offering to pay for their cell phone bill, and a lifestyle account.
Our member journey study also uncovered some additional helpful findings for employers. These include:
A Carrier change is the most stressful event a member can experience, regardless of plan usage.
All members wish they had decision support while electing benefits.
Zoomers are extremely undereducated about benefits, resulting in confusion.
The final part of our study was to find potential solutions to address the issues encountered. McGohan Brabender’s solutions to the roadblocks mentioned previously are:
Proactively working with account teams to develop a communication strategy that addresses:
Who the new carrier is.
Potential issues to look out for.
Who to contact when I need assistance.
MB can provide decision support for employees in multiple ways:
Set up on-site days where account teams meet with individual employees to discuss their options.
Provide employers with a decision support tool currently being vetted by MB (Tango Health).
A potential solution to the lack of knowledge Zoomers possess about benefits is to take the approach Medicare does.
Steps to Take:
Have HR develop a list identifying those who are aging off their parent’s plan in the upcoming calendar year.
Set up multiple 15-minute educational seminars on-site to start the education process for those aging off their parent’s plan.
If you would like a more detailed report, please contact McGohan Brabender for a copy of the complete quantitative and qualitative analysis.