AECOM campaign educates employees on merits of CDHPs

EBN’s annual i-COMM Awards recognize the best in internal communication of benefits, and are awarded in four categories: Best Overall Communications Campaign, Best Print or Online Employee Newsletter, Best Employee Intranet or Portal and Best Use of Social Media. In this four-part series, we highlight this year’s winners, starting with AECOM, i-COMM winner for Best Overall Communications Campaign.

The time had clearly come for change at AECOM, a global provider of professional technical and management support services to various markets that include transportation, energy, water, sports arenas and government. With expertise in architecture, design, engineering and construction, 45,000 employees serve clients in more than 150 countries. Nearly 12,000 of these individuals are eligible for benefits in the U.S.

AECOM’s communications campaign helped employees navigate their way through the health care industry’s changing tides and empower them to make wiser choices. The campaign is credited with setting the tone for a groundbreaking cultural and behavioral shift that resulted in impressive results.

Staffers were encouraged to participate in a worksite wellness program to improve their health — a rubric of health care reform. They also learned about the importance of taking on greater personal responsibility for their health and wellness.

There were several key objectives established. They included helping employees and their dependents learn about the impact of changes associated with the ACA and merits of consumer-driven health plans as a more viable option than PPOs and exclusive provider organizations. The emphasis was on careful review of employee medical plan choices and more responsible decisions through the use of information and tools.

Also see:The critical nature of communication in wellness

A huge challenge involved EPO enrollees, who enjoyed a generous benefits plan that buffered them from the realities of actual health care costs. “There was a seismic cultural shift that had to take place to educate employees who were unaccustomed to thinking about health care costs to take more control of their spending and their choices,” according to the company’s award application.

AECOM devised a communications strategy that included mailings to homes, creative use of varied media, and a snappy website featuring tools and resources to navigate health care reform and make enrollment decisions. Included in the online mix were a medical plan cost estimator, online calculator to help determine the most appropriate medical plan choice, frequently asked questions and an internal social networking platform aptly named Chatter. There were more than 1,100 visits to the health care portal in the first hour it went live.

Between August and November 2013, there were face-to-face presentations made to operations leadership in the U.S. and biweekly conference calls between the benefits team and onsite HR managers — designed to enlist support for the upcoming changes. A simultaneous effort involving 65 benefits roadshows for employees occurred from October to November, with 6,136 benefits-eligible employees based at locations where roadshows took place. More than 3,900 benefits-eligible employees took part in the road shows.

One startling result was that less than 1% of the eligible population defaulted into plan coverage. The migration from EPO and PPO plans to a new Premier Plus CDHP was significant at 41%, which far exceeded senior management’s goal of 25%. Other noteworthy changes were that EPO plan enrollment for wellness-eligible employees fell sharply to 34% from 64%, and more modestly for two PPO plans to 10% from 15%, and 10% from 11%, respectively.

Employee perception of the benefits package remained positive, despite the sea change at AECOM. Pay and benefits satisfaction scores increased by12 points in the company’s latest annual employee survey conducted after enrollment.

Sara Swee, AECOM’s director of internal communications and project lead, worked closely with Marc Buchsbaum, senior vice president of total rewards, and says AECOM’s internal communications team also deserves credit. Key players were Frank Pollare, vice president of Americas communications; George Gordon, manager of internal communications; and Lawrence Lloyd, Web content editor. Another key contributor was Blue Communications, AECOM’s consulting and design partner.

“This campaign laid the groundwork for AECOM employees to fully understand the importance of containing health care costs and becoming more accountable for their decisions regarding health care,” Swee says.

Bruce Shutan is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.