Commentary: Culture is king. Just about every employer we work with is focused on creating an organizational culture that enables employees to thrive and therefore increase productivity. Of course, their effectiveness varies widely.
Some organizations have good self-knowledge, know whats important to them, and make decisions based upon an understood set of values.
Other organizations dont have that self-understanding; they say one thing but value something else. The classic example is Enron, which listed its corporate values as integrity, communication, respect and excellence, laughably off the mark when it came to defining what was really important to the companys top executives.
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Heres why culture is considered to be so important: When there is a disconnect between what an organization says is important and how it behaves, people get confused. Whether theyre employees or customers or another interested audience, they become unsure of whats important. This often leads to them guessing at the action theyre supposed to take. Internally, this can create chaos.
When it comes to setting and reinforcing an organizations culture, the health care benefits you offer play an important role. If youre saying that the health and well-being of your employees is important to you, but you offer substandard health insurance, employees are going to lose some faith. A successful employee benefit program has to be in harmony with the culture of the organization.
Heres a real world example: We recently visited a company with a sterling reputation. However, internally they were struggling. We discovered that their insurance coverage was sub-par: they had a high deductible plan and were contributing very little to employee health savings accounts. They also had very poor participation in their wellness initiatives. Their insurance coverage completely contradicted the image the company was trying to portray. Its fair to say that employees were confused and somewhat disheartened. Now, were working to institute a program that better aligns with the company vision.
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Why do employers fall out of harmony? The two main problems are conditioning and communication.
Employers have been conditioned to look at health insurance in a certain way. Very often, benefits are viewed by business as a necessary evil, rather than an opportunity to reinforce what an employer believes is important. This almost always revolves around the cost of health care.
The upshot is that weve allowed benefits to
After all, a benefits program that as aligns with company culture is a clear sign to the troops that management truly believes in what it says is important, and can go a long way towards creating the culture management wants.
Quite frankly, much of the blame for this conditioning goes to benefits consultants. Through the years, consultants have often focused on price alone as the determining factor as to whether or not a client got the best benefits for their organization. As many people in business can tell you, its wiser to focus on value than cost.
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The second factor in the disconnect in the lack of harmony for organizations is communication. To find the best possible fit for an organizations benefits, the benefit consultant needs to ask the right questions to properly understand the clients culture. The client also bears some responsibility for knowing its own culture and understanding what will be the best reflection of that culture.
Increasingly in this free-agent economy, employers have to establish a strong culture in order to attract the right talent. Employees choose to take jobs based at least in part upon culture. Without the right talent, a company can struggle to succeed. Its an indication that we need to shift focus away from the cheapest benefits solution to find the best fit.
Robert Stumper is a senior benefits consultant with