The employee benefit design and procurement process is typically renewal driven with little senior leadership involvement in time for planning, proactivity, or impact. Quick decisions are made, put to bed, and forgotten for another year. Solutions are short term, progress is limited, and healthcare dominates the discussion. BSG experts are pioneers in strategic benefits planning for mid-sized employers. We have built hundreds of plans and are skilled in their execution. The BSG approach involves five steps.

1. Identify the key leaders. Who is responsible for culture and budget in addition to those responsible for HR and benefits? Depending on the size of your organization and the sense of urgency, the CEO or owners should also be involved. The key is to involve the right leaders who can make the strategic decisions and commitments so the benefits professionals obtain clear direction to do their best.

2. Conduct the strategic planning session. BSG uses a proprietary planning tool to help you define your benefits objectives within your organizational culture, budget, resources, and needs so that your benefits program can create a competitive advantage. You can expect to discuss:

• Why do you offer benefits, who should benefit, and how do you compare
• How your employees feel about their benefits
• How much your organization should spend on benefits and how much your employees should spend
• How do you allocate resources between healthcare, income protection, retirement, and compensation
• How and what to communicate to employees
• How costs can be contained
• How and to what extent you are leveraging all tax and funding tools
• How you deal with plan administration, compliance, and the use of the internet in these activities

This session examines important philosophical questions as well as what you want your program to do a few years from now, what needs to be done between now and then, and who is going to do it.

3. Build the strategic plan. The strategic plan will include short-term remedial activities, long-term initiatives, and recurring activities - all of which are calendared and assigned.

• Short-term remedial activities might include:
  • A benchmarking analysis
  • An employee survey
  • A compliance review
  • Replacement of an under performing vendor
• Long-term initiatives might include:
  • A communication campaign articulating the goals of the benefits plans to employees
  • A wellness program to help employees and their families take better care of themselves before and after they get sick
  • A more efficient funding arrangement to free up cash and smooth out the renewal cycle
  • A migration plan to new contribution strategy that benefits the most difficult to attract and retain high performers
• Recurring activities might include:
  • Quarterly claim reviews
  • 5500 filings
  • Pre-renewal planning sessions and debriefs

4. Manage the strategic plan. BSG will oversee the strategic plan according to project management protocols. This includes documenting all discussions and decisions in minutes to all parties within two business days of meetings and updating the plan accordingly. All parties, including client and vendors, know the status of the plan and the initiatives that pertain to them. This process creates clear expectations, reduces surprises, and keeps important tasks from falling through the cracks.

5. Review annually. The workplace environment and priorities change. BSG continually updates our planning tool and conducts annual follow up planning sessions to check progress against the plan, learn about client developments and needs, and introduce and evaluate the latest benefits strategies for possible inclusion.

This holistic approach improves value by proactively identifying previously unknown needs, proposing solutions, and facilitating progress.