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What Iowa Employees REALLY Want

March 7, 2012 By

David P. Lind BenchmarkRaises? Vacations? Insurance? Ever asked your employees what’s important to them? You might be surprised.

In 2007, our firm undertook the Iowa Employment Values Study©. This study illustrates many opportunities for executives to improve employee satisfaction, even in tough times, with a limited budget.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Aretha nailed it. Being appreciated and valued is the number one workplace value for employees.

Question: “What is the one main thing your organization could do better?”

The consistent answer:  “Show appreciation for hard work.”

The cost: Better communication.

Employees want their employers to open channels of communication and recognize (acknowledge) hard workers. The study revealed that having better communication within the organization is essential to employees’ overall positive perceptions of their jobs.

High-quality communication improves virtually every aspect of employee opinion, our research found, and employers should provide plenty of opportunities for meaningful feedback from employees.

The payback: Employees who know they’re valued are proud of their organization and are significantly more positive about ALL aspects of their job.

Employees value RESPECT and ACHIEVEMENT most at work versus what their bosses think they value most. Other than the two top values, bosses clearly underestimated the order and importance of each workplace value.

Here’s the disturbing trend:  Bosses consistently underestimate the importance of a well-rounded lifestyle to their employees.

These workplace values describe organizational culture. Creating and maintaining a positive culture is the DNA of any successful organization. Understanding what employees really want is key to a positive work environment and loyalty among your workforce. What values are strongly reflected in your organization?

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Iowa as Healthiest State…What a BHAG!

February 29, 2012 By

David P. Lind BenchmarkYup, making Iowa the healthiest state in the nation in five years is a Big Hairy Audacious Goal!

You know. The kind of visionary goal Jim Collins and Jerry Porras were thinking of when they coined that term in 1994*. Something so strategic and compelling that it’s a game changer.

For sure, the new Healthiest State Initiative is a BHAG. We are currently ranked 16 among all 50 states according to the 2011 Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index®, so although we are above average, we’ve got a ways to go to take the top spot.

Can we get there?

Well, that depends on you, and me, and your employees—on all of us making a whole lot of small changes that add up.

That’s what The Blue Zones Project™ is about—helping us achieve this BHAG— community by community, business by business—helping us become more like those Blue Zone communities around the world, where people live longer, healthier, more productive lives.

How?

  • All Iowa towns have the opportunity to become Blue Zones through a competitive application process.
  • Ten towns will be selected to receive direct access to national experts in transforming themselves into a Blue Zone Community™.
  • Businesses can adopt changes whether they’re in a Blue Zone or not.

As an Iowa employer, what’s in it for you?

  1. Healthy employees mean more productive (and happier) employees who will positively affect your organization now and into the future.
  2. Having healthy employees, both physically and mentally, is a competitive advantage.
  3. The bottom line—lower medical costs translate into lower insurance costs.

Sure, I know, it’s easy to be cynical about yet another healthy living initiative, especially one with such lofty goals. Really, you may be thinking, we can’t change our habits so much that we will become the healthiest state in the nation.

But the truth is, Iowa will be better off by pursuing such a BHAG. We can achieve it if we really want to!

*Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, written by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, 1994

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Clueless on Health Care Costs?

February 22, 2012 By

David P. Lind BenchmarkEver try to figure out what your health care providers actually get paid?

I didn’t think so. As a patient, you probably check to make sure that the doctors, hospital and pharmacy are considered “covered” by your insurance plan. Why? That keeps your out-of-pocket expenses down because of discounts your health plan negotiated with these providers.

But as patients/consumers, we’re clueless about the negotiated discounts with any given health care provider. We’re out of the loop. Discounts are negotiated privately between insurance companies and health care providers. They’re not posted anywhere, and no one is required to share that information.

But here’s the rub for you, the employer:

Negotiated discounts can vary greatly between insurance companies and will affect your underlying costs.  So which carrier has the deepest discounts?

Competition between insurance companies for pricing purposes is a good thing, but the level of competition needs to be transparent to employees and patients for market forces in health care to flourish—and eventually hold costs down.

True market forces are hindered by the current confidential pricing process.

Enter Consumer Driven Health Plans. Under this concept, an employer allocates a sum of money annually to offset employees’ portions of a high-deductible plan (health savings accounts are part of a consumer-driven plan). Employees are motivated to get the best health care deal they can find.

That’s good, but consumers are most effective when they understand the true cost of a given product or service BEFORE the purchase is made. Encouraging employees to become better consumers is not enough if they don’t know the true cost and value they receive.

We are far from a patient-centered market in health care. This needs to change—and until it does, we as consumers, will be kept in the dark.

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