Page 269 - How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times

256B RE-ENGAGE

: THE CONSEQUENCES OF DISEASE MISMANAGEMENT—KIDNEY DISEASE
An analysis of federal health data published in November 2008 in
the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 13 percent
of American adults—about 26 million people—had chronic kidney
disease, up from 10 percent, or about 20 million people, a decade
earlier. “We’ve had a marked increase in chronic kidney disease in
the last 10 years, and that continues with the baby boomers coming
into retirement age,” said Dr. Frederick J. Kaskel, director of pe-
diatric nephrology at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in the
Bronx. “The burden on the health care system is enormous, and it’s
going to get worse. 7

An intriguing article in the New York Times revealed that some ac-
tually make decisions about marriage based on health-care benefits.

: AFFECTING FAMILIES
In a 2008 Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 7 percent of adults said
someone in their household had married in the past year to gain
access to insurance. The foundation cautioned that the number
should not be taken literally, but rather as an intriguing indicator
that some Americans “are making major life decisions on the basis
of health care concerns.” 8

Whether we agree with the moral implications of these results,
it is clear that the availability of benefits is becoming an increasingly
important aspect of our lives, which strongly equates to the perceived
quality of our overall work experience.
Regardless of the causes, employers must now seriously consider
whether their employee benefits package is impacting their overall
employee engagement. We understand there can be considerable ex-
pense in such an undertaking, but our data strongly suggest that em-
ployees, whether they even realize it or not, have a strong need for
quality employee benefits; and if they don’t have them, they are not as
likely to give more discretionary effort in their jobs.
We recently worked with a CEO who wanted to conduct a series of
employee focus groups after receiving the organization’s Best-Places-to-