Page 294 - How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times

Employee Well-Being C281

4. Communicate face-to-face, even if the news is bad. There may well be a time
when you will need to cut back on benefits or put more of the pay-
ment burden onto employees. Winning employers do not do this
by e-mail; they stand and deliver the news in an open and honest
manner:

We have had to cut benefits to maintain a profitable organization.
Many times when these decisions have occurred, we have met with
our employee committee, explained the reasons for the decision, and
have allowed for open suggestions and communications on how to
manage the situation. In the event that we have no other choice
but to cut a benefit, it is explained to the entire organization in our
quarterly meetings.

5. Lose the cookie cutter. Winning employers realize that one size doesn’t
fit all when it comes to benefits:

We are not cutting employees’ benefits, but are offering alterna-
tives to our employees. We offer several different levels of health
insurance to ensure everyone can afford health care. In addition,
we contribute 50 percent (which is good for a business of our size).
Employees are also given seven paid days off (not including holi-
days) in their first year. We believe that everyone needs to have
time off. Another alternative we offer is if someone misses a day,
instead of deducting time they are able to make that up by staying
late or coming in early. These couple of things have been posi-
tively accepted by our employees.

We have been fortunate in keeping benefit costs low through in-
creased employee education (healthy living) and an excellent ben-
efits broker to help us through the renewal processes. Although the
overall dollars have increased slightly to employees over the past few
years, the percentage that employees pay has remained the same. We
have increased our offerings to employees so that they have a choice
of plans, and instituted a more comprehensive vision plan.