Fortis partners with Work & Family Benefits to help employees balance career and life challenges
By Elisabeth Boone, CPCU
Jennifer Garner is the products and services manager at Fortis Benefits Insurance Company in Kansas City, Missouri.
What does the phrase "work-life benefits" bring to your mind? Some kind of far-out, touchy-feely, new-age scheme?
If that's your reaction, you're not alone. Until recently, only the most progressive major companies broadened their benefits packages to include services that help employees balance their work and family responsibilities, like locating care for children and elderly parents. Now "work and family" benefits are moving into the mainstream as small and medium-sized employers team up with specialized benefits providers to make these "peace of mind" benefits available to their workers. By doing so, these employers can reduce the costs associated with loss of productivity and unplanned absences that occur when employees struggle to meet the competing demands of work and family.
Leading the field in embracing this trend are Fortis Benefits Insurance Company of Kansas City, Missouri, a major provider of non-medical employee benefits; and Work & Family Benefits (WFB), based in Cedar Knolls, New Jersey. Under an alliance formed in 2000, Fortis Benefits offers its customers the Work & Family Benefits, Inc., Values PackageSM, a comprehensive child, adult, and elder care consultation and referral program. Employees can access experienced counselors from anywhere in the United States via a toll-free number. WFB's counselors research regulated providers to meet the specific needs of the family, verifying the providers' availability and responding within 48 to 72 hours with a personalized, comprehensive referral packet.
William H. Mulcahy is president of Work & Family Benefits, Inc., which recently became part of a strategic alliance with Fortis Benefits Insurance Company, in order to make work-life employee benefits available to clients.
How did Fortis Benefits and WFB come to form a partnership? "In 2000, Fortis Benefits began the process of changing our sales model with the addition of consultative sales representatives," says Jennifer Garner, products and services manager at Fortis. "As part of this strategy change, we wanted to get closer to our policyholders to understand their benefit needs and then provide quality solutions. To meet the expanding needs of employers, Mark Bohen, senior vice president of marketing, was looking for opportunities to expand the current product mix and wanted to test strategic partnerships with vendors. We needed a turnkey product that met an expressed need of our clients and delivered excellent customer service. At just about that time, Bill Mulcahy, president of Work & Family Benefits, Inc., approached us with his product."
What factors did Fortis Benefits consider in choosing Work & Family Benefits as a strategic partner? "After testing WFB's product and service model, we believed they complemented our existing work/life product and offered a differentiated value to our portfolio," Garner responds. "Their hands-on approach to consultation and research and their diligent follow-through to ensure customer satisfaction aligned with our corporate strategy as a product leader delivering superior customer service."
New realities, new needs
Work & Family Benefits, Inc., was founded in 1992, by William H. Mulcahy, who has a solid background in the employee benefits industry. Well ahead of the pack, Mulcahy used his knowledge and experience to identify the growing pressures on members of the baby boom generation to balance their work responsibilities with caring for both children and aging parents. Meeting the needs of this so-called "sandwich generation" was a key driver in the development of WFB's Values Package. (See the sidebar on page 48 titled "Demographics of the 'Sandwich Generation.'")
"In the traditional benefits developed after World War II, the focus was on security," Mulcahy says. "Jobs were plentiful, so to attract and retain employees, employers provided benefits that protected workers and their families in the event of death, disability, illness, or retirement. Security is still important, but today's work force also faces some dramatically different concerns: dual income families, single and divorced parents, child care, growing elder care responsibilities--everyone is trying to find time to balance life's demands." What's more, he points out, mergers, acquisitions, downsizing, and corporate scandals like Enron and WorldCom all combine to create a culture of corporate distrust that threatens employees' sense of job security. Employers face the additional challenge of a projected shortage in skilled labor that could amount to as many as 10 million jobs by 20101.
"Insurance professionals are looking for ways to maintain or increase revenue and differentiate themselves ... This [WFB Values Package] is a benefit that's low in cost and high in utilization vs. traditional benefits."
--William Mulcahy
"The WFB Values Package is our way of responding to the emerging needs of today's work force within the context of the traditional employee benefit sale that creates advantage for both the organization and the employee," Mulcahy explains. "The benefits distribution infrastructure was already there, and our challenge was to change the paradigm of what can be delivered through that medium as an employee benefit that's a win-win for everybody."
Delivering value
"Our goal is to 'institutionalize' convenient access to dependent care services for working people across America," Mulcahy continues. "We call our program the WFB Values Package because the term 'values' speaks to the issues the majority of people care about most: the well-being and security of their families. America needs a strong, motivated work force to compete in the global economy and to create jobs, profit, and opportunity. Employee benefits are an important part of an overall compensation package that tells employees they are valued by the organization in a very personal way. This benefit speaks to the heart and responds when 'life happens' to help employees balance a variety of work/life demands. Employers win because the program is cost-effective and promotes productivity and morale while helping to attract, retain, and reward quality employees."
Adds Garner: "Employers recognize the need of employees to balance their work and family commitments. In the national media, as well as in human resources and employee benefits publications, the issues of work/life balance and child and elder care are hot topics." As for employees, "Statistics indicate that over 47% of the employee population has a dependent care need2," Garner observes. "Individual employees are aware of their needs, and it's important that they also be aware of the benefits available through their employer-sponsored work/life programs. Communication initiatives to encourage awareness and participation in the program are key to utilization of the product and to the resulting employer savings through reduced absenteeism and increased productivity."
"After testing WFB's product and service model, we believed . . . [their] hands-on approach to consultation . . . and their diligent follow-through ... aligned with our corporate strategy."
--Jennifer Garner
The WFB Values Package is also a "win" for insurance producers, including agents, brokers, and consultants, Mulcahy comments. "Insurance professionals are looking for ways to maintain or increase revenue and differentiate themselves from competitors by delivering value to clients," he says. "This is a benefit that's low in cost and high in utilization vs. traditional benefits, which are relatively high cost and low utilization. With the WFB Values Package, employees don't have to be ill, disabled, or retired to 'collect.' It delivers today, when life happens. It's a complement to the traditional benefit sale, especially now as employers are dealing with huge increases in health insurance premiums and may be passing along some costs to employees either directly or indirectly."
Broad menu of services
WFB's Values Package responds to all of an employee's work-life needs by providing:
Dependent care consultation and referral: Employees have access to comprehensive, confidential telephone consultation and referral with WFB's expert counselors to find solutions for child care, elder care, and care for people with disabilities. The employee explains the need to a counselor, and WFB calls potential providers to verify availability and to determine whether the provider matches the caller's need. Within two days, WFB sends a referral packet with personalized WFB Provider ProfilesSM and materials to help the employee evaluate the services and make the best decision about care.
Below is a summary of the providers to which WFB can refer an employee:
Child care: Adoption services and agencies; after-school and before-school programs; care for children with special needs; child care centers; colleges and universities; emergency and backup care; enrichment programs; family child care homes; in-home child care (nanny, au pair); kindergartens; nanny agencies; preschools and nursery schools; public and private schools; school holiday child care programs; sick child care; sleep-away camps and summer day camps; special interest camps (e.g., sports, music, computer); special needs schools.
Elder care: Adult day care; assisted living facilities; assistive devices for daily living; area agencies on aging; bill payment; boarding homes; caregiver support groups; chore services; continuing care retirement centers; domiciliary care; elderhostels; emergency response; financial services; foster homes; geriatric care management; home health care; homemaker services; hospice; intermediate care homes; legal services; Medicare and Medicaid; nutrition and meal programs; personal care; residential health care facilities; respite care; senior centers; senior congregate housing; shared housing; skilled nursing homes; small group homes; social support/monitoring; tax assistance; transportation services.
WFB's Values Package service provides referrals, not recommendations. Only the employee can select the providers that best meet his or her family's needs. WFB's counselors, however, will guide and support the employee as he or she makes these important family decisions. WFB maintains a proprietary national database of regulated child care and elder care providers. Regulated providers must meet the licensing, registration, or certification requirements of the state in which they operate. At a minimum, a WFB counselor must have a bachelor's degree in the field of early childhood development, geriatrics, education, social work, or social services. Many counselors have a master's degree in their field and licensing in social work. All elder care counselors are certified Geriatric Care Managers.
Online services and educational resources: Extensive online functionality including WFB's Topline SearchSM to locate child care, elder care, health clubs, veterinarians and pet care services; adoption resources; college search and financial aid planning tools; and links to health and wellness resources. WFB NotesSM and guidebooks, education and information materials covering a broad range of dependent care topics, are available online and by telephone or fax.
Legal services and credit counseling: These services include:
* Free initial telephone consultation with a plan attorney on a broad array of legal topics. Discounted fee arrangements with a plan attorney are guaranteed for more extensive legal work.
* Preparation of a simple will.
* Consultation with a certified financial counselor for consumer credit and debt management.
For employers, WFB provides tools for turnkey program implementation. WFB's best practices model emphasizes communication to build awareness, which drives utilization to deliver value to the organization. Employee benefits brokers and consultants who register with WFB have access to proprietary sales tools such as WFB's Key Factors Spreadsheets, proposals, and presentations. WFB also gives brokers effective responses to comments that clients and prospects often make when asking about the emerging issue of work/life benefits.
"WFB's Values Package is a benefit employers want their employees to use because it can save countless hours during the workday, and that means productivity returns for the company," Mulcahy says. "And we're focused on communications so employees are aware of the benefit, appreciate it, and use it so the employer sees that return on investment." *
1 Bureau of Labor Statistics.
2 The Changing Workforce, Families and Work Institute.
* More than 9 million Americans are caring for aging parents while simultaneously raising children under age 18; 40% are between the ages of 35 and 49. Source: Study released by the National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC) and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).
* According to a U.S. Census Bureau report issued in October 2000, 75% of children under age 5 spent time in some form of regular child care arrangement during a typical week. Source: "Who's Minding the Kids? Child Care Arrangements," A Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), by the U.S. Census Bureau.
* Many parents and guardians need to find multiple providers to handle their child care responsibilities. In 1995, 44% of children under age 5 and 75% of children ages 5 to 14 spent time in more than one arrangement per week. Children ages 5 to 14 whose parents were either employed or in school averaged 3.4 arrangements per week. Children under age 5 whose parents were either employed or in school averaged 2.2 arrangements per week. Source: "Who's Minding the Kids?" U.S. Census Bureau.
* Almost half (49%) of caregivers for aging parents say those responsibilities cause them to make adjustments to their daily work schedule, such as starting late, leaving early, or taking time off during the day. Source: Study released by the National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC) and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).
* More than half (52%) of primary caregivers of aging parents are employed full time. Source: Business First, The Weekly Business Newspaper of Greater Louisville, Jan. 3, 2000.
* About one third of the U.S. work force bears caregiving responsibilities for older relatives. Source: Olson Center for Women's Health, University of Nebraska Medical Center.
* Almost three quarters (73%) of adult children who serve as the primary caregiver for aging parents are women. Source: National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC).
* Some 40% of employed persons who serve as caregivers for elderly parents had at least one absence traced to their caregiving responsibilities in a given two-month period; of those employed in management positions, the number was 57%. Source: National Council on Aging.
* The average U.S. corporation loses $2,500 per employee per year to employee-elder care problems. Source: A National Council on Aging study conducted by the University of California-Berkeley.
* Migration patterns have made it much more difficult for adult children to be the primary caregivers for their aging parents. One third of adult children live more than 60 miles from their parents. Source: American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).
* The fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population is the group over age 85. Source: Cathy Cress, MSW, author of The Handbook of Geriatric Care Management, published Jan. 2001 by Aspen Publishers, Inc.
* For the first time in history, Americans have more living parents than they have children. Source: Cathy Cress, MSW.
Information compiled by Fortis Benefits
Insurance Company and Work & Family Benefits, Inc.
For more information:
Fortis Benefits Insurance Company
Phone: (866) 800-2110
Web site: www.fortisbenefits.com
Work & Family Benefits, Inc.
Phone: (800)644-2363
Web site: www.wfbenefits.com