HR Magazine spoke to Pauline Mei Ling Williams from Alliance Insurance Services Limited who has recently spearheaded a campaign to help HR practitioners improve employee wellbeing. Multitasking relationship management, business strategy development and event planning for HR professionals—she managed to spare a few minutes to share her perspective on employee wellness.
Campaign to improve employee wellbeing
Advice on different policy types, is something HR expects from all Insurance brokers. Alliance has taken things a stage further, and in addition to conducting market analysis for clients has also made great effort to build relationships with HR practitioners to uncover the day-to-day challenges they encounter in order to provide them with appropriate solutions. One such challenge currently faced by many in HR is the issue of maintaining corporate wellness and with this in mind Williams recently spearheaded a campaign to help those in HR improve employee wellbeing. The HR playshop-workshop was the first in a series of events planned for HR professionals, and gave HR professionals a welcome chance to relax and opportunity to change their mindset and perception of wellness. Williams said that informal nature of the events was aimed at, “influencing rather than imposing,” so that HR managers could formulate their own strategies.
From an HR perspective, Williams explained, “It’s about finding a balance. Communicating with employees and sharing information—making them feel valued, engaged and involving them in CSR, charity work or internally partnering employees from different departments.” She added, “This is a gradual process, which people respond to better than a rigid plan with targets. It makes employees feel valued and engaged, creating a chain of positive reactions and results.” When employees feel more relaxed, this reduces absenteeism and hence can help reduce risk and in turn help reduce insurance premiums.
Striving for an efficient means of communication, Alliance has made relationships a top priority. Williams elaborated, “Our main concern is the views of clients, HR and their employees—in terms of health or life insurance it is all about defining their needs, challenges and future objectives in terms of cover.” This involves, probing, asking the right questions, and doing market analysis and with strong relations with 90% of the insurance market in HK, and so if Alliance can’t facilitate this themselves, they can refer clients to insurance experts who can.
Benchmarking
Alliance has set up financial and health clinics, giving clients access to a wealth of wellness practitioners and providers. Williams liaises with clients to gain in-depth knowledge of employer needs, and said, “Curiosity and research is key. It’s more of a holistic picture of employee needs, beyond financial and health risks.” Wellness is often quite a sensitive issue as it involves talking to employees directly and conducting confidential needs analyses. Providers then assess the data obtained and benchmark it against other corporations so that results can be expressed on a percentage basis to help identify possible areas of concern.
Engaging employees
Employees are expressing greater desire to be involved in company strategy—in doing so they feel more valued and that they can make a significant contribution. This requires greater communication from top management. Communication from top down and being aware of the company direction not only helps employees feel included, but also much happier to be working in the company. Williams explained, “In terms of employee wellbeing, it’s about sharing of information and possibly facilitating breakout sessions with management where staff can raise up day-to-day challenges, as a department or individually.”
Shift to US-style coverage
Alliance has more recently seen HR trying to maintain premiums at a minimum, while maintaining the overall quality of benefits provided. To help achieve this goal, Williams advises HR to stay updated to keep in touch with the ever-changing insurance markets. In addition to standard benefits, companies may also be able to access value-added benefits such as annual health checks and vaccinations for their staff. Traditionally, international insurance plans have often been reserved just for expatriate staff because, away from home, their risk exposure is considerably higher, and they may require different standards of healthcare and emergency assistance services that are not covered by local policies. Recently, Williams has witness an increased uptake of US-style plans by companies in favour of the traditional European-style local plans. These US-style plans often carry a number of additional benefits including coverage for congenital disorders, and alcohol or drug abuse issues; together with access to more providers of choice. This means staff—not restricted to certain practitioners and benefits—have access to a global network of providers for outpatients, which ultimately provides greater peace of mind.
Prevention better than cure
Williams describes her role in communication as being about prevention: looking at risk areas and identifying them before they occur. This method is far more beneficial to HR professionals—not just saving costs, but also reducing stress and unhappiness. To further assist HR, Alliance have recently re-launched their website to provide information on a wealth of issues from industry news, to managing investment risk, to a beginner’s guide to life insurance.
Using this philosophy, the team has been able to recommend the most suitable insurance plans to clients, allowing them to enhance the scope of benefits they receive and allow them to make savings of 10-20% on their annual premiums. Regarding scope of coverage, Williams highlights employers’ main areas concerns as: coverage for pre-existing conditions, degree of global transferability, transferability from group to individual policies and coverage for traditional Chinese medicine. By listening to these needs, Alliance have been able to identify gaps and restructure benefit plans to best suit the needs of employees. Williams concluded, “We truly believe that providing a corporation with the best service at the best premium is worth all the time and effort that is put into analysis and benchmarking.”
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
