Health Benefits Conference & Expo (HBCE)

Join Dr. Nicole Eull as she teaches us to harness the power of improv so that we can connect meaningfully with our customers and teams. This is a highly interactive presentation based on improvisational exercises. Each exercise simulates challenges and scenarios in real life, and the debriefing illustrates how we can translate these skills to professional "scenes." Participants will learn strategies and practical tools to improve communication, teamwork and emotional intelligence. With these skills, they can expect to improve customer experience while increasing engagement and satisfaction in their work.

A recent survey found that the biggest challenges for HR professionals are tight budgets, time constraints, stress, and overwhelm. They ranked navigating group health insurance – specifically, controlling health insurance costs - as the worst offender. Fortunately, there is a solution that allows HR leaders to stay in control of these costs and minimize administrative burden called an individual coverage HRA (ICHRA). ICHRAs allow companies to reimburse their employees for health insurance rather than buying it for them. Personalized benefits alleviate many of the pain points that HR leaders face today: no more renewals, no more unhappy employees with one-size-fits-all plans, no more shifting costs to employees. With unprecedented choice for employees and cost control for HR professionals, ICHRA is a win-win that’s worth a look.

Learning Objectives:

• Explain how an individual coverage HRA works
• List the types of companies and locations that are trending with ICHRA adoption
• Analyze whether this solution is right for your company

About half of marriages and most cohabiting relationships break up. An extensive body of research shows that relationship distress impacts multiple aspects of job functioning (tardiness, work quality, organizational citizenship behaviors) and job attitudes (satisfaction, withdraw, and intentions to quit). In this talk, Professor of Psychology and relationship expert, Dr. Brian Doss, will illustrate the challenges and identify potential solutions.

Participants will learn:

• The impact of relationship distress on work functioning and the mechanisms of those effects.
• Why couple therapy, although effective, has a limited role to play in EAPs
• How digital relationship interventions can be an attractive adjunctive option for EAPs

Health benefits are undergoing a transformative shake-up due to the dynamics of having five generations in the workplace. Drawing parallels to Taylor Swift's iconic eras from “Fearless” to “Midnights,” each generation in the workplace brings its own mood, and wants and needs when it comes to health benefits. And, just as her music has evolved over time, so too must health benefits adapt to effectively meet the wants and needs across generations.

Attendees will be able to:

• Understand the health benefit wants and needs for each generation (era)
• Learn effective communication techniques for health benefits for each generation (era)
• Adopt new ways of thinking in the connection between health benefits and retention of employees.

Join the City of Mesa and WebMD Health Services to explore the critical role of leadership in fostering a successful culture of well-being. The City of Mesa’s Wellness 360 program demonstrates how strong leadership support and visibility can enhance employee engagement, create a vibrant community culture and sustain long-term program success.

Join this session to hear about how the City of Mesa has established a robust program which include the three C’s: community, culture and (a little friendly) competition!

This session will showcase the City of Mesa’s journey, highlighting how leadership continues to evolve their program, increasing registration in every location; and engages a hard-to-reach, highly stressed public service department.

Attendees will be able to:

• Explain the role of leadership support in a successful wellness program
• Explore new ideas for wellness initiatives based on the City of Mesa’s programs: “Beat the Boss Challenge” and “City of Mesa Famous"
• Discuss how wellness programs will change over time in order to sustain long-term success.

This session will define and explore statewide employee wellness coalitions and discuss how attendees might leverage this model to increase resources and partnerships that maximize wellness program success. Statewide wellness coalitions can benefit companies, organizations and even broader communities. Working together to share best practices and support each other's efforts can help accomplish strategic plan goals, improve leadership support and involvement, and move the needle on employee health.

Attendees will be able to:

• Understand the benefit of statewide employee wellness coalitions on their wellness efforts, specifically with the partnerships with statewide agencies and organizations
• Better leverage resources and collaborative partnerships to achieve their goals for employee wellness in the workplace
• Develop a plan for creating a successful statewide coalition that benefits their workplace.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 introduces significant changes to Medicare Part D, which improves coverage for retirees but presents financial challenges for employers sponsoring group Medicare Part D plans (EGWPs). These challenges also apply to Part D benefits under insured MAPD plans. To mitigate potential cost increases and unknown risks, employers might consider directing retirees to individual Medicare Part D plans through marketplace exchanges, leveraging Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs) for funding.

Attendees will be able to:

• List the improvements to prescription coverage for Medicare enrollees
• Explain the new risks and opportunities for group Medicare Part D plan sponsors
• Discuss how to assess plan sponsor risk and potential cost increases to mitigate risk and manage costs.

It is required for many organizations to provide a basic set of health care and retirement benefits to employees, but can benefits and HR professionals do more than check a box? Can benefits be a tool for recruitment, engagement and retention, and if so, what is the best approach? This session will explore the relationship between benefits, engagement and retention as well as actively explore solutions to common challenges such as aligning benefits to company values, understanding employee needs, communicating benefits, and ensuring benefits offered can coexist with other organizational policies and processes.

Attendees will be able to:

• Align benefits with member needs and organizational values
• Leverage benefits in recruitment marketing
• Consider innovative benefits that speak directly to the holistic needs of employees, above and beyond meeting the basic expectations of employee benefits

With all of the responsibilities and workload that HR leaders often face, the additional responsibilities of managing a wellness program can be overwhelming and cause programs to become siloed. But integrating wellness principles and having policies that support employee health and well-being can make programs effective and efficient as well as ease administrative burden. In this session, we will discuss the top five ways that your organization might be working against wellness programs as well as solutions to make well-being a more natural part of your workplace culture.

Attendees will be able to:

• Understand how to simplify wellness programs to reduce clutter and increase engagement
• Identify policies that can be in conflict with promoting employee health and well-being
• Learn about new approaches to make well-being a cultural shift vs. an additional program.