Host Wendy Fong discusses open enrollment season and benefits trends with Lois Glasgow, compensation manager at TerrAscend, who has over 25 years of experience in global employee benefits and compensation. Lois offers insights into which benefits are in-demand and provides expert advice on how to prepare for open enrollment season as an HR professional.
Host Wendy Fong discusses open enrollment season and benefits trends with Lois Glasgow, compensation manager at TerrAscend, who has over 25 years of experience in global employee benefits and compensation. Lois offers insights into which benefits are in-demand and provides expert advice on how to prepare for open enrollment season as an HR professional.
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Monique Akanbi:
Welcome to Honest HR, the podcast for informed and aspiring HR professionals intent on transforming workplace challenges into golden opportunities.
Amber Clayton:
Every week, we chat with industry experts to bring you insights, trends, and actionable advice through relatable stories from the real world of HR.
Wendy Fong:
Honest HR is a SHRM podcast, and by listening, you're helping to build a more engaged workforce and drive organizational success. I'm Wendy Fong.
Amber Clayton:
I'm Amber Clayton.
Monique Akanbi:
And I'm Monique Akanbi. Now, let's get honest.
Amber Clayton:
Now, let's get honest.
Wendy Fong:
Now, let's get honest.
Hey, HR fam, this is Wendy Fong, the manager of event technology innovation at SHRM, and hope everyone is having a great summer so far and summer is coming to an end. I know here in California, at least, leaves are slowly changing colors.
School is back in session, and you know what that means for HR professionals. That means open enrollment season is coming along. So I am so glad that we have Lois Glasgow here as our guest. She has over 25 years of experience as a seasoned director of total rewards in global compensation benefits and so much more. And welcome to Honest HR, Lois.
Lois Glasgow:
Thank you very much for having me.
Wendy Fong:
Well, let's talk about this open enrollment season. For 2024, what are some of the hottest benefits that you're seeing? And we can focus specifically on the United States domestic because I know country to country across the globe, this can change a lot.
Lois Glasgow:
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Just like families, employers are struggling with a bunch of economical shifts. The first off, the employees are demanding fair compensation and openness, transparency on their competitive wages. Aren't we all, right? And the-
Wendy Fong:
Yes.
Lois Glasgow:
... value of what benefits are paying for what the employer cost shares are, so what the employer is paying versus the employee, very, very important, and they're getting more intelligent as we go on with.
Second thing is retirement savings. We all want to retire someday, right. So our employers providing an employer match for their 401k if they have a 401k. And if so, what would be the increase? Is there an increase? What are the fees that the plans are charging if anything?
Wendy Fong:
So are you seeing the shift to... of employers offering more of this benefit or less of this benefit?
Lois Glasgow:
I'm seeing less and trying to invest in other benefits, but that means that the employee has to think of other things on how and if they're able to retire. The third thing I'm seeing a big draw on is debt management and financial wellness. So budgeting, debt counseling, investments, and what we all want, or I think we all want, is homeownership.
The fourth thing that I'm also seeing, and this has been last couple years, is the mental health benefit support. Huge. So employees are looking at employers and asking, "What are you going to do for my overall well-being?" And through the years it's really become less of a stigma based on social internet. They're looking for coping and stress benefits to enrich their daily lives for them in their families.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah. The US Surgeon General, he just released a advisory on the state of mental health and well-being of parents and caregivers just last week.
Lois Glasgow:
Yes.
Wendy Fong:
So it's a topic we can't avoid. You can't separate work and life, personal and professional anymore. Everything is blended, and we must coexist together and finding that balance.
Lois Glasgow:
Yes, and in a thoughtful way. I feel like we're sensitive to so much more, especially after the COVID pandemic. The other thing I wanted to talk about is that employees are actually looking for flexible healthcare.
So war companies are putting in FSAs, HSAs, HRAs, telehealth benefits, consumer-driven health plans, wellness programs, and those, in particular, are hopefully incentivizing the right behaviors to keep employees and their families healthy. And these things, in theory, will result in a decrease in overall claim cost, hopefully, absenteeism, and the increase in employee morale.
Wendy Fong:
So preventative care, in the long run, could help employers save on those type of costs.
Lois Glasgow:
Absolutely in the long run [inaudible 00:05:20]-
Wendy Fong:
And by giving employees those choices.
Lois Glasgow:
That will definitely, definitely help and make sure that their dollar is going longer, which we all care about. The next thing I'm seeing is more childcare benefits, adoption benefits, fertility benefits, and maternal and paternal leave, especially in the paternal leave. We always think of, well, I always think of women having babies, but how about those fathers or those significant others?
And the last thing I'm seeing, which is last couple years is benefits for part-time employees. So employers are experiencing high turnover rates no matter what the industry. So there's a huge push to offer comprehensive benefits to not only full-time workers now but part-time workers.
Wendy Fong:
That makes total sense because I mean, as we were going through the pandemic and emerging from it, right, where people had very high turnover and were essentially job hopping. So do we see that happening now as well?
Lois Glasgow:
Absolutely. And I just recently read a couple articles that if you are not looking to job hop to earn more money, you should be doing that because, overall, you could be earning 15 to 20% more in total cash should to be able to do that versus probably a merit increase for up to 4%.
Who wants that? People want more, and they want better benefits, and they're looking for it, and they're technically sound, and they're going to go for it to improve their home life, their mental health, and their financial wellbeing. That's what I'm seeing.
Wendy Fong:
It sounds like there are a lot of really changing trends and to balance the work... work and life for the employee and looking at the employee as a whole, right.
When you're mentioning all these things, mental health, financial health, physical health, that employers have to offer this as a whole package to really entice employees to stay or to join their organization, do you see differences in these benefits depending on the organization's size or the industry. If it's a smaller company versus a larger company, I'm sure they have a smaller budget to offer all of these benefits.
Lois Glasgow:
What I'm seeing is the employee benefits vary differently across company sizes and industries. As a company gets bigger, they usually will change their landscape of the employee benefits and their plan design. What I've seen is that smaller companies have fewer resources by design to devote to employee benefits, which may lead to less of an attractive benefits package and overall cash pay. What I'm also seeing is larger companies because I've been there since they generally have more resources, they are typically able to offer more robust benefit packages.
However, are they willing to do that? That really depends on senior leadership and, hopefully, the skilled HR team that they have. So each year in benefits and in a leadership role, I have done employee and compensation surveys. And why do I do that? It's to identify what employees are looking for because they're my customers, they're our customers, and what needs to improve. So what's going well, what's not going well, and what they're seeing competitors offer down the street example. So the voice of the employee is critical to get it right.
Wendy Fong:
So it sounds like that's part of the strategy, right. You can't just throw a bunch of benefits like, "Oh, these are the hot benefits for open enrollment for 2024," and just offer it. You have to see what's resonating with my employees in this geographical area. If you have multiple offices, doing the survey is helpful it sounds like.
And also doing the little bit of HR data analysis, right. Looking at are these benefits being used? Looking the data over time, I think, is helpful. I mean, what other ways can an organization strategize what type of benefits to offer? The survey seemed really helpful. And then looking at usage. Is there any other tips that you would suggest?
Lois Glasgow:
So I think that's a really great question. I think it's important to go a little bit back in time and tell the story. Where was the organization and the HR team two years ago or three years ago? Why did they have the benefits... or the organization that you're with now, why did they have the benefits that they have now, and why did they offer it then?
And it's really important to tell the story two years ago, one year ago, current, and maybe even two or three years down the line. If it doesn't make sense to you, it's not going to make sense to the employee. So always tell the story where you've been, where you are now, and where you hope to go.
Wendy Fong:
I love that. I love that. Tell the story as you prepare for open enrollment to best serve your employees during this time. Well, what are some ways that HR can help employees process and complete open enrollment? I know, for me, it's a time where I bust out my spreadsheets, calculating my FSA amounts to make sure I request a certain amount, and I do the calculations of what I could afford. There's a little bit of financial literacy involved in that. But what are some tips that you have?
Lois Glasgow:
Yeah. So the 25 or so years that I've been doing employee benefits, and I love it, by the way, and I don't see me doing... I see me doing other things, but it definitely includes employee benefits. You want to have the employee have benefits in their compensation for that matter, at top of mind always, not just one time a year. So communication is huge. So always say communication, communication, communication.
Always have those that open, open office hours. I would say for open enrollment, record the open enrollment presentations if you're going to do that or do Brainshark. Make sure if you do record those presentations, make sure it can play from an employee's home so that the significant other or whoever your dependents are can see the benefits from home at their convenience. That's huge. Not just in the workplace with security concerns around the IT.
Wendy Fong:
That's a simple thing you could do. Record it and then-
Lois Glasgow:
You too.
Wendy Fong:
... provide the recording. Yep, exactly.
Lois Glasgow:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But I think when you're recording, don't put obviously private information that you don't want your competitors to know, but you should be as transparent as you can be. The other thing I've done in the past is I've rewarded employees for going through open enrollment elections. So the first 50 get X. Maybe it is a day off. Maybe it's a 25... a lottery for a $25 gift card to Amazon, that type of thing. Or a public shout-out from your CEO, CFO, that type of thing.
The other thing... other two things that I have in my head is ensure management knows what's going on, especially that line management, the timeframes involved, and what's in it for them. Maybe you have an award for them to make sure if you have 25 employees at a site, make sure those 25 employees make a choice, even if you have a passive open enrollment. And the last thing that was a struggle in some of my past companies is that you need to, or I would, public identify benefit teams.
Who are the experts? Is it one person? Is it 10 people? Who is it? And it's not just a computer. Put a human on that human resources and the benefits. People like talking to people and make sure that they understand and know the right person to go to. The worst thing you can do, I think, as a benefits professional is rely on management to talk to how a benefits plan design works. They're not the expert. They may be expert in sales, but they're not expert in the benefit plan design, the technology, that type of thing. You are. So make sure that they know who you are.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah. And to that point, say you have a retirement plan for your company or health insurance plan for your company, you could call in those representatives to speak at your open meeting. That's what they're there for, to explain firsthand how those benefit works and answer any specific questions employees might have.
Lois Glasgow:
Absolutely.
Wendy Fong:
So yeah, those are really helpful tips. So you mentioned recording your open enrollment meeting, especially for partners, significant others, families to listen in so they can make a family decision together if needed. Having incentives. I like that idea or shout-outs like, "The first five or whatnot to complete open enrollment gets a prize."
You also mentioned partnering with people managers because we know people managers are the most effective in inciting change and initiatives. So making sure that they're your partners to make sure that their team's completed. And then love the idea of bringing in the experts from the different benefit organizations to also talk in detail about all the... and answer all the questions that people might have. So what are some common mistakes that you might see in the open enrollment process?
Lois Glasgow:
Right. So not a mistake, but a recommendation is to overcommunicate... overcommunicate. I often hear at the end of an enrollment... open enrollment or maybe a minute past midnight, that type of thing. And I'm the one-
Wendy Fong:
[inaudible 00:16:21].
Lois Glasgow:
... that stays after midnight to see who's... who comes in and says, "Oh, I can't get into the technology." You got to overcommunicate. You got to make sure that you document everything, maybe put read receipts on it. Yes, I've done it because I've experienced so many things. But I would say overcommunicate. If somebody comes back and says... This is a critical time, right. If somebody comes back and says, "Well, I didn't know. It was two weeks, and I took off five minutes today, and that's when it was communicated. No, it was communicated the other 25 times." So number one is overcommunicate. The second thing of four things that I want to talk about is the testing of the technology.
Really try hard to break the system. The third thing is to enable employee focus groups to test out the technology. So if you have, and I've done this in the past, if you have had folks that are really enthralled with benefits, looking to participate, recommending different things that we should have as an organization, have them in a small focus group to say, "Hey, this is the technology we're using. You're going to get a sneak preview. It's confidential. We haven't rolled this out yet, but we'd like you to participate," and maybe give them a reward or shout out or something like that to do something extra.
And the last thing I thought about was to... and this is not a lot. I don't know if a lot of practitioners done this, but I've done it every year, is to put pressure on the vendors to also test your system. So if you are [inaudible 00:18:09], if you have UltiPro or Workforce Now or whatever the vendor is, put pressure and demand the vendors to test. Technology that you're paying for or the organization is paying for is not free. They must have accountability as well as the benefits team. That's the only way, not the only way, but that's the good way to be successful, to test your system out. But everybody has skin in the game, and you'll be successful like that. And that's what I've done.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah. As a manager of event technology, you have to put your technology hat on and do your due diligence and test all the different things. And I love how you said the fun part about testing is you're trying to break the system and find the little bug. So it's almost like a game you can make out of it. Like, "What can I find-"
Lois Glasgow:
Right.
Wendy Fong:
"... To break the system or make it not work?" And I love the idea of the focus group, having them help out. And because there are so many different HRAs systems or whatever system you're using, you all so want to make sure that it's user-friendly for your employees.
Lois Glasgow:
Absolutely.
Wendy Fong:
And of course overcommunicate. We can say that about every area of life-
Lois Glasgow:
Yeah.
Wendy Fong:
... especially you work. Communicate, communicate, communicate. They say that's the number one thing that organizations need to work on communication. So love that you're stressing that even more, that we need to communicate the deadlines. People managers need to communicate the deadlines. If leadership needs to communicate the deadlines to ensure that employees don't miss opportunity to address their benefits if they need to or continue on with their current benefits.
Lois Glasgow:
Yep.
Wendy Fong:
Well, I wanted to go back to the trends that we touched on and let's kind of unpack those a little bit on how organizations are offering these. So the first one you mentioned was healthcare and all the different benefits. Healthcare costs are increasing. We're seeing that across the board.
We did mention the importance of preventative care, but in the shifts that you're seeing for this coming open enrollment season, is it just more benefits that we're seeing being offered? And you said shifting of cost. Are we seeing employers pay more of it or shifting more of that cost to employees?
Lois Glasgow:
Yep. So, yes. I'm seeing them shift cost a lot more to the employees where typically you've seen in past years, like an 80/20 cost share, now they're going to 75/25 cost share, maybe even a 50/50 cost year... cost share. It's just they're... It's truly a share.
Wendy Fong:
And even as a [inaudible 00:21:06]... or even as a employee perspective, also doing your due diligence, like is your provider in network or out-of-network. That comes into play. I know... I actually went to the ER a few weeks ago. Long story, I hit my head on a roller coaster and had to go-
Lois Glasgow:
No.
Wendy Fong:
... to the ER. They charge you for the ER fee, but then also the doctor that sees you in the emergency room has another fee, and whether they are in or out of network. So you...
Lois Glasgow:
Crazy.
Wendy Fong:
But you can do your research in advance to see who's in-network or out-of-network for certain situations, like if you're doing tests and whatnot.
Lois Glasgow:
Yeah, absolutely. Life, right. Life happens, and you just hope for the best. But what you really hope for is the employer that you're working for has coverage for you. So you don't have to worry about that. So you can come back to work and do a good job and get results. So that's why you're an employee. So you don't really want to... you don't want to have to think about that and that's on the employer to keep you safe. The other thing that I thought of when you asked that question is targeted mental health. That has been, at least, the last couple of years, pediatric health with children and then women's health.
Practitioners may notice that in their benefit plan design, there's a gap. So it's not what... it's something that they don't have and what's not defined and defined. So the targeted benefits have moved to the forefront with those three, the mental health, pediatric, and women. The social and educational world has significantly shifted, in my opinion, good, bad, indifferent. The health plans are needed to fill in those gaps of differentiation to meet human needs. So the employees. So if the needs are not met, it could have negative impacts.
For example, absenteeism will play out in work life, student educational life with grade school in a negative way, which may cause medical claims to spiral or control. And, of course, always there, the family financial struggles. So this is a chance, a really big chance, and a really big opportunity for employees to answer that need with potential medical network discounts while satisfying that critical human need for their employees. And in the end, as results, this could quantify an employee retention, attendance boost overall ratio of the employee-employer satisfaction. So employer-employee morale, which will only help businesses survive.
Wendy Fong:
Exactly. And also productivity. If you... You need-
Lois Glasgow:
Yes.
Wendy Fong:
... a healthy employee to be productive.
Lois Glasgow:
[inaudible 00:24:04]. Yeah.
Wendy Fong:
And it sounds like these benefits, they're all interconnected. We talk about healthcare, mental health, which is part of healthcare, also finances. We talked about financial health. It's almost like you can't offer one without the other.
Lois Glasgow:
I'd say that's correct, yes.
Wendy Fong:
And then you did talk about paid leave. Can you touch on that more in more detail?
Lois Glasgow:
Yes.
Wendy Fong:
What paid leave are seeing offered? I know in other countries, such as the UK and EU, they do offer full paid leave for extended period of time.
Lois Glasgow:
Yeah. So, in past organizations, I've seen parental leave, for example, pay two weeks of paid leave. But to be humanistic, two weeks is not enough for a newborn. I've had a child. I've experienced that. I didn't have much leave at the time. He's 18. But human beings right now want, of course, that family dynamic back, and two weeks is not going to cut it. I'm seeing [inaudible 00:25:12]-
Wendy Fong:
No, you don't even get any sleep in two weeks.
Lois Glasgow:
Oh, no, no, no, no. I didn't get sleep for a year. And he still doesn't sleep. And he's 18. So, anyways, employees want more. I am seeing two months, three months, that type of thing, but that I'm seeing in bigger companies and at a percentage paid.
So I don't think we're there. I think we are getting there, but we're not there. We're especially not with Europe right now. So is it coming? Maybe. I'm hopeful, but I'm not thinking next two years, hopefully more so in the future.
Wendy Fong:
Yeah, that's completely reasonable. So I think it's important for organizations to be prepared for that shift and the trends because employees are demanding it more for foster parents' adoptions that they're covered under that FMLA as well.
Lois Glasgow:
Yes.
Wendy Fong:
All right, Lois, so as we wrap up, wrap up, what's one thing that we didn't talk about today that you feel is crucial for employers, employees to know to prepare for open enrollment season this year?
Lois Glasgow:
Can I have three things? Three things.
Wendy Fong:
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Lois Glasgow:
Top of mind. Top of mind. Expect the unexpected. You don't know what's going to happen. You can't make some of these things up. At least I can't. And I've been doing this for a long time. I would say get a... also get a good night's sleep, eat nutritiously, non-sluggish food. Tell your family, especially mine, that this is a critical time, and remind them that you have to stay laser-focused on the job at hand. This time shall pass.
And you'll be thankful that you did. And you'll look back and say, "I just did that, or my team just did that." And the last thing I'm thinking about is when you're in the throes of OE, open enrollment, AE, annual enrollment, stay calm. It's okay to take walks around the block. I do it now even... not even open enrollment. Breaks are a healthy breather and a good reset for you, your employees, and your organization. So stay calm.
Wendy Fong:
Keep calm and carry on. Those are always great reminders. Self-care is always really important, especially the HR professional that wears many hats throughout the day and in your career. And open enrollment is an important benefit for everyone in the long run. So as long as everyone, I feel, like understands the importance in the value, hopefully that will motivate them as well to complete it in time. Well, we're manifesting positive vibes and a process for everyone listening out there, your HR team, your employees, your employers, hopefully, these trends and tips help provide you some guidance and insight for this enrollment season. And wanted to say thank you, Lois, for joining us in the conversation, sharing your experiences and expertise. Also, for those of you who are SHRM certified, so this episode qualifies for 0.5 PDCs professional development credits. Activity ID is 25-T as in turtle, N as in ninja, M as in mutant, N as in ninja, and J as in jam. So that's I know Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Close. I didn't make it up, folks. 25-TNMNJ with the expiration date of November 17th, 2025.
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