This open forum was presented by three members with employee relations responsibility. Each presenter listed some of their unique positive employee relations practices. Then the audience was asked to break into groups, list some of their practices and then identify a “top-ten” list of best practices. There were a number of great ones. My favorite was from some folks at my table. They, like most companies, were facing really difficult times on health insurance. To complicate matters they had a pretty rich program that had no deductibles and very limited cost-sharing. This year they decided to self-insure and had representatives from each department help them with the plan design. This group was given a budget, interviewed various third party administrators and debated back and forth regarding various plan design elements. This group then went back into the plant to explain the program and how it was designed. Long story short: this was the smoothest benefits roll-out the company ever experienced, even though employee costs increased and this was the first time employees had deductibles. As always one of my favorite sessions at the conference.
