“Take care of your employees and they will take care of your business. It’s as simple as that.” – Richard Branson
I was sitting down with one of my Clients the other day to go through their Year-End Review and they asked if I had any ideas on how to reward their long-time employees. They were coming up to their 10th Year Anniversary and they had a handful of employees that had been around since the beginning…they wanted to do something special for them.
They had a fairly conservative Traditional Group Insurance program…$10,000 Life and AD&D Insurance; 80% Reimbursement for Health & Drugs, $300 Paramed max, and NO Vision Care or Semi-Private Hospital; 80% Reimbursement for Dental with a $500 max. The benefits program has run very well year-over-year with virtually 0% Renewal increases. Business is going very well and this year they were thinking that they would introduce Semi-Private Hospital, Vision Care or increase the Dental max for their loyal employees.
I agreed that their group insurance program could be used to reward their 10+ years employees but perhaps not in the traditional way that they were thinking…I proposed that we take a closer look at adding a Health Care Spending Account (HCSA).
I pointed out that they didn’t need to limit the Plan Design enhancement to just adding Semi-Private Hospital or Vision Care; or to increase the Dental max. By adding an HCSA, the employee could choose how they allocate the extra money made available to them.
They liked the idea and are actually looking at adding a $250 HCSA for their employees that reach the 5-year mark and then increase that to $500 for those that have reached the 10-year mark.
Located in Cambridge, ON Sharkey Group Insurance provides independent Employee Benefits advice & counsel for Small Businesses across Ontario.