NCFlex article for Voluntary Benefits Magazine, January 2012.
Jan 13, 2012
With the current state of the economy, today’s employees find themselves depending on voluntary benefits more than anytime in recent history. Employers for years have offered financial and retirement plans as part of their benefits package to lure new hires and help retention and also to increase the value of the benefits package. But in this age of doing more with less, communicating what is available to employees and assisting them in understanding their benefits is a job that can get lost in the shuffle.
Due to budget cuts, State Agencies and HR departments have limited resources and time available to help them effectively communicate with their staff.Without proper assistanceavailable to them, many employees get lost in the fiscal woods with little or no knowledge of the benefits available to them.
Additionally, on a national level more and more employers are shifting costs to employees to fund their own health plan benefits. In North Carolina, for example, the deductible and copays have increased, a no-cost routineeye exam benefit is no longer available, and health plan premiums have increased.
One way the state has been assisting employees is the nationally recognized NCFlex program. The program is a State-administered plan offering a variety of voluntary pre-tax benefits to state employees. One of the key features of the program is that it provides approximately a 30 percent savings on taxes for the pretax premiums on products employees are enrolled in. The program is set up according to Internal Revenue Service Section 125 plan that allows states to provide pre tax benefits to employees. The benefits are portable, meaning as employees progress through their careers, sometimes transferring from agency to agency, they can retain these benefits wherever they gowithin state government.
The NCFlex Program was initiated by a Governor's executive order in 1995. Pani Tademeti was hired to manage the program due to his vast experience with helping develop such programs in both the private sector and in the North Carolina county government system. Thanks to his forward thinking and clear-headed planning, the program has grown from offering a flexible spending account with 727 participants to offering 8 benefitsplans with over 240,000 participants.
One reason NCFlex has been very successful is due toits focus on communication and training. Prior to the annual enrollment period each October, the NCFlex team travels the state of North Carolina from the mountains to the coast hosting Train the Trainer sessions. Classes are designed to update agency HR and benefits staff on administration processes and procedures and to educate them about any changes to the benefits offered. HR staff are not only given the opportunity to network with each other but also with the plan vendors in attendance, allowing them to associate a name with a face and establish a relationship with the people they’ll be working with from time to time.
During annual enrollment, NCFlex again packs up the van and travels to various locations, this time to educate and communicate directly with employees who may have questions about the enrollment and the products offered. These Employee Information Sessions are an all-encompassing look into what the plan offers and give employees a chance to enroll online with assistance from an NCFlex representative.
After more than a decade assisting employeesto become more aware of their health benefits and physical wellness, when the economy began to falter, Pani wanted to find a way to educate State Employees about Financial Wellness as well. He began a discussion and collaboration with Leigh Brady, Senior Vice-President of Education Services for the North Carolina State Employees Credit Union. Initially, the idea was to have Leigh make a presentation at the next Statewide Benefits Conference, hosted by NCFlex. There was also collaboration by NCFlex and NCSECU on a Financial Wellness guide that debuted at the conference. The presentation helped educate employees bytaking them through examples in the guide and Leigh’s experience and personality really shone through.
The presentation on Financial Wellness was so well received, Pani started to put together a new idea: NCFlex already had a system set up for organizing training sessions across the state that had proven to be successful in reaching out to HR staff and state employees. Why not extend the collaboration to training sessions that combined NCFlex enrollment information with the NCSECU Financial Wellness program? The NCSECU had many financial products and benefits available to its members, but if employees were not made aware of them, how could they take advantage of them?
The NCFlex Team and The State Employees Credit Union then teamed up to create what came to be known as “Sensible Savings sessions;” a half day class incorporating financial and physical wellness. With NCFlex’s communication network already in place, the next step was to create a class that kept employees’ interest, got them involved, and educated them. As nonprofit institutions, NCFlex and NCSECU collaboratedtogether with existing resources and at no additional cost to either, developed a program designed to educate and inform employees. They wanted to, as they put it, “make sure that we have wealth building services for the not yet wealthy.” It was what Pani liked to call “a milkshake moment:” a combination of different ingredients that come together to make something special.
To help promote the meetings, North Carolina State Personnel Director Linda Coleman and Carl Goodwin, Division Director for Operations & Benefits for the North Carolina Office of State Personnel, appeared with Pani and Leigh on an OPEN/net webcast (which can be viewed at http://youtu.be/Qlms-eDr1xw) to discuss what employees could expect at the sessions and to take questions live from callers. When the Sensible Saving Solutions were announced shortly thereafter, the response was immediate and overwhelming. Some classes were filled up within a week and additional classes were added to the schedule. The original expectation was to host 10 classes with no more than 30 attendees at each but that changed to 13 classes with nearly 600 employees registered to attend.
The overall response and evaluation of the Sensible Savings Sessions was excellent. Scenarios provided by the workbook helped demonstrate the need to plan ahead and the excellent presentation developed by the NCSECU made agreat impression on employees. “I wish I’d had this information 10 years ago,” said one employee, “the best thing was the encouragement to get started with financial actions.”
With such an overwhelming response, plans for future Sensible Savings Sessions are in development for 2012 to keep State employees on the track to financial wellness.
About The Author
Pani Tademeti is a native of India. Pani undergraduate degree is in Physics, Mathematics and Chemistry with postgraduate degrees in Personnel Management and Law, holding his MBA from Wake Forest University in North Carolina. In 1995 Pani became the Program Manager for NCFlex program with the NC Office of State Personnel. His style has been forward thinking and cost-effective.
