Why you should take this opportunity to offer your part time employees benefits!

Since the re-acclimation of society following the Covid-19 pandemic, the workforce’s trend of playing hot potato with their jobs has become even more prevalent. Seemingly gone are the days of long tenure and climbing the corporate ladder as the primary goal of employees. For many, the ideology has shifted to prioritizing mental health and personal life over career advancement. Gold stars, promises of promotions, and free bagels don’t cut it anymore. If retention is essential to your company, you must offer tangible incentives that improve employee life authentically. Especially for the employees entrusted with being the human touch point between the brand and the customer, your sales associates, servers, desk attendants, and the traditionally part-time workers need to feel appreciated and motivated to put the company’s best foot forward. 

What do absolute and tangible retention techniques look like? They look like they are providing securities like access to benefits. Providing part-time employees with low-cost and flexible benefits can actively endorse retention while improving productivity as employees will be less stressed.

Gig workers need a hand protecting their health

There are many benefits to choosing the freelancer lifestyle. From flexibility over your hours, work environment, and even client choice, only a few other professions allow such control. However, control inevitably means a lack of dependability; it’s all on you; there is no one to fall back on and no stability in terms of a yearly salary, employer-sponsored benefits, or workout stipends. This lack of stability can lead to financial insecurity, poor sleep, stress, and miserable physical symptoms that affect work and home life.   

Gig workers and freelancers are traditionally excluded from a broker’s books of business. Still, it is clear that these communities need coverage, and there are options for them. So we need to get the word out. Freelancers, gig workers, part-time workers all those lacking the stability of a traditional 9-5 can access low-cost coverage with benefits from Healthee by HBG. With no employer sponsorship and no open enrollment, freelancers can enjoy the same flexibility and control they have in their work life and their health. 

No one deserves to have their health suffer when there are options available. What could potentially stop this could be having more freelancers, part-time workers, and gig workers aware that opportunities are available, as many may not know.

 

source: https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2022-12-12/gig-economy-could-be-harming-workers-health

So you’ve purchased a healthcare plan, now what?

HealthEE by HBG prides itself on our support team being genuine advisors looking to assist you on your benefits buying journey. But did you know that once you purchase your healthcare plan, HealthEE support passes the torch to Rightway, the clinically driven care navigation solution? 

Simply put, Rightway equips you with a dedicated health team to be there with you every step of the way. You begin by asking Rightway to curate a care plan based on your needs. Then, you can ask your guide to find a doctor in the network in your zip code, and they will produce a list of doctors where you can see user reviews from other Rightway users. . Once you choose a doctor, Rightway will ask for your availability, the reason for the visit, the time frame you would like to see a doctor, and other specifics before making an appointment request! Its seamless experience makes finding doctors and booking appointments more straightforward than ever. 

But scheduling appointments is just the tip of the Rightway iceberg. Using the Rightway guides, you can have a second pair of eyes on your bills to ensure you are charged correctly and help you obtain any reimbursement you are owed. 

Taking care of your health can be stressful. So let’s face it between finding a friendly doctor to make you feel comfortable to feel confident you are only paying for what you need to when it comes to bills to even the stress and time of making an appointment, Rightway is a big part of how HealthEE by HBG is taking the stress out of healthcare. 

Where HealthEE by HBG is your knowledgeable friend who introduces you to the right plan for your needs, Rightway is that older sibling or parental figure available to do the often overwhelming heavy lifting for you so that all that is left is for you to benefit!

Should you go freelance?

With industries announcing hiring freezes and the work-from-home movement in full swing working in the gig economy is hotter than ever. However, if you consider taking on freelance work either full-time or as a side gig, you may need help with where to start.
First of all, you must take a step back and consider how you work and whether your preexisting work habits would coincide with the freelance culture:
Ask Yourself these questions.

If you concluded that yes, you are the correct type of person to go solo, then read on the freelancer starter checklist.
Before taking the plunge, you should get your finances in order. Start by making a budget to ensure you put money aside as a safety net when you first start. You will also need to set up a financial bookkeeping system to have a strategy for organization from the outset, which goes hand in hand with opening a business bank account to keep track of incoming and outgoing payments specific to your business.

To prepare yourself for success, create a schedule and stick to it. Rookie mistakes include burning out from working too much or sidetracked by less important tasks.

A social presence is vital for any freelancer as it’s how you promote yourself. Use social media as a tool to promote your work as well as build connections. Having potential clients lined up will make the transition easier, so along with Instagram, make sure your Upwork and other gig sites are up and running and you have begun reaching out. For Networking, Linkedin is a no-brainer.

Fill your toolbox with everything you need to succeed. Freelancing is a one-person show, so you must cover all your bases. Do you need Adobe Creative Suite? Canva? Whatever programming it is, get your ducks in a row.

Create yourself a workspace or decide upon a public one. In metropolitan areas, you can throw a rock and hit a WeWork. Since the pandemic, several other options for co-working spaces have arisen, but if you plan to work from home, creating a quiet, organized, designated area for you to be productive will be critical to your success.

Lastly, When you decide to leave your corporate 9-5, you’re also preceding your employer-sponsored benefits. With gethealthee.com, you can access affordable health benefits with no employer sponsor and no open enrollment, meaning you pay on a monthly or quarterly basis and can hop on or off anytime, making it the ideal platform for freelancers to shop for coverage. Before becoming a full-time freelancer, you should schedule a call with a HealthEE advisor to deduce the best range.

Sources:

Thinking of going freelance? Here’s 8 things you should consider

 

 

Are you presenting HealthEE by HBG as a retain and attract tool? You should be.

The workforce is reshuffling. There is no doubt about it. Our new normal has sparked change in every industry universally. Employees want more, more flexibility, more balance, more control, just more. Whether they find that sense of more in another role or as a gig worker or freelancer, many are still trying to find the answer to their employment desires. According to the US Chamber of Commerce, the food and hospitality industries are among the most struggling industries to retain workers. In these sectors, the bulk of sales happen to the end consumer through the part-time workers, so they must be trained and controlled, armed with the knowledge to close the deal. No one can deny the importance of the customer experience. It is a heavyweight, especially considering those expected to hold it often feel the least appreciated. Traditionally the part-time worker is provided a different cachet than the corporate counterparts, no PTO, no benefits, and poor hours during the holidays while the rest of us are home with our families. While this model has worked in the past, the post covid employee isn’t biting in the same way anymore to attract and retain the necessary talent to close the sales in the store and behind the counter.
You can find the usual retention techniques across this platform and several others, including the shared working community; WeWork posted an article highlighting that retention means work-life balance, hiring good leaders, and building good teams, but how does one attract good leaders and sound teams? Businesses must convey a value matching the ideals of the potential hires they seek. Now while the most obvious of the bunch is providing employees with the ability to work from home, this is only an option for some industries. An employee can’t show a guest to their room or take a customer’s order from their home. However, there are other ways employers can give potential employees a sense of control and empowerment. Research from job boards Indeed and Glassdoor finds benefits and flexibility remain essential to attract talent. For the businesses that can’t afford to offer higher pay and can’t provide their employees a work-from-home option, how does offering the part-time workforce affordable benefits at no cost to the employer sound? Here is where Healthy Business Group steps in; their flagship product, HealthEE by HBG, is the online benefits solution for employers to offer employees at no cost to the employer, where employees can take control of their benefits and can choose to have more of what they need and less of what they don’t, now that’s an incentive.

Sources

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-retain-an-employeehttps://www.uschamber.com/workforce/understanding-americas-labor-shortage-the-most-impacted-industrieshttps://www.zippia.com/advice/great-resignation-statistics/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/12/business/economy/labor-participation-covid.htmlhttps://www.hrmorning.com/news/benefits-key-role/https://www.fm-magazine.com/news/2022/dec/benefits-flexibility-attract-talent-report-finds.htmlhttps://www.wework.com/ideas/professional-development/management-leadership/employee-retention-what-it-is-best-strategies-and-more’

24% of gig workers are uninsured, & missing from your book of business

With the influx of people switching to freelance or “gig” work, there seems to be a component missing from everyone’s “how to join the gig economy handbook” on accessing benefits. Employer Benefit News reported that a survey conducted by Stride Health found that of the 4,000 independent workers spoken to, 24% are currently uninsured. To break it down further, 80% of those cited believe coverage costs more than $100 a month per family member. This belief that coverage is unattainable leaves many not even considering having coverage an option for them.
The solution to this misconception is to spread information. As employers and employees lean into the gig economy, employers find it easier to hire freelance workers during economic uncertainty, and employees want more control. More freedom benefits can feel like no man’s land when providing access to coverage has always been challenging for employers. Employers can offer their part-time and gig workers benefits at no cost with the HealthEE by HBG online benefits store. Independent contractors, freelancers, and anyone under the “gig economy” umbrella has access to these benefits and can choose to receive them with an employer or on their own with gethealthee.com. Spreading the word about these benefits is a win, win. Employers need to differentiate themselves to retain and attract talent, and HealthEE by HBG can do that with no cost to the employer. On the employee’s side, everyone needs benefits. No one is immune to needing the occasional doctor’s visit or teeth cleaning, and drivers for Uber, Postmates, Doordash, etc., can only get by with auto coverage.
In a time of information overload with “insurance” generating millions of search results on google, providing clarity is valuable; give this value to your part-time workers, contract workers, freelancers, and everyone you know in the gig economy today.

Sources: 

https://www.benefitnews.com./news/24-of-workers-in-the-gig-economy-are-uninsured-how-can-employers-help

 

Do you know what you’re missing from your book of business?

It is difficult to discuss the current state of affairs for any industry without returning to the long-lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, so bear with us. Among the challenges and work-from-home realizations, there were some among us not afforded the luxury of WFH. Essential workers, we dubbed them, the (in many cases) part-time workers keeping our supermarkets, delivery services, transportation, and even hospitals functioning. Even now, as we have returned to a sense of normalcy, WFH is still prevalent, and part time employees are still on the front lines. They form relationships with a brand’s consumers, the ones who are the faces of a company day in and day out. And yet they are missing from most brokers’ books of business. Why? 

Have we not experienced the vitality of the part-time worker these past few years? And of course we are also amidst a movement known as the great resignation, meaning companies need to do more to retain their employees. Covid-19 showed us how much we need part-time workers, but it also gave those workers every reason to want to quit their jobs. It’s up to employers now to find new solutions to hold fast to those employees and find new ones in a time where there are a plentiful number of WFH postings.

The pandemic has left brokers with new opportunities. Where traditionally, a broker’s book of business has not included the part-time employee, now they can. Not only is this a new market for brokers, but it also provides tangible value to the business owners. Part-time employees are the backbone of companies, and providing possible and accessible benefits will up current retention and incentivize new employees alike.

Quiet Quitting and what it means for employers

First, employees left their jobs in droves, but the problems for employers didn’t stop there. In a more optimistic time when the American dream was still the dream and the future was bright, employees wanted to go the extra mile to move up the hierarchy for a better tomorrow. The thought process and your hard work will pay off, and you will be rewarded. However, as inflation increases and wages can’t keep up, many employees have stopped drinking the kool-aid and either want to be compensated for the extra labor or won’t do it. Thus the term quiet quitting, in which you do what’s in your job description, nothing more, no staying late or working outside your predetermined hours or taking on extra work for the good of the company. Quiet quitting isn’t necessarily a new practice. Many compare the concept to coasting. However, I think an important distinction here is that quiet quitting isn’t personal to the company but is rooted in the need for work-life balance or extra in exchange for extra. Work-life balance is more of a private matter; balance means something different depending on the industry and person. 

However, if you’re seeking an extra to exchange for effort, consider offering more incentives to employees. I’m not talking about pizza parties or casual Fridays- nobody sees those as incentives. Instead, employees want incentives to make their lives less stressful to take weights off their shoulders. One significant weight is sure to be the expense of insurance and benefits. With HealthEE by HBG, you can offer your employees more options at more possible rates at no cost to the employer. More than just the affordability aspect, HealthEE by HBG provides a sense of control and choice to employees, something they won’t find elsewhere. It’s not a stretch to consider a piece of the quiet quitting appeal: the sense of control it offers employees. Give your employees the power of choice and the possibility of affordability with the HealthEE by HBG benefit stores.