You can download a pdf of the full report here: Benefits Expert Corporate Healthcare and Cash Plan Round Table
Healthcare benefits are becoming a key attraction, recruitment and retention tool in the battle for employees post pandemic, especially as access to NHS healthcare becomes increasingly challenging. That was one of the key takeaways from the first of two roundtable debates held in January by Benefits Expert, in association with Medicash Healthcare and Bupa UK, to drill down into the extent to which employee benefits products are being effective in helping employers to achieve their goals.
The panel
- Rashree Chhatrisha, rewards and benefits director, Saga Group
- Sush Dhonsi, associate director, international benefits, Galapagos Biotech
- Robyn Fisher, head of reward & performance, Mitie Group
- Paul Gambon, sales and marketing director, Medicash Healthcare
- Lorri-Ann Gillies, head of corporate new business, Bupa UK
- Kay Hewish, head of people services and governance, Aioi Nissay Dowa UK
- Gareth Jones, new propositions, insights, digital health and wellbeing, Bupa UK
- Gemma Robinson, people and culture director, Insure The Box/Aioi Nissay Dowa Europe
- Nathan Willcock, reward specialist Nationwide
Our panel, representing a broad spectrum of employer types and sizes – considered the role healthcare benefits can, are and should be playing in terms of driving ED&I (equity, diversity and inclusion) within organisations. How does providing access to healthcare benefits help in terms of supporting the recruitment and retention of, say, women, or older workers, or those on the neurodiversity spectrum? As chair John Greenwood, group editor, Benefits Expert, put it: “How can a healthcare and a cash plan address diversity issues, inclusivity issues, reach all parts of the workforce and also reflect the values of your organisation?”
“There’s a lens around this, I think,” agreed Rashree Chhatrisha, rewards and benefits director at Saga Group. “Whatever we do, does it meet the needs of the diverse workforce? Are we doing enough for everyone in the workforce? think that ED&I lens is there because but it’s a continuous challenge.
“It’s also about recognising how, post-Covid, the whole workforce landscape has now changed. We’re more diverse, we’re more flexible. It’s all about hybrid working. We’ve changed the way we work. We’ve got AI coming in,” she added, with AI a topic the discussion would return to.
“I think there is an education point as well,” argued Nationwide Building Society’s reward specialist Nathan Willcock. “A lot of our managers are calling out for support to have those conversations. It might not be that they can offer a product, but it’s just me helping others by knowing what it means and how it works. We’re relying on a lot of our providers to support our managers to have those conversations.”
Get in early
So what needs to be the role of healthcare benefits in terms of embedding whole-organisational wellbeing and preventative wellbeing?
“They all need to link up, how ever it works,” argued Willcock. “We want to focus more on that broader prevention piece. So where can we get a lot of bang for our buck?
“It is how do we get in there early and get out to everybody? I think we’d rely on our providers to do that. Particularly with things like menopause and neurodiversity, we get to people – and a big population of people – early on so that they then know what to do,” he added.
Yet the sheer amount of information, advice and support available, especially online and via a growing multitude of apps, was becoming something of an issue, Willcock highlighted. “Every provider I think has got a wellbeing app or content or something that supports on top of the benefit. We’re finding that people are just getting stuck. So they’ll go to one app and they’ll just use that one. I think the market is just saturated with wellbeing options at the moment,” he said.
Paul Gambon, sales and marketing director at Medicash Healthcare, conceded this proliferation of apps is, in part, simply because providers know it is expected of them, with Medicash having introduced its app as far back as 2014.
“What we’ve done is evolve the app. We do need people to go into the app to be able to communicate through it, but it’s also about using the app as a platform to showcase the additional benefits on offer,” he said.
“We also identify that people don’t tend to read stuff anymore; people are much more engaged in short videos. So, each of the benefits we offer has its own video to help explain what that benefit is in a more concise, more visual, way,” said Gambon.
“They don’t want to go through six, seven, eight different apps,” agreed Gareth Jones, new propositions, insights, digital health and wellbeing at Bupa UK. “We’ve understood that and have introduced quite a number of different tools and resources into our Bupa Touch app. We’ve introduced live digital gym classes and meditation guides, recipes, audios and podcasts, to try and bring it into one place for people,” he added.
“What we’re doing internally is to try and save everything, creating a Mitie app,” said Robyn Fisher, head of reward & performance at Mitie Group. “So our own app for our colleagues. But with some links out because it’s not quite possible to get everything on one app.”
AI driven benefits
Medicash’s SkinVision tool, an app that assesses skin spots and moles for the most common types of skin cancer, was now incorporating artificial intelligence (AI), pointed out Gambon, with this fast-developing technology likely to transform the delivery of healthcare benefits, he predicted.
“I think the AI side of things is key. AI has started to become used more widely. Ultimately it can help keep costs low, because if you were to go and see a dermatologist every time you had a mole, you’d be worried it’s going to cost X amount for each time,” he said.
These sorts of innovative approaches also showed how the workplace – and commercial health insurance – can often be the proving ground for retail. So are there health support elements coming through that are going to be single cost, in that it doesn’t matter how many times they are used?
“These are in train,” agreed Gareth Jones. “We’re developing different things though, again, we’re talking about a one-app strategy. So, adding additional features for that prevention side of things as well.”
“The content will be widely available to everyone within our app, mindfulness, meditation, over 1,500 digital gym classes,” added Lorri-Ann Gillies, head of corporate new business at Bupa UK.
With the government having run a consultation last summer on possible reforms to the tax treatment of healthcare benefits, was there an appetite for reform of P11D?
“Would the ability to offer a tax-advantaged product offered to all employees, or all basic rate-taxpayer employees – which supported them in being at work, supported them to be present – be valuable?” asked the debate chair.
For an organisation such as Mitie, it was a question of needing more fundamental reforms to statutory sick pay [SSP] first, argued Robyn Fisher. “I think there’s a lot of other questions in terms of why people aren’t at work,” she pointed out.
“Our sick pay for our frontline workers is statutory. Within facilities management for example, where margins are very small, there is work going on to have an agreement across all FM providers that they will be brought on to a level of sick pay which is paid not as SSP.
“Until we nail that down, do I think a tax advantage to some sort of healthcare cash plan for work or something could work? I think people appreciate anything that’s going to be advantageous in that space. But I’m not sure we’re quite there yet,” she added.
“I do think there’s an argument for the government to do a bit more,” said Rashree Chhatrisha. “Either, you know, to help employers with that tax relief or to help with the P11D charge.”
“But fundamentally, if the government are going to do something in that space, then that sends a massive message around the future of the NHS,” responded Fisher.
A sustainable direction?
As the debate drew to a conclusion panellists reflected on whether they felt net positive or net negative about the current state of what is offered through employer-provided PMI and cash plans.
“Is it a sustainable direction that we’re going in in terms of corporate healthcare provision and health and wellbeing support through cash plans and PMI? Or is it going in the crisis direction?” asked debate chair John Greenwood.
“We’re going in the right direction. From the healthcare perspective, the PMI, I don’t think there’s anything that we would come back on,” agreed Kay Hewish, head of people services and governance at Aioi Nissay Dowa UK.
“What we’re finding, I think, is that the expectation of employees is very much that we will take care of their wellbeing, and that there is some onus on us to do that,” agreed Gemma Robinson, people and culture director at Insure The Box/Aioi Nissay Dowa Europe.
“I think the challenge, generally, is that kind of apathy because there’s so much out there. We talked about exercise classes through apps, but I can get that on Sky. I can get that on YouTube. I can get it at the gym. Do I need that on my health plan, I don’t know? What can you give to me as an employer that’s going to pique my interest?” she added.
“I agree,” said Willcock. “It needs to go to that more personal, flexible approach. And it is saturated in terms of what people can find. It needs to be focused on employee experience and user experience because that’s where everything else is going.
“Also, we haven’t spoken about it, but the direction back into the NHS needs to be considered. So, when I utilise my PMI, how do I go back in and get that link? I think it all just needs to join up in some magic way. I don’t know how!” he added.
“Definitely I think there’s a pathway for PMI and health cash plans,” said Chhatrisha. “It’s understanding the alignment and how it balances together. I think there’s room for more to help employees with that whole wellbeing journey. And to bring in more personalisation, bring it all together; to bring that whole journey together.”
“In the organisation that I’m with, we need to look at something else. Like, as covered in the first discussion, a step-up from virtual GP but not everything else yet. I think private healthcare is still needed; it’s an expectation, we absolutely need it,” said Fisher.
“With healthcare, we need it in our organisation; it’s a given. All of our employees are in fairly senior roles, so it is expected, it’s built into our contracts of employment; you know you will be offered private healthcare,” highlighted Sush Dhonsi, associate director, international benefits, at Galapagos Biotech.
“For us, however, it is really about managing the scheme itself, the cost structure. What are the value adds we are getting?” she said, pointing out that, in fact, her provider is proactive in offering webinars as well as rewarding employees with points.
“They can get prizes like cinema tickets or free coffee or put them towards an Apple Watch at a discounted rate. We also got a rebate as an organisation because our employees were using the app and building up their points,” she said.
“We got about £3,500 coming back to us from all those points, which we gave back to our employees in a gift card. Employees do value healthcare, but it is about engagement as well,” Dhonsi added.
“Obviously prices might be going up,” agreed Gambon, “but it’s whether the value is still there. And I believe it is. We can see that based on the engagement we have. If you look at it as a long-term thing too, then it’s good that people are taking a proactive approach to being healthy.
“But there’s also the less tangible things, people who maybe have reconsidered moving jobs because they thought, ‘actually, the benefits here are quite good’, or those people who have been drawn in to join the business, because those health benefits have stood out.”
“I think it is about recognising that health and wellbeing element means different things to every organisation,” said Gillies in conclusion.
“I think it really highlights the need for better communication and education across the piece, whether it’s an age-rated contract or an experienced-rated contract. “With the larger clients as well, having that account manager who can really talk to you and understand those products and services and signpost you to things that are relevant to you as your organisation, I think, is really key. And getting that partnership right as well,” she added.
You can download a pdf of the full report here: Benefits Expert Corporate Healthcare and Cash Plan Round Table
