Navigating the Complexity of Employee Benefits with Jeff Williams at Aptia

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[00:00:11] That's d-e-e-l dot com.

[00:00:15] Hey, what's going on everyone?

[00:00:17] Ryan Leary here from WRKdefined.

[00:00:19] You know, if there was one thing that I could change about recruiting, it would probably

[00:00:24] be the amazingly awful candidate experience that job seekers have to endure at one of the

[00:00:32] most stressful times in their life.

[00:00:35] Hiring teams, it is time to step up.

[00:00:38] You've got to create an experience that is memorable, fast and efficient.

[00:00:43] And you can do that with Indeed Smart Sourcing.

[00:00:47] Check them out online at indeed.com or just Google Indeed Smart Sourcing.

[00:00:52] Hey, this is William Tyncup and Ryan Leary.

[00:01:05] You are listening and watching the Use Case Podcast.

[00:01:08] Today we have Jeff Ogg from Aptia.

[00:01:11] And we're going to be learning all about his company and a little bit about Jeff as well.

[00:01:17] So Jeff, how you doing today?

[00:01:19] I'm great.

[00:01:19] How about you guys?

[00:01:20] You are great.

[00:01:21] Fantastic.

[00:01:22] Oh look at that.

[00:01:23] Rockets, flying.

[00:01:25] You are great.

[00:01:27] And you're in Boston?

[00:01:28] Is that right?

[00:01:28] I am indeed, yes.

[00:01:29] Ah, very nice.

[00:01:31] There's nothing, there's always, you can always tell when you like somebody based on

[00:01:36] their clothing.

[00:01:37] And the fact that Jeff is in Boston wearing Eagles Green or close enough to Eagles Green

[00:01:44] tells me he's a good guy.

[00:01:47] Now Ryan up here they would call it Celtics Green but we may be split.

[00:01:51] Wow, is that what that is?

[00:01:52] It is.

[00:01:52] A little bit but it's fine.

[00:01:55] Yeah, it's fine.

[00:01:56] Yeah, yeah.

[00:01:58] We'll go with Eagles Green.

[00:02:01] Well, since that they just won a championship I would go with Celtics Green.

[00:02:04] There you go.

[00:02:05] You know what the sad part is?

[00:02:06] I didn't even think about the Celtics.

[00:02:09] I just call it Patriots.

[00:02:10] That's all I thought.

[00:02:12] Yeah, if you're in Philly though I think that's kind of the deal right?

[00:02:15] You can't pick in Boston terms at all, right?

[00:02:18] Yeah, no, no.

[00:02:20] It's an area.

[00:02:21] It's a cluster.

[00:02:22] Yeah.

[00:02:23] Hey, guys, I'm living in Boston but I come in peace I swear.

[00:02:29] Sorry, he's a Cowboys fan so we can team up on him that way.

[00:02:34] We haven't been relevant in 30 years.

[00:02:36] We're good.

[00:02:36] No worries.

[00:02:37] 35.

[00:02:40] There's...

[00:02:40] Just tell us a little bit about yourself and once we do that tell us about Aptia.

[00:02:55] All right.

[00:02:57] Got it.

[00:03:00] Don't worry about that.

[00:03:01] This is Dallas talking.

[00:03:05] So husband, father, Canadian by birth, American by upgrading.

[00:03:11] I've been in the tech enabled services businesses my whole career.

[00:03:15] Had a major in tech and telecom for the first half and in the second half I've been

[00:03:19] in the HCM Human Capital Management, Benefit Administration and payroll businesses.

[00:03:26] Been an executive at companies like ADP and Paychex, Aeon and now running Aptia here in

[00:03:35] the United States.

[00:03:36] That's fantastic.

[00:03:37] We know all those companies.

[00:03:38] When you were your time at ADP did you crisscross with employees?

[00:03:45] The technology?

[00:03:46] For sure.

[00:03:47] Yeah.

[00:03:48] When I was at ADP I was running the Canadian operation.

[00:03:52] Oh, wow.

[00:03:53] I had a lot of exposure to that for sure.

[00:03:55] Okay.

[00:03:56] Yeah, there's cool tech at the time.

[00:03:58] I mean things have changed clearly but at the time it was a really cool tech.

[00:04:01] Well why don't we learn a little bit about Aptia?

[00:04:03] Tell us what is Aptia?

[00:04:05] What are you guys doing with problem solving and we'll go from there.

[00:04:08] Sure.

[00:04:09] The company really has I guess three primary constituents.

[00:04:15] We go to market through brokers so think of it as broker lead sale and the health

[00:04:23] administration space.

[00:04:25] So they're doing a lot to advise clients and we normally sell to clients that have

[00:04:31] more than 1,000 employees and a lot of those are taking advice from their broker

[00:04:36] on who they should use for their benefit administration.

[00:04:39] So they're a big channel of ours.

[00:04:41] And our clients are the employers so they purchase the benefit administration

[00:04:46] services from us and then we service their employees.

[00:04:51] So the problem we're solving is you've got these large employers who have to

[00:04:57] either buy technology, stand up processes, acquire talent and figure out ways to

[00:05:04] service their populations or they can pull in someone like Aptia that allows them

[00:05:10] to kind of offload all of that.

[00:05:12] Let them focus on their core business and not have to acquire these skills,

[00:05:17] stay compliant, stay up to date with tech, all that sort of stuff.

[00:05:21] So it's one of those classic examples where if it's critically important

[00:05:27] to everybody and strategic to nobody, it's a perfect candidate for outsourcing.

[00:05:32] So we're that outsourcer that does this in the benefit administration space.

[00:05:37] So with Benefits Now, are you seeing, are there just health benefits

[00:05:42] or do you get into financial or well-being or wellness and stuff like that?

[00:05:48] Yes, we're primarily a health administration provider.

[00:05:52] So that is the focus of our business.

[00:05:55] The very nature of it though is you end up touching a lot of the other benefits

[00:05:58] that exist in the ecosystem.

[00:06:02] But absolutely, we're a pure play health and benefit administrator

[00:06:07] for active employee populations as well as we can do that for companies

[00:06:12] who want to offer those benefits to their retirees.

[00:06:15] Oh, that's cool.

[00:06:16] Yeah.

[00:06:18] That's, I haven't heard that before.

[00:06:22] So that's very, very cool.

[00:06:24] Yeah, that market has changed a lot over the years.

[00:06:28] It used to be that every employer of any significant size

[00:06:31] offered higher-to-grave sort of benefit packages.

[00:06:35] Now what we see is there's less employers doing that.

[00:06:39] And those employers that do it usually do it as a subsidy rather than being

[00:06:43] in the kind of retiree health business themselves.

[00:06:47] Right.

[00:06:48] And it's multiple help benefits plans like the brokers can go with,

[00:06:53] we'll just use some names, Aetna versus UnitedHealthcare versus Blue Shield

[00:06:57] or Blue Cross or whatever.

[00:06:59] So they can pick, they can help their client pick the best plan.

[00:07:04] And then the administration of that open enrollment and all the things

[00:07:09] that kind of go with it, that's through you.

[00:07:12] You got it.

[00:07:13] The broker is going to help them pick the carrier.

[00:07:15] They're going to help them figure out the cost of coverage.

[00:07:17] They're going to do all of that straight injury.

[00:07:20] Yeah.

[00:07:21] And they will come in behind that and make sure all of that stuff

[00:07:24] works for the broker and for the client.

[00:07:27] And we'll do the eligibility management of the employees.

[00:07:31] We'll do the enrollment on the platform.

[00:07:33] Right.

[00:07:34] We'll manage life events as their needs change throughout the year.

[00:07:39] We're there for all that.

[00:07:40] Oh, that's cool.

[00:07:42] A lot of the, we do a lot of different shows and have different conversations

[00:07:47] and a lot of the topics have been around compliance

[00:07:51] and staying up to date with all of this stuff.

[00:07:54] So obviously if someone who's listening is at the right company,

[00:08:00] a thousand, five thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand plus person,

[00:08:04] they understand the value here.

[00:08:06] But maybe talk a little bit about where AppDia comes in on managing all of that

[00:08:11] and taking care of all of the compliance and making sure everybody is only up and up.

[00:08:17] Yeah.

[00:08:18] It's a great question.

[00:08:19] And you know, the, in my time in the industry over the last call a decade and a half,

[00:08:25] I've just seen a real ratcheting up of this complexity.

[00:08:29] There's just, I'd say one root cause of that is there's been a lack of will at the federal level.

[00:08:37] So you're seeing all that complexity get layered in at the state level

[00:08:40] and even increasingly at the city level.

[00:08:44] You know, there's some cities that have been really assertive

[00:08:46] relative to what the entitlements are of their populations.

[00:08:50] So we're going to take that off of the plate of the employer to worry about.

[00:08:55] We're going to make sure that our systems are compliant.

[00:08:59] We're going to make sure that their programs are going to be compliant.

[00:09:04] You know, and frankly, we're going to help them determine the right eligibility

[00:09:08] for who should be on the program and who should not be.

[00:09:12] So back to the point around, you know, outsourcing, like why would an employer

[00:09:17] want to have to figure that stuff out on their own?

[00:09:20] They can rely on the expertise we have and the benefits of hundreds

[00:09:25] or thousands of customers coming together in a with a supplier like ours.

[00:09:31] And we'll take those problems away from that client.

[00:09:34] Hey, this is William Tinka, work defined.

[00:09:37] Hey listen, I'd like to talk to you a little bit about inside the C-suite, the podcast.

[00:09:41] It's a look into the journey of how one goes from high school, college, whatever

[00:09:46] all the way to the C-suite, all the ups and downs, failure, success and all that stuff.

[00:09:51] Good listen. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast.

[00:09:54] Yeah, it's a good argument of why would you have Dan or Susie try to remain compliant

[00:10:01] and understand what's going on as opposed to somebody that's doing it every single day?

[00:10:06] A technology that already understands the compliance, understands the complexity.

[00:10:11] It might even be sees some of the compliance things that are coming down the pike

[00:10:15] and get in front of it as opposed to someone.

[00:10:19] I mean, that would be, it's like payroll.

[00:10:21] It's exactly like payroll. Imagine, you know, standing up.

[00:10:25] If you had four locations, one in New York, one in California, one in Florida,

[00:10:29] one in Texas, like where do you even start?

[00:10:32] Right? There's just such different regulations in all those places.

[00:10:37] Yeah, I would start California because it's most complex.

[00:10:41] Exactly.

[00:10:43] Where have you seen this shift in complexity?

[00:10:46] So you've been doing this decade and a half, you said.

[00:10:49] So from the time you came in till now, what does that look like?

[00:10:52] Where was it when you started versus now?

[00:10:55] I'm just curious to see what your take is there.

[00:10:58] Yeah, I'd say really Ryan, it's become very bespoke by state.

[00:11:04] So it used to be you could rely on pretty concrete direction of where legislation was

[00:11:12] and there was more uniformity and the US looked like a much more homogenous market.

[00:11:18] I would say the states again, due to just the gridlock at the federal level

[00:11:22] have decided to intervene and do much, much more on their own.

[00:11:25] And that's where we see it play through increasingly.

[00:11:30] It's just, it is really that state regulation.

[00:11:33] No, I would say no entity at the public level has gotten less complex.

[00:11:39] 100%.

[00:11:40] 100%.

[00:11:41] Just the degree to which they've layered on this complexity.

[00:11:45] To me, it's like what we used to see in global payroll is what we're now seeing in global benefits.

[00:11:51] And the thing is, is again, text as you already said, Texas versus California.

[00:11:56] They're like two countries, like two different countries.

[00:11:58] There's France and Germany.

[00:12:00] There's no difference.

[00:12:01] Well, and so here's another piece of that as well from a provider like ours.

[00:12:06] So we've seen a proliferation of benefit types.

[00:12:11] So, you know, the big three are your health benefits, your retirement or wealth benefits and your time off.

[00:12:18] Like those are kind of the three core things that have kind of traveled through the passage of time.

[00:12:25] And the pretty standard supplemental stuff, you know, dental vision, that stuff is all pretty standard as well.

[00:12:32] But the stuff beyond that, you know, you look at, look at Gen Z, right?

[00:12:36] The second most popular benefit for our Gen Z population is penetrance just as an example.

[00:12:42] So we're seeing this proliferation.

[00:12:45] Oh man, you just hit.

[00:12:46] It's on a German.

[00:12:49] Ryan and I did.

[00:12:50] Ryan and I did, sure.

[00:12:50] I didn't mean to, Ryan.

[00:12:51] No, no, no, no.

[00:12:52] This is greatness.

[00:12:54] So we're at, it was in New Orleans.

[00:12:57] This is probably five years ago.

[00:12:59] And we were doing shows out in front of their expo.

[00:13:02] Yeah.

[00:13:03] And we had, I can't remember the carrier, but it was the very first episode.

[00:13:09] Oh God.

[00:13:10] And I said, I said, what's the word, we talk about pet insurance and Ryan's had almost exploded.

[00:13:15] It's like, dude, it's a thing.

[00:13:18] How am I going to talk about pet insurance?

[00:13:21] It's an important thing to people.

[00:13:23] And now we're starting to see even further into that is bereavement policies around pets,

[00:13:30] pet bereavement policies and things like that.

[00:13:32] Now I've got to ask questions.

[00:13:34] So do you have a pet, Ryan?

[00:13:36] I do, but I just never, he gets sick.

[00:13:42] I take him to the vet.

[00:13:43] Is it a dog?

[00:13:45] Yeah.

[00:13:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:13:47] He doesn't care.

[00:13:48] So, you know, you're staring down a $5,000 bill for the dog.

[00:13:52] You're going to get the surgery, right?

[00:13:54] Well, yeah, right.

[00:13:56] Have to get the surgery.

[00:13:57] So he's got three girls.

[00:13:59] I fully understood.

[00:14:00] And a wife.

[00:14:01] So this is where my, this is, this is so awful.

[00:14:05] This is where I changed.

[00:14:07] This is where I changed my thought process.

[00:14:09] When we take the dog to boarding, when we travel,

[00:14:13] they have the little box that says,

[00:14:15] how much would you like to spend should your pet need surgery or...

[00:14:20] That's actually right genius.

[00:14:22] Right.

[00:14:22] And it's like, and they don't even give you a box to check.

[00:14:26] You have to write a number.

[00:14:28] So as I'm writing the number, like, well, is $5,000?

[00:14:32] Like, is it like, how much am I willing to spend?

[00:14:35] And I feel bad for like an hour.

[00:14:38] No, you're so torched.

[00:14:39] Yeah, it's a compassion quiz.

[00:14:41] It really is.

[00:14:42] It is.

[00:14:43] My father, he, one of his jobs outside of Heekrad,

[00:14:48] he went, he was in the late fifties, early sixties.

[00:14:51] So the speed early sixties, he went and worked for a vet.

[00:14:55] And it was a bit back then it was a bit on how much money

[00:14:58] did I have?

[00:15:00] You know, how much money do, how much, how,

[00:15:02] how important is this pet to them?

[00:15:05] Right.

[00:15:05] Yeah.

[00:15:06] Yeah.

[00:15:07] It's really, it's really, he was really jaded.

[00:15:09] My dad was really jaded with that stuff.

[00:15:11] So I, so yeah, I got a little of that and I have two pits.

[00:15:16] I have to put pit bulls and they're almost indestructible.

[00:15:20] Like these dogs have eaten a remote control.

[00:15:23] They've eaten an entire polyvibroprofen.

[00:15:25] They've eaten batteries.

[00:15:27] Like, I'm not really like we're not going to have to,

[00:15:30] there won't be a big discussion at the pet.

[00:15:33] No, no, we're good.

[00:15:35] No, I'm just thinking guys, do you remember,

[00:15:37] do you remember a thing called radio?

[00:15:39] Like if this was a live show, think about it.

[00:15:41] Are lines be burned?

[00:15:43] Oh my God, the lines would be lit up.

[00:15:45] You can't do animal eaters.

[00:15:47] Can't people alone?

[00:15:49] The SPCA would be involved?

[00:15:51] No, it's just.

[00:15:51] Yeah, I'm feeling a little judged right now.

[00:15:53] I'm feeling sorry about that.

[00:15:55] I've had insurance guys.

[00:15:57] But it's just, and then we had a story this week.

[00:16:00] It was about pet bereavement.

[00:16:02] People having the benefit of taking time off

[00:16:05] because your pet has passed.

[00:16:07] Oh, right.

[00:16:07] What determines a pet?

[00:16:08] Is it cat dog or is it a gerbil and fish?

[00:16:11] His had almost exploded when I brought the story to him

[00:16:14] because he's like, really, you're going to take off

[00:16:16] of work because your goldfish died?

[00:16:21] It's usually probably not goldfish.

[00:16:22] It's probably a pet that they've had for a long time

[00:16:24] and it's a thing.

[00:16:26] I'm going to bring you two back to Earthreal.

[00:16:30] I'm going to bring it up.

[00:16:34] It speaks to the way things have changed, right?

[00:16:37] Nobody was having this conversation.

[00:16:40] And now we've got things like weight loss benefits.

[00:16:46] We've got things like legal benefits.

[00:16:48] We've got things like menopausal benefits.

[00:16:51] We've got all this great voice out there.

[00:16:55] I think Shurm, who's the society for human resource management,

[00:16:59] I just saw their study in this area and there's like 216 things

[00:17:03] they're tracking their employee benefits.

[00:17:06] And when you think about kind of your average worker, right?

[00:17:10] Half of the American workforce is going to wrestle

[00:17:12] to come up with 500 bucks in an emergency

[00:17:15] and you're giving them health.

[00:17:17] You're giving them 401k match.

[00:17:20] You're giving them time off.

[00:17:22] You're asking them to choose between vision

[00:17:25] and dental and student loan repayment and tuition assistance.

[00:17:29] Like you've got this basket of choices.

[00:17:31] So I think another macro trend is in all of our complexity

[00:17:37] are we really making the employment condition better

[00:17:40] for our employees?

[00:17:42] Are we making the right choices for what they actually want

[00:17:44] and need and we can really help employers do something.

[00:17:48] I've done this bit for years around user adoption

[00:17:51] software, HR software in particular.

[00:17:53] And I start off by saying listen software companies

[00:17:57] will have you believe that they have a lot of benefits.

[00:18:01] The features that they have, et cetera.

[00:18:05] But a benefit isn't a benefit unless you use it.

[00:18:08] Then it crosses over into becoming an actual benefit.

[00:18:12] Before that it's an option.

[00:18:14] It's a feature.

[00:18:15] It's something that's there but it's not a benefit

[00:18:17] until you consume it.

[00:18:18] So consumption, usage, adoption, et cetera.

[00:18:21] But I had a very specific question for you.

[00:18:25] Around GLP ones.

[00:18:27] So I've been tracking this because of all the medicines

[00:18:31] but I've been tracking it from the insurance carrier

[00:18:33] perspective on what they're willing to fund and not fund

[00:18:38] as it relates to GLP one.

[00:18:42] So do you have any insight?

[00:18:44] Do you see anything there?

[00:18:46] I see, I'm guessing I'm seeing the same thing

[00:18:49] that you're seeing, which is a lot of indecision.

[00:18:53] Yes.

[00:18:54] A tsunami level trend coming at them.

[00:18:57] Oh yeah.

[00:18:58] An expensive product.

[00:19:01] One that's seen maybe as a panacea for problems.

[00:19:07] Yeah.

[00:19:08] And I don't, I'd like to tell you I see a concrete

[00:19:12] direction on it.

[00:19:14] I don't yet.

[00:19:14] I see a lot of people hovering and looking for signals

[00:19:18] from the market on which we are.

[00:19:21] We're not there yet, in my opinion, based on what you're seeing.

[00:19:23] Yeah, I've got the same take.

[00:19:25] I think it's if done well, it could be marketed as a retention

[00:19:31] and a recruiting tool.

[00:19:33] If done well, it's like, no, we're going to make the bet

[00:19:36] that you want to zimp pick or any of the folks

[00:19:39] that fall into the category.

[00:19:41] And you know what?

[00:19:42] Hey, cool.

[00:19:42] No judgment.

[00:19:44] Here's the deal.

[00:19:44] We've got it covered.

[00:19:45] We've got you covered.

[00:19:46] Now, if it's marketed well to the employee base, why would I leave?

[00:19:51] If it's marketed well to candidates and it's a coin flip

[00:19:56] of a job, I'm taking a job.

[00:19:59] So here's something that is an adjunct to that for me is

[00:20:06] who's your population and what is the experience

[00:20:09] of your population?

[00:20:10] Good point.

[00:20:10] What's going to matter to that population?

[00:20:12] This in some companies may absolutely be worth it.

[00:20:16] You may be able to draw a straight line to the ROI.

[00:20:19] Right, right, right.

[00:20:20] Whereas I'll bring up the menopausal one again.

[00:20:23] It's 10% of the workforce or menopausal age women.

[00:20:27] And you may be much better off to offer menopausal leave

[00:20:31] or menopausal support as depending on who you are

[00:20:36] as a company, what you believe in,

[00:20:38] what your population wants and needs.

[00:20:40] So it's understanding that your employee population is shifting.

[00:20:44] Yes.

[00:20:44] So surveying them, figuring out what's important to them,

[00:20:47] making sure that you're not giving them stuff that's great.

[00:20:51] That's cool.

[00:20:52] But it's not stuff that they're going to consume or use.

[00:20:55] Yeah, and if I may, you know, it's a guess no newsflash

[00:21:00] or five generations in the workforce.

[00:21:02] Yeah.

[00:21:02] So what do you do about that?

[00:21:04] How do you play through all that?

[00:21:06] Oh my goodness.

[00:21:09] Bad touching, harassment, sex, violence, fraud, threats,

[00:21:15] all things that could have been avoided.

[00:21:19] If you had pharma, stop hiring dangerous people.

[00:21:26] pharma.io

[00:21:36] No.

[00:21:37] Yes, you have the Vodafone Gigadepot.

[00:21:39] Oh, that's right.

[00:21:40] And I have it in my hand how big my depot is.

[00:21:43] Now with the Vodafone Gigadepot

[00:21:45] and use the data volume in the next month.

[00:21:47] Go on in the reliable 5G-net from Vodafone.

[00:21:51] Vodafone, together we can.

[00:22:06] Use it.

[00:22:07] And then how to, so then, so then the next level to that,

[00:22:13] how does an employer decide what are the extra benefits?

[00:22:18] And I have my view on it.

[00:22:21] I feel like there's just three people sitting in a room

[00:22:23] and they're saying, well, these look really good

[00:22:26] and they're choosing off of a menu, right?

[00:22:28] A, B and C.

[00:22:30] First of all, they're brokers helping them through some of this.

[00:22:34] Yeah, yeah.

[00:22:34] But I mean, does an organization or do you see,

[00:22:38] I should say not does, are you seeing organizations

[00:22:41] at the highest levels that have programs

[00:22:44] where employees actually appreciate it

[00:22:47] and it's known that they have a really good program

[00:22:50] that they offer?

[00:22:51] How are they doing this?

[00:22:53] How are they surveying the employee population?

[00:22:56] Are they taking that?

[00:22:57] Or are they just making decisions based off

[00:22:59] what brokers are seeing across competitors

[00:23:01] and things like that?

[00:23:02] Because this is a recording tool.

[00:23:04] This is absolutely a recording tool.

[00:23:06] It can be.

[00:23:07] Yeah.

[00:23:07] One thing I'd say probably in the both the employer

[00:23:11] and brokers defenses,

[00:23:13] I've sat across hundreds of clients wrestling with these decisions.

[00:23:18] Can't have it all.

[00:23:20] Can't have it all.

[00:23:21] They can't have it all,

[00:23:22] but invariably their hearts are in the right place.

[00:23:25] Right.

[00:23:25] With whatever they have,

[00:23:27] they want to do the best possible thing

[00:23:28] they can for their employees.

[00:23:31] Like I do see a genuineness of spirit on these decisions

[00:23:34] that may not be obvious to anyone.

[00:23:36] Now, are they restricted on budgets?

[00:23:39] Have they got scarcity issues?

[00:23:40] For sure.

[00:23:41] But they're trying to do the best they can.

[00:23:43] What the brokers role in that is,

[00:23:45] is to guide them through that scarcity.

[00:23:47] So here's an example of a trade-off.

[00:23:50] A trade-off might be, man,

[00:23:52] like our poor health based on our experience last year,

[00:23:56] those premiums are going to go up seven or 8%.

[00:23:59] And there's like nothing in your benefit portfolio

[00:24:01] that's going to cost you as much as that.

[00:24:04] Right.

[00:24:04] So if I want to keep my employee contributions level,

[00:24:07] I might have to forsake some things at the edge,

[00:24:10] which are nice and interesting,

[00:24:12] dare I say pet insurance or whatever it is.

[00:24:14] Maybe I'm going to give up on that

[00:24:16] to keep core health stable.

[00:24:19] I think the more enlightened employers

[00:24:22] are doing a lot to understand the correlation

[00:24:27] between benefit consumption and employee retention.

[00:24:31] I think the more enlightened ones are trying to figure out

[00:24:33] the connection between benefit consumption

[00:24:36] and employee performance.

[00:24:38] But at the very heart,

[00:24:41] I think all of them are trying to balance this.

[00:24:43] What's the best mix?

[00:24:45] Here's one quick example of something on this tangent.

[00:24:49] So there's one of the wellness apps

[00:24:53] that we had at a former employer of mine.

[00:24:57] And they came in after we had had them for a year,

[00:25:00] and they could draw a straight line.

[00:25:01] We had three populations.

[00:25:03] There was the population that didn't open the thing ever.

[00:25:06] There was the population that opened it, signed up,

[00:25:09] maybe did a quiz and got out of it.

[00:25:11] And then there was the population that opened it,

[00:25:13] used it, were religious about it.

[00:25:15] And guess what the health experience was

[00:25:17] of those three different populations.

[00:25:20] So their pitch to us was,

[00:25:22] you need to go all in on this app

[00:25:24] because it is much better

[00:25:27] and your people are much healthier if they engage in that.

[00:25:30] Now what's causation? What's co-intest?

[00:25:32] What's correlation? I'm not sure.

[00:25:34] But it's an example of what we see all the time

[00:25:37] on these trade-offs of employers want to offer benefits

[00:25:40] that are relevant.

[00:25:42] Sometimes we do see a spray and pray approach of,

[00:25:45] I'm going to offer a bunch of stuff and see what's going on.

[00:25:48] What's the importance of communications in this process?

[00:25:52] Because if we're surveying the audience,

[00:25:54] i.e. the employee population,

[00:25:56] we have an idea, we got to make that tough trade-off of,

[00:25:59] okay, rates, I'm pretty sure insurance rates in my,

[00:26:02] at least in my history,

[00:26:03] I don't think they've ever gone down.

[00:26:05] That might be wrong about it.

[00:26:07] They might have been flat.

[00:26:09] Flat is the new down.

[00:26:11] Okay.

[00:26:13] But they might not understand,

[00:26:14] listen, you have an 80% contribution

[00:26:16] or if you have 100% contribution from the company,

[00:26:20] we can take that down to 80.

[00:26:22] Here's how that impacts you.

[00:26:23] And we can have these other things.

[00:26:25] Or we can keep it at 100%.

[00:26:27] I'm just using basic numbers.

[00:26:29] But we're going to have to get rid of some of the other stuff.

[00:26:31] Like that, to me, that's a comms-related issue

[00:26:37] where once the decisions have been made

[00:26:40] and the hard decisions have been made,

[00:26:43] somebody's got to communicate this down to the employees

[00:26:46] so they understand what's changing

[00:26:48] and they don't wake up in a new year or-

[00:26:51] And it's not just an email.

[00:26:52] Right.

[00:26:53] Right.

[00:26:54] Yes.

[00:26:55] And communications and benefit programs

[00:26:57] go so closely together.

[00:26:59] It's complicated.

[00:27:01] Yeah.

[00:27:01] And it's hard and people want to know what the changes are.

[00:27:04] You asked earlier, Ryan, about asking,

[00:27:07] do you ask your employees about what they want?

[00:27:12] Do it, but only if you're going to listen.

[00:27:15] If you're going to take the approach of work,

[00:27:17] sure that's great, they want this,

[00:27:19] but we're going to do that.

[00:27:21] Yeah.

[00:27:22] That just creates frustration.

[00:27:24] It does.

[00:27:26] Since you say that, Jeff,

[00:27:27] because I've been in rooms and discussions where,

[00:27:32] again, everybody means well in the room.

[00:27:34] They want to make the right decision,

[00:27:36] but there's always that person

[00:27:38] that influences the others that says,

[00:27:41] let's ask.

[00:27:43] They don't really know what we do.

[00:27:46] We could just say, this is what the survey said,

[00:27:49] and that's how we made our decision.

[00:27:51] There's always that person, and I think that fear,

[00:27:54] let's say fear,

[00:27:55] that's maybe because it's just my jadedness,

[00:27:58] how the employee population potentially feels

[00:28:01] or feels that the decision has been made.

[00:28:03] You asked me, but you really didn't listen.

[00:28:06] So I think you're making a good point.

[00:28:08] Or they asked, they listened,

[00:28:11] and they didn't make that decision,

[00:28:13] but they could communicate and close the loop.

[00:28:15] Or they asked an unsolvable question.

[00:28:19] So do you want more of this or that?

[00:28:22] Well, of course I do.

[00:28:23] Yeah.

[00:28:23] It asks them to make the trade-off decisions

[00:28:26] associated with that.

[00:28:27] Can't have either.

[00:28:28] I'm a lot more of that.

[00:28:29] I love that.

[00:28:30] I think there's a bunch of kind of situational

[00:28:33] and scenario-based things that we can teach employees

[00:28:36] to where they understand that this is a game of trade-offs.

[00:28:39] Yes.

[00:28:40] But you know, okay, we can do 100% of your health benefits,

[00:28:44] the employee,

[00:28:45] and we can do 100% of your family's health benefits.

[00:28:47] Right.

[00:28:48] If we do that, there's nothing else.

[00:28:52] There's literally nothing, retirement, nothing else.

[00:28:56] So do you want to make that decision now

[00:28:58] to somebody that's got kids?

[00:29:01] Yeah, they probably would make a different decision

[00:29:03] than somebody that's just entering the workforce

[00:29:05] that doesn't have kids.

[00:29:09] You know what you should know?

[00:29:11] You should know that you should know podcasts.

[00:29:14] That's what you should know.

[00:29:16] Because then you'd be in the know

[00:29:17] on all things that are timely and topical.

[00:29:20] Subscribe to the You Should Know podcast.

[00:29:23] Thanks.

[00:29:24] You know, it's funny.

[00:29:25] One of the things we've done at AppDeo,

[00:29:28] we carved out a merger.

[00:29:29] So we were the benefit administration entity inside Mercer,

[00:29:33] which is a subsidiary of Martian Clim.

[00:29:35] Right.

[00:29:36] And when we carved this company out,

[00:29:38] one of the promises we made to ourselves

[00:29:40] and to our employees was that everyone would be a shareholder.

[00:29:44] And we made that come true last month.

[00:29:47] We told everybody what shares they were going to get.

[00:29:50] And now, so what we're trying to do with that

[00:29:53] is to have employees think that way

[00:29:55] when they're helping us with ideas on what to do with problems

[00:29:59] like this, your owner that comes with some rights

[00:30:02] but also comes with some responsibilities of helping us trade

[00:30:06] off what the right things are.

[00:30:08] And what I found on this is if you ask,

[00:30:13] if you respect, if you're transparent,

[00:30:16] if you're genuine, if you explain your way through it,

[00:30:19] generally it usually works out better

[00:30:21] than if you dress it up in a bunch of corporate gobbledygook

[00:30:24] around why you can't do this or that or the other.

[00:30:26] Ryan, do you have something?

[00:30:27] Go ahead.

[00:30:27] No, I don't get that.

[00:30:28] How often should they be, because at least as I remember it,

[00:30:33] people either do it on the calendar year

[00:30:35] or they do it mid-year somewhere in that process.

[00:30:39] So how often should they be looking at usage and consumption

[00:30:45] so that they understand that?

[00:30:46] We'll get away from the asking employees part.

[00:30:49] Now let's get into, we're looking at the system.

[00:30:51] You know what they're consuming.

[00:30:53] This, as a technology, you know what's being consumed

[00:30:57] and what's not being consumed.

[00:30:58] How often should they be looking at that?

[00:31:01] Yeah, I think there's some biorethms to this industry.

[00:31:05] I think it starts, the super bowl of this thing

[00:31:08] is open enrollment.

[00:31:09] So the period sometime in the sometime between mid-October

[00:31:14] and December 1st where everybody enrolls

[00:31:18] and your benefits get set on January 1st by and large

[00:31:22] and that's the kind of cycle of the business.

[00:31:24] Then you've gone live in January.

[00:31:27] Hopefully you've gone live smoothly.

[00:31:29] Nobody's standing at CVS, not being able to get their insulin

[00:31:32] or that's it.

[00:31:33] You've done all that eligibility and coverage

[00:31:35] and that's all working.

[00:31:38] And then as an employer, you know, you're debriefing.

[00:31:40] How did that enrollment go?

[00:31:42] What have we learned?

[00:31:43] What did our employees think of it?

[00:31:45] So you're doing that kind of in the springtime.

[00:31:46] Then in the summertime, you're getting into what do we want to do next year?

[00:31:51] What are our planned design choices?

[00:31:53] What was our experience last year?

[00:31:55] How does it influence our cost structure?

[00:31:57] What do our employees say if we're going to ask them?

[00:32:00] And then you get into the actual programming and design

[00:32:03] late in the summer or late in the fall

[00:32:05] to go with open enrollment again.

[00:32:08] That's kind of the general nature of the way this industry

[00:32:12] kind of moves from you.

[00:32:13] Yeah, I didn't ask but go ahead, Russ.

[00:32:14] No, but finish up that and I'll say I might be going backwards a little bit.

[00:32:19] No, this is completely different.

[00:32:20] Do we discuss you're within the four walls of the United States?

[00:32:25] Are you in Canada or do you work for it?

[00:32:27] Yeah, we're in the United States.

[00:32:31] Yeah, okay.

[00:32:32] I did mention that Canadian part.

[00:32:34] I'm pretty impressed.

[00:32:36] I feel like that should be opposite.

[00:32:38] Most people want to be born in America but raise Canadian.

[00:32:42] 100%.

[00:32:42] I believe in November there's going to be an influx.

[00:32:48] I love the influx.

[00:32:50] Yeah, you may have a whole lot of Americans up your way.

[00:32:56] Well, you're in Boston, I guess.

[00:32:57] So that's it.

[00:32:59] Alright, so question I had.

[00:33:00] This might be going backwards a little bit

[00:33:02] but I wanted to ask it because

[00:33:06] people who are listening in today to this show,

[00:33:10] they're going through an issue.

[00:33:11] Otherwise they wouldn't be listening to this specific topic.

[00:33:14] It's not something that I wake up today and I say I want to talk about administration.

[00:33:19] So somebody that's having trouble now designing a program

[00:33:24] or understanding what to offer, etc.

[00:33:28] Consumption models like we were just talking about,

[00:33:31] what is your recommendation?

[00:33:32] How do they go about beginning to design

[00:33:36] or overhauling I should say because at that level

[00:33:39] they've already got something overhauling what they already have

[00:33:44] so that it is better consumed.

[00:33:47] I think it probably starts with a frank discussion

[00:33:53] among the leadership of the entity,

[00:33:57] of who you are and what you want to be to your employees

[00:34:00] and what degree of investment does that look like?

[00:34:04] I think it starts kind of with the culture piece.

[00:34:09] How you think about your employees,

[00:34:11] how you value that stuff

[00:34:13] because I think employees recognize when it comes out the other end

[00:34:18] and you're not being congruent to that.

[00:34:20] So I would say start there.

[00:34:22] I'd say the next piece is and you can do that yourself

[00:34:26] as an employer.

[00:34:27] There's lots of great broker partners out there.

[00:34:30] There's good association work and there's people like us

[00:34:32] that can get you really grounded in the data.

[00:34:35] What is happening experientially?

[00:34:38] How healthy is your population?

[00:34:40] How well saved is your population?

[00:34:42] What's your turnover look like?

[00:34:44] What's your health experience look like?

[00:34:47] What's your drug consumption look like?

[00:34:49] You've got to kind of play with all of that

[00:34:51] and figure out what's working and what's not

[00:34:55] and then balance all of that with inflation

[00:34:59] because you're going to experience some cost increases

[00:35:03] from year to year and partner with your broker

[00:35:08] and with someone like us to help you ideate

[00:35:11] and think through those choices.

[00:35:14] And again, asking employees is a great idea.

[00:35:17] Listening to some of the best work going on

[00:35:19] at places like Shurm to pick one.

[00:35:22] There's just such a wealth of information out there

[00:35:27] about what direction employers are taking

[00:35:30] on some of these things.

[00:35:32] You don't have to be on an island on your own on this stuff.

[00:35:34] There's lots of readily available information.

[00:35:38] I'd say get started early.

[00:35:40] So if you're thinking about substantive changes,

[00:35:44] as soon as your enrollment season is over,

[00:35:45] as soon as you're sure your population is set in January,

[00:35:49] start investigating what's going on in the market.

[00:35:51] Get really well informed.

[00:35:53] Rely on your supply chain to help.

[00:35:55] That's what we're here for.

[00:35:56] And we can help you make really, really good choices.

[00:36:01] Two questions to take in any order that you like.

[00:36:05] One is if you could script buying questions.

[00:36:08] So for someone that's in the market trying to figure out

[00:36:12] if you're the right technology platform for them,

[00:36:15] what should they be asking?

[00:36:17] And then the second question is your favorite part of the demo.

[00:36:21] When you get to show people software

[00:36:23] and you can't feel like there's an aha moment.

[00:36:26] You just can't wait to get to the aha moment.

[00:36:29] What is that for you?

[00:36:31] In any order that you like.

[00:36:33] Yeah, you know it's funny.

[00:36:36] And I don't know if all...

[00:36:38] First off, it's tough for me to keep two questions straight.

[00:36:41] But I think in this case I can actually answer both of them

[00:36:45] in the same way and it may not be exactly what you're asking

[00:36:47] so we can go at it again if it's not.

[00:36:49] But we genuinely believe

[00:36:51] that we're the best service provider in America.

[00:36:54] We believe that we set a standard in our service levels,

[00:36:59] in our care for employees, in our responsiveness,

[00:37:02] in our access to humans, in our net promoter scores,

[00:37:06] customer satisfaction scores, in our call centers.

[00:37:09] Like we think we're really, really great at that.

[00:37:12] We're also a pretty new company

[00:37:14] and we're also trying to bring that alive at Point of Sale

[00:37:17] which is probably a bit of the challenge for us, right?

[00:37:20] Because we've been this really well kept secret inside Mercer

[00:37:24] or Vala or a Carval, we're an independent company.

[00:37:27] I've got wall to wall, green SLA, green SLAs.

[00:37:32] You know and how do I convince clients of that

[00:37:36] when who is the last company you know that said

[00:37:38] hey, we offer a pretty crappy service,

[00:37:41] you should go with someone else.

[00:37:42] So everybody claims it.

[00:37:44] I genuinely believe it's true.

[00:37:46] I mean if you guys have any advice on that for me

[00:37:48] on proof sources, I'm all ears for it.

[00:37:51] But the point of the demo where I get the most excited

[00:37:54] is when the customer basically understands

[00:37:58] we have the enrollment and eligibility systems.

[00:38:01] We've got the decision support tools,

[00:38:04] we've got the summaries, we've got the navigation pieces

[00:38:07] and they want to talk about the difference

[00:38:09] we can make in the services part of the tech-enabled services

[00:38:13] because I think we can all do a pretty good demo

[00:38:15] but I think I'll put our people and our capabilities

[00:38:20] and our service levels up against anybody and be incredible.

[00:38:24] Final question on my side

[00:38:26] and I'm going to steal your questions here

[00:38:29] but Jeff, what are the questions that potential clients,

[00:38:34] prospects are not asking that they should be asking?

[00:38:38] I think it varies a little bit by segment Ryan.

[00:38:44] I would say that I think that clients,

[00:38:48] what we experience is sometimes it's pretty hard

[00:38:51] to compare what the cost of ownership is between solutions.

[00:38:55] I'll give you some examples, right?

[00:38:57] Like there may be a base charge

[00:38:59] or paying per employee per month.

[00:39:02] Now does that include administration of Cobra

[00:39:05] for your employees that are leaving?

[00:39:08] Does that include spending accounts?

[00:39:10] Does that include caps on the call center?

[00:39:13] Does that include enrollment?

[00:39:14] Does that include communication?

[00:39:15] I think that it's hard for a client

[00:39:19] if they don't have a really strong broker

[00:39:21] kind of helping them sort this out

[00:39:23] understand what it's really going to cost

[00:39:25] to do this and then what's included in that bundle.

[00:39:30] And I'd say the other thing is that

[00:39:34] again in the spirit of approving ourselves

[00:39:36] the question I'd like to hear more is

[00:39:38] put your money where your mouth is

[00:39:40] on the risk-reward relationship.

[00:39:42] So we'll set a price

[00:39:43] or we'll take some of those fees of risk.

[00:39:46] If you're willing to take a bet on us

[00:39:48] we'll make a bet on ourselves that we can deliver.

[00:39:51] So I'd like to hear more discussion on that

[00:39:55] because I feel like we have unique strength

[00:39:58] and courage on that that we're prepared to bring to our clients.

[00:40:02] Last thing, we talked the size of company

[00:40:05] but we've got geography generally.

[00:40:07] We can talk about industries.

[00:40:09] Is there any particular industries

[00:40:11] that y'all are targeting or you're going after or whatever?

[00:40:16] I think that we're open for business across all industries.

[00:40:21] We do see the unlike maybe some types of

[00:40:25] human capital management product lines

[00:40:27] or other types of services product lines.

[00:40:31] We see pretty homogeneous buying behavior

[00:40:36] and use cases across industries.

[00:40:39] Now a retail environment may have different benefit needs

[00:40:43] than a professional services environment

[00:40:45] but we see the general usage and consumption of that

[00:40:49] as it faces us to be pretty similar.

[00:40:53] Love it.

[00:40:54] Brother, we could talk to you for hours.

[00:40:56] So thank you for carving out time for us and our audience.

[00:41:00] Love what you're doing.

[00:41:01] Absolutely love what you're doing

[00:41:02] and thank you again for your time.