Flex still works
Article Abstract:
United Hospitals, Inc, a health care system in the Philadelphia, PA-area, initiated a flexible benefits program in order to contain the costs of employees' health benefits and realized substantial savings. The program did not require employees to spend more money, and employees were allowed to share in the savings in the form of cash benefits. The firm realized that employers deciding what is the best coverage for employees was obsolete, and shifted the responsibility for choosing the benefit package to the employees themselves. The employees were required to decide what was important to themselves and their families, read the literature on benefits, and speak to representatives of vendors in order to tailor their own package. The benefit to the firm was decreased costs and the ability to better forecast costs, thus enhancing the firm's ability to control future costs.
Publication Name: Personnel Journal
Subject: Human resources and labor relations
ISSN: 0031-5745
Year: 1990
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Keep competitive: cultivate employee ideas
Article Abstract:
United Hospitals Inc has improved performance throughout its organization by fostering a spirit of entrepreneurship among its employees. Ways to motivate employees to accept and implement change include: asking employees for their ideas to improve service, accepting that competition can be healthy and that employees enjoy competition, and understanding that risk taking is an essential part of improving performance. Executives at United Hospitals used four strategies to create an entrepreneurial climate: holding seminars that stimulated communication between management and the rank and file workers, holding training seminars that encouraged workers to think and act as though they owned their departments, giving risk takers the freedom to fail without fear of being punished, and increasing productivity by decreasing downtime.
Publication Name: Personnel Journal
Subject: Human resources and labor relations
ISSN: 0031-5745
Year: 1988
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United Hospitals makes flex fly
Article Abstract:
Increasing health costs forced United Hospitals Inc (UHI) to develop a new flexible benefits program in Feb 1988 which enables employees to select the health benefits which meet their needs. Although the program is forecasted to save UHI $2.5 million in 1989-1990, the company conducted an education and public relations campaign because the new flexible benefits program requires employees to pay for benefits that were paid by the company in the past. Steps UHI took in the campaign included: encouraging employees to discuss the flexible benefits program and offer suggestions; helping employees to become informed consumers; and helping employees to understand how the new program gives them more health care options.
Publication Name: Personnel Journal
Subject: Human resources and labor relations
ISSN: 0031-5745
Year: 1989
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