In our NOW normal, be a partner to partners
"We’re at an unprecedented time where there's a sense of collaboration and not competition," said Jessica Brooks of Pittsburgh BGH.
“I’m spending so much less time in a car,” marveled the Nielsen Benefits group vice president of employee benefits and technology. ”I can’t tell you how many times I’m driving or flying from one location to another just last year alone, and the time lost in connecting with employees and clients and bringing strategy just because you’re in a plane or in a car is exponential. Now I can log off one meeting and go directly into another, or take that walk and be able to think for a moment.”
Ligonde was one of three panelists for “The NOW Normal: The Broker and Employer View,” a BenefitsPRO Broker Expo session that focused on the necessary adaptation it takes to move forward in these changed times. Hosted by Sharon Tiger, head of business development and sales at Geospark Analytics, the session also featured Pittsburgh Business Group on Health CEO Jessica Brooks and Eric Silverman of Voluntary Disruption.
Related: Creating an employee communication strategy for COVID-19–and beyond
For Brooks, the pandemic meant opportunities for meaningful connection. “Because we needed to be in the business of COVID as well as navigating it ourselves as an organization, we needed to understand more day-to-day of what they were dealing with, to be more informed and be able to serve them. That puts a lot of pressure on a team to be humans dealing with a pandemic themselves, their own fears, their own families, and being in the business of serving people and putting them basically before your own needs. As a leader, being very sensitive to the mental well-being of my team so that we can best serve our members has been a skillset that I know I’m better at than I was before. And I’m taking that into the new normal.”
Silverman related his own epiphany. “I’ve had an office for 20+ years and I did not know I could do without. I really don’t see myself going back to an office and spending 40, 50 grand in overhead ever again. It sounds crazy because it’s all virtual, but I feel closer and more connected to my friends and colleagues and clients and prospects than I ever did before. And I believe it’s because people are taking more time to invest in the relationships because it has to be this way.”
Building on a comment from Ligonde about the opportunity “to be a true partner to our clients and not just a broker,” Brooks took that concept of collaboration a step further. “The aim also should be to be a partner to the partners, the other partners at the table. We’re at an unprecedented time where there’s a sense of collaboration and not competition among the various partners. It’s important that we’re on the same page of your mission.”
Silverman agreed. “We can design the absolute most incredible benefits package, but it doesn’t matter if we don’t communicate effectively and we don’t engage properly. If you’re not truly partnering with the group and ensuring that you have the support from the tip top down, you’re not gonna go anywhere.”
Looking to the future, Silverman sees an openness for discovering heretofore unexplored benefit possibilities. “We’re experiencing huge shifts in momentum where people are more interested in disability and even buy-up life and some of the other enhanced benefits than ever before,” he said. “The opportunity has presented itself based on COVID. They just want to know, ‘Hey, I didn’t get this last year, but if I get this now and God forbid I get diagnosed, would I be covered?’ People are more excited to be interested and learn about benefits than they ever have been before, across every demographic.”
Ligonde believes that lifestyle benefits will come to the fore more than ever. “I’ve been so excited to have discussions that aren’t necessarily so insurance-focused and more focused on enhancing the employee experience. Wellness is more than just your physical health, it’s also your mental, it’s also your financial.”
The combination of the pandemic and social unrest over George Floyd has affected how employers view benefits, Brooks said. “We can’t ignore that in how we apply benefits moving forward. We have employers now looking for demographic data and wanting to make sure their partners have strategies in how their benefits interact with the life and well-being of their people.”
Check out more of our Expo coverage: