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Fran Melmed

Fran Melmed is an award-winning HR communications consultant specializing in workplace wellness and health care consumerism. Prior to founding context communication consulting llc context communication, Fran worked at Hewitt Associates in their Talent and Organizational Change and Communication practices in the U.S. and U.K. Contact her at fran@contextcommunication.com, and follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/femelmed.

Articles by Fran Melmed

Benefits

Regular People Return as Most Credible Trusted Sources, Study Finds

trustyourheartsample

Regular employees and “people like me” are once again among our top three most trusted, credible sources, according to the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer.

They’re back in the limelight after fading away last year, somehow losing ground to CEOs. But this year, things look much as they did in 2004, when regular folk vaulted to the top of the heap of credible spokespeople.

In health communication, the Regular Joe or Jane has continuously held a starring role. While we defer to medical professionals for information about health treatment, Susannah Fox of the Pew Internet & American Life Project has written that we look to people in our shoes — people like me — for emotional support and empathy, encouragement and care. This is particularly true for those who are living with a chronic condition, are acting as caregiver, or have experienced a medical crisis. It’s also true for those who have gained weight, had a pregnancy, or quit smoking. Read more…

Benefits, HR News & Trends

New Study Shows Why Workers (and Employers) Really Need Lab Tests

Lab tests

Quest Diagnostics is the leading provider of diagnostic testing, information and services. Recently, Quest conducted a study to answer the question many employers and employees ask: Why do we need lab tests?

“As a physician,” explained Harvey Kaufman, M.D., one of three study authors and senior corporate medical director at Quest, “I come across employees who say, ‘I’m great, I’m healthy, haven’t seen a doctor in 10 years.’ I say great, but you don’t really know what’s going on in your body. The only way to find out is to get tested.” Read more…

Benefits, HR News & Trends

IBM’s Eat-to-Earn System Rewards Employees For Eating Right

Employee wellness

Around the same time you were pondering a resolution to eat better in the new year, IBM was patenting an idea that might make that easier.

Long known for their incentive and technology-based approach to improving employees’ health as well as a value-based benefit approach to health care, IBM has developed a solution that guides people to better food choices based on their personal health, and then rewards them when they “do the right thing.”

An NBC Bay Area article summarizes how the system works: Read more…

Benefits

How Are You Handling Smoking Cessation in Your Workplace?

© dundanim - Fotolia.com

This being the month of the Great American Smokeout, I’m focused on tobacco cessation.

The bottom line seems to be this: the public supports tobacco-free spaces. Employers are more routinely supporting tougher tactics. People want to quit. Governments are trying to figure out where to step in. And tobacco companies still have a tight hold on anti-tobacco efforts.

The numbers of tobacco users has flatlined, but people who are using tobacco aren’t able to quit. They quit and relapse. Even those with a greater chance of staying tobacco-free, have a very low success rate.

Basically, we’re semi-stuck. Read more…

HR News & Trends, Talent Management

5 Assumptions About Work-Life Flexibility That Are Absolutely Wrong

workflex_ready

Employers may not know as much about work-life flexibility as they think, according to a report from the Families and Work Institute and the Society for Human Resource Management.

This study, Workplace Flexibility in the United States: A Status Report, bashes five assumptions squarely on their noggin.

Assumption #1: Employees who have flexibility will take advantage of it.

Reality: Of those who can make short-notice schedule changes, 70 percent do so once a month or less. There’s no difference in use between low-wage earners and higher-paid professionals. Read more…

Benefits, HR News & Trends

Does Walmart’s Benefits Reversal Signal the Future of Health Care Benefits?

walmart11

Walmart reversed an earlier decision last week and announced it would no longer cover spouses or provide health benefits to future part-time employees.

At the same time, the news coverage reported that Walmart will apply a tobacco surcharge and reduce its funding of employees’ health savings accounts. These accounts are coupled with high-deductible health plans and help employees cover some of their out-of-pocket expenses.

Walmart’s decision got a lot of press, but as The New York Times and some other articles noted, what Walmart’s doing is not atypical. I pulled a few charts from the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Employer Health Benefits 2011 annual survey to prove the point. As this chart shows below, employers frequently don’t offer part-time workers health benefits. Read more…

Benefits, HR News & Trends

Study Digs Into Business Investment and The ROI of Healthy Employees

© Mahesh Patil - Fotolia.com

We know employers want employees and their families to make healthier choices. We now know that as employees and consumers we want businesses to do more to help us.

That’s one of the key findings from the Edelman Health Barometer 2011, a global study on health behaviors and attitudes. Edelman hosted a sneak preview for roughly a dozen health bloggers last week, of which I was one.

It’s this symbiotic health relationship between business and individual, as employee and consumer, that will be of the utmost interest to employers. (They should also look at the data about what motivates us to make healthy changes.) Read more…

Benefits

8 Principles For Communicating to Employees About Open Enrollment

Openenrollment1

Annual enrollment can be a crazy time, particularly if you come to the planning process late.

When advising clients, here are the 8 guiding principles I recommend for annual enrollment communications. These, tequila (vast quantities of tequila), and an aerobed usually do the trick.

  1. Combine your expertise with employees’ needs. Don’t shy away from providing direction. Use your expertise to identify what questions employees need to answer and where they may fall short. Then guide employees to the right plan with interactive tools that prompt and direct decision making. Read more…
Benefits, HR Management

Your Company’s Wellness Message: It Pays to Not Try and Spin Employees

Employee wellness

When it comes to communicating about workplace wellness, there’s some debate about what the company’s message should be.

Some say a company should never mention costs. The messaging should focus instead on family, retirement dreams, being around to see the grand kids. “XYZ company offers health benefits to help you reach your dream — whatever that dream is.” Sound familiar?

The logic is that employees aren’t really interested in their company’s costs. Plus, they can avoid potential accusations of ulterior motives.

Frankly, this logic falls flat for me and presents a few inherent problems. Read more…

Benefits

Do Benefits Have an Impact on Employee Loyalty?

Benefits

Last month, CoHealth welcomed Ron Leopold, MetLife’s vice president, U.S. business, to our monthly tweet chat. We discussed MetLife’s 9th Annual Study of Employee Benefits Trends and the future of employer-provided health coverage (see recap) and left quite a few unanswered questions. Ron graciously answered many of the questions from our CoHealth community.

Question: Do benefits have an impact on employee loyalty today?

Ron Leopold: Every year the MetLife Study of Employee Benefits Trends reinforces the fact that there’s a strong correlation between benefits satisfaction and employee loyalty. The most recent study showed that employees who are satisfied with their benefits are three times as likely to express a strong sense of loyalty to their employers. Read more…