Founded in 1942, Katz, Sapper & Miller is an Indianapolis-based firm with more than 250 employees serving a range of clients, from small nonprofits to multi-million-dollar corporations.
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Challenge
As a perennial honoree in “Best Places to Work” listings as well as a firm that values progressive employee policies, Katz, Sapper & Miller walks a fine line between maintaining its winning ways and staying ahead of the competition. As health benefit costs have increased, the firm has worked hard to offer options that limit bottom-line impact while still providing value to the firm and its workers. In this effort, Katz, Sapper & Miller faced a number of challenges, including:
- Ongoing health plan cost increases
- Employees satisfied with the current plan
- Ongoing growth and need to compete for and retain top talent
- A need to increase value of benefits to firm and employees
- A need to maintain a “Best Places to Work” reputation
Solution
In the process of updating Katz, Sapper & Miller’s benefit and wellness offerings, FirstPerson focused first on helping employees understand the context for the changes and the value of the plan improvements. Then it designed a plan that could serve both as logical complement and stark contrast to the existing plan. At the same time, FirstPerson helped Katz, Sapper & Miller design incentive programs that would increase participation in wellness and preventive screenings. Key elements of the new plan included:
- Pre-change communications to manage expectations and establish context and value
- Focused communications during change process
- Re-designed health benefits resulting in the elimination of a PPO plan and creation of two distinctly different high-deductible health savings account plans
- Increased wellness emphasis, including an on-site wellness coach
- Increased wellness and screening incentives
Results
The people at Katz, Sapper & Miller say FirstPerson helped to improve on a benefits and wellness plan that already was considered top-notch while preventing the negative backlash that so typically accompanies any benefit changes. Results of this effort included:
- High level of change acceptance
- Increased participation in wellness initiatives and screenings – including an increase in screening participation from approximately 50% to 90%
- A “how can we get even better?” mindset rather than a maintain-status-quo mentality
- Continued presence on “Best Places to Work in Indiana” list