Tangible solutions Green Circle Life provides to HR managers

Based on a clear understanding of the role of HR management, in the form of the SmartFHR™ platform Green Circle Life has developed solutions to many of the issues that HR managers are grappling with. SmartFHR™ is an app that helps HR managers develop and implement an effective year-round communication plan for employees and family members that they can manage on their own SmartFHR™ administration console.

SmartFHR™ modules

SmartFHR™ has three modules that are key to helping HR professionals meet the challenges they face:

• Employee engagement and communication
• Holistic wellbeing
• Chronic disease management

Employee engagement and communication

Many HR employee portals are difficult to navigate and are often not updated to reflect new services, such as those delivered by a third party. Employees usually have limited access and HR can lack the ability to unify and streamline communications or schedule proactive outreach on an individual basis. This alienates employees. HR professionals need a platform with an effective interface to engage employees. SmartFHR™ is that platform.

SmartFHR™ provides comprehensive, centralized dashboards accessible via the SmartFHR™ app or the web, giving employees rapid access to all HR services and benefits. Any element of the employee value proposition can be accessed and managed in seconds within SmartFHR™.

SmartFHR™ is the tool that all HR managers need to make their employees feel like they have a voice and are valued and respected-all of which are fundamental to employee engagement and communication. SmartFHR™ enables HR professionals to easily distribute HR policy manuals, benefit guides, training, handbooks, prevention, compliance literature, and other information. With the app, HR can deliver emergency content related to a pandemic or disaster or offer ongoing updates from management via the appropriate channel.

The SmartFHR™ platform supports continuous, on-demand access to benefits information and gives HR professionals the ability to generate targeted, specific communications outlining the importance and value of the benefits plan beyond the parameters of the enrollment period.

Holistic wellbeing

Green Circle Life offers a simple easy-to-follow personalized checklist for year-round wellness incorporating assessments, health screening, immunizations, preventive care, and chronic condition management. Within the SmartFHR™ app, the HR team can offer a fully configurable wellness assessment to guide employees and their family members to personalized recommendations and wellness programs for better outcomes.

Green Circle Life features a complete native wellness toolset, including weight management, nutrition plans, stress management, smoking cessation, spiritual and mental health, and even financial planning. Ongoing engagement with health coaches, physicians, registered nurses, and dietitians helps employees target their unique lifestyle improvement goals, define their success, and sustain their progress.

HR teams can manage flexible incentives and rewards and utilize incentive strategies within the SmartFHR™ app or communicate this information to a third party to process.

Chronic disease management

A shockingly high percentage of people in the US are afflicted with one or more chronic diseases. Typically, a single chronic condition-based app fails to engage families to make meaningful, consistent changes in lifestyle to combat chronic diseases. Green Circle Life offers extensive care coordination and management capabilities to identify gaps in care across multiple chronic conditions, helping HR professionals and employees suffering from them to address their health problems with a single app and personalized care plan. SmartFHR™ provides a secure gateway to wellness and disease management programming in a single dashboard interface, empowers employees to curate and review medical records for their entire family, and transforms behavioral routines through push notifications, appointment and prescription reminders, healthy lifestyle guidance, and access to qualified health coaches.

ROI of SmartFHR™

By helping HR managers effectively communicate with employees and their families, SmartFHR™ promotes employee engagement that leads to participation in HR programs that benefit employees and their families. This in turn positively impacts HR teams and, ultimately, the entire organization. The upshot is that SmartFHR™ provides a tremendous ROI, examples of which are outlined below.

Curbs absenteeism

Having employees engage with HR communications through SmartFHR™ means that, thanks to the app’s remote monitoring, appointment scheduling and reminders, employees are more likely to utilize and be accountable to the platform’s health and wellness coaching staff to deal with multiple chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension, CHF, COPD, and asthma. In short, SmartFHR™ promotes healthy living—and healthy employees are far less likely to be absent from work than unhealthy ones. Furthermore, because employees feel supported by their HR colleagues and the organization as a whole, they tend to feel good about their jobs and compelled to work hard and realize their full potential.

Mitigates turnover

Staff turnover is costly-as much as an estimated one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary is needed to replace an employee. In addition to the costs incurred, employers must spend the time and expense to locate and train employees to replace those who quit. And as we know, since SmartFHR™ makes employees feel valued and respected, they are less likely to search for greener pastures elsewhere.

Reduces healthcare costs and disability claims

By promoting behavior that optimizes wellness, SmartFHR™ reduces healthcare costs (particularly those related to chronic disease management) and disability claims, both of which are vital to saving companies money.

Summary

By delivering exceptional ROI by reducing absenteeism, mitigating turnover and reducing healthcare costs and disability claims, Green Circle Life’s SmartFHR™ helps provide HR professionals with tangible solutions to the challenges that they face. What’s more, SmartFHR™ offers extensive real-time reporting that shows usage by employees and their family members. GCL also provides quarterly and annual analysis of the success of various initiatives, such as wellness programs, rewards redemption, and year-over-year comparisons of vitals and population health data. If HR plans are truly effective, analysis of these metrics will validate HR initiatives, helping HR professionals overcome some of the challenges they face.

The shortcomings of conventional employee assistance programs

Although few companies have therapists and/or psychologists on staff to help prevent their employees from falling into unhealthy mental states, or to help them restore their mental health if it has declined, they often provide mental health strategies via conventional employee assistance programs (EAPs). Usually with these programs employees can log into a portal and manage their benefits, see company news, access benefits guides and more.

Even though an employer may offer some mental health wellness services to employees, employees often fail to take full advantage of them. Just because an employer provides a benefit or includes it in its benefits guide or benefits portal, employees are not always going to know about it or use it. Avoiding this scenario requires a coordinated effort to educate and engage employees and their family members so they can learn about programs and use them when needed. “Lunch and learns” are not enough to get the message across.

Holistic wellbeing services

Employers that devote themselves to employees’ families and actively promote mental health awareness have a greater impact on the overall engagement with employer-provided services. And expanding behavioral and mental health goes beyond traditional EAPs. Virtual health and wellness services, including telemedicine options, preventative care programs, behavioral health and chronic condition management, are leading services that attract employees and further engage them in lifestyle changes for their own wellbeing.

To optimize success, the HR department and company leadership must clearly articulate their commitment to mental health support and integrate holistic wellbeing services to expand conventional wellness programs. This makes it clear to employees that their employer has got their back-that their company is led by people who care for them. This goes a long way towards boosting morale-and increasing productivity and employee retention.

Software as a service-Saas

Green Circle Life’s mission is to help millions of people optimize their physical and mental health and all other metrics that comprise wellness. Through a SaaS platform, employees can consolidate their healthcare information in one place-making it far more likely that, if they be inclined to pursue services for mental health issues, they will know exactly where to go.

SmartFHR™-an innovative SaaS platform for communication and engagement

Green Circle Life created a single company-branded app and web portal, the SaaS platform named SmartFHR™, which integrates all HR benefits and services and health and wellness services with Single Sign-On (SSO) capabilities. Green Circle Life firmly believes the integration of these services leads to better employee communication and engagement—and job satisfaction and mental health. With a fully interactive dashboard, SmartFHR™ is accessible from any PC or mobile device.

Communication and engagement are not just essential between an employer and its employees. They are also essential amongst employees if a company is to develop a rich corporate culture. Today, in many companies, working remotely is the new normal. Though this work arrangement delivers multiple benefits to both the employer and employees, it can be psychologically isolating. The ability of employees to exchange ideas amongst themselves or engage in casual banter can be diminished when you’re working remotely. For people who thrive on interpersonal communications, this can be devastating and lead to mental health issues. With SmartFHR™, however, employees have multiple tools to stay connected not only with their employer, but with each other as well.

Summary

More and more companies are now devoted to supporting the mental health of their employees and embracing new technology to do so. Green Circle Life’s SmartFHR™ app and web portal is a leading SaaS platform promoting holistic wellbeing that reduces healthcare costs and delivers a proven ROI. Click here to contact us and learn more.

Healthier Fall Tip #1

You’ve Got to Move It, Move It

     Make time to get more movement in your day. Do you spend most of your day at your desk? Use a standing desk to burn more calories and reduce the risk of weight gain and obesity. An afternoon of standing could help you burn an extra 1,000 calories a week. Get 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity weekly.

     Don’t have time for the gym? Park farther away from an entrance, return your shopping cart, take the stairs, or go for a brisk walk during lunch. Fit in 2, 5, 10, or 20 minutes whenever you can. Get up and move at least once an hour. Set an alarm on your phone or computer or use a post-it as a reminder. Even better, enlist a partner for extra accountability. Movement is medicine!

Healthier Fall Tip #2

Eat Your Veggies

     As the colors change on the leaves, you can change the color of what’s on your plate as well. There are a host of flavorful, nutrient packed veggies that are affordable and in-season during the Fall.

     Beets, broccoli, Brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, eggplant, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, and dark leafy greens (spinach and kale to name a few) are all great choices. The ways to prepare these hearty veggies are endless–whether you roast with a little olive oil, sauté them, use them in soups or smoothies; these vegetables will do your body good.

Healthier Fall Tip #3

Get Your Flu Shot!

     Getting the flu vaccine by the end of October can help prevent sick days and serious health complications. Being vaccinated not only protects you from getting seriously ill and being hospitalized, it also protects the people around you.

     According to the Centers for Disease Control, getting a flu shot is the most important step you can take to protect yourself from the flu. And no, getting the flu vaccine cannot give you the flu, though you may have mild symptoms while your immunity is being built up. Masks, regular handwashing, frequent hand sanitizer use, and practicing social distancing are also effective measures to keep you healthy this Fall.

Healthier Fall Tip #4

Get your ZZZs

     Sleep affects our daily functioning and our physical and mental health in many ways that experts are just starting to understand. Not prioritizing time to get the recommended 7-8 hours of sleep each night can negatively impact your mood, immune system, heart and brain health, and weight. Returning to Standard Time (“fall back”) that occurs this time of year can further impact your sleep cycle leading to sleep loss.

     Spend time outdoors since sunlight can decrease feelings of tiredness and affect the sleep cycle, avoid caffeine, alcohol, and big meals before bed which can lead to sleep disruption and poor sleep quality, establish a routine going to bed and waking up at the same time every day, make sure the room is cool and dark, and exercise regularly.

     Lastly, turn off all electronic devices such as a TV, computer, smart phone, or tablet. Artificial light from screens at night may decrease melatonin levels which regulate our internal clocks and play a role in the sleep cycle. Using these devices also keeps your mind in an active and engaged state which stimulates the brain, making sleep more difficult to come by.

Healthier Fall Tip #5

Breathe Easier

     If you have asthma, COPD, or other respiratory disorders, keep in mind cold, dry air can irritate airways and cause coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath.

     Make sure you speak with your primary care provider to get refills on daily maintenance medications and on inhalers you may not have needed as often during the warmer months, get your flu vaccine, and update your asthma and COPD action plans. You can’t change the weather, but you can be prepared.

Healthier Fall Tip #6

Annual Benefit Review: A Financial Check-Up

     For many employers, Fall is the season for open enrollment. This is the time when you choose or change employer provided benefits and add or remove dependents. These decisions have a significant financial impact, so it is important to think carefully about your options.

     Use this opportunity to review your employer offerings and how you have used your benefits in the last year to see if there is anything you may want to change or add. Learn about the tax-advantages of health savings accounts (HSAs), health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) and flexible spending accounts (FSAs).

     This is also a great time to also review other financial considerations like tax withholding, retirement planning, and budgets. Make this financial check-up a priority and reap the rewards all year long.

Healthier Fall Tip #7

Get Your House Ready for Fall

     As you flip your clothing from one season to another, give your home some extra prep time as well.

     Extend the life and efficiency of your heating system by changing the filters, schedule a chimney cleaning, and prepare your fireplace.

     Check windows and doors to ensure there are no drafts and clean out your gutters. Finally, change batteries in smoke detectors and remember to burn those pumpkin spice candles safely.

NEXT 

“How do we engage our employees and their family members in our wellness programs?”

and

“How do we optimize the disease management of team members who have one or more chronic conditions and bend the cost curve?”

Highly engaged employees feel valued, deliver better quality work, are healthier, and have high productivity metrics. Forbes Magazine found that highly engaged teams show 21% greater profitability and 61% of employees agree that they have made healthier lifestyles choices because of their company’s wellness program. Furthermore, Forbes estimated that disengaged employees cost U.S. companies up to $550 billion a year.

Most corporate wellness programs do not incorporate disease education and focus only on disease management. These programs need to extend their focus to include other dimensions of general wellness such as stress, sleep, and financial wellbeing. Chronic disease management must address the “whole person.” SmartFHR™ powered by Green Circle Life addresses an employee holistically which improves employee engagement and lowers costs.

Successful wellness and chronic condition care programs need to be easily accessible to people when they need it. Most Americans – 96% – now own a cellphone and about 90% of cell phone users own a smartphone. The SmartFHR™ application is available via smartphone app for both Android & iPhone platforms and via a web browser for PC and tablets.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, six out of ten adults in the United States have been diagnosed with one chronic disease and four out of ten have been diagnosed with two or more. SmartFHR™ offers programs for multiple chronic conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, CHF, and COPD in one platform. Each program addresses the whole person by incorporating condition specific education and information on nutrition, physical activity, stress, sleep, and financial wellness.

Family support and education is also an important factor in managing chronic conditions. Successful programs connect employees and their family members to their company provided benefits. SmartFHR™ brings employers the capability to interface with employees on an ongoing basis and keep them informed of the benefit programs available to them and their family members. Each employee receives 4 additional SmartFHR™ licenses to invite family members to have access to benefit information and health and wellness programs.

Healthcare systems are not always designed with the patient in mind and do little to enable patients to take charge of their conditions. SmartFHR™ care programs are designed to empower employees and their family members to actively participate in the management of their health. An empowered person understands their health condition better and can actively participate in decision-making with their healthcare providers since they are able to make informed choices about their treatment.

SmartFHR™ care programs can be self-managed or used in conjunction with one-on-one health coaching service. People with chronic conditions need to know someone really cares about them. Green Circle Life team of health professionals can listen, guide, and encourage employees and family members to make lifestyle and behavior changes to improve outcomes.

Here are some of the results from employees and their family members who use Green Circle Life programs:

DIABETES

34.2 million Americans-just over 1 in 10-have diabetes. 88 million American adults-approximately 1 in 3-have prediabetes.

Results with Green Circle Life SmartFHR

• Self-managed program participation resulted in 83% of participants having decreased blood sugar values with an average drop of 38.4 mg/dL. Of the people with decreased blood sugar, 35% lost weight with an average weight loss of 4 pounds.
• Health Partner assisted program participation resulted in 60% of participants having decreased blood sugar values with an average drop of 39 mg/dL. Of the people with decreased blood sugar, 79% lost weight with an average weight loss of 17.3 pounds.
• Year-over-year actual healthcare plan cost savings per person was $5,600.
• How these results are achieved: SmartFHR™ evidence-based diabetes care program addresses the all aspects of the disease condition using digital coaching for physical, emotional, social, and financial wellbeing, condition specific and general health literature, remote monitoring of vitals entered manually or through blue-tooth enabled devices, alerts and reminders for vitals, and medication reminders. Additionally, health assessments, ongoing health promotion, and wellness programs helped them to develop a healthy mindset to further improve outcomes and control costs.

An example of success from a Green Circle Life Health Partner

A SmartFHR™ user was using one-on-one coaching with the Green Circle Life Diabetes Care Program to focus on healthy eating, increasing activity, and losing weight to manage his diabetes and decrease his A1c. He saw his endocrinologist who upon seeing his A1c improved from 9.8% to 6.2% commented that such program should be offered to all his patients.

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE

Nearly half of American adults – 108 million – have high blood pressure defined as a systolic blood pressure > 130 mmHg or a diastolic blood pressure > 80mmHg or are taking medication for hypertension. Only 1 in 4 adults with hypertension have their condition controlled.

Results with Green Circle Life SmartFHR

• Self-managed program participation resulted in 63% of participants having a decrease in both systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) by 4.1%. In 36.8% of participants, the percentage decrease in weight was equal to the percent decrease in SBP and DBP (7.1%). The average drop per person for this group in SBP was 6.2 mmHg, in DBP was 2.9 mmHg, and weight loss was 10.1 pounds.
• Health partner assisted program participation resulted in 57% of participants having a decrease in SBP and DBP by 4.8%. In 35% of participants, the percentage decrease in weight was equal to the percent decrease in SBP and DBP (7.7%). The average drop per person for this group in SBP was 23.4 mmHg, in DBP was 9.7 mmHg, and weight loss was 13.4 pounds.
• Year over year actual healthcare plan cost savings per person was more than $600.
• How are these results achieved: SmartFHR™ evidence-based blood pressure care program addresses the whole person using digital coaching modules, literature, remote monitoring of vitals entered manually or through a blue-tooth enabled devices, alerts and reminders for vitals, and medication reminders. Ongoing health promotion, encouraging medication compliance, healthcare provider follow-up and testing, and participation in wellness programs develops a healthy mindset for employees to further improve outcomes, control costs, and improve quality of life.

An example of success from a Green Circle Life Health Partners

A SmartFHR™ user is working with Green Circle Life one-on-one coaching to focus on lowering his blood pressure. With the help of his Green Circle Life health partner, the user has been focusing on personalized nutrition counselling, taking medications as prescribed, monitoring his blood pressure, and following up with his provider. By making healthy substitutions in his diet, and following his plan, he lowered his blood pressure from an average of 162/85 to 134/78 in three months, without any changes in his medication. He also scheduled an annual wellness visit with his primary care provider to discuss his blood pressure care program, get labs drawn, and ensure he is up to date on preventative care.

OBESITY

71.6% of Americans age 20 and above are overweight (BMI >25) and more than70 million are obese (BMI>30). The incidence of obesity in children and teens (2-19) has more than tripled in the last 20 years resulting in more than 1/3 of this age group categorized as overweight or obese.

Results with Green Circle Life SmartFHR™

• Participation in self-managed program resulted in 49% of participants losing weight with an average weight loss of 13.2 pounds.
• Participation in Health Partner assisted program resulted in 85% of participants losing weight with an average weight loss of 14.2 pounds.
• How can SmartFHR™ can benefit the whole family: It is well documented that children learn behavior and pattern themselves after the adults in their family. To reverse the trend, families need to make healthy food choices and become more active together. With the inclusion of 4 complementary user licenses for each paid license, the whole family can take advantage of the SmartFHR™ features and one-on-one coaching. The Green Circle Life program addresses the problem in its entirety using digital coaching modules, literature, remote monitoring of vitals entered manually or through a blue tooth enabled devices, alerts and reminders, and personalized nutrition counselling. Health assessment, ongoing health promotion, and wellness challenges develops healthy habits to further improve outcomes and control costs.

An example of success from a Green Circle Life Health Partner

A SmartFHR™ user working with Green Circle Life one-on-one coaching for 6 months went from 323 pounds (BMI 41.5) to 269 pounds (BMI 34.5). Adding daily exercise and making healthy eating choices resulted in normalizing his average blood pressure to 125/82 in the same timeframe. Another SmartFHR™ user invited his spouse and 17-year-old son to have their own SmartFHR™ accounts and use the program and one-on-one coaching. In the last 6 months, each of them lost more than 20 pounds.

SUMMARY

Prioritizing employee care and offering them a well-designed, comprehensive software platform with dedicated health coaches results in healthier employees, makes them feel valued, and improves their productivity. According to Forbes, 61% of employees agree that they have made healthier lifestyle choices because of their company’s wellness program. By taking the next step to deliver personalized care for the emotional and physical wellbeing of their team members, employers can address the challenges in bending the curve for healthcare costs.

The Great American philosopher Yogi Berra said, “The future ain’t what it used to be.” As a result of the Coronavirus, Yogi’s statement rings true today. There is a ‘new normal’ and one of the greatest challenges facing HR professionals is maximizing engagement with their employees when so many of their employees are now working remotely. This is especially difficult when the employee is a person who thrives on social interaction with fellow employees, their supervisor and the leadership team of the organization.

The ability of employees to exchange ideas at lunch, on breaks or just walking from one office or desk to another has been lost. In addition to exchanging ideas about their work, many employees create a bond between each other by talking about their hobbies, their families and even their favorite sports team. This feeling of camaraderie creates a more productive workforce. People who enjoy being at work, value their time there and will invest more of themselves into the organization.

A challenge for the leadership of most organizations is how to communicate more effectively with their employees and thereby develop a more engaged, socially bonded and productive workforce.

Most people who have socially forward, extroverted personalities are lacking the constant contact they have with others in the workplace. However, with the right tools, your organization can use technology as part of the solution to combat these feelings of disconnectedness.

Clients of Green Circle Life have discovered that they can better engage their employees by using the Green Circle Life app, which provides a two-way, multi-channel communication gateway for the employer to communicate with their employees and their family members. Mediums include email, text, two-way messaging, content pop-ups, in-app notifications and push notifications.

Companies ranging in size from less than 250 employees to ones with more than 5,000 employees were polled. More than 62 percent of participants reported they worked in the healthcare industry and more than 70 percent reported they were directly involved in HR initiatives at their company. Here are the survey findings categorized by topics:

General:

• On a scale from 1-10, 62 percent of respondents shared that technology is the most important solution for their organization for enhancing HR services
  • 31 percent ranked it higher than 6
• 53 percent shared that their employees are happy with the benefits and HR services offered
  • 40 percent are somewhat happy, and the remaining 6.7 were not happy with the benefits and services offered
• More than 48 percent noted that driving cultural change and engaging employees in company culture is an important goal for their institution to reach in 2020
  • When asked further about workplace culture, 40 percent report having a positive environment as most important to employers as they attract and retain employees

Multigenerational Workforce:

• When asked about a strategy for engaging a multi-generational workforce with benefits, 64 percent responded that they need to improve and develop their strategy
  • 50 percent have a strategy in place, but it needs to be improved
  • 14.3 percent do not currently have a strategy in place, but they are working towards developing one
  • The remaining 35 percent have a strategy in place, and it is successfully deployed
• 44.4 percent of respondents reported the benefits challenges employers face when they have a multi-generational workforce is lifestyle and priority conflicts
  • 27.8 percent reported a communication gap, followed by 16.7 percent reporting their workforce faces challenges with the different technological preferences

Benefit Use:

• More than 58 percent said they had a strong and effective strategy in place to educate and encourage employees to use their benefits
  • 29.4 percent said they have a strategy in place, but it can be improved, while the remaining 11.6 percent said they do not have any strategy in place but are planning to develop one
• 30 percent noted the primary hurdle getting their employees to engage with benefits is a lack of interest and understanding of the overall benefits provided
  • Following closely, 25 percent said the challenge is the perception that it is a time-consuming or a difficult process
  • 20 percent indicated the process is disjointed or the benefit vendor platforms were difficult to use
  • 15 percent reported that it is hard to reach employees
• The top 3 strategies used by employers to encourage employees in learning about and using their benefits include:
  • Using an integrated HRIS and benefits enrollment platform, 26.9 percent
  • Promoting wellness programs and health resources online, 23 percent
  • Printing an annual benefits guide and mailing it to the employees, 19 percent
• To control healthcare costs, 24 percent of employers responded they are offering multiple health plan choices to employees
  • 20 percent are focusing on providing wellness rewards programs to promote healthy behavior as a solution to their healthcare costs
  • 13.8 percent said it was important to offer telemedicine and another 13.8 percent reported offering holistic wellbeing programs as a solution

Physical Activity: Move more. Participate in at least 30 min of moderate activity 5 times a week (brisk waking, gardening, tennis, riding your bike, cleaning). The goal is to move more and sit less.

Diet quality: Eat a colorful diet of fruits and vegetables with lean meat and fish. Limit or avoid sugar sweetened drinks. Read nutrition labels to decrease salt and added sugar and to be aware of portion sizes.

Weight: Decrease calories that you take in and increase calories that you burn through physical activity to lose excess weight.

Blood Pressure: Know your numbers, track your blood pressure readings. Most people do not know that they have high blood pressure since they don’t have any symptoms-which is why it is known as the ‘silent killer’. See your healthcare provider for regular checkups. Limit your intake of high salt foods like pizza, lunch meat, and canned soup and resist the urge to reach for the saltshaker. Too much salt can cause blood pressure to rise.

Cholesterol: Know your levels and track them over time. Increase fiber in your diet and decrease animal protein. Fill your plate with vegetables, fruits, legumes (beans and lentils), and whole grains (oatmeal, brown rice).

Blood Sugar: Understand blood sugar and know your numbers. Having too much sugar in the blood for long periods of time can cause serious health problems if not treated. Most people may not know they have high blood sugar so periodic evaluation with your physician is necessary.

Smoking: If you smoke, quitting is one of the best things you can do for your health.

Sleep: Poor sleep results in increased blood pressure, can lead to weight gain, can affect your immune system, and can lead to irritability, depression and anxiety. Not sleeping well can give you a feeling of being fatigued or tired all the time.

Stress: Ongoing chronic stress can affect your overall wellness resulting in headaches, insomnia, irritability, or decreasing your productivity at work. It can cause health problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes or worsen health problems that you already have.

The first step towards improving lifestyle choices is taking stock of what you are currently doing. Use this list to review your current patterns and make adjustments to improve overall health & wellness.

Here is an example of how employer benefits are evolving to meet the needs of employees doubling as caregivers:

Many employers have these types of benefits to assist working caregivers. The challenge is that many employees are not aware of the benefits they have available to them. It is virtually impossible for employees to remember or know how to access all benefits available when they were likely explained one time when the employee was first hired.

What can employers do to support working caregivers?

Communication is Key
Ensuring employees are aware of the benefits and tools they have access to is difficult without clear communication throughout the organization. With our customizable app, employees can access information regarding benefits and eligibility, and find providers and vendors that can assist with their specific caregiving needs. In this way, employees can be confident referring to their company mobile app which improves transparency, information exchange, and communication.

Being Visual
Caregivers may need to frequently access HR services like time and leave management and paychecks which can require a lot of extra communication including sending emails, calling certain personnel, etc. Through the company mobile app, such communication can be replaced with specific dashboards and quick tools for ease of use. Depending on the company, some types of vendors that could help support working caregivers include:

• Affordable medications, or medication delivery for family members
• Pharmacy resources
• Additional insurance information/options
• Telemedicine/Telehealth (can speak with healthcare professionals that may help with diagnosing/prescribing medicine that could potentially replace an ER visit).
• Vision care resources
• Smoking cessation programs
• 401(k) plans
• Informative Literature
• Free, confidential live health coaching

The mobile app can be easily customized to also include information on company-specific trainings, conferences, and emergency protocol to ensure employees have access to the most up-to-date information anytime, anywhere.

Extend to Family Members
It’s not just employees who may need access to benefits and services, but family members as well. When you extend customizable mobile apps to employees, ensure that such tools have the capability to accommodate family access as well. Our app can support a comprehensive health profile, medication lists, the ability to send reminders for medication adherence, storage of legal documents, information on family history, and vitals/progress of chronic conditions, which are all securely stored. These features can help caregivers save time and effort by having all information in one location. By providing the tools and essential information caregiver employees need, they can be better prepared to care for their loved ones on both a regular basis, and in the case of an emergency.

Employers can engage, educate, and support working caregivers and their families with our customizable HR and wellness web and app-based platform. Enhance your business and promote employee productivity and peace of mind.

Effective communication is the key to keeping employees informed of benefits available and encourage them to utilize these benefits to improve health and wellness. Family, work, and situations that are not under our control take a toll on health, time, finances, and overall wellbeing. These cost employers millions either directly through high premiums and benefits or indirectly through lost employee productivity. Therefore, it is very important for employers to encourage and even incentivize employees to make healthy lifestyle changes to improve their overall physical, emotional and financial wellbeing.

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, ‘In 2016, the US spent 17.8% of its gross domestic product on health care and spending in the other countries ranged from 9.6% (Australia) to 12.4% (Switzerland). The proportion of the population with health insurance was 90% in the US, lower than the other countries (range, 99%-100%), and the US had the highest proportion of private health insurance (55.3%).’

Often, employees are unaware or do not fully understand the benefits that are available to them from their employer. They are unable to take advantage of these benefits so there is no impact on healthcare cost reduction. In most cases, employees received benefit information during the hiring and onboarding process with no further communication during the year till next enrolment cycle from the employer. Employees do not have information about the benefits at hand and not remember what is available when they could be using them. Lack of involvement and communication from the senior leadership also lead to lower participation in companywide healthy initiatives and wellness programs. Employers roll out wellness challenges and rewards without proper communication and coordination throughout their organization. Inability to inform and include stakeholders such as management, employees, and their families creates frustration and apathy.

A single App that aggregates all benefits and other employer-provided services with features to facilitate effective communication between the employers and their employees would be a game-changer. The Green Circle Platform delivers all of this and more. With an easy to navigate dashboard, employees can access all the benefits and HR services, with Single Sign-On to the respective vendor portals and internal services, all available at their fingertips whenever it is needed. The Green Circle Platform can be accessed through the web or using native SmartFHR™ app for IOS and Android. It ensures better utilization of benefits and incentives and more return on investment for employers.

The employee communication features in Green Circle Platform enables easy and effective communication between the employers and employees. Employers can reach the employees, all employees or even target groups that are predefined in the system through various modes like, email, SMS and app-notifications. This becomes even more valuable when the employees are scattered across multiple locations. Your HR Communications Team will be able to send reminders Informing employees at a specific location about an onsite health screening, flu-shot campaign, or a weekend charity event. Employees can share their thoughts and experiences with their colleagues using the bulletin board and messaging features.

The Green Circle Platform offers an innovative way to bring together employers, employees, and their family members. If features like new employee orientation, compliance, training, payroll, benefits etc. are integrated into the platform, it becomes a very powerful tool which the employees and families will access and use on a day-to-day basis. As all stakeholders become more engaged, communication and compliance improve leading to less stress and better job satisfaction.

Green Circle Platform can be configured and customized to reflect an organization’s culture, vision, and objectives. Now is the right time to contact Green Circle Life team and learn more about how we can work together to deliver a one-of-a-kind experience to your employees.

Employee benefits make up approximately one-third of total compensation costs. Organizations must engage in strategic benefits utilization and communication plans to maximize their return on investment that will also promote employee engagement and retention.

As the economy continues to grow and the job market remains candidate-driven, it is more important now that organizations not only offer competitive benefits but use their benefits as a part of their strategy to attract new candidates and keep current employees happy. Benefits that are available to the family as well are proven to be perceived of greater value and drives higher engagement within the organization.

Why HR needs to strategize Benefits Utilization?

While pay packages follow a predicted market and performance-based trajectory, benefits are flexible, difficult to compare across organizations and can be improvised to changing needs of the employee population. With better visibility in value derived from benefits, they can be positioned to help employees engage with the company.

According to a popular SHRM 2018 (Society for Human Resource Management) ‘The Evolution of Benefits’ report, “The vast majority (92%) of employees indicated that benefits are important to their overall job satisfaction. Results also showed a relationship between benefits and retention, with 29% of employees citing their overall benefits package as a top reason to look for a position outside of their current organization in the next 12 months; 32% of employees who were unlikely to look for an external position cited their overall benefits package as a top reason as well.”

There are tangible results when organizations ‘up’ the visibility of benefits provided. There is a marked improvement in company performance, employee satisfaction, and retention. Employees are increasingly driven towards checking out company ‘reviews’ on websites such as Glassdoor, Comparably, etc. about pay, benefits, best places to work and other factors. It thus becomes important that companies strategize benefits and identify means to communicate this information effectively within the organization as well.

Improve Communication techniques

Communication is key to keep current and future employees engaged with the organization. Various methods including a mobile platform can help with optimizing HR communication channels and keeping employees engaged with utilizing their benefits. It is especially challenging in a bigger organization where employees are spread across locations. And more so when employees are not communicated about, and not aware of, the availability of employer-offered benefits, especially when they could be using them. Often there is a gap in the understanding of all the benefits being offered by employees, and what employees may think they are eligible for. Other than the deductions from paycheck, employees need not know the actual dollar value of both redeemable and non-redeemable benefits being offered by employers or its availability to them. Another important factor is that family members are critical decision makers in selecting and using those benefits and HR strategy must include those members in their modern mobile communication channel for two-way interactions.

An HR Communications, Benefits and Employee Wellness platform like Green Circle Life brings together employees and family members to become active participants in benefits selection and utilization, wellness programs and rewards. The same App allows employees to go through orientation, compliance, training, payroll, etc. The App engages them by offering tools like a bulletin board, newsletters, messaging, and more. The Green Circle Life platform is configured and customized to match with an organization’s culture, vision, and objectives; to drive engagement, usage and utilization of benefits offered. Green Circle Life provides actionable insights to the individual as well as the management, to offer and utilize benefits for greater return on their investment. Now is the right time to engage in a dialogue with Green Circle Life team to differentiate your benefits and corporate culture to attract and retain talent.