2. An organization’s success depends
on its human capital. The task of
recruiting, retaining and motivating
employees is more important now than
ever and represents a substantial
investment in time and money. Wise
decisions are critical in these areas
to effectively drive and support
organizational goals.
The Willis Human Capital Practice
offers a comprehensive suite of
brokerage and consulting services to
proactively work with your
organization to design and deploy
key Human Resources initiatives.
3. EMPLOYER CHALLENGES
Willis has decades of experience working with companies like yours. Each
organization is different with its own unique challenges. Below are just a few of the
challenges we help employers with:
Employee communications
Compliance
Employee engagement
Managing the rising cost of health care
Engaging employees in healthy behavior
Recruitment and retention
Vendor management
Benefits administration
Reducing absenteeism/presenteeism
Increasing productivity
Adjusting to changing workforce demographics
WILLIS SOLUTIONS
Our approach is unique: Willis has combined the best qualities of a true broker with the tools
and resources of a pure consulting firm to offer our clients the full array of services they
need at competitive prices.
START WITH A STRATEGY
At Willis, we work with you to establish a strategy for your benefits program. Once a strategy
is determined, we provide you with options to meet your goals and develop a detailed action
plan to facilitate a successful approach to meet your needs. Finally, we continually review
performance to ensure your organization’s goals are met.
You can expect Willis to also support your organization with:
Plan marketing
Open enrollments
Benefits administration solutions
Day-to-day account management
Consulting services
Benchmarking
Willis 1
4. OUR INDUSTRY EXPERTS WORK FOR YOU
In addition to your local team, we have a national practice comprised of industry experts.
These specialists are frequently asked to speak at national and local industry events. Our
subject matter experts are published in industry journals and are recognized as industry
leaders in their fields. Our industry expertise includes:
Health care cost management
Health care and pension actuarial services
ERISA attorneys
Employment law attorneys
Human resources
Auditing services
Employee communications
Carrier/vendor management
Retirement plans
Multinational benefits
Executive and Specialty Benefits
Underwriting
Voluntary benefits
Willis develops publications written specifically for our clients. We keep you updated on
legislative activity and trends impacting human capital management. You also benefit from
our numerous educational webcasts and local seminars.
THE WILLIS SUBJECT
MATTER EXPERTS
COMMUNICATION PRACTICE
Your plan is only as valuable as it is perceived by your employees. Willis
assists with employee communication and education through:
A comprehensive set of customized communication campaign options:
open enrollment, new hire benefits guides, wellness initiatives and
everything in between
Full service print, fulfillment and distribution solutions
Innovative communication technologies, such as text messaging, email
campaigns and video presentations
A web portal for managing forms, communicating information and
providing answers
2 Willis
5. EMPLOYEE BENEFITS NATIONAL LEGAL AND
HRFocus
February 2009 – Issue 20 www.willis.com
RESEARCH GROUP (NLRG)
LEGAL &
COMPLIANCE NLRG is a team of ERISA attorneys and legal
2009 VERSION OF
MASSACHUSETTS HIRD professionals with expertise in state and federal
FORM RELEASED
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Division of Health Care
regulations affecting your employee benefits
Finance and Policy has recently released the 2009 version of its
Health Insurance Responsibility Disclosure (HIRD) form. The
Massachusetts Health Care Reform Act (HCRA) makes employers
with 11 or more full-time equivalent employees responsible for
LEGAL & COMPLIANCE
2009 Version of Massachusetts
programs. As a Willis Human Capital Practice
distributing and collecting signed employee HIRD forms. Although HIRD Form Released 1
employers need not use the state’s HIRD form, they will want to
review the 2009 form, because any alternative form that they use must
collect the same information. A copy of the form can be found here:
San Francisco Health Care
Security Ordinance (HCSO)
2009 Reminders 2
client, you have access to their expertise, as well
http://www.mass.gov/Eeohhs2/docs/dhcfp/g/hcr/employee_hi
rd_2009.pdf.
HR CORNER
Employers: It’s Time to Talk
as our web-based Compliance Manual. In
HIRD FORM REQUIREMENTS About Unions 3
Massachusetts employees who waive group health coverage or decline
to participate in an employer’s Section 125 cafeteria plan must sign a
HIRD form. Even those employees who are waiving coverage because
WELLNESS WORKS
Most Workers Come
to Work When Sick 4
addition, we have a dedicated team to assist
they have coverage through another source must sign the form.
Employees who choose to drop coverage, during the year or at open
enrollment, and newly hired employees who decline coverage, also
need to sign the HIRD form. Employees participating in an employer’s
YOU BE THE JUDGE
Did the Plan Administrator Act
Arbitrarily in Denying Benefits
clients with Form 5500 filings.
group health plan, or who are ineligible for both the employer’s group for a Drunk Driving Injury? 5
health plan and its Section 125 plan do not sign the HIRD form.
SINCE YOU ASKED
The employer must collect the signed employee HIRD form within Coverage Decision “In Anticipation”
30 days after the close of the applicable open enrollment period for of COBRA Event? 6
the employer’s health insurance or cafeteria plan, or by September
NEWS
30 each year, whichever is earlier. Employees who drop coverage at
any point during the year must sign the form within 30 days of Washington Paid Leave on Hold 7
HR PARTNER
dropping coverage. For new hires who decline coverage, the form CMS Report: U.S. Health Spending
must be signed within 30 days following the end of the initial Hits $2.2 Trillion 7
enrollment period.
WEBCASTS & EVENTS
continued on page 2 HR Recession Planning 8
CONTACTS 9
To help clients face the competing demands
placed on today’s human resources department,
Willis created HR Partner. Our team stays abreast of human resources trends and best
practices in all areas of human capital management. Some of our expertise includes, HR
strategic planning, total rewards, policies and procedures, performance management, leaves
of absence, training and development, and much more. The HR Partner consultants can
support your human resource initiatives by answering questions, providing hands-on
support or supplying you with best practice forms, policies and procedures checklists, and
other sample tools. In addition, you will benefit from a number of our strategic partnerships
providing you access to technology and resources at a discounted rate for our clients.
WILLIS TRAINING SOLUTIONS
An online training system with over 100 courses provides an easy, cost-effective way to
assign and track training of managers and employees on a variety of compliance and HR
related topics.
WILLIS ONLINE
A secure web portal designed for you and your Willis Client Advocate® to share documents,
track action items and reduce paperwork related directly to the management of your benefit
plans and HR practices. You can access the Willis Client Toolkit, stocked with the
customizable documents needed to run a successful HR Department.
SEARCH WILLIS
Search Willis gives you 24/7 access to a comprehensive library of plain-English HR
compliance help. You’ve found the place for fast, reliable employment and labor law answers
— so you can do your job better and faster.
Willis 3
6. With Search Willis you can:
Select from an extensive library of prewritten, ready-to-use
checklists, policies, forms, letters, documents, etc. that can
be customized to create policies and handbooks in minutes.
Keep up on all the latest news, white papers, as well as
federal and state legislation impacting HR, and access
State Comparison Charts, all of which will keep you
informed.
Access the training library, where you will find audio
training presentations, more than 100 PowerPoint®
presentations on key HR topics, from FLSA, FMLA and
ADA to managing non-English-speaking employees.
Slides, speaker notes, quizzes, take-aways...they’re all
there and all done.
Create job descriptions using Job Description Manager, an online tool with sample job
descriptions for more than 2,400 job titles.
Research compensation data, benchmark salaries and help your organization remain
competitive.
Create employee newsletters that can be emailed, printed or linked on your company
intranet.
Search Willis is “Everything-HR-in-one-place.”
FINANCIAL REPORTING
How will you know if your plans are performing well, or if you are making effective decisions
about changes to your program design, without measurement? Willis offers dashboard
reporting to help our clients understand the financial performance of their benefits plans.
Reports include an executive summary, month-by-month data analysis and renewal
forecasting. In addition, we offer Willis Med to our larger clients, which utilizes medical and
prescription claim data to identify clinical incidence rates within the employer population
via a sophisticated data warehousing system. Once targeted, specific action plans are
created to assess vendors, benefits design or create incentives to better manage critical
disease states. Beyond these services, Willis offers underwriting and actuarial services to
assist you with better controlling and managing health care cost.
WINNING WITH WILLIS
Willis helps clients optimize business results by reducing the costs
associated with their human capital investment. One way of doing
this is to provide your employees with the content, tools,
resources and support needed to adopt and sustain individual
behavior change. The simple fact is the vast majority of health
care events are driven by our lifestyle choices. Lifestyle choices
can be changed. They are driven by our own attitudes and
behaviors around diet, exercise and healthy living in general.
Willis partnered with some of the nation’s most trusted sources to
provide Willis members with key resources through a robust
consumer engagement portal linking employees on one website.
4 Willis
7. Willis has collaborated with the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention to present accurate, relevant and
actionable health information directly to our clients, their
employees and family members. Winning With Willis also
provides the tools and resources needed to increase ones
personal commitment to their health and well-being.
Physical Activity and Nutrition Support
Discounted access to fitness and nutrition programs
by Jillian Michaels. Access to the Biggest Loser League
online community, a forum to create corporate
challenges and get employees engaged by
participating in a health and fitness regimen co-
branded by the popular NBC television show.
Healthy Headlines
Articles and current news about health topics and issues to help employees get
and stay healthy.
Willis Rewards
An online reward tracking and delivery platform, which provides employee discounts to
best-in-class vendors and access to a virtual health fair 24/7.
WELLNESS CONSULTING
Our Wellness consulting services help our clients plan and implement key strategic healthy
initiatives designed to deliver a return on investment. We customize our approach with each
client to meet each organization’s individual needs and desired outcomes. One such solution
is Willis WellBeing, a turn key wellness program. Willis WellBeing is an online member
wellness site featuring nutrition and exercise tips, as well as lifestyle content to encourage
healthy behavior.
DELIVERING ON RESULTS
We provide each service through our Client Advocacy service model using our Glocal
resource approach to client delivery. Your local Willis team works in conjunction with our
national and global subject matter experts to provide world class resources seamlessly. This
is all accomplished under the leadership of your Client Advocate who serves as your single
point of contact for recommending, designing and delivering solutions customized
especially for your organization.
GETTING STARTED
Contact your local Willis Client Advocate® to learn more about how we partner with
companies to manage human capital risk…one employee at a time.
Willis 5
