1. With the current state of the economy, today’s employees find themselves depending on
voluntary benefits more than anytime in recent history. Employers for years have offered
financial and retirement plans as part of their benefits package to lure new hires and help
retention and also to increase the value of the benefits package. But in this age of doing more
with less, communicating what is available to employees and assisting them in understanding
their benefits is a job that can get lost in the shuffle.
Due to budget cuts, State Agencies and HR departments have limited resources and time
available to help them effectively communicate with their staff. Without proper assistance
available to them, many employees get lost in the fiscal woods with little or no knowledge of the
benefits available to them.
Additionally, on a national level more and more employers are shifting costs to employees to
fund their own health plan benefits. In North Carolina, for example, the deductible and copays
have increased, a no-cost routine eye exam benefit is no longer available, and health plan
premiums have increased.
One way the state has been assisting employees is the nationally recognized NCFlex program.
The program is a State-administered plan offering a variety of voluntary pre-tax benefits to state
employees. One of the key features of the program is that it provides approximately a 30 percent
savings on taxes for the pretax premiums on products employees are enrolled in. The program is
set up according to Internal Revenue Service Section 125 plan that allows states to provide pre
tax benefits to employees. The benefits are portable, meaning as employees progress through
their careers, sometimes transferring from agency to agency, they can retain these benefits
wherever they go within state government.
The NCFlex Program was initiated by a Governor's executive order in 1995. Pani Tademeti was
hired to manage the program due to his vast experience with helping develop such programs in
both the private sector and in the North Carolina county government system. Thanks to his
forward thinking and clear-headed planning, the program has grown from offering a flexible
spending account with 727 participants to offering 8 benefits plans with over 240,000
participants.
One reason NCFlex has been very successful is due to its focus on communication and training.
Prior to the annual enrollment period each October, the NCFlex team travels the state of North
Carolina from the mountains to the coast hosting Train the Trainer sessions. Classes are designed
to update agency HR and benefits staff on administration processes and procedures and to
educate them about any changes to the benefits offered. HR staff are not only given the
opportunity to network with each other but also with the plan vendors in attendance, allowing
them to associate a name with a face and establish a relationship with the people they’ll be
working with from time to time.
During annual enrollment, NCFlex again packs up the van and travels to various locations, this
time to educate and communicate directly with employees who may have questions about the
enrollment and the products offered. These Employee Information Sessions are an all-
encompassing look into what the plan offers and give employees a chance to enroll online with
assistance from an NCFlex representative.

2. After more than a decade assisting employees to become more aware of their health benefits and
physical wellness, when the economy began to falter, Pani wanted to find a way to educate State
Employees about Financial Wellness as well. He began a discussion and collaboration with
Leigh Brady, Senior Vice-President of Education Services for the North Carolina State
Employees Credit Union. Initially, the idea was to have Leigh make a presentation at the next
Statewide Benefits Conference, hosted by NCFlex. There was also collaboration by NCFlex and
NCSECU on a Financial Wellness guide that debuted at the conference. The presentation helped
educate employees by taking them through examples in the guide and Leigh’s experience and
personality really shone through.
The presentation on Financial Wellness was so well received, Pani started to put together a new
idea: NCFlex already had a system set up for organizing training sessions across the state that
had proven to be successful in reaching out to HR staff and state employees. Why not extend the
collaboration to training sessions that combined NCFlex enrollment information with the
NCSECU Financial Wellness program? The NCSECU had many financial products and benefits
available to its members, but if employees were not made aware of them, how could they take
advantage of them?
The NCFlex Team and The State Employees Credit Union then teamed up to create what came
to be known as “Sensible Savings sessions;” a half day class incorporating financial and physical
wellness. With NCFlex’s communication network already in place, the next step was to create a
class that kept employees’ interest, got them involved, and educated them. As nonprofit
institutions, NCFlex and NCSECU collaborated together with existing resources and at no
additional cost to either, developed a program designed to educate and inform employees. They
wanted to, as they put it, “make sure that we have wealth building services for the not yet
wealthy.” It was what Pani liked to call “a milkshake moment:” a combination of different
ingredients that come together to make something special.
To help promote the meetings, North Carolina State Personnel Director Linda Coleman and Carl
Goodwin, Division Director for Operations & Benefits for the North Carolina Office of State
Personnel, appeared with Pani and Leigh on an OPEN/net webcast (which can be viewed at
http://youtu.be/Qlms-eDr1xw) to discuss what employees could expect at the sessions and to
take questions live from callers. When the Sensible Saving Solutions were announced shortly
thereafter, the response was immediate and overwhelming. Some classes were filled up within a
week and additional classes were added to the schedule. The original expectation was to host 10
classes with no more than 30 attendees at each but that changed to 13 classes with nearly 600
employees registered to attend.
The overall response and evaluation of the Sensible Savings Sessions was excellent. Scenarios
provided by the workbook helped demonstrate the need to plan ahead and the excellent
presentation developed by the NCSECU made agreat impression on employees. “I wish I’d had
this information 10 years ago,” said one employee, “the best thing was the encouragement to get
started with financial actions.”
With such an overwhelming response, plans for future Sensible Savings Sessions are in
development for 2012 to keep State employees on the track to financial wellness.