About two months ago, I posted four blogs on Storeboard.com about health care because the issue was constantly in the news in the USA as the Affordable Care Act's provisions on allowing Americans to purchase health insurance on state exchanges and a national exchange took effect.
The issue has remained in the news and one of my clients asked me to write an article on whether employees and employers are happier when the employers provide health insurance to those employees. The answer is 'yes.' (The upper-case R in the headline is intentional.)
The below article includes information that I used in that article. Below the article are the links to the four health-care articles that I posted about two months ago.
Health Insurance Boosts The Spirits Of Employees -- And Their Employers
Employers who provide health insurance to employees will not only make their employees happy, but they will ultimately make themselves happier, wealthier and more successful.
“Hiring (and keeping) good employees requires providing good benefits,” wrote Sheila Grosdidier in “Let’s Talk Benefits: What You Need to Know Before You Hire,” an article for vet learn. “Benefits do not have to cost a lot to make your team happy. A combination of fair compensation and good benefits helps to build a satisfied team that will remain with you for a long time.”
An article by Cristen Conger of HowStuffWorks entitled "10 Ways to Keep Employees" details how offering health insurance to employees helps employees and employers.
Employees who are happy are more likely to be team players in the office and be long-term employees, according to the Harvard Business Review. They are also more apt to achieve long-term financial happiness because their happiness spurs them to perform “above and beyond” expectations, wrote Conger.
Employers with happy employees are more likely to be happy as well because satisfied and productive workforces are more likely to satisfy customers and boost profits, added Conger.
Health insurance is part of an employee’s compensation package so you shouldn’t “lowball” employees because “if you do, they will eventually find out and not be happy," wrote Karsten Strauss of Forbes magazine in an article entitled "7 Ways To Keep Your Employees Happy (And Working Really Hard)."
Offering health insurance is crucial, but employers can do a lot of other things to make their employees happy, according to the HowStuffWorks article. Employers should also provide their employees consistent feedback, respect their work effort and personal objectives, provide them career growth opportunities, explain the company’s objectives to them, set clear goals for them to achieve, recognize and reward their success, have one-on-one meetings with every individual, and offer them flexible work options.
Offering health insurance, though, comes before all of these worthy objectives.
The four articles I posted on Storeboard.com about two months ago are:
"47 Million Americans Lacked Health Insurance In 2012: Will The New State Exchanges Help Them?"
"18% Of Health Insurance Applications Are Rejected."
"Will Affordable Care Act Help Small Businesses?"
"The States With The Worst Health Coverage"
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