“Change brings opportunity.” — Nido Qubein, businessman, motivational speaker, and president of High Point University in North Carolina

While many parties in the health-care industry are dealing with the complexities associated with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, a new health-insurance opportunity is gaining traction among both employers and employees.

That opportunity is called a private exchange and it has its origins back in the late 1970s when employers began experimenting with defined-contribution benefit plans by offering employer-sponsored cafeteria plans.

Although not actually part of the Affordable Care Act, private exchanges are now being created throughout the country to help employers better manage health-care costs and offer improved coverage options for employees. Focused media attention and the adoption by some major insurers and brokerages have fueled the increasing popularity of private exchanges and forecasts for a very successful future.

A survey released by the Private Exchange Evaluation Collaborative (or PEEC) found that 45 percent of employers surveyed plan to consider or will be using a private exchange for their employees before 2018.

In addition, the consulting firm Accenture estimates that about 1 million individuals will enroll this year in private exchanges, with that number possibly growing to 40 million over the next four years.

How they work
Why are private exchanges so popular and what should employers and employees know about them?

First of all, with a private exchange, employers choose a contribution amount to make available to employees for the purchase of health insurance and other employee benefits. The employee can then choose from a wide array of benefit-selection options.

Depending on the type of private-exchange model, companies can choose either fully insured or self-insured funding arrangements as well as a selection of employee-decision support tools.

These decision-support tools empower employees in their plan selections. Employees will be able to forecast their annual premium costs while also estimating their out-of-pocket expenses. Proprietary decision support tools can further help employees to project the number of physician office visits, specialty and ER visits, and hospital days as part of this process.

Private exchanges hold promising possibilities for the employers that seek to divest some of the financial responsibility for medical cost inflation. They can help companies reduce health-care costs and simplify their benefit-plan administration.

Because of these possibilities and the interest in this new model, First Niagara Benefits Consulting recently announced the creation of the First Niagara Benefits Exchange.

As with any new product or service in the health-insurance marketplace, it is important for both employers and employees to understand the composition, benefits, and value proposed by private exchanges.

They might just find that change brings opportunity.

Tom Henschke is the manager of exchange solutions for First Niagara Benefits Consulting, a division of First Niagara Risk Management and parent First Niagara Financial Group, Inc.

Content submitted by the CNY ASTD

DeWITT — The winners of the seventh annual CNY BEST Learning and Performance Awards were announced at CNY ASTD’s (Central New York Chapter of the American Society for Training & Development) CNY BEST awards ceremony on Thursday, June 12 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Syracuse, near Carrier Circle.

CNY ASTD annually recognizes excellence in learning and performance practices in the Central New York area with the CNY BEST Learning and Performance Awards. Organizations and consultants who link learning to strategic growth through demonstrated commitment to helping individuals enhance their skills and continual learning are recognized.

Nominations for the CNY BEST Learning and Performance Awards represent a wide range of organizations. This year’s nominees included AXA, Crouse Hospital, CXtec and TERACAI, ITT, Just The Basics Financial Literacy, King + King Architects, Mohawk Valley Community College’s Center for Corporate and Community Education, Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees, New Horizons Computer Learning Center of Syracuse, Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes, Inc., Rescue Mission Alliance Of Syracuse, SRC, Inc., Suburban Propane, L.P., SUNY-ESF Outreach, The Raymond Corp., and Turning Stone Resort Casino.

A panel of local and national judges representing the profession and community evaluated the nominations for quality of learning and performance practices, practice results, and demonstrations of how the practices linked to the strategic growth or success of the organization. The distinguished panel of judges for the 2014 CNY BEST Learning and Performance Awards included: Pam Brunet, Leadership Greater Syracuse; Karen Zannini Bull, University College of Syracuse University; Peggie Chan, O’Brien & Gere; Mary Anne Ciccarelli, Syracuse Model Neighborhood Facility, Inc. and instructor Le Moyne College PHR/SPHR Certification Preparation Course; Michelle Cooper, Oneida Nation Enterprises, LLC; Wendy Gates Corbett, Refresher Training, LLC; National Advisor to Chapters, NE/UNY ASTD; Ingrid Gonzalez-McCurdy, Elmcrest Children’s Center and president CNY ASTD; James N. Jerose, Nuvenu Business Advisors; Robert Kocik, Central New York Technology Development Organization (TDO); Sue Kolceski, Excellus BlueCross BlueShield; Emily Lauzon, Akwesasne Mohawk Casino Resort; Kelli Loveless, ESL Federal Credit Union and president, Genesee Valley ASTD; Debra Munson, 21st Century Insurance; Lori Peterson, goFLUENT, Inc.; Mary E. Reidy, National Grid; Paul Rubsamen, Mohawk Valley Health System.

The winners are as follows:

LEARNING AND PERFORMANCE INTERNSHIP 

New Horizons Computer Learning Center of Syracuse
New Horizons Computer Learning Center of Syracuse was honored for helping link learning to a client’s strategic growth or success with its Accessibility Fundamentals for Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat program. Syracuse University asserted that accessibility — the degree to which anyone, including those with disabilities, can access something and understand it — is essential for an ever-growing portion of the university community. The university is committed to providing accessibility of electronic documents and information. 

To accomplish this, the university partnered with New Horizons of Syracuse to develop and deliver training to increase the capability of its faculty and staff in creating accessible documents. Training exposed features that make documents and information easier for people with disabilities, and helped content creators make documents that are more accessible. 

New Horizons has proven to be essential to Syracuse University’s strategy of being a more inclusive, accessible institution by providing a growing awareness and competency in creating accessible documents. The judges conveyed that, “this is an interesting project” and “it appears there’s a lot to learn about accessibility.” The judges also stated that it was “a thoughtful touch that the application materials were submitted as accessible, showing by example and clearly articulating the impact of the project.”   

LEARNING AND PERFORMANCE NOT-FOR-PROFIT ORGANIZATION  

Crouse Hospital
Crouse Hospital was recognized for linking learning for its internal and external stakeholders to the organization’s strategic growth or success for its Collaborative Learning Partnership. Through listening sessions with emergency medical service (EMS) providers, Crouse Hospital identified an opportunity to share its success with Lean Six Sigma techniques to help its EMS partners develop and advance their quality-improvement programs. 

The diverse group in this learning collaborative, which in the second year was expanded to include a global medical manufacturer, worked together on research and improvement projects, and learned how to implement performance and quality initiatives in their own organizations. The results and outcomes of this learning partnership have significantly improved the processes and quality of patient care provided by EMS professionals in 11 NYS counties, improved EMS operational efficiency, advanced the quality of care within the hospital setting, and strengthened Crouse’s relationship with its EMS partners. One judge remarked, “Crouse and its EMS partners tackled critical health-care functions and, with improvements through this collaborative initiative, created a significant impact on patient care with obvious efficiencies in the system.” Another judge declared, “Excellent collaborative efforts — Look forward to continued results.”

SPECIAL RECOGNITION: LINKING LEARNING TO THE STRATEGIC GROWTH AND SUCCESS OF THE ORGANIZATION

Mohawk Valley Community College’s Center for Corporate and Community Education
Mohawk Valley Community College’s Center for Corporate and Community Education was honored for its Young Entrepreneurs Academy. The Young Entrepreneurs Academy program engages students and the business community to help keep young people in the area and revitalize the community. The program takes students through the process of starting and running real businesses over the course of an academic year. Students work in close cooperation with many local leaders of industry, community members, and educators to develop ideas and objectives, write business plans, pitch potential investors, obtain funding, register with governmental agencies, and develop their brand identity. The students learn real-world skills with a curriculum stressing teamwork, networking, and public speaking. By the end of the class, students own and operate fully functioning businesses. The judges observed that “the program has created a great deal of involvement and excitement in the community for learning and supporting the growth and success of the youth.” The Great Utica Chamber of Commerce stated, “The impact and benefits of this program and partnership will be far reaching for our community.”

FOR-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS 

Three for-profit organizations were recognized for linking work-based learning to their business’ strategic growth or success.

Turning Stone Resort Casino
Turning Stone Resort Casino received the CNY BEST Learning and Performance Organization Sapphire Award for its “Evolution of Effective Sales & Customer Service” program. Following a detailed review of business practices, processes, and the individual skill sets of the Turning Stone Resort Casino sales department, it was evident that there was opportunity to maximize business potential, improve training and development, and increase customer-service levels. Implementation of current industry sales practices led to organizational changes and a new set of selling procedures and guidelines. A hotel sales-specific training program was implemented to sharpen the team’s selling skills and optimize client relationship-building abilities. Ongoing training activities were put in place to reinforce sales skills and product knowledge, and Mystery Shop calls and role-play exercises were used to reinforce the training and measure the results. Judges comments included the following: “strong integration of learning initiatives into business practices to support organization with a focus on maintenance and retention going forward to keep momentum going,” and “the business impact is clear — increased sales and improved customer service.”

CXtec & TERACAI
CXtec and TERACAI received the Emerald Award for its Leadership Exploration and Development Program (LEAD). CXtec and TERACAI recognized that in order to meet their goals of growing their organizations, they needed to maximize their human capital and ensure that they had the right people in the right positions to lead the companies. A key strategy for achieving these goals is to continually train and develop the skills of their employees. The LEAD Program was created as an opportunity to provide development of key employees that are critical to the future success of the companies as they have the potential to assume greater and more strategic leadership roles. CXtec and TERACAI view this particular training as an investment in their employees, a way to motivate and enable them to learn new skills, support retention, and positively impact productivity. Additionally, this training reinforces the concept of shared leadership, allows for the creation of a succession pipeline with bench strength, enables promotion from within, and supports the growth of the companies’ own leaders. Judges indicated the program included “a very thorough analysis of where the organization and its people are and where they plan to go,” commenting on “a masterpiece of organizational training program excellence.” 

The Raymond Corporation
The Raymond Corporation received the Diamond Award for its Course Manager Training and Development Program. During the last two decades, The Raymond Corp. strategically refocused its market positioning efforts. Unfortunately, while its products evolved, its technical training lagged. This lag in training led to the need for an innovative technician-development solution. The new Technician Development Program was developed as self-paced, learner-centered, and performance-based. However, to ensure the technician training was facilitated properly, trainers were not only required to have a new skill set, but also a new title. The program provides course managers the opportunity to learn, practice, and receive feedback on the higher competencies needed (facilitation, coaching, Socratic questioning, observation, group dynamics, plus other skills) to facilitate the newly hired and veteran technicians’ learning process. The judges commended Raymond for its “great story of the problem behind the problem,” and “an excellent example of the need to update outdated training which leads to a changing approach for trainers — creatively covers everything.”

Keynote Speaker
The keynote speaker for this year’s CNY BEST Learning and Performance Awards Ceremony was Casey Crabill, president of Onondaga Community College. Crabill’s keynote speech entitled, “Creating a Strong Central New York Workforce,” was slated to discuss how businesses, organizations, and educational institutions can work together to build a better community. 

In addition to recognizing excellence in learning and performance practices, CNY ASTD awarded CNY ASTD John Burns Memorial Scholarship Awards to Carolyn DeJohn and Lori Peterson and recognized Steven DeHart and Amy Wood for their recent CPLP designation. CNY ASTD established the CNY ASTD Scholarship Program to encourage and support continuing education and professional development in the field of workforce learning and performance. The scholarship awards are named in honor of CNY ASTD’s 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award winner John Burns. The CPLP (Certified Professional in Learning & Performance) is a credential for learning and performance professionals offered by the ASTD Certification Institute. The CPLP designation is recognition that you have met performance standards, have an overall understanding of the body of knowledge of your field, and can apply your knowledge successfully. 

About the CNY BEST Learning and Performance Awards
CNY ASTD is in the seventh year of recognizing excellence in learning and performance practices in the Central New York area with the CNY BEST Learning and Performance Awards. Past recipients have included: Aspen Dental Management, Inc., Completely Organized, Inc., EnergyWright, Faxton St. Luke’s Healthcare, goFLUENT, Inc., Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce, Institute for Veterans and Military Families, ITT Technologies, Laboratory Alliance of CNY, LaFayette Big Picture School, Loretto, MACNY – The Manufacturers Association, Mohawk Valley Manufacturers Consortium, New Horizons Computer Learning Center, North Syracuse Central School District, Oneida Nation Enterprises, Rescue Mission Alliance of Syracuse, SRC, Saab Sensis, SavOn, Time Warner Cable, and Westcott Community Center.

About CNY ASTD
CNY ASTD is the local association of ASTD dedicated to learning and development professionals. For more than 40 years, CNY ASTD has been connecting learning and development professionals throughout the region, and contributing to the growth of its members and recognition of the profession. Currently, CNY ASTD has more than 150 members from various organizations in the Central New York area covering 17 counties from the Canadian border to the Pennsylvania border in the central region of New York state.