Case Study: Helping Employees Stay at Work

June 17, 2019

Managing benefits for 48,000 employees in more than 100 locations is challenging. Just ask the leaders of the Missouri State Employees’ Retirement System, which manages retirement, life insurance and long term disability benefits. Not surprisingly, MOSERS needed help with disability management.

The Challenge

MOSERS was seeing high absenteeism and presenteeism among its members. Part of the problem was that the organization didn’t have a formal stay-at-work or return-to-work program as part of its disability benefits.

Leaders were looking for a way to reduce costs while increasing productivity and employee engagement. They wanted to ensure employees got the support they needed.

Logistical Issues

100+ locations statewide

500+ HR reps in many locations

100+ types of jobs

Communication Factors

Members spread across 39 agencies, including nine colleges and universities

Collaborative Solution

The Standard and MOSERS worked together to come up with a solution.

Our first step? We added the Workplace PossibilitiesSM program to MOSERS’ Long Term Disability insurance program — at no extra cost to the organization or its members.1 The program helps identify at-risk employees before they ever miss work. It also helps employees on disability claims get back to work faster.

Then we partnered with MOSERS to raise awareness about the program. We communicated directly with HR reps, managers and employees through a variety of channels.

A Workplace Possibilities coordinator from The Standard built momentum in person by visiting some workplaces. Andrea Binkley, chief benefits officer at MOSERS, was one of the first employees helped by the program. She received accommodations for her desk to help with knee pain. Employees began to realize how the program could help them, too, and word spread.

We unified our services with those provided by MOSERS, so we could offer employees innovative services that work together. These include absence management programs and online ergonomic assessments from The Standard, and health insurance and weight-loss incentives from MOSERS.

Meaningful Results

Here are just some of the results experienced by MOSERS2:

  • 91% stay-at-work success rate after Workplace Possibilities intervention
  • $5.8M net LTD savings

Well-Earned Recognition

Here’s the icing on the cake. In 2018, The Standard awarded the Workplace Possibilities Champion Award to MOSERS. The award recognizes an organization’s efforts to help employees stay at work or return to work.

Read more about MOSERS’ experience and their employee success stories.

 

 

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