HR Practice
Aston Carter | January 05, 2024
Aston Carter announced deeper strategic specialization for its business. The brand will exclusively provide talent solutions across accounting, finance, human resources, talent acquisition, procurement, supply chain and select administrative professions. Its other solutions within governance, risk and compliance; customer support; and creative and marketing will shift to Allegis Group sister company TEKsystems, which has existing complementary services in those areas. The specialization will enhance Aston Carter's capabilities across its core offerings, increase capacity, and create efficiencies to support the unique needs of accounting, finance and corporate talent.
"At Allegis Group we are committed to refining and realigning our businesses to ensure that our customers' needs are always our top priority," said Jay Alvather, CEO of Allegis Group. "Aston Carter's clients and talent can expect the same level of excellent service today, with significantly enhanced capabilities and scale to better support those ever-evolving needs and opportunities."
To support the enhanced focus of Aston Carter's talent offerings, the brand has aligned under the leadership team at Actalent, an Allegis Group company that was built around a strategy of specialization. Led by Chad Koele, who will serve as president of both brands, Aston Carter will benefit from leadership, strategy and infrastructure that will support the business' ability to fill a growing need for specialized talent solutions in the marketplace.
"For over two decades, Aston Carter has provided highly sought-after talent to organizations around the world — and this move is another step in our evolution to help clients and professionals navigate changing business needs," said Lauren DeMarco-Stadtlander, Aston Carter managing director. "With the guiding hand of Chad's leadership team and their experience, Aston Carter is well-positioned to help our customers innovate and lead in their respective industries."
"I am excited by the prospect of creating new value for Aston Carter's clients and talent," said Chad Koele, president of Aston Carter. "Our team has put rigorous focus into a strategy of getting smaller to get better, specializing and segmenting across all lines of business and taking great care of our talent. Applying that same strategy to Aston Carter will bring increased growth and opportunity to its clients and talent as well as its internal teams, who we are thrilled to gain as part of the Actalent family."
About Aston Carter
Aston Carter provides world-class corporate talent solutions to thousands of clients across the globe. Specialized in accounting, finance, human resources, talent acquisition, procurement, supply chain and select administrative professions, we extend the capabilities of industry-leading companies. We draw on our deep recruiting expertise and expansive network to meet the evolving needs of our clients and talent community with agility and excellence. With offices across the U.S., Canada, Asia Pacific and Europe, Aston Carter serves many of the Fortune 500. We are proud to be a ClearlyRated Best of Staffing® double diamond winner for both client and talent service.
Read More
Workforce Management
Alight Solutions | January 09, 2024
Alight, Inc. a leading cloud-based human capital and technology services provider, and CirrusMD, a physician-first provider of on-demand virtual care, today announced a strategic agreement to offer a chat-enabled, physician-led, virtual care solution. The partnership is aimed at breaking down barriers to virtual care by providing employees with access to expert physicians across a wide range of health care needs on the Alight Worklife platform.
“The Alight Worklife platform serves as employees’ comprehensive connection point to their health, wealth, payroll and leaves benefits, which helps employers cut complexities, costs and engage individuals in the moments that matter most,” said Bipin Mistry, chief medical officer at Alight. “The partnership with CirrusMD helps take employee engagement one step further by making physician-led virtual care easily accessible to employees and bridges the gap between virtual clinical care delivery and employer-sponsored benefits navigation.”
Helping employees arrive at the most appropriate care
Employees on the Alight Worklife platform can engage directly with CirrusMD or be prompted to engage after completing Alight’s AI-powered Symptom Checker online experience to better understand their healthcare needs and guide them to care options, including virtual care provided by CirrusMD. With Single Sign-On (SSO) for fast connections to care within 60 seconds, Alight Worklife enhances the participant experience.
CirrusMD’s Physician-first Care & Guidance approach to virtual primary care provides members with always-on, instant access to a doctor via chat-first modality. CirrusMD’s multidisciplinary clinical team conducts encounters on a proprietary clinical intelligence engine that provides real-time insights to physicians based on data from millions of patient-physician interactions. Once employees connect with physicians, CirrusMD offers a seamless, efficient and patient-centric virtual care experience by
Connecting patients to physicians in less than a minute, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year,
Delivering advanced primary care that includes behavioral health, women’s health, acute care, chronic condition management and more,
Physician-led seven-day experiences, interactions that allow time for in-depth diagnosis and treatment, reducing the high costs associated with multiple follow-ups,
Text-based chat with options for video, voice and images when needed,
Immediate referrals to employer benefits and in-network resources,
And real-time Spanish language translation to help overcome potential language barriers. Optimizing the integration of healthcare benefits and clinical workflows
The strategic partnership enables employers to select CirrusMD as part of their Alight Healthcare Navigation offering within the Alight Worklife platform. As well, CirrusMD providers benefit from access to Alight’s Symptom Checker results and can reference benefit programs available to the participant which can serve to facilitate patient follow-ups with both CirrusMD care teams and Alight Health Pros for a comprehensive healthcare journey support.
This combined solution provides ongoing navigation to appropriate referrals and resources. For example, Alight's support for individuals with Behavioral Health conditions aligns seamlessly with CirrusMD, offering quick access to virtual Behavioral Health support when needed. Employees can be directed to other types of care options such as virtual physical therapy, through referrals made directly from CirrusMD or Alight.
“At CirrusMD we are reimagining the point of care to provide the time and information needed to support a productive dialog between patient and physician, giving both the time and information they need for exceptional care experiences,” said Jamie Hall, president and CEO of CirrusMD. “This strategic agreement represents an important milestone in advancing virtual primary care, combining the strengths of Alight Solutions and CirrusMD to transform the healthcare experience for individuals and employers alike.”
CirrusMD boasts an 83% issue resolution rate and an 93% overall patient satisfaction rate, and serves notable customers including health plans, large employers and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
About Alight Solutions
Alight is a leading cloud-based human capital technology and services provider that powers confident health, wealth and wellbeing decisions for 36 million people and dependents. Our Alight Worklife® platform combines data and analytics with a simple, seamless user experience. Supported by our global delivery capabilities, Alight Worklife is transforming the employee experience for people around the world. With personalized, data-driven health, wealth, pay and wellbeing insights, Alight brings people the security of better outcomes and peace of mind throughout life’s big moments and most important decisions.
About CirrusMD
CirrusMD delivers Physician-first Care & Guidance, a smart care model founded in the tenets of Advanced Primary Care. It brings together activated members with trusted physicians, relevant resources, and smart technology to change healthcare as we know it. CirrusMD improves speed to care, removes barriers to physicians, brings patient data into the care encounter, and promotes transparency at the point of referral. We believe that when you provide immediate, affordable care at scale you can drive the change needed to improve health and lower cost across an entire population.
Read More
Employee Benefits
Springbuk | January 23, 2024
Reperio Health, the only provider of at-home and onsite biometric screenings with instant results, announced a strategic partnership with Springbuk, the leading health intelligence platform for employers and benefits advisors. By integrating Reperio’s full service biometric screening experience with insights from the Springbuk Activate partner marketplace, the solution will enhance healthcare outcomes through data-driven insights and personalized care.
The Springbuk Activate marketplace matches employers with possible partners based on their population's health needs or risks, showing them potential opportunities in savings and program engagement – all in one place.
"Reperio's innovative at-home and onsite health screening services bring convenience and timeliness to our employees,” said Joy Powell, CEO of Springbuk. “The instant results and metrics-driven insights empower our employer and broker clients and their members to take control of their wellness, marking a significant shift towards preventive care."
Reperio worked with Springbuk to develop a customized “card” within the Springbuk application that identifies the number of members in the employer’s population who may qualify for Reperio’s annual biometric screening program and a 12-month savings opportunity estimate based on assumptions of program success.
“We are excited to partner with Springbuk to offer their members an integrative, secure and easy-to-use biometric health screening kit,” said Travis Rush, CEO and co-founder of Reperio Health. “It’s our expressed intent to help them — and thousands of others — prioritize their preventive health with actionable insights. We’re proud to be in a collaborative effort to do just that.”
About Springbuk
Springbuk is a leading-edge health analytics intelligence platform that empowers employers and consultants to sharpen their benefits strategy, advance employee health, and contain costs. The innovative solution offers deep analytic insights, allows data-informed decision-making, and provides curated action steps and strategic direction to maximize return on employee benefit investments.
About Reperio Health
Reperio Health is the only provider of at-home and onsite comprehensive health screenings with instant results. An innovation in preventive care, Reperio’s patented technology pairs a mobile app with FDA-cleared devices, bringing a consumer-grade experience to biometric screenings. The solution modernizes the costly and inaccessible screening processes deployed today and reaches every corner of the healthcare industry—including employers, providers, payers and more. Clients are empowered by metrics-driven insights and HIPAA-compliant data integration to bolster their wellness, benefits and population health management offerings.
Read More
Recruitment & Retention
Principal Financial Group® | January 16, 2024
The picture of retirement is evolving with more Americans turning 65 in 2024 than any year1 before. According to new research from Principal Financial Group®, expectations around how and when to retire by generation vary greatly – placing increased focus on employee engagement and personalized investment strategies to help improve financial security and retirement readiness.
Phased retirement appeals to younger workers who want to retire earlier
According to the Principal Financial Well-Being IndexSM, among Americans in the workforce, gradually decreasing hours is the most desired way to retire (52%) and is most preferred by Generation X (67%) and millennials (56%). Baby boomers and Generation Z report similarities in how they want to retire, with nearly half preferring to move immediately from working full-time to not working at all. This echoes the most common approach taken by current retirees surveyed2, a group in which just over one quarter (28%) either transitioned careers or gradually phased down from their primary career.
“Attitudes and expectations for retirement continue to evolve, and we expect the desire to approach retirement in phases will continue to grow with future generations,” said Chris Littlefield, president of Retirement and Income Solutions at Principal®.
While there are some similarities in how generations want to retire, they have different expectations on timelines and the age at which they plan to retire. The youngest generation, Gen Z, expects to retire at 55 – approximately 10 years earlier than baby boomers (68) and Gen X (64), and four years sooner than millennials (59).
Employees prioritize saving for retirement
The survey revealed employees are focused on balancing basic needs with long-term savings outcomes against a backdrop of ongoing economic pressures that continue to top their list of concerns. Employees of all generations ranked saving for retirement as their top financial priority, followed by affording basic needs and paying off consumer debt3.
"Saving for retirement is the No. 1 financial priority for employees surveyed, which validates that access to workplace benefits and financial wellness programs is helping Americans save for retirement and achieve better financial outcomes,” Littlefield said. “Going forward, increased personalization as well as tailored savings and investment strategies that take into account an individual’s financial goals, lifestyle, health care needs, dependent care obligations, retirement income expectations, and other unique factors will help achieve improved financial security in retirement.”
Retention and recruitment of older employees critical for business success
Employee interest in phased retirement has added value for employers. Most employers (77%) agree that the knowledge older employees have about their company is crucial to their business’s success. Employers concerned with “having valuable employees retire” are more likely to take actions to either retain them or hire employees who previously retired from other companies.
Despite this, not all employers have experience with offering phased retirement. Only 11% of small and midsized businesses4 reported they offer phased retirement job opportunities on a regular basis compared to nearly one quarter of large businesses5. However, interest is there, as 61% of businesses that don’t offer a phased retirement still receive questions from employees about the options.
See all results and insights from the latest Principal Financial Well-Being IndexSM (PDF).
According to the Alliance for Lifetime Income
This wave included a survey of 137 individuals between the ages of 50 and 75 who consider themselves retired or have previously fully retired and gone back to work.
In order to be included in the survey sample, employees must work full-time, and their employer has to offer either health insurance or retirement as an employee benefit.
Businesses with 2-499 employees
Businesses with 500-10,000 employees
About the Principal Financial Well-Being IndexSM
The Principal Financial Well-Being IndexSM surveys business owners, decision makers and business leaders aged 21 and over who work at companies with 2-10,000 employees and offer either health insurance or retirement as an employee benefit. The nation-wide survey, commissioned since 2012, examines the financial well-being of American workers and business employers. In 2020, the Well-Being Index was transformed from an annual survey to a regular pulse, offering three waves, revisiting questions and measuring sentiment regarding timely issues in the small and midsized business marketplace. In the first pulse of the Well-Being Index in 2022, the employee audience was added to the survey to compare and contrast key sentiment from employers. The survey was commissioned by Principal® and conducted online by Dynata from November 6-13, 2023, with a total of 500 business owners, decision makers and business leader participants and a total of 200 employee participants. This wave included a survey of 127 individuals who consider themselves retired or have previously fully retired and gone back to work. The research report focuses on providing a holistic perspective on key trends and timely issues in the small and medium business market.
About Principal Financial Group®
Principal Financial Group® is a global financial company with 19,500 employees1 passionate about improving the wealth and well-being of people and businesses. In business for more than 140 years, we’re helping more than 61 million customers1 plan, protect, invest, and retire, while working to support the communities where we do business, and build a diverse, inclusive workforce. Principal® is proud to be recognized as one of the 2023 World’s Most Ethical Companies® by Ethisphere2, a member of the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index, and a “Best Places to Work in Money Management3.”
Read More