Ms. Raylana Anderson This is Me

 View all 9 references Web References

1. 1. CareerJournal | Smart Bosses Enlist the Help Of Employees to Maintain Benefits

   www.careermagazine.com/columni - [Cached]

   Published on: 1/9/2006   Last Visited: 1/11/2006

   STS's director of human resources, Raylana Anderson, encourages employees to spend at least as much time learning about their coverage and choosing physicians as they spend shopping for TVs or sofas. She says she has researched numerous insurers to find carriers "who have real data about medical costs in Peoria and other Midwestern towns where we operate." To pare costs, the company has switched insurers and offered employees a choice of coverage options. Rather than just announcing the changes, Ms. Anderson met with small groups to help them choose the best plan, find the best doctors in their region and get prompt reimbursement.
   
   "No one likes change, so my first message was 'yes, it will be different, but no, it won't be worse -- and we're all in this together,' " says Ms. Anderson. She met first with employees she thought might complain the most to address individual concerns. "There was the single parent who had particular needs, versus the married guy with seven kids," she says. She also showed employees how to log onto insurers' Web sites to find out the reimbursement for different procedures, and urged them to "shop around" and then ask doctors they liked to accept the payment their plan offered.
   
   "We didn't just offer these meetings. We told employees they needed to come so they would know how to take advantage of their benefits," says Ms. Anderson. The result: "We got a buy-in from employees on the changes, and they weren't in my office complaining," she says.

2. 2. CareerJournal | Smart Bosses Enlist the Help Of Employees to Maintain Benefits

   www.careers.wsj.com/columnists - [Cached]

   Published on: 1/9/2006   Last Visited: 2/20/2006

   STS's director of human resources, Raylana Anderson, encourages employees to spend at least as much time learning about their coverage and choosing physicians as they spend shopping for TVs or sofas. She says she has researched numerous insurers to find carriers "who have real data about medical costs in Peoria and other Midwestern towns where we operate." To pare costs, the company has switched insurers and offered employees a choice of coverage options. Rather than just announcing the changes, Ms. Anderson met with small groups to help them choose the best plan, find the best doctors in their region and get prompt reimbursement.
   
   "No one likes change, so my first message was 'yes, it will be different, but no, it won't be worse -- and we're all in this together,' " says Ms. Anderson. She met first with employees she thought might complain the most to address individual concerns. "There was the single parent who had particular needs, versus the married guy with seven kids," she says. She also showed employees how to log onto insurers' Web sites to find out the reimbursement for different procedures, and urged them to "shop around" and then ask doctors they liked to accept the payment their plan offered.
   
   "We didn't just offer these meetings. We told employees they needed to come so they would know how to take advantage of their benefits," says Ms. Anderson. The result: "We got a buy-in from employees on the changes, and they weren't in my office complaining," she says.

3. 3. Companies enlist employees' help to maintain benefits

   www.postgazette.com/pg/05353/6 - [Cached]

   Published on: 12/19/2005   Last Visited: 12/19/2005

   STS's director of human resources, Raylana Anderson, encourages employees to spend at least as much time learning about their coverage and choosing physicians as they spend shopping for TVs or sofas. She says she has researched numerous insurers to find carriers "who have real data about medical costs in Peoria and other Midwestern towns where we operate." To pare costs, the company has switched insurers and offered employees a choice of coverage options. Rather than just announcing the changes, Ms. Anderson met with small groups to help them choose the best plan, find the best doctors in their region and get prompt reimbursement.
   
   "No one likes change, so my first message was 'yes, it will be different, but no, it won't be worse -- and we're all in this together,' " says Ms. Anderson. She met first with employees she thought might complain the most to address individual concerns. "There was the single parent who had particular needs, versus the married guy with seven kids," she says. She also showed employees how to log onto insurers' Web sites to find out the reimbursement for different procedures, and urged them to "shop around" and then ask doctors they liked to accept the payment their plan offered.
   
   "We didn't just offer these meetings. We told employees they needed to come so they would know how to take advantage of their benefits," says Ms. Anderson. The result: "We got a buy-in from employees on the changes, and they weren't in my office complaining," she says.