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<\/a><\/p>\nI spend a lot of time outdoors not because I\u2019m required to do so but because I\u2019m drawn to it.\u00a0 My preference is to walk, ride a bike or take a train to connect; to connect with everything.\u00a0 Whenever I travel for business or leisure, I study the transportation system of the destination city intent on navigating the city on foot, by bus or by train.\u00a0 I do this because I see things that cannot be seen from a car.\u00a0 There are sights, sounds and aromas that cannot be experienced whizzing by in the comfort of a car.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve spent my entire working life sitting in an office in front of a computer screen, often in a tiny cubicle walled off from all but a handful of people.\u00a0 Technology and the conveniences of the 21st<\/sup> century, though offering more opportunities to connect with one another, ironically also offer ways for us to disconnect and wall ourselves off from the outside world.\u00a0 We can tailor our lives to our wants and desires.\u00a0 We can order almost anything we need to be delivered to our homes.\u00a0 And, we have access to unlimited news and entertainment options via cable and the internet.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve never had such autonomy to choose how we interact with the outside world, but our choices have led to less<\/em> not more connectedness.\u00a0 We\u2019ve walled ourselves off from our environment.\u00a0 Fewer of us are venturing out into the world, into nature.\u00a0 Most of us are content to limit our exposure to the outdoors to walking to and from our cars.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t that long ago in our history when we spent most of our time outside.\u00a0 We were more connected then to everything.<\/p>\n Presented with more opportunities to connect with one another we\u2019ve chosen to do the opposite.\u00a0 Because we are the masters of our own universes we can choose what we want to see and hear, but in doing so we also eliminate what we do not want to see and hear.\u00a0 Ironically, we\u2019ve chosen to limit our connectedness to those who think and act like us.\u00a0 It\u2019s why political discourse is so vitriolic; we\u2019ve lost the ability to see the humanity in someone with whom we don\u2019t connect, someone not like us.<\/p>\n \u201cStop!\u201d you might say.\u00a0 \u201cYou own an employee benefits and compliance consulting firm.\u00a0 What does any of this have to do with your business?\u201d\u00a0 Oh, but it does.\u00a0 In fact, it\u2019s at the core of what I do.\u00a0 I\u2019m in the business of helping people.\u00a0 To help someone, you must see their humanity, their perspective.\u00a0 This is one of the reasons why I\u2019m compelled to connect with others.<\/p>\n The world is a large and increasingly complex place, and it\u2019s understandable that it can seem daunting to many.\u00a0 Despite the advances in technology that has brought about this individual autonomy, many people feel powerless.\u00a0 It\u2019s sometimes hard for us to see that we individually have the power to make an impact on the world, but we do.\u00a0 I\u2019ll tell you how, but we must first travel to the past.<\/p>\n Joe\u2019s Story<\/strong><\/p>\n My father-in-law, Joe, will be 96 years-old in October.\u00a0 In his youth, he spent almost a year working in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) before flying 57 missions as a bomber pilot during World War II.\u00a0 One of those missions included bombing Utah beach in Normandy on D-Day on the morning of the invasion.\u00a0 He did all of that and returned home from Europe just shy of his 24th<\/sup> birthday.<\/p>\n A little more than a year ago, Joe suffered a stroke that left him unable to form new memories which can make conversations about the present difficult and confusing for him.\u00a0 When we get together I make it a point to engage him in conversations about his past, including his time in the CCC camp.<\/p>\n Arguably the most popular of the New Deal programs, the goal of the Civilian Conservation Corps was two-fold: conservation of the country\u2019s natural resources and to provide jobs for young men so they could help support their families during the Great Depression.\u00a0 CCC enrollees were provided shelter, food and clothing and were paid $30 a month, $25 of which was sent home to their families.<\/p>\n CCC enrollees performed all manner of conservation work including erosion and flood control, trail maintenance and construction, and restocking streams and lakes with fish.\u00a0 They built roads, bridges, fire lookout towers, service buildings and airport landing strips.\u00a0 They also planted trees; over 3 billion of them, more than 123 million of which were planted in Minnesota.<\/p>\n In the fall of 1938, Joe was so far ahead of his high school class he decided to take a year off so that he wouldn\u2019t graduate at the same time as his older brother.\u00a0 Too young to get a job in the U.S. Steel mill near his home in Duluth, Minnesota he enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps.\u00a0 Joe was sent to a camp up on the Sawbill trail along the north shore of Lake Superior in northeastern Minnesota.\u00a0 The camp was one of more than 175 CCC camps in the State.<\/p>\n The trailhead of the Sawbill is in Tofte, Minnesota, an old fishing and logging town on the western shore of Lake Superior about 90 miles northeast of Duluth.\u00a0 The Sawbill runs parallel to the Temperance River into the Laurentian Highlands, the remains of a mountain range crushed by advancing and receding glaciers from ice ages past.\u00a0 In 1938, the Sawbill was an unpaved logging trail once used to harvest the rich forests of white pine in northern Minnesota.\u00a0 Today it\u2019s a scenic paved two-lane highway used mostly as an entry point into the Boundary Waters Wilderness Area in the Superior National Forest.<\/p>\n Most of Joe\u2019s time was spent planting trees, white and red pine seedlings no more than two feet tall.\u00a0 Joe has described the process like this, \u201cYou had a pickaxe and you swung the broad end into the ground to make a hole.\u00a0 You pulled the dirt back from the hole, grabbed a seedling from the sack on your back and put it into the hole.\u00a0 You pulled the pickaxe out and tamped down the loose dirt around the tree with your boot.\u00a0 Just like that you\u2019ve planted a tree.\u201d<\/p>\n I got the impression from Joe that although it was physically demanding work it was also a lot of fun.\u00a0 \u201cWe would compete with one another to see how many trees we could plant in a day.\u00a0 I once planted 125 trees in a single day.\u201d\u00a0 The camp had a pool hall and a PX.\u00a0 There was a travelling library that went from camp to camp.\u00a0 On their off days the men would fish, play games or go into town.<\/p>\n The men were well fed.\u00a0 \u201cOn Sundays Pete, the cook, would make these giant cinnamon rolls.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cAnd, if you caught a Brookie or a Brownie (Trout fish) he\u2019d fry it up for you.\u201d<\/p>\n After the War, Joe went to dental school and built a dental practice in his hometown of Duluth.\u00a0 He went on to marry and raise 4 children and 3 grandchildren.\u00a0 He remained in the Air Force Reserves until he retired as a Colonel in the early 80s.\u00a0 When I talk to Joe about his experiences he brings up the CCC camp more often than any other.\u00a0 \u201cThat program [the Civilian Conservation Corps] had benefits of unlimited magnitude.\u201d\u00a0 In talking to Joe it\u2019s clear that his time in the CCC camp was one the greatest experiences in his life.\u00a0 I enjoy taking him back there.<\/p>\n Back to the Future<\/strong><\/p>\n When I\u2019m out walking, running or biking I cannot help but notice all the garbage – a lot of it is paper – strewn along the streets and roadsides.\u00a0 We had our first Earth Day when I was in grade school in 1970.\u00a0 Since then, despite so much environmental education and awareness and all our recycling efforts, the littering continues.\u00a0 It\u2019s not an unfamiliar site to see work crews and volunteers cleaning stretches of highway and leaving large black bags of trash in their wake.<\/p>\n When I started in the employee benefits and compliance business in the early 2000s we kept copies of every application and correspondence and filed it away for safekeeping.\u00a0 This is what we had been taught to do; keep copies on file \u201cjust in case.\u201d\u00a0 Our offices were filled with rows of filing cabinets stuffed with old documents.\u00a0 At home, I had my own filing cabinets for my own personal papers that I kept \u201cjust in case.\u201d\u00a0 This too grew until I had two tall filing cabinets filled with papers. A handful of things have changed in the past several years that have made printing and saving these copies unnecessary.\u00a0 First, more businesses offered paperless statements and payments.\u00a0 Second, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996\u2019s (HIPAA) protection of personal health information (PHI) made it too risky to keep such information even in locked filing cabinets.\u00a0 Another change occurred when carriers started accepting electronic copies of applications.\u00a0 Scanning and sending application information via secure email negated the need to send paper applications via snail mail.<\/p>\n One other change that has occurred has been a boon of employee benefits administration and compliance systems.\u00a0 These systems, many of which offer onboarding, employee benefits enrollment and administration, and compliance reporting, reduce the need for paper forms.\u00a0 Companies no longer need to hand employees a stack of employment documents on their first day of work or during open enrollment.\u00a0 An entire employee file can be kept online.\u00a0 No more bulky filing cabinets taking up space.\u00a0 No more misplaced or missing documents.<\/p>\n I know what you\u2019re thinking if you\u2019ve followed me this far; I too wouldn\u2019t mind getting rid of all that paper but these systems are probably complicated and expensive, right?\u00a0 Some systems are quite costly, but I can show you a way that is straight-forward and won\u2019t break the bank.<\/p>\n You Can<\/em> Have It All<\/strong><\/p>\n If you\u2019ve researched employee benefit administration systems you no doubt have discovered that most are very expensive to implement and operate, they require extensive and repeated training, they\u2019re often proprietary, and they don\u2019t completely replace all manual processes.\u00a0 On top of all that, integration with insurance carrier systems is expensive and you most likely would get little to no support from your benefits broker.<\/p>\n Why so little support from your employee benefits broker?\u00a0 Most brokers see themselves as an extension of the carriers and so they want to limit their responsibilities.\u00a0 They do not see themselves as your advocate, let alone your fiduciary.\u00a0 They are, in fact, cautioned by the carriers not to provide anything more than product information for fear that any advice would be attributed to the carriers, so most brokers do little more than the minimum.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a pedantic view and an overreaction to a very small number of incidents.\u00a0 Most brokers, however, are so wed to this model that according to a recent Life Insurance and Market Research Association (LIMRA) study a clear majority of brokers believe it is the responsibility of the carriers<\/em> to foot the bill for their clients\u2019 employee benefits administration systems.\u00a0 Think about that for a moment.\u00a0 Do you really think carriers are going to be focused on providing you with a solution that addresses needs other than benefits administration, such as onboarding, paid time-off and compliance reporting?\u00a0 What if you wanted to change carriers?<\/p>\n It\u2019s no secret that brokers get paid indirectly by employers through the carriers, but to do what and to serve who?\u00a0 When I ask this question, most employers almost never have an answer but have to think about it and, when they do, the answer is vague and general.\u00a0 \u201cThey advocate for us.\u201d\u00a0 My personal favorite: \u201cThey do stuff behind the scenes.\u201d<\/p>\n The reality is that you\u2019re paying them and you don\u2019t really know what you are paying them to do.\u00a0 It could be everything or nothing at all.\u00a0 We, however, put what we do for our clients in writing, and for us it all comes down to this:<\/p>\n \u201cWe help companies navigate and simplify an ever more complex employee benefits and compliance environment by providing them with the education, advice and tools to do so.\u00a0 We help our clients eliminate paper by providing them with a paperless onboarding, benefits management and compliance system as part of our services.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n We don\u2019t shy away from offering you the education and advice on strategy, human resources, tax and compliance you require because we believe we are in a unique position to do so.\u00a0 We are, after all, the ones who sit down with you face-to-face.\u00a0 Our benefits administration tool is independent of any carrier.\u00a0 We, in fact, work with pretty much any of them.<\/p>\n We help you implement our benefits administration system.\u00a0 We teach you how to use it.\u00a0 We help you troubleshoot issues.\u00a0 You win.\u00a0 It puts you in control.\u00a0 It saves you money.\u00a0 It saves you time.\u00a0 It saves you the headaches, and, most importantly, you become part of something bigger, a noble effort to protect and preserve our environment that would make Joe proud.<\/p>\n The Opportunity<\/strong><\/p>\n Companies are increasingly facing greater regulatory pressures and mandatory benefits such as health insurance and paid time-off.\u00a0 This has increased the need to keep meticulous and detailed records about employees.\u00a0 A benefits administration system is no longer a \u201cnice to have\u201d but necessary to maintain complete and accessible employee information for both compliance and reporting.\u00a0 Herein lies the opportunity; the opportunity to solve your problems and to be part of something bigger.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no CCC camp for you and me but we can do our part by reducing our reliance on paper.\u00a0 The advantage to you is a simpler way to do business; an uncluttered, and an audit-proof system.\u00a0 By doing this you\u2019ll also be helping the environment. \u00a0\u00a0You will be part of something bigger.\u00a0 If you\u2019d like to learn more about how you too simplify your life and save trees call me at (952) 237-6956 or email me at mdmowski@comprehensivebenefitservices.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is a gigantic red maple tree in my backyard, its branches spread outward and upward into the sky as if it is reaching for something, trying to draw that into itself.\u00a0 Its roots protrude from the earth pushing the trunk up as if it\u2019s straining to stand on its toes to get every inch\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.comprehensivebenefitservices.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.comprehensivebenefitservices.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.comprehensivebenefitservices.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.comprehensivebenefitservices.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.comprehensivebenefitservices.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.comprehensivebenefitservices.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.comprehensivebenefitservices.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.comprehensivebenefitservices.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.comprehensivebenefitservices.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n