A recent casestudy showed that many employees were willing to reduce a benefitthat they value personally in order to boost a benefit that iscritical to their colleagues. (Image: Shutterstock)

As employers struggle to craft benefit packages that appeal to the broadestnumber of workers, a recent case study proposes a radical solution:let employees figure it out through a game.

The case study was developed by Janet McNichol, the director ofhuman resources at the American Speech-Hearing-Language Association(ASHA) in an effort to craft a new health plan.

Workers were split up into small groups to discuss what types ofcare they valued most and least as well as what they were willingto spend. Guiding their discussion was a game board including 12categories of health care (maternity, mental, primary care, etc.)along with different levels of service (good, better, best).

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They were also provided “markers” that served as currency. Toprovide “best” level coverage in all 12 categories would require 72markers, but the participants were only provided 55, forcing themto make decisions about which type of care they valued most.

The employees were first asked to design a health plan forthemselves, based on what they desired most in terms of care. Next,they were put into a group of 12 to 24 people and asked todevelop a consensus on the best health plan for the group.

Comparing the individual plans to the group plans, it's clearthat many employees were willing to reduce a benefit that theyvalued personally in order to boost a benefit that is critical totheir colleagues. For instance, while many employees prioritizedvision care in their individual plans, all of the group plansassigned vision care the lowest value. Similarly, while roughlyhalf of individuals said they only wanted “good” maternity care,the great majority of group plans decided on providing “better”maternity care.

Surveys taken after the activity show that 91 percent ofemployees were satisfied with the individual plan they created and82 percent were happy with the plan crafted by the group. Abouthalf said they would be willing to spend more per month—$38 onaverage—to enhance their benefits.

“This analysis provides an empirical example of an employersuccessfully engaging its employees in a discussion of bothpopulation-level and coverage-level tradeoffs,” wrote McNichol andher co-authors in Health Affairs. “This type of consultative anddeliberative process, appropriately modified for differentcircumstances and beneficiary groups, could be useful for broaderdiscussion of health care spending tradeoffs.”

Read more: 

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• Expanding and simplifying benefits packages toincrease engagement
• Quality of benefits packages affects companyreputation