Bigger isn’t necessarily better when it comes to health insurers—or training organizations, for that matter. That comes as no surprise to Capital BlueCross, an approximately 1,800-employee health insurer that has served residents and businesses in Central Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley for more than 75 years and earned the No. 3 rank on the 2014 and 2015 Training Top 125.
“Though smaller in size as an organization, Capital BlueCross behaves like a world-class training organization and conducts thorough research on how to achieve the maximum impact with every training dollar spent,” says Steve Krupinski, senior vice president, Human Resources. “The Executive Team and the Board believe the future success of Capital BlueCross hinges on investing in the development of our employees.”
Capital BlueCross has achieved a perfect balance between identifying key business drivers and then aligning the development strategies to achieve the business goals, Krupinski believes. “Each year, HR partners with the Executive Team to refine/realign development initiatives to ensure alignment with the business strategy and continues to build capability in the organization to successfully execute the strategy.”
CONCENTRATING ON CUSTOMER SERVICE
A key corporate priority for Capital BlueCross in 2013/2014 was to “Grow the Core Business.” That meant in addition to providing traditional health-care coverage to consumers, Capital BlueCross focused on becoming the leader in customer service, ultimately offering this as an outsourcing option to other carriers.
Other health-care institutions immediately expressed interest, and Capital BlueCross was challenged with doubling the size of the customer service group. The organization formulated and launched a new training approach in record time, according to Jodi Lynne Blanch, director, Talent Management. New representatives received 2.5 months of specific training before joining a “nesting unit” where their customer service skills were evaluated for an additional two months before joining a regular customer service unit. “The nesting unit provides real-time coaching and chair-side mentoring to enhance confidence and capabilities,” Blanch says. “The representatives then received two weeks of market segment training specific to their responsibilities.”
As a result of the training:
- 92 percent of members are satisfied with Capital BlueCross, above target for 2014 and above the industry average of 70.2 percent, according to J.D. Power and Associates.
- Capital BlueCross was voted “Simply the Best – Health Insurance” company by Harrisburg Magazine (2014).
- Capital BlueCross earned the 2014 Partnership Award from the Lehigh Valley Business Coalition on Healthcare.
- Capital BlueCross earned the Customer Service call center business of two other Blue’s plans, turning customer service from a cost center into a profit center.
EMPLOYEE WELLNESS
Capital BlueCross is not just about its customers’ well-being. The organization also aims to enhance employee health and well-being by delivering a comprehensive wellness program that educates, assists, and motivates employees to engage in healthier lifestyles.
In 2014, Capital BlueCross overhauled its employee health education model from a disease management, reactive approach to a proactive, wellness education model. “Wellness coaches were educated to better understand human behavior and personal motivation,” Krupinski says. “The new wellness training model created greater personal ownership of health and wellness.”
Krupinski points to specific results, including:
- Capital BlueCross achieved a HERO rating of 177/200 vs. the average nationwide rating of 94/200.
- Capital BlueCross was awarded the American Heart Association “Fit Friendly Award” (Platinum (highest) level) and “Innovation Award” in 2014.
- An independent analyst concluded that for every SI spent on employee wellness training, Capital BlueCross has avoided $1.18 in medical/prescription costs and $1.38 in productivity loss.
- The disability insurance carrier credits employee wellness training with lowering disability and leave-related costs.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Professional development is another key to employee engagement at Capital BlueCross. The company partnered with Corporate University (CorpU) Xchange to begin launching signature courses from top universities for professional development. Faculty from Harvard, MIT, Wharton, and George Washington Universities lead the programs. “A social collaboration format is being used to teach and embed proven behavior techniques needed to ensure business success,” Blanch explains. The courses focus on topics such as leading bold change, negotiation, critical decision making, entrepreneurship, and innovation.
HR manages the cohort and facilitates interactive exercises customized to the content and current business needs aligned to the corporate priorities and strategy. Blanch notes that this guided learning journey allows participants to go through the course as a semi-synchronous cohort of learners. “During the five-week program, the group receives the same assignments of video lectures, reading, quizzes, and/or threaded discussions, but each participant completes that coursework on his or her own time,” the executives say. “The cohort design provides learners the opportunity to motivate each other as they go through the program and has increased collaboration between cross-functional teams.”
All participants have requested to participate in the next session, according to Blanch. And 80 percent of those participating in the business simulation agreed the learning had significant impact on how they think about business modeling.
The course content and delivery have contributed to business results, Blanch says, including achieving 150 percent of target for retail store sales; achieving 125 percent of target for retail store care guide consultations; and achieving 180 percent of target for retail store foot traffic.
BIG ROLE FOR BIG DATA
A critical business challenge in the health-care industry is to diversify and provide services other than traditional health-care coverage products. Capital BlueCross and Geneia, a support company that sells health and wellness services directly to individuals and businesses outside of the historic medical insurance market, set a goal to build and launch by October 2014 Theon, a data analytics platform that will drive medical value in healthcare markets. This data analytic platform will provide patient health-care analysis, allowing care managers the ability to guide their interventions for patients. To create a platform with this savvy modeling, Capital BlueCross had to provide an exploration environment to extract the knowledge from care management and platform experts.
Capital BlueCross partnered with CorpU to design and offer a simulation program using a social learning platform challenging participants to design the Theon business model and implementation plan. “Working in breakout groups with an executive leader, participants tackled actual organizational challenges to ensure the learning was practical and to drive greater engagement,” Krupinski says. “This networked approach was used to tap collective wisdom and to amplify learnings beyond the classroom.”
Capital BlueCross and Geneia launched TheonHealth.com and the Theon product in the market in May 2014, six months ahead of schedule. To date, Krupinski says:
- Twenty-six employees from Capital BlueCross/Geneia completed the Business Model Canvas Course.
- 100 percent of participants created business models for real projects for Capital BlueCross/Geneia.
- 100 percent of participants agreed theywill applythe learning in their jobs.
- 100 percent of participants have requested to participate in the next session entitled “Build Customer-Centric Capabilities to Drive Profitable Growth and Innovation.””
“We now are utilizing complex data to customize our prescriptive recommendations when addressing customer, client, and patient educational, service, and future needs,” Krupinski says. “To do this, we need all to understand how to process comprehensive data to diagnose the need and formulate creative, unique solutions from a suite of alternatives. We need to shift the mindset from highly skilled customer service-centric employees to consultants who are able to master ‘knowledge work’ leveraging intellect, creativity, and analytic skills.”
Capital BlueCross also partnered with a local university to create a new curriculum focusing on health-care analytics. Students earn a BS and MS degree in Analytics through a multitiered internship at Capital BlueCross designed to complement coursework. Capital BlueCross also partnered with another local university to use graduate and Ph.D. students as highly skilled interns to work on the Theon platform; these students obtain course credit for their work. To date:
- Eight interns were enrolled in the 2014 Internship Program—two Doctorate, five Master’s, and one Bachelor’s-level.
- 100 percent of interns stated that the internship experience was helpful with their career goals.
- 100 percent of interns would consider Capital BlueCross/Geneia as a potential employer.
- 100 percent of interns would recommend Capital BlueCross/Geneia to a friend.
- 100 percent of management felt the interns provided valuable/meaningful contributions.
LOOKING AHEAD
Krupinski and Blanch anticipate that by 2025, Capital BlueCross’ internship program will supply a large percentage of new talent. “We will integrate these new employees into our strategic action teams early in their tenure at Capital BlueCross,” they note. “Much of the foundational training and development will be focused upon this group.”
Looking to extend Capital BlueCross’ success into 2015, Krupinski and Blanch say the top three things on their training wish list for the New Year are:
1. Preparing all employees for leadership responsibilities and instilling a leadership mindset in all levels of the organization. “We have achieved measurable success with our Breakthrough Leadership, Leadership Edge, Management Edge, and New Leader Onboarding programs,” Krupinski and Blanch explain. “We will address this additional goal through three targeted programs,” which include: Resilient Leader, Emotional Intelligence, and Step Up Skills for Non-Managers.
2. Creating a personalized, customized development touch for every employee throughout his or her career. Krupinski and Blanch say this would entail “providing ‘Customized Leader Consultations’ (CLC) to all our employees. CLCs occur upon completion of a flagship course and serve as a behavioral reinforcement to the learning that occurred in their designated session. These one-on-one sessions are unique to each learner. They comprise a certified executive coach meeting with the participant to review, dissect, and coach to his or her individual strengths and challenges.”
3. Embedding a Mentoring Circle approach to accompany the “Leader as Teacher” effort. “We have instituted a leader-as-teacher philosophy in which leaders share key lessons learned through the leadership development sessions and engage in discussions with their direct reports as part of the curriculum,” Krupinski and Blanch say. “In 2015, we intend to develop a formalized mentoring group approach. This will be challenging and time consuming; however, we are committed at Capital BlueCross to deepen our already rich development culture.”
