HR manager Eva Savidge kept running into a wall when trying to figure out how to make a dent in employees’ rising healthcare costs. Then she hit on an idea.

As part of an ongoing series, we’ll have practicing HR managers present real problems they faced and how they solved them. Here’s Eva Savidge’s. 

Our problem was two-part but certainly not unique: (1) out-of-sight healthcare costs, and (2) employees who were unhappy about it.

As a midsize company, we weren’t able to do a lot to hold the line on company health costs, besides raising employee premiums and co-pays. We weren’t sure that we could make much headway toward solving the problems, but we figured we ought to show our employees that at least we were trying.

One way to start: A lot of our employees are over age 40, and having vision care was important to them. No, we couldn’t afford to add free vision care to our health plan, but we did the next best thing.

A healthy discount
We called a highly recommended local optician and asked what kind of deal he’d make us for checkups and eyeglasses if we promised to send all our employees to him. Turns out, his offer represented a healthy discount on the going rates.

We agreed to make him our exclusive eyecare provider and gave our employees his special rates.

The idea was an immediate hit. At the least, it provides employees with a bit of a break in their health costs - and they do appreciate the fact that we’re trying to make health care less expensive for them.

Tags: costs, health care, vision care