The Problem
Stantec’s team is spread out across the country. With one HR member in Alberta, Canada; two in Colorado; and employees moving back and forth between Canada and the U.S., building benefits understanding can get really tricky.
“We have a lot of country transfers, so we have a lot of new people who are new to the U.S. … who are not used to the U.S. medical landscape,” explains Kristen Shudra, director of benefits at Stantec.
Stantec needed a way to engage all of its employees about their benefits, regardless of location, while helping to educate new hires and those who were new to the U.S., as well.
The Plan
With ALEX in tow, Stantec could reach employees during open enrollment, new hires, and transfers with the same, consistent language. Even during passive enrollment, it could support employees and give them resources they need to make good decisions.
In addition, Stantec looked to ALEX to help promote its mental health offerings—which it had provided for years but became especially relevant due to the toll of the pandemic.
During a passive enrollment year, Stantec still saw 4,462 total visits to ALEX throughout the year (from about 9,000 benefits-eligible employees). Most people (87%) had a better understanding of their benefits after talking with ALEX, and nearly 4% of employees switched from their HMO to their HDHP with HSA plan.
Stantec uses both Benefits Counselor and Sneak Peak videos to raise awareness of its benefits options, helping to reduce the number of employee questions they need to answer, as employees spent an average of 15 minutes with ALEX.
“This year, we got so few requests to us directly asking, well, which benefits are right for me?” said Nicole McElreath, benefits consultant with Stantec. “We didn’t see that as much this year, and I think that people are really becoming familiar with ALEX as our tool for that, and it’s being shared employee to employee and not just HR and benefits pushing that through our communications. It alleviates a lot of additional support time for those questions.”
For its employee transfers, ALEX successfully breaks down benefits jargon and explains U.S. benefits in simple terms.
“Especially being a Canadian and not even being on one of those plants in the U.S., I heavily rely on ALEX,” Shudra says. “… I’ll be in a consult with an employee, and we’ll go through certain things, and they may have different questions, but usually, when we conclude, I send them the link to ALEX, and I say, please just go through this tool … because then, you can put in your demographics, your family members, and it can really hone in.”
Watch a video of Stantec’s Kristen Shudra explaining how ALEX gives Stantec “awesome” benefits support for new hires and country transfers.
