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Blue Cross is Cutting Employee Time Off The Insurance Company Says Downgrading Benefits Will Allow More Affordable Products.

Posted on: Friday, 22 July 2005, 15:01 CDT

Workers at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida will soon be logging more hours in their cubicles as the company tries to juice productivity and cut costs.

Employees at the health insurance company will lose an average of one work week of paid time off annually, said Deborah Williams, vice president of learning and organizational effectiveness programs.

Starting Dec. 31, workers will accrue between 18 and 32 days of paid time off annually. Employees now receive 25 to 37 PTO days -- which refers to vacation and sick time -- based on length of service, Williams said.

Jacksonville-based Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida employs about 9,300 statewide, including about 8,000 locally.

Williams declined to say how much the benefit cut is expected to save the company each year.

However, John Lind, who quit Blue Cross last Wednesday -- the day the company announced the benefit reduction -- does not believe the cost savings from the benefit cut will be substantial. He referred to any potential savings as a "drop in the bucket compared to all of their overall expenses."

Although Lind, who was training to process claims, did not walk out because of the benefit cut, he said it "would have been another reason to leave."

In 2004, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida experienced the strongest balanced performance in company history, according to a fact sheet on its Web site. Blue Cross reported consolidated total revenue of $6.49 billion and net income of $297.3 million.

But downgrading its employee benefits means Blue Cross will ensure its products are more affordable to customers, Williams said. The benefits cut will translate into higher productivity and allow the company to keep product prices competitive.

"In general . . . we need to be concerned about affordability and access to health care," Williams said. "You're always trying to balance employee needs with customer needs."

The PTO cut will lower employee morale, Lind said. The former employee recalled being part of a group of 15 new hires when he joined Blue Cross in November.

"There are now four left out of that group and only one of [the 15] was terminated," Lind said. "All the others have left, looked for new jobs because they found the working conditions to be just intolerable."

The benefits change, Williams says, is not likely to hamstring recruitment efforts or send employees racing toward the exit signs.

"We do benchmarking every year," she said, "and we have seen a trend over the last couple of years which says that we are overly competitive in this particular arena."

On average, area workers at competitor Humana Inc. receive 25 PTO days annually -- or three work weeks of vacation and two work weeks of sick time, spokesman Mitchell Lubitz said.

It's an important benefit for the morale and productivity of Humana employees, Lubitz said.urvaksh.karkaria@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4367

Source: Florida Times Union

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