As a refresher, the theory claims that self-actualization, or complete satisfaction, cannot be achieved without first fulfilling a series of human needs:
After the first four levels are satisfied, a person can achieve the fifth level of self-actualization – their ability to reach their full potential.
How does offering health insurance help your business?
Because you hire people to be creative, problem-solve, and ultimately help your company succeed, helping your employees self-actualize helps your business.
But things are not so neatly compartmentalized in the 21st century workplace ecosystem as they were when Maslow developed his theory. Interestingly, as applied to your business, Maslow’s theory ranks an employee’s connection to your company at the middle rung of the pyramid. This is where the idea of providing access to health insurance comes in.
Businesses with an eye for growth and development rightly take into consideration the rewards each individual employee enjoys as part of their belonging to your company, which include personal days, leaves of absence, vacation pay, and importantly, access to health insurance benefits.
How does health insurance help employees?
As you have probably guessed, insurance represents the safety needs which make up the second-lowest rung on the Maslow needs pyramid. As soon as your employee has fulfilled her basic survival needs by gathering enough food, finding shelter from the elements, and so on, she will start looking at the next level of needs – safety and security – and providing access to health insurance helps satisfy the physiological and safety needs necessary to reach fulfillment.
Here’s another important aspect. Providing employees with access to a health insurance plan helps ensure they will not hesitate to take care of their health, and be able to stay productive. And with family coverage, they will be less distracted about the out-of-pocket burden if their spouse or children get sick or are injured.
Health and dental insurance helps employees save on healthcare costs not covered by their provincial government plan, including expenses like prescription drugs, dental care, hearing aids, vision care and massage therapy. Too frequently, employers and employees alike underestimate the hefty price tag healthcare costs have — in fact, the average Canadian household spent $3,731 on out-of-pocket healthcare expenses in 2016.* With these services being so pricey, there is an alarming number of individuals who claim to have gone without a needed healthcare item because they didn’t have enough funds to pay for it.
Source: Statistics Canada How Canadians Spent Their Money in 2016 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/pub/11-627-m/11-627-m2017040-eng.pdf?st=_GIAKCTb calculated at 6% of average annual expenditure on goods and services.]
The peace of mind and quality of life the right insurance plan delivers can be invaluable to individuals’ and families’ health and safety.
How To Offer Access To Health Insurance
Implementing a program to provide access to health insurance can help boost happiness and positivity in the workplace while fostering feelings of loyalty in your entire team. Your employees will feel good knowing that their workplace values them. Employees who feel connection and job fulfillment will deliver their skills when you need them.
Often, employees have never had to purchase individual health coverage before and may find the terminology, the many different options, and the process very confusing. That’s why giving them the opportunity to talk it over with an expert is a good way to provide valuable help. At SBIS we have over 35 different health and dental plans to choose from, giving them the most options available.
You can let your employees know that SBIS is an expert they can trust. We can help your people figure out what plan to choose, what coverage they may need, and what their budget is, and then we can assist them in actually signing up for the new plan.
Give us a call
We can provide support information you can share with employees by email or on paper, or as part of a health insurance education session or lunch & learn. We want to help you be the best employer you can be — so your business succeeds based on the work of your happy employees.
