Situation:
The health care unit of a top insurance company wanted to assess how well its human resources programs supported its long-term business strategy to become a dominant leader in the HMO and Preferred Provider Network industry. Like many of its competitors, healthcare was just one of the lines of business of this multiline insurer. The healthcare business heads were convinced that they needed to modify the "cookie cutter" human resources programs that were in place across all of the company's lines of business.
Process
The D.G. McDermott Associates team interviewed the top 15 executives of the healthcare business in order to understand the unit's strengths and weaknesses, its competitive advantage(s), specific three- and five-year business goals, the underlying assumptions driving those goals, and the human capital requirements for making the long-range plans attainable.
Solution
The D.G. McDermott Associates team delivered a comprehensive report that included: an overview of the health care industry citing trends, key operating assumptions and critical success factors; an overview of each of the key functional areas vis-a-vis the industry trend and analysis of each of their human resources capabilities to achieve stated business objectives; and an analysis of the current human resources programs, especially compensation design and practices that were no longer relevant.
Outcome
The client sought and received approval for modifications to the corporate human resources polices and submitted and received approval for a customized compensation program that tied current and future strategic performance criteria into a new reward system that incorporated incentives.