Promises Matter
Okay, what did I even talk about before the advent of Healthcare Reform and the ACA? Every day delivers an HR Tech headline in an unprecedented spurt of relevance my career is having to everyday life.
The latest is a great ad from Wellmark – a Blue Cross / Blue Shield carrier in the upper Midwest. (Read news coverage about the ad.)
When I saw this ad, I imagined some C-Suite member in the boardroom where they approved this ad to run feeling the cold shadow of a low-flying government drone at the back of his or her neck. I know we’re nowhere close to Big Brother’s Oceania, but openly mocking the government roll-out of Healthcare.gov certainly reminds me of why the freedom of speech rights we cherish in America are so rare in the world. But as we know all too well in HR, who I am highly influenced the scenario I just dreamed up.
Since a key provision in the Affordable Care Act is to get young, healthy people participating and buying insurance to subsidize the premiums of their older counterparts, it makes sense that we’re seeing marketing aimed at the younger generations. If you didn’t see our last post and are a GenXer or a Baby Boomer, you’re going to be surprised by what that can look like.
Generational Perceptions
So how can I say that this Wellmark add is aimed right at my demographic, as a GenXer?
Courtney, a Project Coordinator on our team, found an article talking about some of the generational differences in how they perceive the government and/or authority in a recent copy of Leader’s Edge: Generations Don’t See Eye to Eye on I Spy. This article was connected to another about Edward Snowden’s disclosure of the National Security Agency surveillance programs.
Since our team has large cohorts from the three different generations, we’re always chatting about the differences. As an employer, we are an authority in our employee and co-worker’s lives. Do these same generational perceptions apply to how they view our HR messages?
- Baby Boomers tend to have a distrust for the government stemming from events like Watergate and lies about Vietnam.
- Generation Xers believe that government and other authorities are incompetent, not so much untrusting of it. “Institutions are not evil as much as not functioning…”
- Millennials have a completely different view of authority and it’s positive, stemming from increased parental involvement in youth. There is less skepticism and more trust. “They are what they are, they do what they do, and they don’t have a worldview of evil.”
- Millennials have also grown up with no concept of personal privacy thanks to social media and constant “oversharing” and therefore have no problem with the idea that government might be accessing their personal information. Privacy is more of a Baby Boomer issue.
So, as an employer, who handles the critical payroll, HR and benefits information of our employees, should our messages change based upon the composition of our workforce? If I have a law firm filled with senior litigators, should I be emphasizing trust in my Annual Enrollment messages? Alternatively, would my young-gun marketing firm messaging have less of a “prove-it” hurdle for me to overcome?
To tie this back to HR Tech, (come on, you know that everything in my world ties to HR Tech right?!) this should become an expectation of the systems we buy. Can our systems support targeted messaging to different generations in the workforce? Can your HRIS solution marry data queries to your e-mail system? (If this was a drunken party, would we send ReportSmith into a closet for 7 minutes with Outlook Exchange?)
Select All Associates
Where EE_DOB_Year = > 1946, but < 1964
Create Email, Subject = Your PHI is OK, we’re trustworthy
Send High Priority
Smoke a cigarette
If perceptions are reality in how folks receive information, our technology must accommodate. If you’re curious to know more, I would recommend the books of Don Tapscott (@dtapscott). Over the last decade or so I’ve seen him speak several times; he was responsible for opening my eyes to the wildly differing perceptions among our fellow travelers in this HR journey. What generational perceptions have you seen in your workforce? How are you targeting your messaging to the different generations? Please click on the “Comment” link at the top of this article and let us know or send me a tweet @HRTechKaiser. We’d love to hear from you!