by Jessica Pulley | Nov 7, 2023
About the Engagement
During the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, three co-branded health insurance companies were developed across three states: New Jersey, New York and Oregon. The business model and operating model leveraged by these companies outsourced front-office and back-office vendors – from sales and billing and enrollment, to claims and medical management. The insurance companies required strategic, analytical and facilitation support to help navigate critical issues with their shared business model.
Business Problem
The route of the business problem was the need for a common strategy; however, a strategy that supported differentiated leadership, independent implementation, and oversight for each company.
Challenges
One problem was the lack of a clear customer service strategy and operating model. The next challenge was technology considerations (e.g., Customer Relationship Management (CRM)) and whether this should be shared across vendors between the three companies, and the last challenge was a consideration of the customer life cycle, specifically customer transaction (engagement) and the impact this had to staffing for each company.
Project Impacts and Outcomes
The engagement team led and facilitated the three health insurance companies to develop a shared customer service strategy and operating model, providing clarity on the shared goals and objectives. From there, based on industry standards and enrollment estimates with sensitivity analysis – the team developed a comprehensive staffing model from sales to customer services. The result was that the engagement team launched the three co-branded health insurance companies with 12 outsourced call centers in 9 months, with a daily call volume of 10,000+ and 200,000 total members being served. The outsourced vendors had a shared understanding of the complex operating model for three separate but co-branded companies; the call centers and back office-maintained service levels agreements, and the staffing model estimations were accurate.
by Christina Magriples | Oct 26, 2023
About the Engagement
In June 2013, following the occurrences of Hurricanes Irene and Lee, and Superstorm Sandy, a state-level disaster recovery organization was created to focus on recovery and rebuilding efforts for effective areas of New York State. The agency’s aid focused on four areas: housing recovery, small business, community reconstruction and infrastructure. In Fall 2021, our engagement team was procured to support the community reconstruction and infrastructure operations team. In 2019, the client underwent organizational restructuring, combining teams and changing roles.
Business Problem
Following the restructuring, staff had little time to acclimate into the new working order prior to moving to full-time remote, as a result of the Covid-19 global pandemic. One business problem was that there was not a defined strategy to manage change across the department, and more specifically, the operations team.
Challenges
The primary challenge was stakeholder engagement, ensuring buy-in across all staffing levels to create a shared understanding of the need for and importance of change management. The secondary challenge was understanding and documenting how department interactions occurred across the agency to ensure adequate planning and communication.
Project Impacts and Outcomes
The engagement team collected data and interviewed staff across the department to determine what was effectively working, where improvement was needed, and areas of the work requiring additional attention or improvement. This data was analyzed and used to create a solutions framework including a [re]training plan for staff, an onboarding plan for new hires, focused team building activities for improved morale and employee engagement, and a new staffing pattern to redistribute the workload.
by Christina Magriples | Oct 26, 2023
About the Engagement
In June 2013, following the occurrences of Hurricanes Irene and Lee, and Superstorm Sandy, a state-level disaster recovery organization was created to focus on recovery and rebuilding efforts for effective areas of New York State. The agency’s aid focused on four areas: housing recovery, small business, community reconstruction and infrastructure. In Fall 2021, our engagement team was procured to support the community reconstruction and infrastructure operations team. The community reconstruction and infrastructure operations team experienced leadership and staffing changes, while adjusting to a full-time remote working environment, due to the global Covid-19 global pandemic.
Business Problem
The business problems consisted of a combination of low team morale, inconsistent supervision, unclear expectations, and limited understanding of objectives and key results. The engagement team was tasked with ascertaining whether systems, structures, and staffing patterns were adequate to ensure timely, accurate, and efficient project-level, grantee-level, and grant closure.
Challenges
Through the needs assessment process, a series of challenges arose. The first challenge was low team morale. Another challenge was the lack of a change management strategy (for example: communication plans, procedural updates, risk assessments). In addition, a challenge was inconsistent supervision practices, and the final challenge was inability to communicate progress of workload and unequal portfolio distribution.
Project Impacts and Outcomes
The engagement team leveraged the findings of the needs assessment to create systems, structures, and updated procedures for the operations team. Team morale was the first target, and it was boosted through active listening and understanding of staff needs and challenges. The result was the ability to provide support and interventions, based on information gathered. In addition, new roles were created, and additional headcount was added to elevate veteran-knowledgeable staff and to build capacity for on-going support and redistribution of workload equitably. Supervision structures were created including meeting cadences and standard agendas to ensure consistency in expectations across the team. A progress-to-goals system was created to ensure a data-driven approach to goal setting for project-level and grantee-level closure. Lastly, training, learning, and development was a key area of focus to ensure ongoing support, accuracy in work product, and efficient project management.
